Park City firefighter recounts his love for the job
Scott Greenwood finds excitement and career satisfaction in his role with Park City Fire District
Summer/Fall 2024
Written By: Evie Carrick | Images: Julie Shipman
Scott Greenwood is the first to admit that he wasn’t one of those kids with a grand vision for his life. In fact, he can’t even remember exactly why he decided to pursue a career as a firefighter. But he does remember learning early on that around 87 percent of Americans hated their job — and it’s a feeling that he proudly says, “I have never had. I’ve loved work every day of my career.”
Scott didn’t dream of riding around in a fire truck and saving the day, but he is a self-described “adrenaline junkie” who identified working in fire and emergency services as being “anything but mundane.”
His quest for a job he loved has resulted in a 21-year career with Park City Fire District. But his journey wasn’t linear, involving plenty of career reinventions along the way.
Scott was born near Ann Arbor, Michigan and moved to Salt Lake City when he was about 10. “I quickly turned into a ski bum,” he laughs. “And so the day I graduated from high school, I applied to be a ski instructor at Park City. It was my dream.”
From there, he started working as a weekend ski patroller. The transition to emergency services didn’t happen until he took an EMT course at the University of Utah and began looking for jobs in fire. He started as a wildland firefighter and worked part time in Salt Lake City while remaining laser-focused on getting a job with Park City Fire District.
“It took another year or year-and-a-half to get hired in Park City,” he remembers. “It was a no-brainer; I only wanted to work here.”
Scott started his career with the Park City Fire District in 2003 and hasn’t looked back. As battalion chief he leads his battalion in responding to every significant call — from car accidents to backcountry rescues. Scott and his team respond to fires, of course, but he says most of their calls are trauma based.
“Our little town is an extreme sports mecca and our calls reflect that,” he says. “Our call volume follows very closely with the recreation at hand … we’re all avid mountain bikers and trail runners and our calls are tailored to that sort of thing.”
Medical training is a must for firefighters, but it’s also a personal passion of Scott’s. “I’ve been a paramedic for 22 years. It is my passion; I love being a paramedic.” His medical interest is reflected in his latest project, the creation of a critical care team tasked with transporting people from Park City Hospital to a Level 1 trauma center.
“We really provide a great service to the community, a service that used to be filled only by helicopters,” he says, explaining that when it’s snowing, taking a helicopter is not an option.
Helping people when they need it the most is all in a day’s work for Scott, who says, “I have a lot of satisfaction with my life based around knowing that I have a job that makes a difference. Twenty-one years later, I still love to say, ‘I’m a firefighter.’”
It’s safe to say that Scott is one of the lucky few — the 13 percent, according to the statistic — who really, truly loves their job.
