Twenty Graduate from Minneapolis Fire Department's EMS Pathways Academy in a Class Built on Resilience, Humor and Heart
Contributing writer Clint Combs reports on the May 22 graduation of 20 students from the Minneapolis Fire Department's EMS Pathways Academy, where 16 of the 20 graduates were people of color, and where graduates like Coreen Pierson and Andy Jimenez-Garcia brought humor, honesty and deeply personal stories to a milestone ceremony at the Firefighters Hall and Museum.
Twenty people graduated from the Minneapolis Fire Department’s 12-week paid EMS Pathways Academy on May 22 at the Firefighters Hall and Museum, 644 22nd Ave. The graduates are now prepared to sit for the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians exam. Once certified, they are eligible to join the ranks of firefighters, EMTs, and emergency dispatchers. Sixteen of the 20 graduates were people of color, reflecting the program’s commitment to diversifying the department’s ranks.
“This is just an introduction,” Interim Fire Chief Melanie Rucker told the 2026 graduates. “That introduction is like when you’re in the community, and once you’re in the community and you understand that emergency goes to a whole other level, just being that first person on the scene changes things.”
The ceremony had its share of laughs. Coreen Pierson, who described herself as the oldest graduate in the cohort, was voted by her classmates as the “strongest clown.” For years, Pierson had put her dream of becoming a firefighter on hold.
“I wanted to become a firefighter for many years, but I’ve had my place being a single mother to my very smart, talented daughter,” she said.
She first learned of the Pathways program through Smokey the Clown, also a fire investigator for Minneapolis. Pierson has since joined multiple clown clubs with her daughter, mastering, as she put it, “the art of spreading joy and laughter.”
Her classmate Andy Jimenez-Garcia was voted “person you’d least like to see in an ambulance,” a distinction he accepted with good humor.
“I personally think this person should have got most attractive, or best dressed, or smart enough. This award goes to myself,” Jimenez-Garcia said to shrieks of laughter. “I would reveal the details, but as a class we’re kind of struggling with what is and isn’t a HIPAA violation.”
For Jimenez-Garcia, the program represented a series of firsts. “I was the first person to graduate high school. I was the first person to go to college,” he said. “I was the first person to graduate from this EMS program.”
Behind Pierson’s humor is a story rooted in loss. Four days before her sister’s graduation, her brother Erick David Pierson died on May 22, 2022, at age 34.
“We look so much alike. People asked if we were twins,” she said. “My brother E. He had the girliest eyelashes. I lost a piece of my heart that day.”
From that day forward, Pierson set out to do two things: make people laugh and make the world a better place. She carries a tattoo of her brother’s name on her forearm as a daily reminder.
“I go to work every single day with the extra thought in my head: how can I make my coworkers sane?” she said.
Pierson spent a decade in construction before pursuing her dream, another male-dominated field defined by long hours and high stress. She sees the similarities clearly. “Some days I’m balancing a shovel on my chin, some days buying lunch for the crew, and some days just asking quietly, one on one: how’s it going? How’s life at home?”
After being accepted into the Pathways program, Pierson asked her construction boss for 12 weeks off. “He says, ‘All right, you better pass, and I’ll see you in 12 weeks,'” she recalled. “Through this program, I’ve become an EMT.”
She compared the EMT skills exam to the Rocky film series, and her daughter Lillian brought a Rocky Balboa poster to the front of the room during her graduation speech.
Pierson pointed to a scene in the 2006 film “Rocky Balboa” in which Sylvester Stallone’s character delivers a motivational speech to his son outside Adrian’s restaurant. “He says, ‘Until you start believing in yourselves, you ain’t gonna have a life. So always believe in yourselves,'” Pierson said.
Charlie Marks was voted “most likely to give out a half-eaten cake.”
2026 EMS Pathways Academy Graduates
Rayna Alston, Daniel Carpenter, Shanyah Cole, EllisJean Gunter, Sumeya Hassan, Robert Henry, Andy Jimenez-Garcia, Namad Khalif, Charlie Marks, Ariane McKee, Brian Medel Bruno, Caden Nelson, Christopher Norbom, Hnin Phyu, Coreen Pierson, Jailen Ray, Roman Rivera-Reyes, Colin Shrider, Marquis Watts, Jacob Weinzettel.
Clint Combs welcomes reader responses at combs0284@gmail.com.