Kansas City Kansas Community College

Check the rosters of just about any fire department in the greater Kansas City metro area and in all likelihood you’ll find a graduate of Kansas City Kansas Community College – all products of Mike Wilson’s Fire Science program.

“Shawnee Mission, Leavenworth, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas City, Mo., it doesn’t matter, just about every department has one of our graduates,” says Wilson, who retired after 32 years as coordinator and instructor of the Fire Science program at the end of the Spring Semester.

Instruction has not stopped at fire science, however. Training in Hazardous Material was added in 1998 and the role of fire services in Homeland Security in 2006.

A leader in Hazardous Material training, Wilson’s program reached far out into the community. “We did a lot of work in business and industry when haz mat came into law,” says Wilson. “We were teaching it almost around the clock to companies like GM, Colgate, Proctor & Gamble and others. Also, the EPA has used our facilities and so has the Gas Service Co. in fighting propane fires.”

Growing up in Gladstone, Mo., Wilson’s interest in fire fighting started when he joined the Gladstone volunteer fire department while a junior at Oak Park High School. “They didn’t know I was in high school, they thought I was 18,” says Wilson.

Drafted in 1968, he spent two years in the infantry including a year of combat duty in Vietnam where he awarded three bronze stars including two with ‘V’ (valor) devices; two Purple Hearts and an Air Medal with ‘V’ devise. Although remaining in the Army Reserves for 19 years, Wilson left active duty in 1970, joining the Public Safety Department in Maryville, Mo., for three years and then moving up to Director of Public Safety for the five-county Northwest Missouri Regional Planning Commission in Maryville.

While in Maryville, he earned a BS in Industrial Business in 1973 and a Masters in Business Administration from Northwest Missouri in 1979. Since then, he’s added a second Masters in Curriculum and Instruction and an Ed Specialists in Higher Education Administration from UMKC.

Wilson joined the corporate world with Union Carbide’s safety program in Red Oak, Iowa, in 1978 but only for a year. “I didn’t particularly like the corporate world and saw an opening in the paper for an instructor and coordinator at the college,” says Wilson, who started in the fall of 1979.

During his 32 years, change has been the norm starting with the objectives of firemen going to college. “When I started, firemen didn’t go to college. Now it’s almost a necessity for employment. Actually, the clientele has changed four times during my time here. First, we were educating people already in fire service; then those wanting into fire service. Then they had to have training before they could get an application to get into fire service and now on-line service has mushroomed. We’re educating service men in Iraq and Afghanistan and as far away as Japan.”

Wilson won’t be putting his feet up in retirement, already securing a position editing books for Wiley & Sons Publishing. A member of the Coast Guard Auxiliary where his expertise in hazardous materials is a most welcome asset, he has a HAM license and will continue weather spotting in Clay County. A federal appointee by President Bush to the board of the U.S. Selective Service Commission in 2005, he also continues in that position.

He and his wife of 40 years, Mary Georginia, have three children, Kimberly, a pharmacist in Campbell, Mo., with three children; Michael Dustin, a member of the Missouri National Guard who is currently serving his second term of active duty in Iraq and has three adopted children; and Kristin, who works for Red Bull in Kansas City. Michael D. attended KCKCC for two years and all three are college graduates.

He leaves KCKCC with no regrets. “Never any obstacles, they let me run the program,” he says. “I had worked with some great deans, Al Andrews, Brian Emerton, Sue Courtney. And we had some great students who as I said are everywhere now.”