take lifeguarding serious. we re requiring young adults high school, college kids for the summer to come out and watch your children. and we need to take a better look at that. they re part of the ems system just like police, fire, and hospital rescue. so, we have to take it more serious, the fact that we need to train individuals, get them excited at early age and offer them a career path forward. they come out for a season. they like louvreifeguard and ge training and they love what they d they go into the fire service and the police or military. we need to bring them back to the lifeguarding. you are seeing that start to change at all? is there enough incentive to get people excited at a younger age and stick with it? i ve seen a lot of creative incentive, up to $3,000 if you qualify. i don t think that is enough. i think that we lost a lot of interest with the young ones going to the influencers, pandemic hit, they got other jobs, retail and restaurants. i think something needs
know, fire services, ems services managing them, that might help out. it also gives them a career path forward. let s go back and do junior lifeguard programs across the states and get people excited, learn to swim. and maybe that will help. you know, i just saw an adve tuesdaym advertisement for a junior lifeguarding program in my town. it s interesting. we talk about the labor shortage that clearly still exists in certain industries. lifeguarding being one of them. absolutely. i tell you, i keep seeing the notices every year. all of the camps and pools. they are in desperate need. wow. cnn this morning continues right now. they have a deal to raise the debt ceiling. it s remarkable. they re not cutting the deficit and they are not cutting
as a profession. i know that you mentioned aligning at this career path of lifeguarding with various fire departments. you know, that is a trend that is happening. it s something that i think will help change, is that we have to take lifeguards serious. it is a profession just like firefighting, ems. but it s not being recognized as that. you have summertime, high school and college kids they are watching your children. you need to really get a good look at that and remodel it. we do have fire departments in our town right here that are actually taking charge of the lifeguards. i am the first lifeguard to retire as a firefighter under special risk in the state of florida. and now, we need more of that. and if we have, that i think that you re going to retain lifeguards, and you re going to give the young individuals a career path forward, because what they do now, they come out for a season, they have a good time, they get a skill set and