Kenny Mitchell S2Ep38

Lieutenant

I am a 20-year veteran of the Fire Service. I currently serve as a Lieutenant in my organization. I started my career with the Virginia Beach Fire Department in 2003 and relocated to Chesterfield Fire & EMS in 2007. I graduated from college with a BS in Graphic Design and after September 11, 2001, I felt a calling to the fire service. I've spent time as an instructor in our training division, currently sit on the interview panel, a peer support team member since 2009, served as our department's PIO for two years, and was part of our MIRT team (Marine Incident Response Team). It was the suicide of a close firefighter brother only 17 days after meeting me for lunch in 2020 that drove me into looking into my own mental health after a major loss of my daughter's mother in 2013. That loss of my friend also drove me in the mission of starting Operation Yellow Tape. There is so much inside the yellow tape that hurts us for life, however there is so much outside the yellow tape that also adds to so many issues in our physical and mental health. I speak across the country as a keynote speaker on first responder mental health and ways I feel you can work on improving certain areas of your life to get you to the finish line and healthy as you hang that helmet on a nail in the garage. This is a short journey but as short as it is it has a lifetime of negative effects on our brains and souls. My last keynote was at the 2023 Virginia Fire Officers Academy where I spoke on the acronym HELP publicly for the first time.