Rochester Fire Department Opens Doors with Women’s Expo

Women remain underrepresented in firefighting, but the Rochester Fire Department is actively working to change that. Each year, the department’s Women’s Expo offers women and girls a chance to step into the boots, test their strength, and discover what the profession is really about.

Now in its fourth year, the Expo combines hands-on training, mentorship, and community support to showcase firefighting as a viable and rewarding career path for women and girls who are at least 16 years old.

“I wanted to introduce this profession to other girls and other women so they understand that we can do this job,” said Rochester Firefighter Mandee Marx, who helped launch the event.

From Inspiration to Action

The idea for the Expo started with Marx’s own journey in the fire service. After attending a national Women in Fire conference, she came home energized.

“I was so inspired and came home and I was so excited because I trained with women,” Marx said. “There aren’t many chances for me to train with just females, and I came back and was like, ‘I can do this job.’”

Recognizing that recruitment numbers were down and that young women rarely saw firefighting as a pursuable career path, Marx approached her then fire chief, Eric Kerska, with an idea.

“Let’s actually introduce another generation—or multiple generations—of females to this profession,” she told him. “Growing up, nobody ever said, ‘You should be a firefighter,’ so I didn’t think about it. I wanted to change that.”

That conversation planted the seeds for what is now a growing annual event.

What to Expect

The Expo, held Sunday, Oct. 5, from 12-5 p.m., will be hands-on from the start. Participants warm up with a trainer before rotating through skill stations that mirror real firefighter work. Per the City of Rochester’s press release, the event’s skill stations include:

• Rappelling from a three-story tower
• Climbing the 110-foot aerial ladder
• Learning how to force open a door
• Advancing a hose line filled with water and spraying water from the hose
• Searching for and rescuing a victim
• Learning how to extricate a person from a vehicle

Community partners like Olmsted Medical Center and Mayo Clinic Ambulance will also be on site to share insight into fitness, health, and medical response—the everyday realities of the job beyond just fire calls.

Building Confidence and Breaking Stigmas

For Marx, the Expo is as much about confidence as it is about careers.

“The first couple years it’s been pretty much a guarantee that these girls show up and they’re a little bit timid. But then they get into these groups and meet new females and when they leave they’re high fiving, there are new friendships, and they have this confidence about them,” Marx said. “They realize that no matter what size they are, if I learn things I can do this.”

That’s the message she hopes participants leave with—even if they never pursue firefighting. “Just having that confidence is something I think a lot of young females need nowadays.”

Inspiring the Next Generation

The Expo has already begun planting seeds for future careers. Marx recalled one attendee from the very first year: “She didn’t want to be there and was like, ‘I don’t want to do this.’ By the time she was done, she ended up going to a tech school in Wisconsin that offered Fire 1 and Fire 2, and she wanted to become a firefighter.”

Stories like that prove the effort is worth it.

“It’s a really great day to have women empowering women,” Marx said. “Whether or not they pursue a career or even want to do anything in the fire service, volunteer or full-time, it’s just that they left with new experiences, new friends, new challenges, and they stepped up and they did it.”

A Community Effort

The Expo wouldn’t be possible without wide support. Local partners provide food and resources, neighboring departments send female firefighters to assist, and community organizations help with logistics.

“It’s a whole community effort, and it’s been great,” Marx said.

While the Expo’s target audience is young women, the Expo is open to anyone curious about what it takes to be a firefighter—or eager to challenge themselves in new ways.

As Marx said, “This is a chance to show females that this is a possible career path. It gives these girls a safe place to try this. You don’t have to be the strongest, the fastest, the biggest—you all work together, and everyone’s all doing the same thing for the first time.”

Marx estimates it took her team about 9–10 months to bring the Expo to life. For departments considering launching their own women’s expo, she suggests starting by clarifying their teams’ core skills and values.

“I think it’s sitting down and figuring out what’s important to you and what’s important to your department,” Marx said, “and go from there.”