Justine Loewen didn’t grow up knowing she wanted a career in emergency services. After high school, she spent a few years trying to figure out what came next. She took a risk, joined a volunteer fire department in 2014, and found her passion.

“I fell in love with the fire service and emergency services,” Loewen says. “No two days are ever the same.”

That first experience launched a career built around emergency response, continuous learning and, eventually, leadership. Loewen went on to complete a paramedic training program before working as a paramedic in Onion Lake for six years. She served as an on-call firefighter and casual paramedic in Lloydminster as well.

Believing learning to be a lifelong pursuit, Loewen began looking for an opportunity to build on her experience without stepping away from the work she loved. She found it in Lakeland College’s bachelor of applied business: emergency services, with an online delivery method designed for working emergency services professionals.

“Something that was impressed upon me really early on in my career in emergency services is that no matter what field you’re in, it’s an area where you should be committed to lifelong learning and improving yourself,” Loewen explains.

Through the program, Loewen learned the business and management side of emergency services. Courses focused on the management of people and the organization itself.

She learned a lot from those lessons, but Loewen also appreciated the opportunity to learn from her classmates. They came from across Canada and brought experience from fire departments, emergency medical services, policing, the military and other areas of emergency response. Their different perspectives became an important part of the learning experience.

“Through the program, you learn different angles of emergency services that you don’t really learn as the boots-on-the-ground firefighter or paramedic,” she says. “I really enjoyed the diverse people in my cohort. It was a great group of people to learn from, with great experience from across the country. That’s a huge perk of the program, getting to share that experience with the people you’re in school with.”

Loewen graduated from the bachelor of applied business: emergency services program in 2024 with no immediate plans to seek a leadership role. Things just fell into place, however, and an assistant fire chief position in Lloydminster became available. Loewen successfully applied. Suddenly, the leadership lessons she’d been exploring through her degree weren’t something she might use down the road. They were part of her everyday work.

As the assistant fire chief of training and operation, Loewen manages everything from fleets to logistics to people. It’s a different kind of responsibility than the frontline work that first drew her to emergency services, but she appreciates the opportunity to influence the future of the industry.

“It’s a really exciting time at the department right now,” Loewen says. “There have been a lot of changes over the last few years and just being able to be part of the team that’s leading positive change within the department and the fire service is an exciting opportunity.”

For someone who was once a paramedic in Onion Lake, as well as an on-call firefighter and casual paramedic in Lloydminster, and a volunteer fighter simultaneously, Loewen hasn’t quite retired her boots-on-the ground. As an assistant fire chief, she still responds to upgraded alarms, like structure fires, running command or assisting the captains running the scene. She has also kept her position as a casual paramedic in Lloydminster as well.

That drive to serve in as many ways as possible has characterized her career from the beginning, and is part of the reason Loewen feels drawn to emergency services.

“The people and the family aspect of the emergency services is a huge draw,” Loewen says. “It doesn’t matter if you’re in emergency medical response or firefighting, everyone just becomes a brotherhood. We all look out for each other.”