Sixteen Years of TJ

Tim Jordan has trained so many EMTs at Royal Ambulance that he stopped counting years ago.

He has been here for sixteen years. He started before most of the people he now trains were old enough to drive. Somewhere in the middle of that stretch, the math got away from him. A name will come back to him out of nowhere, and he'll think, oh man, I trained that person too.

"Almost every single one of them has gone on to do bigger and better things," he says.

Tomorrow is his last day. He's moving to Iowa to start his first nursing job. Ask him why he stayed for sixteen years, and he pauses. He thinks for a second. He laughs a little because he knows how the answer is going to sound.

"It was the people, dude. Royal attracts real ones. People who really want to help people. People who are in healthcare to make a difference."

I was his partner for a year. He had a way of holding space for people without knowing he was doing it. You'd ride a shift with him and feel a little better at the end of it than you did at the start.

The TJ who walked into Royal sixteen years ago was not a great EMT. He says it cheerfully. He was young and ignorant on certain things and a little immature. He ran the crazy code threes. He had the first-on-scene moments. He had the oh-shit calls. One shift at a time, the seasoning happened, until one day he was the guy other EMTs called when they didn't know what to do.

Sixteen years at any company is rare. TJ stayed because of the people, and the staying gave him the time. Time to get good. Time to figure himself out. Time to discover, somewhere along the way, that he wanted to be a nurse.

"I trained Sam," he says, listing names as they come back to him. "I trained a lot of my trainees who have gone on to do bigger and better things."

Sam is now Royal's Director of Operations. She and TJ still give each other a hard time about it. "TJ was my FTO," she says. "He laid the foundation. Everything I've built since has been on top of what he taught me, the good and the… fun."

Joseph Bulnes rode his last shift with TJ today. TJ took him under his wing on Joseph's first CCT shift, fifteen years into TJ's own run at Royal. "I cannot name a time where he came to work in a bad mood," Joseph wrote. "Every time I worked with him he came to work with a positive attitude and a desire to make a difference in someone's day."

Hasieb Lemar, Royal's president, has known TJ as long as TJ has been here. "You built this place with us, TJ," he says. "Go be a great nurse. Come back and visit, don’t forget about us!"

The piece of advice he wants to leave behind is the one he laughs at himself for giving. He used to think it was lame when he heard it.

"Never give up. As long as you put the work in and you don't give up, you'll get there. Whatever it is you want to do."

The version of TJ who showed up sixteen years ago and the version of TJ who is leaving tomorrow are connected by a long unbroken line of shifts, and a lot of that line runs through other people.

Good luck, TJ. It’s been an incredible 16 years!