“I want to make a difference for St. Eustatius and Saba too”, Thammy Albertsz leads the Caribbean fire department

KRALENDIJK - Eight years ago, Thammy Albertsz began her career at the fire department. The goal she had in mind from the very start was ambitious: one day she wanted to become general commander. That day has now come. The 35-year-old Bonairian recently took charge of the Fire Corps Caribbean Netherlands (BKCN).

"From that moment on I said: one day I will have that position of general commander", Albertsz recalls about the moment her interest in the fire department truly ignited. That was in 2017, during a team-building event at the corps. She was impressed by the way colleagues worked together. "That togetherness, that team spirit - I felt a tingle: this is what I want, this is what I can do, and I can see myself doing this for a long time."

Before that, her career had taken a very different direction. Albertsz completed secondary school on Bonaire, then moved to Curacao where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Social Work. She subsequently started studying criminology at Erasmus University, but did not finish that programme. In 2014 she returned to Bonaire and began working as a council investigator at the Child Protection Council.

"Left my family and everything behind"

After that pivotal encounter with the fire department in 2017, things moved quickly. In March 2018, a vacancy opened for the officer training programme in the Netherlands. Albertsz did not hesitate and applied.

"I had to leave my stability behind, leave my family and everything behind, to invest further in myself in this fire service world", she says. After about a year and a half of training, she returned to Bonaire in 2020 as a duty officer.

But even then, her original goal remained firmly in her mind. Albertsz was determined to eventually become general commander. So she kept following training courses, gaining experience and developing herself.

From 2022 she worked alongside a colleague as local commander on Bonaire. Two years later she began preparing even more deliberately for a possible next step. She shadowed various organisations and managers, and travelled to The Hague to learn more about cooperation with the ministry.

"I really stuffed myself full of experience and the expertise that is needed", she says. "So that when this vacancy came up, I would be fully capable of applying for it."

When the vacancy for general commander was indeed published this year, Albertsz applied. She went through four interviews, followed by a conversation about the terms of employment. During a work trip in the Netherlands, she finally received the phone call that she would become the new general commander.

"It is a special moment"

The fact that Albertsz, as a 35-year-old Bonairian woman, is taking on such an important role makes her appointment all the more remarkable. She herself does not want to place too much emphasis on being a woman.

"It is certainly a special moment. Of course I am a woman, but I truly see it as a person who is suitable to fulfil this role", she says. "Together with the team I will give it one hundred percent, in the interest of the corps and the three communities of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba."

Albertsz is keen to use her own path to the role as a message for young people on Bonaire. Because the journey, she emphasises, was not easy.

"It has not been an easy process. But I hope that I can be seen as an inspiration by others, especially the young people." On 15 August, Albertsz had been in service for exactly eight years. "It took me eight years of investing in myself to get here."

Setbacks will come, but believe in it

Her advice to young people is therefore not to give up too quickly. "Follow your education, set goals for yourself and go for your goals. There will be setbacks on the road to your goal. But those are points that can only make you stronger."

Albertsz lives by a simple motto: "You either win or you learn. There is never a losing moment." According to her, every setback can ultimately yield something. "Everything a person experiences on their path makes you stronger for the next step."

Qualifications can also open doors later in life, she says. But it starts with believing in yourself. "Believe in yourself, so that others can believe in you too."

She therefore does not see the appointment as the endpoint of her development. "I don’t see it as: finally I have this position. No, I see it as: this is the start of the next chapter of my career."

"My family is here"

That Albertsz kept returning to the island after her training and experiences elsewhere is, to her, self-evident.

"My parents are here, my family is here. I wanted to contribute to the island where I was born and raised", she says. "But by now I have reached the point where I also want to make a difference for the others." By that she means Sint Eustatius and Saba as well.

That desire to mean something to the community was instilled in her at home. Her father worked in the police and her mother in education. "I have always felt that you should be there for others. That you can make a contribution - not just for people, but also for your island."

The fire department ultimately proved to be the place where everything came together for her. "I always wanted to belong to a uniformed service. When I got to know the fire department, I thought: this is what I want, this is what I can do, and with this I want to mean something to the island."

No two islands alike

In her new role, Albertsz is not only responsible for Bonaire. Sint Eustatius and Saba also fall under her remit. And it is precisely that which makes the work challenging, she says.

"Each island has its own character, its own challenges and its own risk objects", she says. An important difference from the European Netherlands is that outside help cannot always arrive quickly.

That is why the corps on each island must be sufficiently self-reliant. "We need to make sure that we as a corps are stable enough and well-equipped with the right materials to handle incidents independently, while waiting for help that may only arrive after a day or two."

Sint Eustatius and Saba are no unfamiliar territory for Albertsz. She has worked there before and also temporarily held a leadership position on Sint Eustatius.

"The culture, the people and the colleagues know me well and vice versa", she says. "None of it is unfamiliar to me. I am simply in a different position now. And I want to make a difference for the corps together with the team."