Jason Davis credits his busy lifestyle to getting bored easily.
The owner of two businesses, he has also been a paramedic with B.C. Emergency Health Services for 11 years and is a captain with the 150 Mile House Volunteer Fire Department where he has volunteered for 15 years.
Born in Oklahoma, he moved to Williams Lake with his mom when he was a baby.
“My only early memories are in Williams Lake.”
Growing up he attended Poplar Glade, Williams Lake Junior High and Columneetza schools, graduating in 1989.
After graduation he pursued a bachelor’s degree in natural resource science at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops. He had wanted to get a minor in economics, but said he decided he had enough of school and did not complete the minor.
Returning to Williams Lake he started Hd Forestry Consulting with a friend in 1998, a company he still operates today.
In 2007 when the forest industry took a beating, he started Spider Rope Access and Rescue with two other friends.
Eventually one of his partners with Spider left the company for a full-time job and the other partner took the training portion of the company and relocated to Kamloops.
Davis was ready to stop doing training, as he had also done some training for TRU through his forestry consulting for many years, and was eager to focus on the physical side of the business.
He’s passionate about rope access and rope rescue.
Giving an example of a contract, he said they are a standby rescue company.
“It’s like going into a pulp mill that has massive containers all over the area. They have confined spaces all over and high angles where people are not really meant to be. During one to three weeks a year they’ve got workers everywhere and these plants go from 150 workers a day to thousands.”
The easiest way to explain it, he added, is they become similar to a paid fire department, but are actually a high angle confined space rescue crew so if someone were to get stuck or something happened to them, the crew would go retrieve them.
Chuckling he said they are very comfortable with breathing apparatus, air gas monitors and very proficient with ropes.
None of them climb, ironically, but all really like to rappel with ropes and hoist people and things up and down.
Describing crew members as “canaries” who come in to look at things.
They love to hang under bridges to check, tighten or install bolts or take pictures in places that are difficult to get to easily because they are too high.
“Every one of us has a fire background except one person. Our diverse backgrounds all bring different components to the tech rescue side. You try to be as diverse as possible with as much similar training and certification as you can. We all have the base knowledge but different strengths to bring to it. It is the mosaic that helps you get through things.”
His paramedic career started out in Clinton, B.C. and during the COVID-19 pandemic he worked full-time as a paramedic in Williams Lake.
Married to Kristie Doucette, who also grew up in Williams Lake, they have three daughters ages 22, almost 19 and soon to be 18.
Kristie is a teacher at 150 Mile House, where they live.
He wondered at one point about becoming a career firefighter, but decided he was happy being a volunteer with the 150 Mile VFD.
Moving to a city to pursue that did not feel right because he did not want to move his family.
“Most people with young girls are trying to move out of the city,” he said.
The Williams Lake area continues to be a good place to live for them.
“We have a little bit of everything here. The great outdoors, a bit of small town life and we’ve got community.”
They have lots of family and friends in the area, he said.
When he is not working Davis enjoys riding motorbikes and street bikes and messing around with ropes.
A self-described rope nerd, he said “it’s kind of our passion. We try to figure out different ways of doing things. It’s an obsession, to tell you the truth.”
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monica.lamb-yorski@wltribune.com
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