Profile of a Firefighter: Todd Matthews

Who: Todd Mathews

Occupation: Fire captain at Benicia Fire Department

When Todd Mathews, a 1991 Benicia High School graduate, was still a teenager his mother died. "You tend to lose direction when you lose a parent at a young age like that," said Mathews. "The firefighters took me under their wing."

Mathews was part of the Fire Explorers while in high school so he had a lot of role models to fall back on. "I'd come down to the fire house to do my homework, and on the weekends the guys would take me hunting and fishing. My dad lived out of the area," Mathews said.

A fire captain runs the station house and manages the day to day activities of the firefighters on duty. 

Asked what makes a good captain, Mathews replied, " A good captain is fair, has integrity, follows procedures, enforces the rules equally and has the experience to do the job."

After Mathews graduated high school he continued to volunteer with the Benicia Fire Department until he landed a job with the California Department of Forestry as a seasonal firefighter.  During the off-season he attended school and became a licensed paramedic, and in 1996 he came to work in Benicia as a fireman.

His personal email address includes "tuffy."  "The firefighters here in Benicia hung that on me," said Mathews.  "They'd sometimes give me a hard time about something, but I always came back so they started calling me Tuffy."