First name on the Supreme Court

C12 THE DAVIS ENTERPRISE Voices of America FRIDAY, JULY 2, 2021Emily Lo: Finding a new passion in a new land

By lauren Keene Enterprise staff writer

It was the promise of the American dream that brought Emily Lo’s family to the United States. Forty years later, she’s living it herself.

Born and raised to age 12 in Taiwan, Lo, along with her parents and two older sisters, moved to the East Bay area in 1981, several years after her father attended an engineering certification program at UCLA.

“He just fell in love with the country, the opportunities, that you could do anything, be anything if you work hard,” said Lo, a longtime captain with the Davis Fire Department.

As a teenager, Lo envisioned a career in hotel management, figuring that “the people that I love will always have a roof over their head.” But a chance encounter with a family friend changed all that.

The friend, a former dispatcher in Southern California who later became a paramedic firefighter with the Vacaville Fire Department, asked Lo whether she’d ever considered the fire service.

“I don’t see you sitting in an office,” he told her, noting Lo’s athleticism from playing high-school basketball. Intrigued, “I looked into it.”

So when Lo’s family moved to Southern California for a work opportunity, Lo and one of her sisters stayed behind. Lo enrolled at Solano Community College in Fairfield, which offered a 16-week fire academy with instructors from area fire departments.

“I fell in love with it,” Lo recalled. “Learning stopped being a chore, and everything clicked.”

As for her family’s reaction, “it took a little bit of convincing. It was as foreign to them as it was to me,” Lo said. “But my dad was always like, ‘Whatever you’re going to be, be the best you can be.’ Ultimately, they were very, very proud.”

The academy gave way to a job offer from the Fairfield Fire Department, which Lo joined at age 20, becoming the department’s only woman and Asian American firefighter at the time.

“Fairfield gave me a lot of good foundations,” but low pay and understaffing chipped away at employee morale, Lo recalled. A year and a half later, she found herself in Davis, where she’ll mark her 30-year anniversary with the department in September.

“I came here because of the job. I stayed here because of the city,” Lo said, citing Davis’ low crime rate, family-friendly neighborhoods and likeminded citizens.

And in a country where women make up about 3 percent of the nation’s fire service, Davis came in well above that at 13 percent.

Lo credits two of her superiors at the time, Capt. Judi Cutaia and Rose Conroy, who would later become Davis fire chief — the first woman in California to lead a municipal fire department — with teaching her the importance of public service and attention to detail.

And while mindful that affirmative-action policies helped her get a foot in the door, “at the same time, I understand that what I choose to do with that opportunity is 100-percent up to me,” Lo said.

Lo credits “naïveté, good people, humor and thick skin” with helping her navigate professional challenges, including the decades of service calls that range from life-affirming to heart-wrenching. In 2002, she rose to the rank of captain, a post that allows her to serve as family breadwinner for her husband Rob Blankenship and their two children: Austin, 14; and Lola, 11.

Today, Lo says she’s “immensely proud” of her work, and gratified that the concept of the American dream is alive and well in her kids.

“In many ways, they have more privileges than many others. They have a better understanding of the world around them, what it means to be different and how to embrace those differences,” Lo said.

“My daughter knows the concept of working twice as hard to be seen as equal holds true for her. My son is learning to be a champion and a voice for those less fortunate,” Lo said. “I am living the dream.” — Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenter prise.net. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene.

ABOVE: Emily Lo and Rose Conroy pose for a photo with a future firefighter in 1999.

FAR RIGHT: Emily Lo collects “Fill the Boot” donations in 2015 for the Davis Professional Firefighters Association Local 3494’s annual food basket program.

BELOW RIGHT: Emily Lo helps out a future firefighter as they practice with a fire hose at an open house in 2017.

Wayne tilCoCk/ enterprise file pHotos

LEFT: Davis Fire Capt. Emily Lo stands proud after her promotion ceremony in March 2003.

“My daughter knows the concept of working twice as hard to be seen as equal holds true for her. My son is learning to be a champion and a voice for those less fortunate. I am living the dream.”

Emily Lo Davis Fire Dept. Captain