by Olivia Garrett, entertainment editor

Science teacher Matt Young can occasionally been seen walking the hallways of Consol with a search dog at his side. Young not only teaches Biotechnology and Aquatic Science, but also works as a search and rescue operator.

Other than teaching, what else do you do?

So, I write curriculum for two sets of courses, I do bio-pharmaceutical training and curriculum, as well, I teach bio-pharmaceutical stuff in the summers. I am now doing some coursework within search and rescue, and then, I’m also a search and rescue operator, both in wilderness and in urban. My wilderness job basically is working with law enforcement and fire departments for any missing and unknown victims that are in the field locally. And then I also work for FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) for large scale, national, man made or natural disasters.

Why do you enjoy search and rescue?

It’s challenging, it’s exciting, and it’s something that there’s an almost unlimited skill-set to work on- to improve yourself. And, while you’re doing all of that, you’re helping both your community as well as the nation as a whole, and potentially internationally, depending on what the situation is, whether it’s saving people or it’s helping people get closure for an incident or just helping a community progress forward through a disaster.

Where have you worked as a search and rescue person?

Just for actual deployments, I’ve been around this state predominantly. We work a ton in Austin and San Antonio, occasionally in Houston- basically anywhere that’s four hours out from here. Whether it’s a small case or a large case, we could potentially get called for wilderness work for that. We do work down in the Valley. When people stream across the border, and it’s kind of a long stretch, they lose track of where all these people are and people want to know where their family members are. We’ve been deployed to help with stuff like that as well. I’ve traveled all over the country for trainings for FEMA and in two weeks, I’ll actually be finishing up my full canine certification for FEMA in Indianapolis.

Why do you like being a teacher?

I like being a teacher for many of the same reasons, just on a much less dangerous scale. I like science, so I like the subject I teach. I like that every year it’s a little bit different- my group of students is a little bit different, what their needs are is a little bit different. And, the conversation kind of restarts, with how I have to present material and whether it’s successful because it’s new every single year, which is exciting. And, since I teach seniors, I get to see them really start to step off into their own lives, which is sad because you  disappear, but it’s also exciting because their at the finish line for this chapter and it’s nice to see them cross that finish line and go on to the next. 

Are you going to continue teaching?

I hope so. Life is unpredictable right now, but my intention right now is to, in any form or fashion, continue teaching.