Mitch Warren began working in emergency services at 17, joining Douglas County Search and Rescue. He spent 15 years as a first responder before moving to Arizona to work in the Grand Canyon in the white water rafting industry.
Warren was on his way to pick up 72 passengers and take them to the river one day when a former colleague and friend at the Marion County Sheriff’s Office called to tell him one of their fellow deputies had been killed.
“I had to suck it up, just like I was taught in law enforcement. Suck it up, just get through this,” he said. “But this one was different.”
Warren reached out to his pastor to talk, and he asked if he had considered being a first responder chaplain.
“That’s when that door kind of started to open up for me,” Warren said.
That call eventually led him to becoming a chaplain and joining the Willamette Valley First Responder Chaplains , a nonprofit that serves nearly 30 first responder agencies throughout Linn, Benton, Marion and Lane counties.