Flash Forward Alumni Spotlight: Morgan Sagdahl

Morgan Sagdahl 
Decatur High School Alum, c/o 2011 

FWPS alum Morgan Sagdahl recently returned to her alma mater, Brigadoon Elementary, to capture the attention of young scholars during National Reading Month at Read-Aloud Night – an experience she remembers enjoying during her time at the school. She attended the school with three of her five siblings who also matriculated through the FWPS system. Morgan graduated from Decatur High School and today is among the 5% of female career firefighters in United States at Key Peninsula Fire Department of Lakebay, WA. Though her varied interests took her on a career journey, Morgan has now settled into her passion within the fire services, an interest which developed when she was only fifteen years old. We were excited to catch up with her to learn more about her career pathway to success. 

FWPS: Hi Morgan! Can you share a bit about your time here in FWPS? Which schools did you attend and what programs and activities did you participate in? 

Morgan: It started in first grade, in Mrs. Rennick’s class at Brigadoon where I was in the GATE (gifted and talented education) program for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade. Then I went to the Federal Way Public Academy, and then Decatur where I did choir and theater, played varsity on the girls fastpitch team, and was also a member of the competitive spoken-word poetry team – we won multiple poetry slams and it’s one of my fondest memories! I also went to the Puget Sound Skills Center.  

FWPS: Tell me more about the Puget Skills Center.

Morgan: It started as just a summer school thing – during the summers I would take a class at PSSC. I started in the digital media class – graphic design and web design stuff - and I really liked it, and one of the assignments was to go around and take pictures of all the other classes to come up with a digital yearbook. When I went to the Fire Services class, I completely fell in love with the environment there, so I transferred and spent my entire junior and senior year in the Fire Services class.  

FWPS: How did you fuel your interest in firefighting? 

Morgan: I was fifteen years old when I started to consider firefighting as a possible career, but I didn’t know if it was actually going to be a feasible career for me because I was such a small girl. I was also a theater kid, and theater and firefighting are two different worlds. At fifteen, I joined a fire explorer post and got more introduced to the culture of the fire service – what the testing processes and physical agility tests look like – I was exposed to all of that. I also went to a firefighting camp for girls called Camp Blaze, run completely by women firefighters, and that was the first time I saw a career firefighter that was my build and realized I could actually do this. At that point, I wasn’t going to let anything stop me. 

FWPS: What led you to your current career as a firefighter? 

Morgan: Well, the funny thing is, at eighteen, I got offered a position to perform at Disney World – such a detraction, right?! So, I did that, and then moved to Wyoming where I volunteered as a firefighter. Then, I moved back to Washington and began volunteering as a firefighter at Mountain View around the Black Diamond area. I did that for five years. I got an associate degree from Highline in Arabic, and then got my bachelors in Arabic, too. Then, I went to paramedic school through Tacoma Community College and at the same time, worked as a paraeducator in Kent, then got hired as an ER Technician where I spent seven years. I was consistently going to school and working – I had my hands in a lot of different areas. I actually didn’t start at Key Peninsula Fire Department until 2021! 

FWPS: What advice do you have for scholars working to chart their future toward success? 

Morgan: You can do all of the things that you want to do – you don’t have to pick just one path. You can be the theater kid, and also be a firefighter, and also study linguistics – you can do all of those things. If you’re uncertain about what you want to do, you can choose all of them! 

Want to hear more alumni stories? Read more at www.fwps.org/AlumniSpotlight.