Please join Co. 49 in congratulating Sergeant Michael Banos-Perez for receiving the 2019 Squadsman of the Year Award.

Sgt. Michael Banos-Perez distinguished himself in service to the Greater Laurel, Maryland and surrounding communities as a Volunteer Emergency Medical Technician, Fire Fighter and Squadsman with the Laurel Volunteer Rescue Squad (LVRS – Co. 49).

Sgt. Banos-Perez excels in his abilities as an EMT, Fire Fighter, Squadsman and Water Rescue Technician. He completed EMT, FF1 and 2, Rescue courses, EVOC, Water Rescue and many other programs. He endeavors to improve his technical skills while working with other responders fine tune their skills.

Sgt. Banos-Perez is assigned as the duty officer for the Saturday Day crew. He ensures all daily chores and apparatus inspections and checkouts are completed in a timely manner, plus is constantly doing extra cleaning, repairs and training. He is a mentor to less senior responders and rookies. He ensures and monitors his duty crewmembers’ progress in improving their skills and provides them training and support in any way he can. Sgt. Banos-Perez regularly performs additional duty on other shifts when those shifts are short of staffing.

Sgt Banos-Perez is an officer on our training committee, leading our efforts on the training policies and checklists designed to improve our fire and rescue turnovers and working with new fire / rescue responders in their turnovers. He made valuable improvements in our training procedures to ensure that members who are turned over are highly prepared as responders.

I have personally had the pleasure of running a number of working fires and entrapments with Sgt. Banos-Perez. His abilities to solve problems and to get the job done contribute to successful outcomes at each of those incidents. He is indeed a highly qualified and competent Squadsman and deserves the recognition from the County Association.