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Miami Palmetto High School rising senior Travis Gettinger is a Miami-Dade Fire Cadet Chief.
He joined the cadet program in his sophomore year and was promptly named a squad leader, which put him in charge of four or five other cadets. As chief, he’s in charge of 50-80 cadets.
“We do training every Friday, depending on your shift, every other week,” he says.
That training includes things like search and rescue and emergency medical responder classes. The cadets do ride alongs, going on out on calls with firefighters and helping them out.
Gettinger wants to become a firefighter. He also wants to go to college to study business and minor in psychology.
His interest in business comes from his interest in the stock market. He’s been trading stocks for five years already.
“I’ve been doing great,” he says. “I’ve never lost money on a stock. The number one thing you learn is patience.”
He learned about stocks and trading from his dad and his grandfather. His dad is a real estate agent and a firefighter.
“I saved my birthday money for three years,” he says. “And I started making small moves. It led me to invest in a company. It was $6 a share and then it turned into $60 a share.”
Another important thing about investing is researching companies.
His stock trading led him to the Palmetto Finance Club. He’s the vice president.
“I want to help other people who don’t know about financial strategies,” he says.
Gettinger is someone who likes to stay active and help others. He’s gone on two Blue Missions trips to the Dominican Republic. On both trips he built latrines for families in remote rural villages.
“The latrines are more community focused,” he says. “You are at the house. You immerse yourself in the community.”
He went for the first time last summer and again earlier this summer.
At home, Gettinger founded a community service organization called Clean Aqua.
“I’ve been around the water my entire life,” he says. “I created Clean Aqua to help the community come together to clean up the ocean and the canals.”
He and a friend plan the clean-ups at a variety of locations, including Matheson Hammock and Black Point Marina. They post the information on Instagram.
“We also try to spread cool facts, facts that should make you motivated to clean our environment,” he says.
Clean Aqua also posts the volunteer opportunities on Volunteering Miami. To finance the clean-ups they sell merchandise.
“We use the profits to buy supplies and collect to donate to other clean brands like Four Ocean,” he says. “We also try to spread cool facts, facts that should make you motivated to clean our environment.”
During the school year, they had the clean-ups every last Saturday of the month at Matheson. Occasionally they would also go to Black Point or clean a mangrove. They usually had approximately 20 volunteers. They’ve also collaborated with other organizations and had 40-50 people show up.
This summer Gettinger has been refining the schedule for the next school year. He’s also working on collecting donations that would be donated to other non-profit organizations.
He’s planning a pickleball tournament for August.
Gettinger is in the BBYO. He joined BBYO because his friends asked him to.
“Next year I’m going to be on the regional board,” he says.
At Palmetto he is a Health Information Project peer counselor. He and a team go to freshman classes to teach health related topics.
He’s a member of the National Honor Society and is the treasurer for PAWS.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
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