MILWAUKEE — While the demand for lifeguards remains high in Wisconsin and across the country, Milwaukee County has a new program to promote water safety.
It is called the Aquatics Ambassadors. The goal is to not only to help with lifeguard recruitment in Milwaukee but to also cultivate a new generation of swimmers.
One of those ambassadors is Emilio Perez. All his life, he has been a swimmer.
“All my older siblings were swimmers. My stepmom originally got us into swimming, and I was just always around the pool because of my siblings,” said Perez.
Perez swims professionally for a Mexican swim team.
He said he came back to Milwaukee to be an Aquatic Ambassador because he wanted to promote water safety.
“We just put up some life rings along the shoreline to just invaluable spots, wherever we thought they would be of most use to avoid any kind of disasters,” said Perez.
He said he also hopes to encourage others to become lifeguards.
“To have the title of lifeguard and to say, ‘Oh, I need to be there for people. I need to possibly save lives. That’s a little scary,’ but once we really broke down the whole process of it, then it was like, ‘Oh, this is something that I am really interested in,’” said Perez.
Tristen Shorter is the director of communications for Milwaukee Parks Foundation. She said Aquatic Ambassadors was created to hire more lifeguards so the county can open more pools during the summer.
“We live in a city that is so closely connected to water,” said Shorter. “We are a water city. It just makes sense that all of us learn these water safety skills to be able to during the summer save lives. People actually drown every year, whether it’s in Lake Michigan, whether it’s in a pool. Being able to have from a young age swim ability in our community is such an important thing.”
That’s why Perez said he seeks to give more people an avenue to fall in love with swimming.
“I did take some time off and that just really showed how important this was to me,” said Perez. “Not only for travel or gold medals or anything like none of really means anything to me. I just truly love what I do.”
Perez said by increasing water safety and adding more lifeguards, it will give people peace of mind to jump in.