A Good Age: Duxbury Fire Chief Kevin Nord retires to ride across America on motorcycle

DUXBURY – After 44 years in the fire service, Kevin Nord felt ready to retire, "to melt away in my helmet a little bit and get some me time."

When Nord, 62, stepped down in July as Duxbury fire chief, he knew he was still young and healthy enough to chase a dream. He also knew what was at "the top of my bucket list."

On Tuesday, Aug. 16, Nord will head out on his KTM 890 Adventure R, an on and off-road motorcycle, for a trek across the country – down to Tennessee and North Carolina, then west to Oregon and back.

He will follow the TransAmerica Trail, described as "the cross-country adventure ride of a lifetime with mostly off-pavement travel." Reaching Oregon will take about four weeks. Coming home, he'll travel by highways in a week.

"I figure I have maybe 10 good years of riding left and now is go time," Nord said. "I want to get out and try some new things while I still can, and adventure riding is one of them."

He said he has watched others retire and then have health problems cut short their dreams. When he returns, he plans to teach fire instruction and health and safety training courses in the region and the state.

Nord leaves with his family's blessing. His wife of 28 years, Mary, was skeptical and worried at first but knew his level of skill and how much this means to him. His three daughters – Jessica, in Florida, and Caitlin and Caroline at home –  and his son, Josh, of Quincy, overcame their worries and "might even wish they could go with me."

Respect for his age inspired him.

"You become aware of the demands that riding makes on the body; it becomes a little weaker, obviously, and you can't bounce as much as you used to," he said. "I still feel fairly healthy and youthful and I hope to accomplish this. Travel has always fascinated me a lot and when my wife retires, we can take more typical trips overseas."

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Mary Nord is a secretary in the oncology department at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Plymouth.

Nord said he loves riding his motorcycles because of "the freedom. Being in nature, being able to smell the smells, see the sights, go where you went to go when you want, stop when you want."

A few years ago, in the series "Long Way Round," British actors Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman broadcast their around-the-world journey by motorcycles. It "hooked" him to return to off-road riding.

Dual sport riding demands a lot of standing and shifting weight; to prepare, he is doing daily flexibility exercises and yoga stretches for his knees and hips. He is also testing out different weight loads on his bike of all his supplies, including cookware, food, toiletries, water purification system, clothing, bedding, water and food .

He won't forget the bear spray.

Traveling by himself, he looks forward to impromptu conversations with the hundreds of other people in Jeeps, motorcycles, ATVs and even bicycles on the TransAmerica Trail. For medical needs or emergencies, he counts on his own training as a paramedic and also "the natural human spirit that helps you out."

His wife insists he bring a Garmin inReach Satellite Communicator with SOS button.

Growing up in Scituate, Nord absorbed public service ideals from his father, Peter, a high school English teacher. As a teenager, he was "a sparky" who liked hanging around the fire station. After graduating from Scituate High School in 1977, he married, moved to Kingston and became a call firefighter. In 1978, he was hired full-time by the Kingston Fire Department, where he would stay for 26 years. In the late 1980s, he trained as a paramedic.

"That was something I always wanted to do – do more for the patients," he said. "The fire service was the best way to help people, aside from teaching or law enforcement, and I had an interest in the medical. You take people to the hospital and you want to do as much as you can for them en route."

He advanced to captain in Kingston, in charge of a shift.

Within days of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he spent a week at Ground Zero in New York as a peer support counselor through the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

In 2004, Duxbury hired Nord as its fire chief. He stayed for 18 years, signing a two-year contract renewal in 2020 so that a succession plan could be worked out. He had a chance to complete his goals, moving to advanced life support and leading the development of the Regional Old Colony Emergency Communications Center.

He served on the Governor’s Council on Technical Rescue as president of the Plymouth County Fire & Rescue Training Association and as Duxbury's fire chief/emergency management director.

As a paramedic, Nord was most influenced by the compassion he saw in others.

"You've got to feel, you've got to touch, you've got to understand people's history and make some diagnoses," he said. "And the people I was surrounded by – the other paramedics, the medical staff at the hospital – that was the joy of the job, the joy in helping other people.

"You have the bad calls of trauma and then you have the good calls in the medical emergencies – breathing treatments for people with bad asthma who can't breathe and then they can, help for diabetics, reversing seizures, cardiac incidents where they are suffering immensely and you give them medication that eases that pain and helps for a better outcome."

As he moved into administration, he felt "my job was to give everybody, my peers and mentors, the tools they need to succeed – whether they were ones I had developed or maybe ones I didn't have yet."

He took courses in fire administration and business at Massasoit College, Salem State University and Bridgewater State University, and graduated as a business major at Curry College in Milton in 2008.

As he begins his adventure, Nord is especially thankful for his family's support.

"It would be easy for them to say 'No, you're not doing this,' " he said.

And once he is back home, his billiard blue Harley-Davidson Street Glide bike will be waiting.

Reach Sue Scheible at sscheible@patriotledger.com.

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This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Motorcycle trip across America 1st adventure for retired fire chief