(Image via The Daily News)

When Regina Wilson joined the FDNY in 1999, she was the 12th African-American woman to do so. According to the Daily News, Wilson was recruited for the position at a job fair.

Wilson was working as an accountant at a utility company when she attended a job fair at the Javits Center. It was there that members of the Vulcan Society recruited her to join the FDNY.

“I didn’t even think it was something that I could do,” Wilson said.

Sixteen years later, the Vulcan Society, a fraternal organization of black firefighters in New York City, is still fighting to make the FDNY more inclusive. This year, for the first time in its 75-year history, Regina Wilson became the first woman elected president of the organization.

Wilson hopes to use her position to keep fighting for diversity within the FDNY.