Mr. Cassano emphasized the job’s benefits and pay — after five years, a firefighter’s annual salary jumps to $100,000 — and used his own humble beginnings to describe the department as a meritocracy.
“I raised five children, four grandchildren, on a salary where I just graduated from high school with no college experience,” Mr. Cassano said, adding, “It wasn’t who you knew; it was what you knew.”
If you work hard, he said, “You can be whoever you want to be.”
The appearance was part of a continuing recruitment effort, focused on churches and community centers and in minority areas across the city, in anticipation of next year’s revamped exam, said Francis X. Gribbon, a department spokesman.
