Dr. W. R. Matson joined the fire service in 1982 and received his initial emergency medical certification in 1984. He spent the next ten years seeking additional medical training and certifications and serving as a certification instructor for AHA and the Red Cross until an industrial incident ended his service in 1997, after which he returned to school and finished his bachelor's degree in physics in 1999 and doctoral degree in fluid physics in 2004. He has since served as a professor of physics at several universities.