Lincoln Charter Township is considerably closer to finding a new full-time Fire Chief for their fire department after narrowing the candidate list to three men at a meeting Wednesday night and inviting them back next week for an interview with the full board for a final decision.
Retired Illinois Fire Chief Jeff Swanson is the consultant hired by the township board to assist in the process of identifying viable candidates and the selection of a new chief. The board has been seeking an open search process in which applicants are sought on the open market as compared to a client list from a professional search firm.
Lincoln Charter Township has experienced change over the years and have moved to hire a full-time Fire Chief with the skills and leadership abilities to lead the department through both challenges and opportunities ahead.
The finalists include Bob Tutko who is a part-time resident of South Haven and most recently served as Fire Chief of the Homer Township Fire Protection District where he initiated cost savings and measures that reduced overtime by more than $1-million, successfully gained more than $350,000 in grant funding including a Federal Assistance to Firefighters grant for air pack replacements and modernized the District Ambulance & Fire Suppression Fleet.
Mike Mattix, Operations Officer for the Dowagiac Fire Department since 1985, is another finalist. He is a certified Fire Officer III level in both Michigan and Indiana, a Michigan Firefighters Training Council Instructor, and Training Coordinator for Cass County. He currently supervises on-call and shift personnel including EMS and daily shift operations an duties, acts as second in command to the Deputy Fire Chief, oversees the Fire Department Pre-Incident Survey Program, and more.
The third finalist for Lincoln Township Fire Chief is Fire Marshal Doug Bourgeois from the Highland Township Fire Department. He has been a Firefighter/EMT-B there for more than 20 years, the last eight as Fire Marshal. His current job duties include managing the Fire Prevention Program, conducting annual fire safety inspections for more than 300 businesses, and overseeing the community risk reduction program as well as the department's recruitment & retention program.
All three are being invited back to a public interview process on December 6th with the full Board of Trustees and a social function, as the township works to find its new Fire Chief.
Consultant Swanson says the committee he has been working with developed expectations qualifications and conducted a promotional campaign to recruit candidates, collected applications and ensured their completeness, reviewed all applications to narrow the field, and arranged an conducted interviews.
They also tested each candidate to determine the processes and metrics for measurement of the candidates and graded each on assessment scores based on feedback from the board, a group of community stakeholders and firefighters. In each case the top three candidates were the same in all three areas of assessments, firefighter interviews and community interviews.
The finalist interviews will be conducted in the open meeting of the Lincoln Township Board of Trustees next Tuesday. Stay Tuned.
