Fire chief readying for retirement - ESSA TWP - Fire Chief Paul Macdonald is hopeful the township will be able to find a successor within the fire department to take over his position when he retires later this year.
Macdonald, who has been fire chief for the past seven and a half years and a member of the department for almost 35 years, is looking to retire sometime this summer.
“If we don’t find someone internally then we will have to look externally, but it would be nice if we can go internally,” he said of the candidate hiring process at a recent council meeting.
He began as a recruit firefighter in March of 1979 and was promoted to Captain in 1995. He was appointed the volunteer fire captain in December 1997 and accepted the position as the municipality’s first fulltime fire chief in January 2006.
Council agreed to have Macdonald help the hiring committee during the candidate selection process, which will consist of the CAO and members of council.
If an internal candidate qualifies for the position, the person will work alongside Macdonald as the volunteer deputy chief until his retirement.
The fire department is also looking to fill the role of volunteer deputy fire chief, along with the special operations officer to help the chief with various day-to-day duties, including administrative work, fire inspections and code enforcement.
Macdonald said the volunteer chief position has been filled three times over the last several years and that there are currently two internal candidates and one external candidate under consideration for the role.
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