Twenty-one months after he took over as chief of the Wake Forest Fire Department, Jerry Swift has resigned effective Monday, April 14.

"It was a mutual agreement between the chief and the board of directors," Stanley Denton, chairman of the department’s governing board, said. The action was taken Thursday, April 3, at a called meeting.

Denton said the board is setting up a search committee. After Swift leaves, Denton said, Deputy Chief David Davis and the assistant chiefs will supervise and administer the department until a new chief is hired.

The search committee will be able to offer a new chief a salary from $54,000 to $82,000, if the pay classification is the same as it was when Swift was hired. His beginning salary was $68,000.

"I have been provided with a very healthy severance package and a letter of recommendation for other employment from the board," Swift said in a formal press release Monday.

"I enjoyed working for the citizens of Wake Forest and please let me assure you that the department is still open and operating at a professional level. I thank all of the men and women of the department for their support and motivated efforts to be the best," Swift continued. "I understand that a recent survey showed that the department is operating at an outstanding level and that morale is high. I am pleased to leave the department in that condition."

The statement issued Tuesday by the board said, "The members of the Wake Forest Fire Department and its board of directors are deeply grateful for his leadership and contributions to the Wake Forest community. The department and its board wish him the best of luck in future endeavors."

Swift said he would continue to do some limited consulting with the department about the budget and the federal grant the department is seeking to replace the aging rescue truck. If the department receives the grant for the $600,000 truck, it will only have to pay 10 percent of the cost.

Swift’s budget for the next fiscal year is a hefty $4 million. "We are asking for 17 additional paid staff, 15 for the ladder company (five per shift), a services captain and one fill-in firefighter."

Swift took over on July 3, 2006, after a six-month search to find a replacement for then-Chief David Williams Jr., who was on the search committee.

The agreement last Thursday between Swift and the fire board is the second mutual agreement for a fire chief to step down in a little over two years. Williams and the fire board reached a mutual decision on Dec. 27, 2005, for him to step down when the board hired a new chief. The decision was made because of the burden on Williams, who was both a full-time paid chief and the head of his business, Williams Custom Building.

Williams was named interim chief shortly after Jimmy Keith, the department’s first full-time paid chief, died in the summer of 2004. Williams officially became the full-time chief July 1 of 2005.

Swift came to Wake Forest from the Gastonia Fire Department where he was captain of technical rescue operations and battalion chief for a shift. One of the reasons for hiring him, then-board chairman Thomas Walters said, was his experience in teaching fire and rescue operations, his emphasis on safety and his degree in fire protection technology. Another reason was his experience with volunteer firemen.

Swift took over a department that had 76 personnel: 35 paid firefighters, 39 volunteers and two medical responders. There were two stations, #1 on East Elm Avenue and #2 on Ligon Mill Road, although there were plans to build a station on land along Wake Union Church Road or Kearney Road that developer Jim Adams had promised to donate.

In 2007 the Wake Forest Fire Department purchased land for a third station on Forestville Road. Joel Keith, a former fire board director, sold the department the four acres and a brick house for $400,000.

The Forestville Road station is now manned during the day, Denton said this week. "We studied using the house on Forestville Road and found that it will be cost prohibitive to update the house. We have already begun the preliminary work on the drawings for Station #3 with Steel Dynamics. Hopefully construction can start in late summer or early fall."

The land on the west side of town has semi-materialized. Two acres on a new street replacing Wake Union Church Road have been set aside by the developers of Wake Union Place shopping center. The master plan for that development is being reviewed by the Wake Forest Planning Department; there is no date for possible approval or construction. The new road for the center will have to be constructed before there is access to the land for the fire station.

Swift shook up fire station planning locally by calculating response times from existing and future stations to existing and planned inhabited buildings in town and plotted the need for six stations, the four already in use or planned and two more. The two future stations would be on the east side of town along or near N.C. 98 and on the north side of town near the Franklin County line and Capital Boulevard.

The goal is to provide a five-minute response time to all occupied buildings in town.

Swift also began a physical fitness program for all personnel, purchased a water rescue boat and had several firefighters trained in swift-water rescue, bought new boots and helmets, began a recruit training program, inspected existing town buildings for safety and reviews plans for new buildings, and reorganized the department. He devised an emergency plan for the Fourth of July celebration and for Hurricane Ernesto.

The department now has 77 people on staff, 40 paid and 37 volunteer with, Swift said, several other potential volunteers.

Davis is the paid deputy chief, and Clifton Keith is the volunteer deputy chief. The volunteer battalion chiefs are Gary Sullivan, Jake Alderman and Royce Fuoco. Waylon Holbrook is the paid training chief.

The paid captains are Reginald Rogers, Daryl Cash, Erick Mohn, Greg Hockaday, Bo Medlin, Tony Pack, Wayne Burton, Ed Barrett and Jonathan Burgess.

The volunteer captains are Phil Cashwell, Jerry Knorr and Bill Wandrack, and the volunteer lieutenants are Shannon Sales, Paul Eitel and Mike Lusardi.

The board of directors is made up of Denton; Bob Bridges, vice president; James Holding, secretary; Don Griesedieck, treasurer; Randy Bright, who replaced Richard Stinnett who resigned recently; Ken Capps, Scott Spangler, Dean Tryon and Thomas Walters. Board members are paid $50 each month; the four officers, members of the executive committee, receive a little more because they have more duties.

The Wake Forest Fire Department is an independent corporation formed in 1983 when the town’s fire department and the rural Wakette department merged. The department contracts with the town and with the county to provide fire protection. The department was all-volunteer until 1993 when it began hiring full-time and part-time firefighters.

AUTHOR BIO

Carol Pelosi, a 37-year resident of Wake Forest, brings 13 years experience with a local newspaper and 16 years as a purchasing agent to her editorship and writer for The Wake Forest Gazette. She has volunteered in local schools, been a member of the town and county planning boards and has been a student of local history for years.

GAZETTE

The Wake Forest Gazette is a free on-line weekly newspaper about Wake Forest government, growth, history and events that has been published on Wednesday evenings since 2003. Editor Carol Pelosi welcomes comments, letters to the editor, subscribers to her weekly notification and advertisers.