City Council OKs Resolution For New Warsaw Fire Chief
April 4, 2023 at 12:47 a.m.
City Council OKs Resolution For New Warsaw Fire Chief
By David [email protected]
A decade ago, he was an assistant fire chief at the Penn Township Fire Department in South Bend and was part of the District 2 region’s technical rescue team and got to know firefighters from Warsaw like Rob Barker, Aaron Bolinger and Mike Brubaker. “So I know those guys from a way back,” Mayo said in an interview Monday before the Warsaw Common Council meeting.
Monday, the council approved a resolution giving their OK for Mayo to serve as fire chief.
“Tonight, I’m honored to introduce a new member of the city staff. Tomorrow, he will be officially named fire chief,” Mayor Joe Thallemer told the council. The fire territory meets at 4 p.m. Tuesday. “... One item of business tonight is that state statute requires that if an individual we’re naming fire chief is not a member of the current fire department for at least five years, he can still be named fire chief but we have to get approval from the city council to do that.”
Mayo replaces Garrett Holderman, who served a year as fire chief before moving back to Arizona. Holderman’s last day was Feb. 7.
Thallemer said Mayo has extensive experience in the fire service. “We did a significant internal and external search, and came up with what we thought would be a fantastic fire chief,” he said.
Human Resource Director Denny Harlan said the city has been eagerly anticipating the arrival of Mayo. “The guys down at the fire department are ready for him to jump in and kind of get things going in the direction he sees that the department is needing to go,” Harlan said.
He stated Mayo has over 32 years in the fire service, from firefighter to chief.
“We think that we did a very thorough search and found the best match for what our situation is, and that is why we’re asking for this resolution to be passed, to waive the five-year service requirement for Chief Mayo,” Harlan said.
Most of Mayo’s 32 years in the fire service are in Indiana, Mayo said. After working in South Bend, Mayo served as the deputy fire chief of operations for the Hardeeville, S.C., fire department, which is near Savannah, Ga. He came back to Indiana for family.
“This is home for me. I was born and raised in Indy. Worked the Carmel Fire Department for years and then Notre Dame and Penn Township, so this is coming home for me,” Mayo said in the interview before the meeting.
Mayo also was fire chief in Awendaw, S.C., for a while before Hardeeville.
“This is my second trip in the big chief chair, but definitely Warsaw is a fantastic community. I’m stoked to be here. The reputation of the fire department before I got here is fantastic. This is a hardworking community, smart fire department. Growth, but controlled growth, whereas in South Carolina it was explosive, out of control, chaos most days. I like the pace here and I’m a Midwesterner by heart,” he said.
Warsaw Fire’s technical knowledge of technical rescue and hazmat is really unmatched in the area, Mayo stated. “They’re very good at what they do. I want to bring leadership, mentoring, preparation for the future. I definitely see young leaders coming up because we’ve got some people that are retiring very, very soon so the department is getting ready to lose a whole bunch of experience and knowledge walking out the door. Even two of the battalion chiefs are retiring - Mike and Brooks - are retiring this year, so we’re getting ready to lose 40 years in one fell swoop.”
Mayo said he wants to prep the future.
“The knowledge is there, the talent is there,” he said.
Mayo is a retired Army officer and enjoys the leadership aspect of the job, as well as the mentoring.
He served 20 years, three months and three days, retiring in November 2019. He was a medical operations officer, and his last deployment was with the Indiana National Guard in 2018. At one point, he was deployed to the Middle East, homebased out of Kuwait, but he made trips through Iraq and Syria during his deployment.
The CARES (Community Assistance, Resources and Emergency Services) program began in 2020 through the Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory as a city initiative to assist those with mental health needs. Mayo thinks it’s phenomenal.
“It’s unfortunate in this day and age where we have to have that program, but that is nothing new across the nation. Warsaw and Kosciusko County has a little bit of a higher volume for those types of overdose calls, and I think CARES is very needed,” Mayo said. “I understand now it’s a grant-funded program. I hope it becomes more of a permanent fixture in the future. I wish we didn’t have to have it, but we do. I think it’s phenomenal that it’s there and it’s in place.”
Mayo, who turned 50 in February, and his wife found a house right outside of Warsaw, moving into it this past weekend.
“I’m getting to be a grandpa here real soon. My daughter already lives here, so it’s just boom-boom-boom,” he said.
His folks live in Hamilton County, where he went to high school. “I’ve been in this state for a long time,” he said.
Councilman Mike Klondaris made the motion to approve the resolution Monday. It was approved 6-0, with Councilman Jeff Grose absent.
A decade ago, he was an assistant fire chief at the Penn Township Fire Department in South Bend and was part of the District 2 region’s technical rescue team and got to know firefighters from Warsaw like Rob Barker, Aaron Bolinger and Mike Brubaker. “So I know those guys from a way back,” Mayo said in an interview Monday before the Warsaw Common Council meeting.
Monday, the council approved a resolution giving their OK for Mayo to serve as fire chief.
“Tonight, I’m honored to introduce a new member of the city staff. Tomorrow, he will be officially named fire chief,” Mayor Joe Thallemer told the council. The fire territory meets at 4 p.m. Tuesday. “... One item of business tonight is that state statute requires that if an individual we’re naming fire chief is not a member of the current fire department for at least five years, he can still be named fire chief but we have to get approval from the city council to do that.”
Mayo replaces Garrett Holderman, who served a year as fire chief before moving back to Arizona. Holderman’s last day was Feb. 7.
Thallemer said Mayo has extensive experience in the fire service. “We did a significant internal and external search, and came up with what we thought would be a fantastic fire chief,” he said.
Human Resource Director Denny Harlan said the city has been eagerly anticipating the arrival of Mayo. “The guys down at the fire department are ready for him to jump in and kind of get things going in the direction he sees that the department is needing to go,” Harlan said.
He stated Mayo has over 32 years in the fire service, from firefighter to chief.
“We think that we did a very thorough search and found the best match for what our situation is, and that is why we’re asking for this resolution to be passed, to waive the five-year service requirement for Chief Mayo,” Harlan said.
Most of Mayo’s 32 years in the fire service are in Indiana, Mayo said. After working in South Bend, Mayo served as the deputy fire chief of operations for the Hardeeville, S.C., fire department, which is near Savannah, Ga. He came back to Indiana for family.
“This is home for me. I was born and raised in Indy. Worked the Carmel Fire Department for years and then Notre Dame and Penn Township, so this is coming home for me,” Mayo said in the interview before the meeting.
Mayo also was fire chief in Awendaw, S.C., for a while before Hardeeville.
“This is my second trip in the big chief chair, but definitely Warsaw is a fantastic community. I’m stoked to be here. The reputation of the fire department before I got here is fantastic. This is a hardworking community, smart fire department. Growth, but controlled growth, whereas in South Carolina it was explosive, out of control, chaos most days. I like the pace here and I’m a Midwesterner by heart,” he said.
Warsaw Fire’s technical knowledge of technical rescue and hazmat is really unmatched in the area, Mayo stated. “They’re very good at what they do. I want to bring leadership, mentoring, preparation for the future. I definitely see young leaders coming up because we’ve got some people that are retiring very, very soon so the department is getting ready to lose a whole bunch of experience and knowledge walking out the door. Even two of the battalion chiefs are retiring - Mike and Brooks - are retiring this year, so we’re getting ready to lose 40 years in one fell swoop.”
Mayo said he wants to prep the future.
“The knowledge is there, the talent is there,” he said.
Mayo is a retired Army officer and enjoys the leadership aspect of the job, as well as the mentoring.
He served 20 years, three months and three days, retiring in November 2019. He was a medical operations officer, and his last deployment was with the Indiana National Guard in 2018. At one point, he was deployed to the Middle East, homebased out of Kuwait, but he made trips through Iraq and Syria during his deployment.
The CARES (Community Assistance, Resources and Emergency Services) program began in 2020 through the Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory as a city initiative to assist those with mental health needs. Mayo thinks it’s phenomenal.
“It’s unfortunate in this day and age where we have to have that program, but that is nothing new across the nation. Warsaw and Kosciusko County has a little bit of a higher volume for those types of overdose calls, and I think CARES is very needed,” Mayo said. “I understand now it’s a grant-funded program. I hope it becomes more of a permanent fixture in the future. I wish we didn’t have to have it, but we do. I think it’s phenomenal that it’s there and it’s in place.”
Mayo, who turned 50 in February, and his wife found a house right outside of Warsaw, moving into it this past weekend.
“I’m getting to be a grandpa here real soon. My daughter already lives here, so it’s just boom-boom-boom,” he said.
His folks live in Hamilton County, where he went to high school. “I’ve been in this state for a long time,” he said.
Councilman Mike Klondaris made the motion to approve the resolution Monday. It was approved 6-0, with Councilman Jeff Grose absent.
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