After Indiana, North Las Vegas a new world for fire chief
New North Las Vegas Fire Chief Joseph Calhoun has been intrigued by the fire-emergency field since visiting a fire station as a child just outside Gary, Indiana.
Two older brothers served as volunteer firefighters later, but Calhoun wanted to be more involved than that.
“I wasn’t necessarily against volunteering; I just wanted to make it my life,” he said. “I loved the lifestyle. I loved what firefighters did by helping the community, and it was something that I always felt like I wanted to do.”
He worked as an EMT for a private company for a few years, then joined the city of Portage’s fire department in 1996 as a firefighter paramedic. Portage is 40 miles southeast of Chicago, on the south shore of Lake Michigan, and had about 36,000 residents as of 2016. North Las Vegas has nearly 240,000.
Calhoun, 43, spent nearly 19 years with the Portage Fire Department, moving up the ranks as an engineer, a lieutenant, a division chief in charge of training and an assistant chief in charge of emergency medical services and fire operations. He then served as the city’s administrator for three years after the mayor asked him for assistance, he said.
He missed working for the fire department and began looking for jobs nationally; that led to his job in North Las Vegas. He was sworn in Aug. 16.
North Las Vegas Assistant Fire Chief Travis Anderson, who was the acting chief for about three months, said he’s relieved the department has a permanent leader after former Chief Jeff Lytle retired in October 2016.
“We’ve been pretty short-staffed as it was, so it was definitely a hard hit to lose another person at the time, but a lot of people stepped up,” he said. “Now, I can now get back to the projects that I was working on. It’s very nice to have him here. He’s doing a fantastic job.”
Calhoun said that although he’s excited about the new job, he is going to miss his hometown; Indiana was the only place he’d ever lived. He now lives in North Las Vegas, but his wife and 15-year-old daughter will stay in Indiana until she finishes her freshman year in high school, he said. His eldest daughter is 18 and attends Purdue University in Indiana.
Mike Bucy, the fire chief for Stevens County Fire Protection District 1 in Clayton, Washington, worked with Calhoun for more than 10 years in Portage. He said he thinks Calhoun will bring a different perspective, one that will benefit North Las Vegas.
“In northwest Indiana, our culture was to hire from within,” Bucy said. “I don’t think they understood hiring from outside. In fire departments out West, it’s a little more popular.”
Calhoun’s varied background in medical, fire and city administration will be valuable, Bucy said.
Mark Oprisko, a Portage city councilman of 26 years, called Calhoun an excellent team builder and a good listener.
“I think the city is going to do excellent under his guidance,” he said.
Calhoun said he plans to connect with neighborhood groups, church organizations, businesspeople and other city departments.
“This is their department,” he said. “I just have the pleasure and honor of coming here to lead it.”
Contact Kailyn Brown at kbrown@viewnews.com or 702-387-5233. Follow @kailynhype on Twitter.
