THE JOURNAL & TOPICS NEWSPAPERS | WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 13, 2008
Fire Chief Dubowski Retiring
By CRAIG ADAMS
Journal Reporter
Park Ridge Fire Chief Ed Dubowski announced his pending retirement from the department with a scheduled last day of Tuesday, Sept. 2 and reflected on 30 years of changes.
"I've seen phenomenal changes," he said. "One of the most obvious ones, when I first started here, we rode on the backs of the fire engines." In 1978, when Dubowski joined the force, there were no computers used. "We didn't even have dumb terminals hooked to a mainframe," he said. "There were no pagers, there were no cell phones. Now, everything is done electronically." Dubowski made his career choice early. "I had met a Chicago firefighter, he was the father of my then-fiancée," he said. Park Ridge was testing at the time and Dubowski passed the test and earned a firefighter/paramedic spot. His work in Park Ridge was his only fire department job. "I used to work in an ice cream factory; I did that while I was going to college. When I got on the job here, it was one year after I graduated from college."
Dubowski moved up to lieutenant, deputy chief of administration, deputy chief of operations, deputy chief, and finally took the helm as chief on May 4, 1998.
"As chief, I'm in charge of the fire department," he said. "I'm responsible for the budget management, personnel, policy, procedures; all phases of the operation of the fire department."
He has had many successes during his time leading the force and spoke of three of them. The city achieved International Accredited Agency status in 2001, the seventh municipality in the state to do so. It was reaccredited in 2006. "Communities undergo a voluntary examination process," he explained. The process looks at every different type of response needed for every different type of threat. "If you're by an airport, are you prepared for an airplane crash?" he asked. The accreditation of the city means it "realizes exactly what your needs are and makes sure you have resources in place to meet those needs."
He is also proud of an ISO reassessment that lowered the public protection classification to three. "It's a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being the best and 10 being the worst." He called Park Ridge a "very safe community" due to public outreach and public education.
Finally, Park Ridge became the sixth town in the metropolitan area to require sprinkler systems in all new construction. "Those are the main three," he said.
Although leaving his post, he is not going to be idle.
"I have to get busy and figure out what I'm going to do," he said. He added he already has a couple of offers from the private sector.
He knows that current Dep. Chief Craig Gjelsten will be named acting chief when he steps down, but does not know if he will get the nod as his replacement.
"That's up to the city manager," he explained. He added that the department has always hired from within and he hopes his work with Gjelsten was sufficient. "My personal philosophy is: I wouldn't be doing my job if I hadn't groomed somebody to take my place." He also took a pragmatic approach to conjecture about his replacement after he's gone. "I don't mean anything cynical," he said, regarding his thoughts, "I can offer my opinion, I can make recommendations, but that will occur at a place I used to work at."
Dubowski is chief fire officer designee with the Commission on Professional Credentialing since 2002. He is an officer with the Illinois Office of the State Fire Marshall and an Advanced Emergency Medical technician-paramedic since 1979. While chief, the department secured grants totaling more than $500,000. Dubowski earned many local awards including Community Star from Maine Center in 2007, Humanitarian Service Award from Mutual Aid Box Alarm System in 2006, and an Excellence from the city of Park Ridge in 2005. He is a member of the Maine Community Youth Assistance Foundation and the Park Ridge Community Disaster Planning Committee, advisor to Fire Explorer Post 3536, a former Little League and soccer coach, a health office volunteer and trustee of the LiPoni Foundation.