Submitted by: Deputy Chief B. Sutton
Gordon County Fire-Rescue recently held a promotion ceremony at Headquarters to officially promote seven to the rank of Sergeant and one to the rank of Lieutenant, a position vacated by an employee who left the department to pursue other avenues. These promotions help to complete the supervisory capabilities of the department, as lieutenants serve as the company officer and the sergeants serve as a qualified apparatus driver/operator. The sergeant also fills in the role of the lieutenant as the acting company officer when the lieutenant is on leave.
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The seven sergeants recently completed the apparatus operator course and passed a departmental qualification assessment consisting of an oral interview, written exam, cone course with open road driving, and a fire pumping scenario. The lieutenant candidates were subjected to a written exam, oral interview, personnel issue, and commanding a fire incident scenario.
Those promoted to sergeant are Adam Diskey, Josh Cochran, Jonathan Pressley, Ron Ely, Zach Crow, Andrew Cornwell, and Jeff Sorrells. Promoted to Lieutenant is Heath Duke.
On behalf of the candidates and the department, we’d like to extend a gracious thank you to the following Gordon County Commissioners, who took time away from their regular jobs to attend our ceremony, Chairwoman Becky Hood, Commissioners Kevin Cunningham, Jeff Gazaway, and Vice-Chairman Chad Steward.
Chief Hawkins presents Lieutenant Duke with his lieutenant helmet
Also, a thank you to all the fire officers from surrounding fire departments who came in on both occasions to assist us by serving as evaluators for our testing process, and at no cost to the department. This process always works well in the fact that we have experienced, unbiased fire officers to test these candidates, making the process as fair as possible. In the fire service we scratch each others backs. Just as we called on others, other departments will call on us when they have a promotional process and we will send officers to evaluation their candidates, so we are always paying it forward.
