New Columbia Fire Department chief promises to have succession plan, seek buy-in

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

The Columbia Fire Department's new chief, Brian Schaeffer, said Friday that he plans to build the department's relationship with the community and have a succession plan in place before he leaves, as he heads into week four in his new role.

Schaeffer's first day as Columbia Fire Chief was Aug. 19.

"That's been a problem is that we haven't had a good succession plan and for the last couple chiefs, it's been crisis to crisis," Schaeffer said. "My goal is to stay a minimum of five years, and within the five years to build that succession plan."

Schaeffer also said five years is not his limit -- it could be longer, but in a position like his, he feels leadership needs turnover to give others in the department the opportunity to move up.

"You don't spend a lot of time, effort and energy and resources to develop a program and then stand in its way," Schaeffer said. "You have to be able to get out of the way and that's a goal for here, so minimum five [years] and we'll see what happens after that."

Schaeffer says former interim chief Michael Arnhart is helping develop a plan for the future.

"He's going to stay to continue to build that plan for us so that we have a pathway, that's funded and supported by the organization to develop or develop our leaders from inside," said Schaeffer.

Since starting, Schaeffer said he has been working on establishing relationships and will continue to do so over the next couple of weeks.

"The job starts and ends with people, and that has been my focus the first couple of weeks," said Schaeffer. "It's really important for me to be out and meet our customers, meet our partners, like the sheriff's office, our 911 center, a lot of the non-profits in Columbia those partnerships really, reestablish the fire department as a community agency that provides service 24/7."

Schaeffer says when it comes to changes within the department, it's not going to happen overnight. He said he would seek buy-in from city leaders, firefighters and the public ahead of any major changes.

"this is a community's fire department, the community sets the standard," said Schaeffer. "It's important to be involved. It's important to ask questions and we welcome that."

He said he and the department will look at everything through a lens of improvement.

On Friday, 15 firefighter recruits will be graduating from the Fire Training Academy in Columbia and having a plan for them once they are officially members of the department will help get them ready to take over his position when the time comes.

"We need to have a career development plan for them on how that they can make purposeful decisions at at 18 months, that will get them to become the fire chief of our agency," said Schaeffer.

Schaeffer is originally a Missouri native and said he is happy to be closer to home. He came out of retirement to take over as fire chief. He used to come to Columbia twice a year for training at the Fire and Rescue Training Institute.

Schaeffer was the assistant fire chief and fire chief of the Spokane Fire Department starting in 2005. He was one of four candidates up for the Columbia position.

He is Columbia Fire Department's fifth chief in the last decade.