By Karl Ritzler 
Atlanta Journal-Constitution

ATLANTA — When Rosemary R. Cloud walked into her first day at the Atlanta Department of Fire Rescue's training center as a new recruit in 1980, she was wearing a pantsuit and high heels.

As her fellow recruits began their hands-on training in the dirty and dangerous business of fighting fires, her first question was, "Where do I put my purse?"

It wasn't a question that had been asked before. Cloud was one of the first women as well as one of the first blacks to join the fire department after it agreed to hire more African-American applicants as part of a settlement of a federal lawsuit.

Years later, the story of her first day became part of the good-natured ribbing that's part of firehouse camaraderie, she said.

Cloud had fit in — and she began her ascent through the ranks, rising to assistant chief in the Atlanta department before she was hired six years ago as the fire chief in East Point. She is believed to be the first African-American woman to be a fire chief in the United States.

Cloud, 54, has been a firefighter and administrator for 28 years, but she never planned on it as a career.

In the 1970s, while she was a paralegal for Atlanta Legal Aid Society downtown, she watched Loew's Grand Theater burn and said of the firefighters, "That's great that they're out there helping people."

Two years later, after the settlement of the lawsuit, she joined the fire department.

"They say I'm a pioneer," she said. "I guess that explains why I have so many knots on my head. But nobody gets where they are on their own. I stood on many, many shoulders to make this possible."

Not only was she among the first significant groups of African-Americans in the department, she was one of the few women.

When she began her firefighter training, Cloud said, she felt as if African-Americans and women were not introduced in a way that made the transition smooth.

Like gardening, she said, "You have to treat the soil first."

Now, as a fire chief, she endeavors to prepare the environment for new people and ideas. "A fire chief can make vision and ideas happen," she noted.

She has set up classes with her current staff to provide diversity, gender and generational training.

She believes in stating clearly what is and is not sexual harassment or improper behavior, as well as what is negotiable and what is not.

"It's OK to talk about differences without offending others," she said.

Cloud also believes in training for leadership roles.

A key is "buddy to boss" training for those promoted to a supervisory position over former peers.

While that firehouse camaraderie can be good for morale, Cloud noted, "As a lieutenant, I couldn't initiate it, but I could laugh. As a captain, I couldn't even laugh."

She also trains firefighters how to avoid negative outlooks and deal with peer pressure, something she experienced early in her career.

"Troublemakers can be fun," she said. But once when she went along with a prank, she soon realized the damage it could cause. "I won't do that again," she said.

Cloud's advance through the ranks was not always easy, she said. For example, when she first took the test to be a fire truck driver, "I bombed it out really badly. It looked like anyone could do it."

She spent most of her time in the Atlanta department assigned to the unit at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. "It wasn't the best assignment," she said. "No action."

But it was a successful career path, she discovered.

"It prepared me to be an excellent leader," Cloud said. She followed the example of her mentor, former Atlanta Fire Chief Winston Minor, who also had headed the airport unit. She was placed in charge of that unit while Minor was chief, making her the highest-ranking woman in the department.

"I was trying to help my superiors do their work, and get a clear understanding of their jobs," she said. "I was trying to take the same steps they took."

Cloud said her legacy will be in molding her successor, "building someone to sit in this chair when I walk out the door."

It was Minor who encouraged her to apply for fire chief positions elsewhere. "I feared he was trying to get rid of me," she said. "Instead, he was pushing me out of the nest."

She reflected, "In the first years of my career, I worried about the wrong things. I wasted my time on things I couldn't change. Now, I focus on what I can do."

One is helping her firefighters advance. "I talk about the promotion process, how to get promoted," she said. "I make myself available as a mentor. . . . I learned as a lieutenant that no one can block me. I want to help others on the way."

Copyright 2008 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution