By Steven Matthews
The Dayton Daily News
RIVERSIDE, Ohio — The city of Riverside has named Mark Carpenter, a 20-plus year veteran, its new fire chief.
Carpenter worked at the Dayton International Airport before joining the city. His last nine years were as fire rescue manager.
Carpenter, 49, will start Aug. 20 and earn a salary of $82,000.
“I’m really excited about the opportunity,” Carpenter said. “It’s going to be a great challenge and a little bit different than what I’m currently doing, as far as there we have homes and residents in the community. Here, we have passengers and commercial buildings. Everyone I’ve met seems to be terrific, all the way from the top down.”
Carpenter joined the Dayton International Airport Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting Division in 1990 as an aircraft rescue firefighter. He served as the training officer before being promoted to fire rescue manager in 2003.
“It was a tough decision because the airport is really on the upswing and has a good staff,” Carpenter said. “There are good men here in the fire department, and I just feel like it’s another good family that I’ll be joining. I’m leaving the nest and getting out on my own. I feel good about it.”
Riverside has been without a fire chief for more than two years following the departure of Dan Alig in April 2010. Robert Turner has been serving as acting fire chief and will return to his previous role of battalion chief.
The city has saved $175,000 during that time span, Riverside City Manager Bryan Chodkowski said. The city was planning to hire a new fire chief by the end of 2010, but then “our financial forecast was a little bleaker than we had anticipated,” Chodkowski said. Riverside started the process back up in January and wanted to make a hire earlier this year.
Thirty-three applicants were evaluated, but when a match could not be made, the city reached out to five individuals it thought potentially could be a good fit. Carpenter was referred to the city by Alig, who is the Butler Twp. fire chief.
“Mark has a very good reputation amongst his peers in developing staff and having a good relationship with the folks at the airport,” Chodkowski said. “As they say, things work out for a reason. We were able to make an offer that Mark liked and was appealing to him, and we’re looking forward to him coming on board and getting started.”
Carpenter has a bachelor’s degree from Bowling Green State University. He lives in Dayton with his wife Lisa, and they have three sons: Jordan, 22; Jon, 21; and Mark, 18.
Copyright 2012 Dayton Newspapers, Inc.