Sunday, November 25, 2012
Asst. chief to head committee to recruit minorities, women
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Neil Heller, assistant Warren fire chief, says he’s “living proof” that minorities can and will be hired to future jobs with the Warren Fire Department despite the perception they won’t.
“There is a lot of living proof,” Heller said of the four black firefighters in the department now.
“For some reason, African Americans think they won’t get hired,” Heller said. “We need to educate [minorities and women] that it’s a good job, a good career and you can, indeed, become a firefighter,” Heller said.
Heller was recently appointed by the Warren Civil Service Commission to head up a committee whose task will be to recruit minorities and women to get the training needed and take the civil-service test for entry-level firefighter.
The goal is to have interested and qualified candidates available for future jobs, like the ones that became available when the city received a federal grant in 2010 that paid for the hiring of about 15 new firefighters.
The city is still waiting to hear whether the city’s application for an additional Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will be approved.
The city’s current SAFER grant is set to expire Monday.
Heller said he worked diligently in the 1990s to recruit blacks to the fire department. He went to churches and schools to talk about the profession, but it didn’t produce the results he hoped.
Ed Dowell was the last black person hired in the Warren Fire Department on March 26, 1992.
But in the years since 1992, it has become clear that at least two other minority groups need to be recruited — women and Warren residents.
The fact that Warren has around 70 firefighters and not one of them is female is hard for most fire departments around the state to understand, Heller said.
The Rev. Frank Hearns, one of the three members of the civil service commission, has made the hiring of women at the department a high priority, Heller said.
Hearns suggested that the recruitment committee consist of representatives from the fire department, civil service commission, city council, city administration and the community. Heller is looking for direction from the city administration and trying to fill the positions on the committee.
Unfortunately, the tougher requirement placed on those hired with the SAFER grant in 2011 — paramedic training — never resulted in the establishment of a paramedic service in the Warren Fire Department, Heller noted.
It probably did, however, make it more difficult to recruit minorities and women, he said.
In addition to minorities and women being under-represented at the Warren Fire Department, the city also found when it hired firefighters for the SAFER grant that no Warren residents tested for the job, creating another minority group.
One man from Warren and one from Cortland did pass the entry-level firefighter test given this year, but the department decided to hold off on hiring additional firefighters until it finds out whether it’s been approved for another SAFER grant.
The 15 men who started work for the Warren Fire Deparment in April 2011 with funding from the current SAFER grant were from Wooster, Akron, Uniontown, Medina, Massillon, Northfield Center, Willoughby, Mentor, Geneva, Mogadore, Poland, Mantua and Garrettsville. There were no minorities.
It’s better to have firefighters who live close by for those times when firefighters are called for big emergencies on their day off, Heller said.