In March, the Poway City Council approved new positions in its Safety Services department as part of a leadership restructure to better meet the needs of the city and reflect current industry standards. The new structure included the creation of a deputy fire chief position and the reclassification of three division chief position to battalion chiefs. On May 19 the department celebrated its reorganization by honoring the employees promoted.
“The reorganization will take our organization from good to great,” said Fire Chief Mark Sanchez. “It will improve emergency response, maintain effective program delivery and high level of services; implement succession planning to ensure we attract and retain high quality employees; and enhance regional partnerships for mutual aid and resource sharing.”
Deputy Fire Chief Jon Canavan assumed his new role on April 11. Canavan, who joined the Poway fire department in 2003, was formerly a division chief and played a leadership role in the department’s training, disaster preparedness, fire prevention, operation and administration.
The three new positions of fire battalion chiefs were filled by three of Poway’s fire captains: Scott Post, Brian Mitchell and Ray Fried.
Post was hired by Poway as a firefighter/paramedic in 1992, but started his career in 1986 as a reserve firefighter. He’s been a fire captain since 2007 and has been involved in many projects to advance the delivery of his department’s services in Poway.
Mitchell was hired as a firefighter/paramedic in 2001 and has been a captain since 2008. He was here for both the 2003 Cedar Fires and 2007 Witch Creek Fires, and has worked on a number of strike teams on major wildfires outside the region.
Fried started his career as an EMT in 1997 and essentially joining the “family business.” Both parents and his twin brother have worked in fire service careers. He was hired by Poway in 2001 and promoted to fire captain in 2014.
In addition to these promotions, three engineers were recognized for their promotion to fire captain and four firefighter/paramedics are recognized for their promotion to fire engineer. Four firefighter/paramedics new hires were celebrated as well.