Brooklyn Park's new fire chief must be an ace in the office and in the field

Brooklyn Park's new fire chief, Ken Prillaman, is just as comfortable with a calculator as he is with a fire hose.

So his new job -- managing more than 70 staff members and an annual budget of $2.2 million in the state's sixth-largest city -- is a perfect fit.

Prillaman, who is replacing former Fire Chief Steve Schmidt, worked at the Paxtonia Fire Co. in Lower Paxton Township, Pa., for 10 years. He has also worked for several financial services businesses over the past two decades.

Before he started his job on Monday, he sat down to answer some questions about how he landed the position and what he hopes to do with the department.

Q How did you become interested in the [Brooklyn Park fire chief] job?

A Sometime last fall, after spending 24 years in the financial services business, I decided that really wasn't where my heart was. My whole life I have wanted to be a full-time firefighter.

I have about 10 years in the fire service, having served as an assistant chief for two of those. But I have over 20 years of executive management, and running a fire department today is running a business. We have personnel issues. We have budget issues. We have capital expenditure plans, strategic plans, and so I presented myself as a candidate who could do both, who was successful at running a business but who understood the fire service.

A As assistant chief, they were primarily operations. ... In Pennsylvania, the fire companies are nonprofit organizations. ... There was a business side of the firehouse and an operations, or firefighting, side. Two of the years I was a lieutenant on the fire side and president on the business side.

Q What did you learn from that experience and how did it help you prepare for what you're going to be doing now?

A My work experience prepared me for that. I have worked for and managed some pretty large companies. The largest one had almost 4,000 full- and part-time employees, and I had an annual budget in excess of $90 million that I was responsible for.

I have a lot of executive management experience that I think helped me in the firehouse. (At the Paxtonia Fire Co.) I was involved in rewriting standard operating guidelines. I led an initiative that rewrote the entire company bylaws. It's the combination of all of that that allows me to be prepared for this job.

Q Why are those skills so important for a fire department?

The dynamics of the city continue to change. If you look at the demographics of Brooklyn Park, the over-age-65 population in the next 20 years will be 500 percent of what it is today ... Today about half of our calls are medically related. We have to do our best to anticipate as the population ages, does that number get dramatically higher and, if so, how do we meet those needs?

Serving as a liaison between the department and the city leadership is the chief's job. Setting the tone for the organization in terms of its moral character and the way it's going to execute its duties, that's the chief's job. I'm looking forward to actually spending time on a fire, but a majority of my time will be administrative duties.

Q The fire department switched to a duty crew (a schedule where firefighters take turns working shifts at the firehouse) last year; what are your thoughts on that?

A I like what it has done to response time. I think it has significantly enhanced the level of service that the citizens of Brooklyn Park receive from this fire department. I think it has enhanced the professionalism of this department.

It gives the firefighters and fire ground officers an opportunity to interact more with the public and be more available.

A Recruiting and retaining is probably the biggest issue facing a volunteer fire department.

In addition, I feel strongly that this fire department needs to represent the community that it's serving and I don't think we are there yet.

I think there is an opportunity to reach into some of the pockets of our citizens to the diverse nature of our community and be a better representation of that community. ...

Ultimately we have to find a way to get to younger people. The future firefighter is someone that we're going to need to start recruiting at an earlier age.