Goodyear, Ariz., firefighters union president Stephen Gillman has a message for Topeka’s city government as it prepares to borrow Goodyear’s assistant fire chief, Tim Wayne.
“Don’t keep him,” Gillman said Friday. “We want him back.”
Gillman, a captain with the Goodyear Fire Department, and Goodyear Fire Chief Paul Luizzi spoke positively this past week of Wayne, who on Tuesday begins a scheduled six-month stint as Topeka’s interim fire chief.
Wayne enters a potentially difficult situation at a time when some council members have questioned city manager Jim Colson’s decision to arrange for him to temporarily run the Topeka department, where firefighters have historically been reluctant to accept being led by an outsider.
But Wayne works well under pressure, Luizzi said.
He said Wayne adapted quickly last year after taking the Goodyear deputy chief’s job, earning respect for his calm demeanor, intuition, ability to read people and knack for swiftly working through complex problems.
Wayne came to the Goodyear department after working for the department at nearby Glendale, Ariz. Both cities are in the Phoenix area.
A 2009 article in the Glendale Star said Wayne grew up living with his mother and siblings in a Florida mobile home park. They moved to Arizona his senior year in high school.
The article said Wayne then joined the Air Force, where he was a firefighter. Wayne later attended Glendale Community College and in 1999 joined the fire department at Glendale, which Census Bureau records estimate has a population of 237,517.
The Star said Wayne in 2003 wrote an emergency response plan focusing on special event management and coordination for what is now Glendale’s Gila River Arena, home of the National Hockey League’s Arizona Coyotes. The city then named him Firefighter of the Year for 2003.
Meanwhile, Wayne earned a bachelor’s degree in fire service management in 2003 from Ottawa University in Franklin County and a master’s degree in educational leadership in 2009 from Northern Arizona University.
Wayne’s resume shows he was promoted to battalion chief at the Glendale department in November 2011. Glendale’s employees then included deputy city manager Colson, who became Topeka’s city manager in August 2012. Colson said he has known Wayne since Colson’s time in Glendale.
Wayne in April 2014 took on additional duties as Glendale’s emergency manager, his resume says, adding that he “Exercised all aspects of the Emergency Management Program as a result of Super Bowl 49.”
Super Bowl 49 was held in Glendale in February 2015.
Wayne took office in April 2015 as one of two assistant fire chiefs at Goodyear.
Luizzi is chief of the fire department at Goodyear, where the Census Bureau indicates the population has risen from about 18,000 in 1999 to an estimated 75,664 in 2014.
Goodyear firefighters union president Gillman said Wayne has worked very well with the firefighters’ union there.
He said that though Wayne isn’t always willing to pay as much to acquire equipment as firefighters would like to see the city pay, “He understands the importance of making sure there’s ‘buy-in’ from guys on the line.”
Last January, Luizzi said, Wayne approached him to discuss the offer Wayne had received to spend six months as Topeka’s interim fire chief.
“I thought it was really a good opportunity for him,” Luizzi said.
Luizzi recalled how he personally had spent about 14 months in 2011 and 2012 on loan from the Goodyear fire department to a position as Goodyear deputy city manager, where he gained a broader view of the city government while learning more about each department and gaining a better understanding of how to work with elected officials.
Luizzi said he thought Wayne could likewise benefit from being temporarily loaned out.
Colson said the temporary addition of Wayne beginning Tuesday would bring in a “new set of eyes” to look at the Topeka Fire Department’s operations. Fire Chief Greg Bailey will then step into an advisory role until his planned June 20 retirement while continuing to earn his current annual salary of $110,972.51.
The move will require the city of Topeka to pay installments totaling about $13,600 each month to reimburse the city of Goodyear for Wayne’s salary and benefits and to cover the cost of someone filling his position there. The contract also calls for the city of Topeka to provide Wayne a vehicle and a monthly $850 housing allowance.
Colson said Topeka’s city government plans within the next three months to begin looking for someone to hold the fire chief’s job on a long-term basis, and he anticipated the city could find one or more viable candidates for that position from among those currently at the Topeka department.
The city of Topeka indicated in a statement this past week on its Facebook page that the Topeka Fire Department hopes to put to use Wayne’s expertise in advanced life support and community medicine – areas into which Topeka hopes to transition.
Luizzi said the Goodyear department offers advanced life support, which provides “essentially an emergency room in the field.”
The department ensures a significant number of its firefighters are paramedics – who must undergo about 2,000 weeks of training – instead of just emergency medical technicians, who must undergo about 600, he said.
Luizzi added that the Goodyear department is in the process of putting in place a “community medicine” program, through which firefighters will work proactively to visit, interact with and assess patients who are back home after having recently spent time in hospitals.
