Nodine becomes new PFD leader

PENDLETON — Chris Nodine retired from Anderson Fire Department last year after more than 20 years of employment with that agency.
But retirement in this case has meant only a shift to full-time work in the private sector, with a commitment on top of that to serve in the top spot at a different fire department — the one where he obtained his initial public safety training decades prior.
“I knew I had the chance to be chief at Pendleton (Fire Department) and progress that department, so I had a job offer from Mutualink, so it fit our family’s needs, and I retired,” Nodine, 47, said last week, about two weeks after taking the reins at PFD.
While Nodine is new to the chief position — replacing Jeff Moore, who stepped down effective Dec. 31 — he’s far from new to the department.
Nodine, who lives in Pendleton with wife Kari and son Joshua, 11, grew up in Markleville and attended Pendleton Heights High School, graduating in 1991.
While at Pendleton Heights, he applied to the Pendleton Emergency Ambulance Rookie Program, attending EMT school during the summer between his junior and senior years.
“And then when I was of age, I applied for the fire department, got on the fire department in Pendleton in ’94 and then worked my way up as the assistant chief and now chief.”
He joined AFD in 1999 and served as a paramedic/firefighter for 14 years before moving to the front office where he worked with the agency’s information technology, radios and arson investigation.
Nodine has been on the Pendleton department the whole time. The department is all-volunteer, Nodine said, including the chief position. By working at AFD and now with Mutualink — a Wallingford, Connecticut-based company that sells public safety communications systems — he has been able to continue to serve his hometown in a volunteer capacity.
He said the initial draw to public service came naturally to him.
“My dad was on over at Markleville years ago, on the volunteer fire department, so I grew up watching him respond, and then that’s what I’ve always wanted to be.”
With his decades of experience, he said he’s ready to lead a department and has some ideas for advancing PFD, both short and long term.
Short term, “we want to do the training ground, of course, out at the reformatory. We want to get that squared away,” he said.
That training ground will be built using a series of steel eight-foot-wide conex boxes of various lengths on property owned by Pendleton Correctional Facility, just south of the intersection of West Fall Creek Drive and County Road 800 South.
The plan is to design a “confidence course,” which will let firefighters practice exercises in simulated-smoke-filled rooms, so they can get used to doing their fire and rescue functions with some of their senses — especially sight and smell — impaired.
Another immediate goal is for the department to conduct fire inspections on new buildings.
“Just keep up with the inspections, as far as the commercial construction going on and the residential construction, make sure that everybody that moves into the community gets the best and proper care that we have.”
A long-term goal involves the PFD organization.
Currently, the department staff is comprised of about 30 volunteer firefighters, he said.
“I want to progress the department into the next stages. If it’s a paid department, or whatever … turn it into a career department at some point, let’s put it that way.
“You’re still going to rely on the volunteers because, you know, we can’t do it all at once. To turn it into a paid department, you know, we’re going to have to have a lot of trucks staffed and stuff. That’s going to be down the road.”
While Nodine serves as a volunteer fire chief at PFD for the foreseeable future, his gainful employment also is in the public safety realm.
At Mutualink, he works from home — where he’ll be able to respond to local emergency runs — selling software that improves communications during public safety emergencies.
For instance, “we can take a computer program and I can tie in … any school security cameras, any school radios, any police or fire dispatch radios, and tie them all in, to where everybody can be able to talk in the event of an incident,” Nodine said.
“I’m in the process now of working with Madison County to work with the school systems so, in the event of an incident the school system, the dispatch center can receive the video from the school, talk to the school administrators that have radios, and relay that information to the responding units, in the event of a shooter or any type of incident at the school.”
Nodine said his interest in public safety, at the most basic level, is driven by a simple motivation.
“I like helping others,” he said. “Obviously, when we do help somebody it’s a sense of an internal reward for me knowing that I’m helping somebody in the time of their need.”
He said he never expects gratitude from the people they help, but when someone does express it, it can be a special moment.
“When you get somebody saying, ‘Thank you for what you do,’ it’s rewarding, just like the military. When people say, ‘Thank you for your service,’ it’s rewarding for that person, because they signed up knowing we may go into a burning building or may not come home, and knowing that we’re doing it for the better of the community and the better of the world.”