It was a special occasion for the City of Milton’s Fire Department during this week’s regular council meeting. Fire Chief John Reble swore in a new firefighter and promoted one of his first responders to lieutenant.
“Just after Christmas one of our senior officers retired, Lt. Randy Hendrix…that created a resulting vacancy within the department and a vacancy in the lieutenant’s position,” Reble said at the meeting.
Reble said Hendrix, who retired in late December, served with the department for 15 years.
Through an interview process, the department opted to hire Stephen Rampersad, a native of Orlando. Reble said Rampersad previously worked as a part-time firefighter for both LevyCounty and the Town of Inglis.
In taking Hendrix position of lieutenant, the department promoted Steve Maddox.
“As a result of a extensive promotional process in which we had four candidates compete and all four qualified for the lieutenant position,” Reble said. “Firefighter John Steven Maddox was the top scoring candidate in the process and so he has been selected and appointed to fill the vacant position left by Lt. Hendrix.”
Reble informed attendees at the meeting on the structure of the fire department. Milton’s FD has a total of 15 firefighters consisting of three shifts of five firefighters on each shift. Each shift is commanded by a captain and the lieutenant is primarily in charge of the engines. Should the assigned captain be unavailable for any reason, the lieutenant would then be in command of the of the three firefighters on a shift.
“Our lieutenants are skilled qualified and tested, so that they are prepared to take the place of an officer in charge at any time,” Reble said. “These are the guys that are going to be running the show when the calls come in.”
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Milton FD swears in new firefighter, fills lieutenant position