New fire chief for Cambria to come from within

Cambria Fire Department’s next fire chief almost surely will be someone who already works for the department.

After months of uncertainty and community concern about which agency would manage Cambria Fire, the field of candidates for fire chief has essentially been narrowed down to three, all of whom work as captains for the local department.

That announcement came from Jerry Gruber, general manager of the Cambria Community Services District, during the board of directors’ meeting Feb. 18.

The next day, Gruber emailed captains William Hollingsworth, Johnathan Gibson and Emily Torlano, to tell them of his decision to recruit from within the department.

Gruber wrote, “I wanted to let you know with the help and guidance of the Fire Ad-Hoc Committee and numerous people throughout the community that I admire and respect deeply, I have decided that conducting an internal recruitment for the fire chief is the right thing to do.”

Mike Thompson, CSD board vice president and member of the ad hoc committee, said “I totally support going in house,” and that under Cal Fire’s interim management, “the department has matured to the point where it’s time to pick a chief that has come up through the ranks.”

Board President Gail Robinette echoed that “this seems to be the right thing to do.”

Gruber’s announcement arrived hot on the heels of the CSD board’s Feb. 12 decision to keep Cambria Fire a local department managed by the district, rather than having it operate as an arm of Cal Fire.

The candidates

This week, Hollingsworth and Gibson have been in Bakersfield, working toward the completion of their Level 2 fire chief/state fire marshal certification classes.

▪ Hollingsworth, who turns 45 on March 9, has a long history of local emergency services. He began as a medic for the Cambria Community Healthcare District in January 1993, and has spent 24 years as a firefighter, all of them with Cambria Fire.

He and wife Jandee have five children, including three that the family is fostering and that the couple hope to adopt. Hollingsworth was raised in Cambria. His late father, David Hollingsworth, was the pastor of First Baptist Church of Cambria for many years.

▪ Torlano, 41, was a healthcare district medic before joining Cambria Fire as a reservist in 2000. The avid athlete (hiker, mountain climber and marathon runner) is divorced and has two young sons. She has her bachelor’s degree in fire administration, and is working on her master’s degree.

She went full time with the department in 2005, and was promoted to fire captain in October, to fill out the management ranks after Capt. Steve Bitto retired after 27 years with the department and 33 as a firefighter.

▪ Gibson, 37, became a Cambria fire captain in 2011. He comes from a powerhouse Templeton firefighting family (including his mom and sister). In 2004, he and younger brothers Joseph and Joshua Gibson all joined Cambria Fire’s roster of reservists within an 11-month period. Joseph Gibson is a full time Cambria Fire engineer; Joshua Gibson works for the state fire marshal’s office. He’s getting married in April to Shannon Holland.

The department also is about to hire some reserve recruits, perhaps as many as eight, and recently conducted oral boards for those positions.

Cambria Fire also expects to hire three full-time firefighters soon, at least for the two years in which a government grant will pay their wages under SAFER funding (Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response). Having those firefighters on staff will bring the department to the recommended level of having four firefighters on duty at all times.

Battalion Chief Eric Shalhoob of Cal Fire (who has been managing Cambria Fire in the interim until the new chief can be selected) said Feb. 12 that he expects those full-time posts to be filled by current reservists.

It’s also expected there could be some backfilling from the ranks to fill any vacancies created after one of the three captains is promoted to chief, assuming that happens as anticipated.

This story was originally published February 24, 2016 at 10:49 AM with the headline "New fire chief for Cambria to come from within."