Next Highland Park fire chief has deep ‘hometown’ roots

Pioneer Press Newspapers (Chicago, IL)

Feb. 23--As a kid growing up in Highwood , Larry Amidei would chase city fire engines around town riding his bicycle.

His interest in firefighting went deeper than childhood curiosity.

"I was always interested in it because my father was a volunteer fireman in Highwood," said Amidei, recalling a time when Highwood was served by an all-volunteer department.

"Back in those days, they didn't have pagers to let the volunteers know there was a call," Amidei recalled. "They blew the whistle so the whole town would find out. The first person in the station would write the address."

On March 2, Amidei, 55, is poised to become fire chief of the Highland Park Fire Department, an agency that now also serves the city of Highwood.

Amidei spent seven years as a "paid on call" and full-time firefighter in Highwood before moving over in 1988 to the department he considers part of his hometown.

"Once I did the 'paid on call' thing, within a few months, I was just nuts about it," said Amidei, who added that he earned about $6 per call but knew he wanted fire and emergency medical service to be his life's work.

Moving up the ranks in Highland Park, he was promoted to battalion chief in 2008 and deputy chief in early 2015. The city of Highland Park named Amidei to the top job following the announcement that Chief Daniel Pease would be leaving to become Assistant Fire Chief with the Beloit Fire Department in Wisconsin.

Pease said he was looking for a position that would pose new challenges after he became eligible for full retirement benefits in Highland Park.

He'll step into his new position March 2, the day he leaves Highland Park.

Pease said that while Beloit is about an hour commute from his Libertyville residence, it's only 20 minutes away from his lake house on Delavan Lake.

The Beloit department is larger both in number of employees and calls for service. It's also a different type of community.

"Whereas Highland Park is a bedroom community, Beloit is more of an industrial and manufacturing city," said Pease.

In naming his replacement, City Manager Ghida Neukirch remarked on the wealth of institutional knowledge, experience and commitment that Amidei brings to the position.

In the immediate area, he serves as chief of the MABAS Division 3 joint fire investigation team, a collaboration of 17 departments. MABAS, which stands for Mutual Aid Box Alarm System, provides emergency rapid response and sustained operations in the event a jurisdiction or area is overwhelmed by a man-made, technological or environmental threat.

Amidei holds the designation of Chief Fire Officer from the Center for Public Safety Excellence, the organization that has accredited the Highland Park Fire Department. Only a dozen fire departments in Illinois hold the distinction, according to the organization's website. Amidei has served as a peer reviewer for the organization, visiting and evaluating departments outside of Illinois.

In the near term, Amidei said the department will be working to improve its fire suppression rating for insurance purposes when it comes up for review this summer. The ISO (Insurance Services Office) ratings affect what homeowners and businesses pay for property insurance. The evaluation looks at the fire department, emergency communications, the water supply and community risk reduction efforts.

"We are now rated a 3 and we want to get to 2," said Amidei, of the notch just below the best possible rating of one.

Another major undertaking, he said, will be planning for the new Ravinia Fire Station.

Reflecting on his 31 years of service, Pease cannot help but recall the high number of traffic fatalities that once occurred where the Edens Expressway ended at Clavey Road before the Illinois Department of Transportation constructed the underpass around 1990.

Motorists traveling at high speeds on the Edens Expressway would not be expecting a stop at the intersection, he said.

"We used to have accidents there every week, and a lot of them fatal," Pease said. "The Highland Park Fire Department was one of the leaders in extrication because of that intersection. Every Friday, Saturday and Sunday we were cutting people out of cars."

Pease views one of the biggest accomplishments of his tenure as the merger with Highwood.

"There were two unions we had to get on board to agree to the situation," Pease said. "That was one hurdle. The other was getting the citizens of Highwood, through a referendum, to agree to have us take over."

He said the merger also required Highland Park to rework its automatic and mutual aid agreements with nearby communities to provide better coverage to Highwood without diminishing service to Highland Park.

Pease said the planning paid off and the transition turned out to be smooth and transparent.

[email protected]

___

Visit Pioneer Press Newspapers (Suburban Chicago, Ill.) at www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.