New Fire Chief Patrick Kenny Returns to Western Springs

As 50-year fire-service veteran and Village Fire Chief Anthony Bednarz prepares for his , incoming chief Patrick Kenny has entered (actually, re-entered) the Department for a one-month transitional period.

From 2008 to 2010, Kenny served as deputy chief of the , then left for a two-year stint as executive director of the Illinois Fire Chiefs Association. He had intended to retire from chiefdom for good, but changed his mind when sought out as a potential replacement for Bednarz.

“Western Springs was a unique opportunity because having been here I enjoyed the people, I enjoyed the community, and it’s probably the only place where I would have gone back to being a fire chief,” Kenny said.

Kenny started out as a teacher at Quigley South in Chicago, but found he preferred coaching baseball to teaching class. His brother-in-law, a firefighter, encouraged him to change careers; he did, overcoming slight disability from a childhood car accident.

He began in the Tri-State district, then moved to the Hinsdale department, where he would rise through the ranks and become the permanent fire chief in 1994, a position he held for over 14 years before coming to Western Springs.

In three weeks, on January 1 (a date specifically chosen for its symbolism to change for Kenny) of 2012, he will become the official Village Fire Chief (or “Director of Fire and Emergency Services”). We sat down with Kenny to chat about his career and his vision for Western Springs’ emergency services:

You’re worn a lot of different hats over the course of your career. What have you gotten out of each of them?

“In each step, you learn specifically what people in that area are responsible for, so you get a feel for what are the pros and cons, what are their challenges. Then you move up and you get to the next grade and it’s the same thing, what’s the challenge those people are facing… If you’re not aware of what they’re up against, it’s difficult to lead, because you could think you’re going in the right direction and be totally off-base.”

What’s it like for you to come back, two years after being gone from the department and coming back in a new capacity? Are there a lot of guys here you still know?

“Oh yeah, I would say probably 95 percent of the department is very familiar, along with the village as well, which is nice. A lot of time when a new person comes in there’s the awkward period of getting to know people, and I don’t have any of that, I’m very lucky. In some ways it feels like I never left, and that will be a huge advantage for me.”

What do you love about Western Springs, about working here?

“It’s an amazing collection of people. The interesting part is, when you look at our organization, everybody here is a professional in some other capacity… So if you have a question about budgeting, we probably have four or five people who deal with budgets on a regular basis; if you have a question about media or IT or whatever it is, you have somebody… And having citizens who are willing to get up at 2:00 in the morning and respond and help their fellow citizens—a lot of public safety talks about ‘we’re there to provide for others.’ These people here live that… It’s very much old family values, and I’m kind of an old-school kind of guy, so that really appeals.”

How’s it going to be different coming back with the new south fire station; how has that changed the way fire protection is currently working in Western Springs?

“There’s no question that building the south fire station was a priority in terms of being able to provide better service for the entire village, that you didn’t have members on the department who were driving from the south side of town, getting caught with train delays, just to get to the north side to a piece of equipment and then respond south. But any time you add another station, there are challenges inherently—how do you respond more effectively, who gets detailed to that station, anything from maintenance to emergency response, it’s something new… There are always some growing pains when you do it, but it’s a wonderful opportunity.”

Would you say that’s the biggest challenge facing the Department right now?

“I think the biggest challenge for the department is to continue to feed the organization from the bottom, so you bring new blood, new people in, so that when people move on, either because they retire or their job transfers them out of town or whatever, that you have a core of people that continues to move up in the department… The south station, those are day-to-day operational bits that we will be able to work out real easily. I think the bigger issue is looking at the Department as a whole and saying, how do you make it a little bit stronger.”

Are there things that are unique about Western Springs as a fire protection area?

“The unique thing about this particular community, and when you have a combination department, is providing that service is an effective and consistent manner, 24/7, 365 days a year. Because the vast majority who are here have other lives. They have families; they have kids who have soccer games, and so making sure that you put all those pieces of the puzzle together, so you’re strong from morning until night, is what is unique about managing this particular department… In many communities, the people you respond to, you don’t know them, where here, almost anybody we have on a call is going to know the person they’re providing aid to, and that, I think, makes it incredibly unique.

You’re currently in a month-long transitional period with Chief Bednarz. How’s that been?

“Real good, real good. I think it’s a great advantage for me, because I can stand back and watch and learn and listen and not have to be making the decisions at this point, and a lot of times you don’t have that period, you kind of come in cold. I mean, he [Bednarz] spent 50 years in the fire service, and 35 of those as chief of a combination department—so learning from him about the challenges—I may not see something in the same way as he does from a combination perspective and it really helps me to go, ‘wow, I didn’t look at it that way…’ And I think the world of him.”

Any sort of message you want to get out to the people of Western Springs, as you come here again?

“One, I think I’m incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to work with the residents here, there’s no question… The second thing, and I think they know this already, is that they’re incredibly fortunate to have dedicated people—their own fellow neighbors—who give their time and their energy to provide that emergency service that—you asked about unique, that’s incredibly unique.”

What’s going to be your mission going forward? Anything in particular you’re going to want to tackle?

"What I’d like to do is—there’s some issues not just in Western Springs, this is across the fire services—we end up sometimes so busy that it’s the development of future leadership, having a succession plan, mentoring—that kind of gets lost because we’ve got to get this done, we’ve got to get this done, we’ve to get this done. If you don’t make a conscious effort to help people develop as leaders, then that gap is there but you don’t recognize that gap is there until leadership leaves, and it’s like ‘uh-oh, we didn’t prepare…’ I’m hoping to provide some formal leadership training and hopefully do some role-modeling too… so as the Department goes on in the future, way beyond after I’m not here, that that challenge will always be in front of them and that they will continue to pass that institutional knowledge on. It just makes the Department stronger.”

Do you see anything right now, as you’re coming back to the Department, that could be improved?

“No, I think just that building that south fire station made a huge difference. I’m really comfortable with where they’re at, where they’re going at this point in terms of the services that they provide; I think they do an outstanding job on that.”

Anything final to share?

“I’m absolutely looking forward to being the leader of the Department… The community has been outstanding in their support of the Department, and [I] ask them to continue to look upon us that way, and if there are any questions or concerns they have, we have an open door policy as a Department. We’re here for the residents."