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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\u201cFrom our stations to our trucks to the culture to the people power or our crews. When I was first here, we were a lot smaller of an organization,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Smith, who grew up in Michigan, said Polk County Fire Rescue was the first department to interview him and offer him a job nearly 22 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He accepted the job and never left, climbing the ranks from firefighter\/EMT, lieutenant (which are now called captain), battalion chief, deputy chief, assistant chief and, as of this month, fire chief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019ve walked in everybody\u2019s shoes. So I have that relatability,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s been a little while since I\u2019ve worked in that firefighter role but it was something I was good at and I think I could probably take over that hose right now and still do really well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Smith was named interim chief after former Chief Hezedean Smith resigned in protest in September after a report alleged he oversaw a toxic work environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chief Smith said Polk County Fire Rescue demands a lot from leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt comes with a tremendous workload. We\u2019re not built like a big metro organization that has a lot of money,\u201d said Chief Smith, referring to other departments that have more staff on the administrative level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On March 4, county commissioners voted unanimously to appoint Chief Shawn Smith as fire chief \u2013 the first chief in recent years to be hired from within the department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt was never a career ambition. I\u2019m a blue collar individual. I like to work. I like to work hard. I like to be good at what I do. I came in and I started promoting through the ranks,\u201d said Chief Smith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Looking ahead, Chief Smith said he is excited about the department\u2019s first training center, which broke ground this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat\u2019s going to be a $15 million project so we\u2019re excited about that. It\u2019s going to be state of the art. It\u2019s going to be fantastic,\u201d said Chief Smith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another priority for Chief Smith is addressing employee retention and mandatory overtime, which forces members to work an extra 24 hours beyond their regular 24-hour shift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA lot of them love working. They\u2019ll give you 24 hours and they\u2019ll give you 100% but chief, we don\u2019t want to work, I don\u2019t want to work another shift unless I want to or unless my family wants me to,\u201d said Chief Smith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In February, county commissioners approved the addition of 75 new positions, with the explicit goal of eliminating the need for mandatory overtime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a burden on my heart and it\u2019s a burden on anybody that cares for people. It\u2019s been a part of our organization for a while. Are we trying to fix it? We\u2019re trying to fix it. We\u2019re trying to do everything we can,\u201d said Chief Smith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jon Hall, president of IAFF 3531, which represents Polk County Fire Rescue members, told News Channel 8 the union is \u201cincredibly excited\u201d about Smith\u2019s appointment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHis years of dedicated service and passion for those he serves are amazing. We know Chief Smith will continue to act with professionalism and respect. We look forward to the years ahead, when we will continue to work together to make our department a destination for new firefighters for years to come,\u201d stated Hall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chief Smith said his administration needs to gain the trust of his members back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe need to identify who we work for. We work for the members of this department that serve the community,\u201d said Chief Smith.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cTo be honest with you, I didn\u2019t like the way things were going,\u201d said newly-appointed Polk County Fire Rescue Chief Shawn Smith. Chief Smith, 51, has seen the department change… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"14","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNVwvMDNcL2ltYWdlcy0xLTEud2VicD9maXQ9MzEwJTJDMTYzJnNzbD0xIiwidHh0IjoiXHUyMDE4SVx1MjAxOXZlIHdhbGtlZCBpbiBldmVyeWJvZHlcdTIwMTlzIHNob2VzXHUyMDE5OiBOZXcgUG9sayBDb3VudHkgRmlyZSBDaGllZiBvbiBoaXMgdmlzaW9uIGZvciBmdXR1cmUiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImhpZ2h3YXkiLCJibG9nX2lkIjoxNjMwNDA2NjF9.pd25NZUKUsrI3FWYiOQNxC2A3Vv8ZN7NHZIo340pidMMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":54560,"url":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/images-1-1.webp","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[11109],"class_list":["post-54559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-ive-walked-in-everybodys-shoes-new-polk-county-fire-chief-on-his-vision-for-future"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54559"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54561,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54559\/revisions\/54561"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}