Lone Peak Fire District Selects a New Chief

The fire district board tonight approved a contract with Reed Thompson to be the new fire chief. Mr. Thompson was the unanimous pick of the board plus the fire chiefs of Lehi, American Fork, and Pleasant Grove, who were part of the selection committee. The local chiefs all said that we be hard pressed to find a better candidate no matter how long we looked.

Mr. Thompson comes to us from the S. Jordan fire department where he currently serves the deputy fire chief. He has an Master's of Public Administration from BYU, serves as the chair of the Utah State Urban Search & Rescue Advisory Board (SUSAR), and the vice president of the National State Urban Search and Rescue Executive Board, and He has over 20 years of fire department experience. He will start on or before December 29th.

For those who had or have concerns about the process used to hire Mr. Thompson, we started with national search and received 16 applications from across the nation. As soon as Mr. Thompson submitted an application, his father, Mayor Mark Thompson, resigned from the fire district board. A selection committee comprised of the city administrators from Alpine, Cedar Hills, and Highland, plus board chief Sheldon Wimmer (Mayor of Alpine), and Brian Gwilliam (acting Fire Chief) with some assistance from local fire chiefs selected 6 applications to interview. From these the top 3 were selected to be interviewed by members of the board, the 3 local fire chiefs, and members of the Lone Peak Fire District. One of the top 3 candidates dropped out before the final interviews. Reed Thompson was the unanimous pick of the board members, who participated in the interviews, the 3 local fire chiefs, and was unanimously approved by the fire district board. Note, I did not participate in the interviews due to a schedule conflict (my mother-in-laws funeral).

I am excited that we have a new chief, who has the full support of the board, and look forward to seeing the district move forward in a positive direction. Click here to view Reed Thompson's resume.