Names in the News
DEPARTMENTS
Patterson Appointed
Indiana Governor Robert Orr has appointed former Indianapolis Fire Chief William J. Patterson to be director of Indiana’s Department of Civil Defense and Emergency Management. Patterson replaces Milton M. Mitnick, who retired after eight years as director.
Patterson served on the Indianapolis Fire Department 23 years before retiring in 1979. He then became director of safety and security at Reilly Tar & Chemical Corporation.
Patterson is a former president of the Indiana Fire Chiefs Association and a former vice-president of the Great Lakes Division of the IAFC. He currently is treasurer of the Indiana Firefighters Association and President of the Marion County Muscular Dystrophy Foundation Board of Directors.
O. E. Hirst Retires
O. E. (Obbie) Hirst, chief of the Galena, Ill., Fire Department for the last 40 years, retired on April 13. He had been a member of the department for over 52 years.
Hirst came from a fire fighting family. His father, W. H. Hirst, was Galena’s fire chief from 1909 until he died in 1941. At the age of 10, he was bugle boy for Relief Hose Company No. 4, at a time when the department consisted of five fire companies with horse-drawn equipment.
During his years on the department, Hirst advanced from a probationary officer to a full-fledged volunteer on May 1, 1929. By 1933 he was assistant foreman and by 1935 a captain. He became chief in 1941.
Hirst is secretary of the Illinois Fireman’s Association and was its president from 1953 to 1965. He also has been active in the Southern Wisconsin and Northern Illinois Fireman’s Association, serving as its president from 1931 to 1941. He has been chairman of its death benefit plan since 1960. He will continue serving the Galena department as an consultant to update building codes and ordinances and to improve the department’s training programs.
Assistant Chief Don Beadle, a 29-year veteran of the department, has been named chief.
J. F. Bruchner Honored
J. Fred Bruchner, who retired as chief of the Defender Fire Company of Audubon, N.J., last December, was guest of honor at a banquet on May 1.
He joined the Defender Fire Company in 1930 and became captain in 1940. He was named deputy chief in 1943, assistant chief in 1948 and chief in 1958.
Bruchner was actively involved in the Camden County Hero Scholarship Fund which provides college scholarships to the children of police and fire fighters killed in the line of duty. He was president of the fund for nine years.
He was an active member of the International Association of Fire Chiefs, the Eastern Association of Fire Chiefs, the New Jersey State Fire Chiefs Association and was president of the Camden County Fire Chiefs and Fire Officers Association in 1978-1979.
