(Seguin) – The city of Seguin’s first ever assistant fire chief is sharing his commitment to the residents of Seguin. Garrick Herbert on Monday morning was sworn-in as the city’s new assistant fire chief.
Herbert says he hopes to continue the vision that has been launched just by the city’s own decision to create this position.
“Of course, me coming on board is the city and the department’s kind of affirmation or indicator of our commitment to the citizens that live here. We are growing emergency services. The city is growing. The needs are growing, and we are trying to add staffing and personnel to go with that. I’m a part of that. So, by bringing me online to go ahead and help facilitate and deal with some of the stuff that is already here, we can kind of get our things in order to help grow and just continue to deliver a great level of service to our citizens,” said Herbert.
Herbert says among his first responsibilities will be to better familiarize himself with the community and its citizens so that he can understand what is needed and wanted.
“So, obviously I’m new to the community but that doesn’t change the level of commitment. So, a part of what I have to do is learn the community and help understand the needs of the community and so I think there’s going to be some outreach time there. Often times, we think we know a community and so we spend some time with our citizens, with our residents, asking what is it that you need your fire department to do for you and that’s going to be a part of what I have to do. Obviously, we have our traditional roles, but each community, each city has different needs and it’s up to us to try to match our individual organizations and for me to help match that in the city that we are working in,” said Herbert.
Herbert also commits to keeping a careful eye on the city’s growth so that he can better facilitate the operation of the department and prepare it for the future.
“Seguin is growing right? I mean we continue to add great things here. I’ve been noticing a lot of revitalization of some of the downtown area and then the expansion of the city so what was a very kind of like an older central is now getting a lot of revitalization here but at the same time, we are adding all the new construction on the perimeter of town and so those things don’t always have the same needs, fire department related so we just need to make sure we are addressing all of that as we continue to grow as a city,” said Herbert.
Herbert, who comes to Seguin from the New Braunfels Fire Department, says he is grateful to be stepping into a department that is already sound. He says part of the job for him will be to simply let citizens know that they are there for them should they ever need them.
“Anytime, you see you are adding residents, obviously, with new construction, we don’t always have associated growth and fire. But we do see often times, a huge growth in EMS and a lot of growth in emergency response and so, we’re just making sure we are able to address that and that’s one thing that Seguin already does really, really well and so there are ALS (Advanced Life Support) engine companies here. Not all communities provide that and so even in a time where you can’t immediately provide and ambulance, then we have a fire truck there that has all the medical supplies we could want to begin care and take care of our citizens the best we can until we can put a medic unit out there. ALS (Advanced Life Support), there’s a lot of good stuff riding around on these fire trucks that people don’t even know about and so often times, our citizens and just everybody associates EMS with an ambulance and that’s not the way Seguin functions, so all of our personnel are paramedics. They are all capable of working on our citizens and really what we see in a growing community is an exponential growth in EMS calls and then a trailing growth in fire calls and I would expect the same here,” said Herbert.
Herbert was sworn in at Seguin City Hall by Mayor Donna Dodgen. Those in attendance included Seguin Fire Fighters, city staff members and wife, Jana. Herbert, who has 26 years of service with the city of New Braunfels, will serve under the command of Seguin Fire Chief Dale Skinner.