Nearly eight months after selecting an interim to fill the role of fire chief, the City of Clinton has selected a veteran with more than three decades in the fire service as its next permanent leader.

Stephen Lovette will be the next chief of the Clinton Fire Department, city officials announced Monday. He will begin his duties on April 20.

A native of Salisbury, N.C., Lovette has been in the fire service for 32 years, since starting at the Salisbury Fire Department in 1986. He joined the High Point Fire Department in 1997 and has extensive experience as a fire commander in both the operations and training divisions of the High Point agency.

“Lovette is a driven professional with a dedication to training and professional development,” City manager Tom Hart stated.

He holds an Associate of Applied Science degree in Fire Science and brings significant professional certifications to the table, Hart noted. Lovette is certified as an instructor by various organizations and serves as an adjunct instructor for the National Fire Academy, teaching courses on subjects such as incident management, decision making and leadership.

In 2005, Lovette was deployed under FEMA to the Gulf Coast to help respond to Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita.

Hart said Lovette was vetted extensively, beating out “a field of highly-qualified” applicants for the chief’s position. As part of that process, Lovette participated in an assessment center conducted by the City of Clinton’s Human Resource Department and Management Solutions for Emergency Services, a private consulting firm.

Two years after assisting the City of Clinton during a leadership transition within its fire department, Austin Tew reprised his role as the city’s interim chief while another permanent replacement could be found. He has been serving in that capacity for more than seven months this time around, starting in August following the resignation of Scott Phillips, who served with the city for about two years.

Tew served as Clinton’s chief for several months at the beginning half of 2015 between the tenures of Chief Adon Snyder and Phillips, who announced his resignation in July, noting his return to assistant chief of fire and EMS in Dunn. Tew, a fire inspector for the city, was named interim, called a natural fit for the sake of continuity as city officials worked to find the new permanent chief.

Phillips’ departure marked the fourth department head vacancy for the city in 2017, coming on the heels of the retirements of Public Works director Jeff Vreugdenhil and Police Chief Jay Tilley and the resignation of City Manager Shawn Purvis.

The recruitment process for a new fire chief began in earnest at the beginning of this year once the city manager post was filled by Hart at the end of 2017. Hart said the assessment center to find the new fire chief, held in February, was a two-day process in itself.

Lovette has family in eastern North Carolina, including his daughter down the road in White Lake. Hart said the city is confident that Lovette’s knowledge and experience “will be a true asset to our community.”

“We did our due diligence and wanted to find the right guy for the job,” said Hart. “We’re happy to have him and look forward to him being here.”

Lovette
https://www.clintonnc.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/web1_Stephen-Lovette-1.jpgLovette
Lovette will start April 20

By Chris Berendt

cberendt@www.clintonnc.com

Reach Managing Editor Chris Berendt at 910-592-8137 ext. 2587. Follow the paper on twitter @SampsonInd and like us on Facebook.