Historic shift for city

City officials are calling the filling of a pair of new positions a historic move for both the Clinton police and fire departments, providing better service to residents of Clinton.

“Appointing our first Public Safety Director and Fire Marshal marks a pivotal step in ensuring Clinton’s preparedness, coordination and resilience in safeguarding our community’s well-being associated with public safety,” Clinton Mayor Lew Starling stated on these new positions. “The sharing of administrative resources will be instrumental in moving the department’s mission forward and assist in strategic planning, which, in turn, will benefit the citizens of Clinton both in increased services and realized cost savings.”

Following a recent needs assessment, the city authorized a structure change, implementing the positions of both a public safety director and fire marshal.

Police Chief Anthony Davis has been given the added public safety role and Ronald Williams, Jr. was hired as fire marshal.

“Several months ago, city leadership was looking at the fire department as a whole, trying to find ways to forward its mission statement of providing better services to citizens,” Davis said during an interview Monday as he explained the new positions. “Plus we had a new fire chief in Hagan Thornton and we wanted more ways to support him.

“So we had an outside assessor come in and do a needs assessment of the fire station, to look at the internal workings of the station and offer recommendations on how to pursue that mission.”

Davis said those recommendations came down to putting a command structure in place that would support the fire chief and, at the same time, allow the city to be good stewards of the taxpayers’ money.

”We looked to see if there was any resources we had that we could share,” Davis asserted.

And there was. Seeing that way to resource sharing while still maintaining separate entities under one umbrella, the assessor, Davis said, recommended the city consider a public safety position and that of a fire marshal.

“My position, it’s actually a hybrid model of public safety. It basically gives me administrative oversight over the fire department. You’re not going to have firefighters being police officers and vice versa; it’s not that type of public safety. Basically we’re just sharing the administrator resources between the fire and police departments.

“My biggest role is gonna be on the admin side, budgeting, oversight of professional standards. Chief Thornton’s main role will be heavily on the operations side of things. So at the end of the day, it helps both organizations and it’s gonna help strengthen both sides of the house.”

Davis also asserted that he won’t be stepping away as police chief but merely taking on both roles.

“They created the public safety director’s position, which I opted into,” he said. “I’m not stepping out of the police chief’s role; I’ll share that role with the director’s position. Hagan will still be fire chief. He’s doing a tremendous job; he just needs some assistance.”

It’s was while looking for that assistance that the idea for making Williams, who already had the needed credentials, the fire marshal came about.

“We currently didn’t have a deputy or assistant fire chief in the fire department; that’s when we looked at Ronald,” Davis acknowledged. “He was the fire inspector at the time and we learned that he was BLE credentialed and had already been in basic law enforcement training.

“That’s where the idea was and we said, ‘hey, why don’t we make him fire marshal.’ Since he has those police credentials, he can handle his own fire investigations, citations, dealing with ordinances, pretty much any kind of investigation where it’s tied to fire, he’ll be able to handle on his own without having to give it to a police detective.”

Before Williams made history as Clinton’s first-ever sworn in fire marshal, he was in law enforcement. His journey in public safety began after graduating high school in 2003. He pursued his career by attending James Sprunt Community College where he completed his BLE training in 2007. In 2014, Williams made his career shift when he joined the Clinton Fire Department, a choice that led him to this moment, one he said he’s honored to have.

“I mean, this is definitely a different role, but I’m honored to be the first one,” Williams said. “With Chief Davis and his guys helping me out on the investigation side, it’s a tremendous help because at the fire department there’s gonna be nobody over there for that. So I think by putting both organizations together, it’s definitely helped the city out, and it’s definitely helped the fire department immensely.”

Williams said taking on the new role was something he never envisioned.

“I was here for five years, part time, and then I left the Sheriff’s office to come here full time,” he said. “During that time, I’d hurt my knee while I was working and was on light duty. The fire inspector that was here, while I was on my duty, I just kind of helped him and while I was helping him I kind of liked it, was drawn to it.

“I got a lot help along the way after that to where I eventually became fire inspector. If you told me all those years ago, though, that my time in law enforcement would’ve helped me become Clinton’s first fire marshal I wouldn’t have believed it.”

Ironically, Davis also shared a similar path, shifting professions, which led to him to becoming the first public safety director. While most know him for his roles in the police department, before that he served in the fire department. The fire side of Davis’ career began in 1995 at Hickory Grove Fire Department. He eventually worked his way up to assistant fire chief. He’d spend a few more years in fire after transitioning to Elizabethtown Rescue Squad as an EMT earning numerous training hours in all aspects of firefighting.

That would change in 2003 when he began his law enforcement career with the Clinton Police Department as a patrol officer. He’s been with the department ever since and is now the first ever public safety director a feat he credits to Sampson leadership.

“It was good to have progressive leaders that think ahead about the services we can provide for the betterment of our community,” he said. “Again, we’re in a time of high inflation and tight budgets and so thinking ahead and being good stewards of the tax dollars and the resources we can share is vital. As for the historical aspect of having the first time public safety director and sworn in fire marshal, I think that just goes to our city and county leadership.”

“For me, I never thought, much like Ronald said, when I first got into fire service in the mid 90s, that anything like this would happen. The saying goes, God always has a plan, and he has a way of training you for his plan. Though, had he told me up front all I had to do to get this job I might’ve said nah, no thank you. Jokes aside, I think everything works out as it should as long as you just listen to detail and put yourself out there, it’s a chance sometimes.”

Those sentiments are ones that Williams shared as his new role allows him to further advance his dream of being in fire service.

”I’m like him; I’ve always wanted to do fire, and I was good friends with the police chief in Magnolia and that’s kind of what got me to do BLE training,” he stated. “I never had a thought that I’d ever do law enforcement full time. My whole thing was I was gonna be on the fire department and just do the police as like a little hobby and stuff like that. Then I went and worked at the Sheriff’s office for 10 years and now I’m kind of doing both roles which you couldn’t have told me I’d be doing 17 years ago.”