Meet Dan Decker, Peoria Heights’ fire chief
The Village of Peoria Heights has hired a new fire chief.
Dan Decker, 50, a career-long fireman and paramedic mostly in East Peoria, became the new leader of the department with a unanimous Village Board vote on Nov. 7. Decker, a longtime East Peoria City Council member, began work on Nov. 8. The job pays $125,000 annually.
The public is invited to a meet-and-greet with Chief Decker at 3 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 30 at Village Hall.
The selection comes as Peoria Heights is transitioning from a primarily volunteer fire department to one with paid staff complemented by those volunteers. Decker brings significant experience to the challenge of essentially building a full-time fire department from the ground up.
Indeed, Decker, the son of a longtime East Peoria firefighter, has been in the emergency services business since 1991. He worked with the Pekin Fire Department for a time, then as a paramedic with Advanced Medical Transport (AMT) before joining emergency response squads in Fulton County, Morton and Washington. He landed full-time work with the East Peoria Fire Department, where he stayed for 26 years, rising to the position of assistant chief. Before coming to Peoria Heights, Decker was the fire marshal at the Clinton nuclear power plant.
Decker owns a degree in fire science from Illinois Central College, with countless hours of training and certification beyond that. He also has shared his expertise as a professor at the college level.
Meanwhile, Decker brings something else to the table as an elected official himself, which makes him aware that “I work at the Council’s discretion,” he said. “I have a thick skin and I will be honest with you,” he promised.
What brought him back to a community fire department was the recognition that he just missed the adrenalin rush of helping people in a time of greatest need, said Decker.
Meanwhile, “I’ve always liked Peoria Heights. It’s a nice community” where public safety has always seemed to be a top priority, he said. He and his wife, Christy, are regular patrons at Peoria Heights restaurants, and really got a feel for the community through those visits. They are the parents of Troy, Katelyn and Zack, ages 18 to 22.
The chief said that his first priority will be figuring out what the department’s biggest needs are before laying out a “best-case” scenario and a “bare bones” scenario for Village Board consideration. As always, those will come with the accompanying price tags.
At first blush, though, Decker said he has been impressed with the commitment and energy of the volunteers. Though small in number – now numbering about 20 -- they “put in a lot of time without being paid for it,” he said. Beyond that, “this community seems to be very supportive of their fire department.”
The goal moving forward is to maintain and grow that loyalty, along with the recognition that a strong and professional local fire department is indispensable to a healthy community, both in terms of the emergency services work its members do and other community engagement.
“It’s a huge responsibility,” said Decker, who is succeeding former Chief Donovan Thompson.
“I was very pleased with the field of candidates we had, and ultimately with this appointment,” said Peoria Heights Mayor Michael Phelan. “Dan brings a perspective that is very unique, I think, in that he’s been both a working firefighter and an elected city official, so he knows and appreciates the challenges that both confront in working together to protect our citizens.
“I am happy that we have this decision behind us, and we can now move forward with enhancing the local and independent public safety services in which our residents have long taken great pride.”