Jim Price tabbed as the next Fire Chief posted on 12/01/2020
The board of directors of the Hoodland Fire District (HFD)
selected James Price as the next Fire Chief following interviews with the final
three candidates on Monday, Nov. 16. A Meet and Greet event for the three
candidates to be introduced to the public on Sunday, Nov. 15 was cancelled due
to the rising number of coronavirus cases.
Price comes to HFD from the Rogue River Fire District, where
he was the Fire Chief for the past six and a half years.
“I’m just super excited for the opportunity,” Price said. “My
door is always open to the community.”
Price grew up in Battleground, Wash. and his father and an
uncle served as firefighters in Portland. He noted that he wasn’t initially
interested in following in their footsteps, but after volunteering for the Clark
County Fire District, he discovered he enjoyed it.
Price went on to serve with the Baker City Fire Department
as a Firefighter/Paramedic before taking the helm at Rogue River.
In his earlier years, Price recalled skiing at SkiBowl and
driving by the HFD station while thinking it might be a good place to work. He
enjoys hiking, fishing, bow hunting and reading.
Price added that he has heard about the “great community” on
the Mountain and good things about the people involved with the HFD.
Price will take over as the HFD grapples with issues brought
to light by an organizational assessment performed by the Special Districts
Association of Oregon, in which it offered 64 recommendations dealing with
everything from governance and personnel management to finances and the
training and safety program.
He noted that he sees it as a good opportunity to “meet
those challenges.”
Price is tentatively set to start on the job on Monday, Jan.
4, 2021.
Shirley Dueber, president of the HFD board of directors,
noted that the final three candidates were all very qualified to take on the
challenges of the job.
“If we could have, we would have hired all three of them,”
Dueber said. “Every one of them would have fit in somewhere where we needed
them in the department. It was a hard choice.”
By Garth Guibord/MT | 
