James Howard said he never envisioned being a firefighter let alone one day lead the Owensboro Fire Department.
His original plan had been to become a teacher but learned that the classroom environment wasn’t for him.
After working some odd jobs, he took a position with the city as a 911 dispatcher in December 1998 to help pay off student loans.
“I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life,” he said. “I thought it would be an interesting job. It would be a form of public service.”
Howard took emergency calls for several years. He said it was a tough role to hold. It wasn’t until 2003 when he decided to become a firefighter that he said he found his niche.
“Taking calls from people when they’re having a really bad day and listening to them cry, scream, and tell you about all these bad things that happen to them,” Howard said. “You can send other resources to them but you can’t actually go out there and help them solve a problem. So that’s what kind of led me to the next step.”
His job title went from telecommunicator to firefighter, and he has since climbed the ranks within the OPD.
Howard was appointed OFD fire chief in November 2019 after nearly two decades of fire fighting experience with the department.
Even though he defeated several dozen applicants, Howard said the best part for him was making the jump and then landing it.
“I was floored when I got it I was like wow. It kind of blew me away,” he said. “I’m thrilled that I am chief, but I always thought that would be out of reach.”
Howard said each step of the way on his career endeavors has been a roll of the dice for him but with a combination of preparation, timing and luck.
“I did everything I could to prepare for this job,” he said. “By trying to improve my performance in my other jobs. It prepared me better, always, for the next step.”
Now Howard oversees 99 firefighters and five fire stations. Since becoming fire chief, he said his vision for the department has been to find innovative ways to keep OFD in the 21st Century.
“My vision for the future. It’s not complicated. If you look at our vision to save lives and protect property,” he said. “My vision is to just make us more capable of doing that. And just to continuously get better.”
Howard said he understands that fire departments across the country have been struggling to find recruits. He said he’s looking for ideas to expand and improve the applicant pool to make OFD a competitive place to work.
“What I want to do, my objective is to get better to identify the places where we can evaluate our performance whether it’s in our training or primarily in our actual service delivering in the fields,” he said.
Howard said he encourages people to put themselves out there just like he did and apply for positions they think they maybe aren’t capable of doing such as firefighting.
Howard said he has stumbled his way up the ladder and they can too.
“I had a captain whenever I was a firefighter,” Howard said. “And he just convinced me ‘you need to go every time there’s an opening’ like to promote ‘you need to put yourself out there.’”
