Mark Elder
VERNON TOWNSHIP — The Vernon Township Fire Department’s interim chief for nearly the past two months is now permanently in the position.
The Vernon Township Fire Protection Territory Board voted to name Mark Elder to the role. The former deputy chief succeeds Chad Abel, who resigned in June.
Elder has been in the fire service for 35 years, starting as a volunteer and then a career firefighter for the city of Fishers, where he spent three decades. In Fishers, he also served as a company officer, fire marshal, administration chief and emergency management director. He worked as an industrial firefighter for a year for Eli Lilly and Company in downtown Indianapolis as well.
Elder brought his firefighting and emergency response skills to Vernon Township as a volunteer shortly after it started the Vernon Township Fire Department in 2019.
He’s grown fond of the township in that time.
“I love this community,” he said. “It’s fantastic, where we’re at.”
His primary goal as chief is to be as fiscally responsible to that community and provide the best service the department can, adding that he and his colleagues are evaluating equipment and staff.
Workforce retention and recruitment is also on his mind.
“We’re in an area where it’s great to live here, it’s great to work here, but at the same time we have communities to the west and to the north of us where their budgets are a lot higher and their pay rates are a lot higher, so we’ve got to try to make sure we’re providing a good environment to compete with what we cannot necessarily afford to pay right now,” Elder said. “The day will come. We’re a brand new department. Those departments have been in existence for a lot longer. We’ll be there someday, it’s just in the meantime I want to provide the best environment for all of our people where they want to come to work, where they enjoy coming to work and they want to stay.”
Florence May, Vernon Township trustee and a member of the fire protection territory board, described Elder’s transition to the fire chief’s responsibilities as smooth.
She added that she spoke with the fire department’s division chiefs to get their feedback on Elder.
“And I’ll just say this — normally wouldn’t do that,” May continued. “Because I don’t think you get to hire your own boss. But because we are a young department, and because we have been through so much change, I thought it was really important, and we’ve got a really high-caliber team.”
May said she received strong recommendations about Elder’s performance.
“Mark’s really a servant leader, and we’re really incredibly fortunate to have him here,” she said. “It has really been seamless as we’ve gone from what could’ve been a rocky transition, bluntly, [to] very, very smooth sailing.”
