SUGAR CREEK TOWNSHIP — The administrative staff at Sugar Creek Township Fire Department (SCTFD) received a real boost. In addition to having Brandon Kleine as chief, Kleine now has an assistant chief as well as a deputy chief of operations to help handle the workload and keep tabs on the 54-person department.
Longtime department battalion chief Charles Brown has been promoted to be Kleine’s right hand man as SCTFD’s new assistant chief, where he’ll keep track of different divisions. Brown will get a bump in salary and make just over $95,000 per year. Robin Nicoson, who came to SCTFD from the Decatur Township Fire Department, is the new deputy chief and will be the person who oversees operations. His salary is slated at just over $88,000 per year.
Kleine said the move is well overdue.
“Before this, I had nine people reporting directly to me and within the fire service your span of control really needs to be three to five people,” Kleine said.
Kleine said that, over the past four and a half years, he and EMS chief Greg Hunt have been doing all the front office administrative work. He said it’s been a challenge for the two men to keep up with all the administrative and human resources work due to the rapidly growing area and staff.
“With the growth we’ve had in this area, it’s a natural progression, and our new trustee, (Jayson Combs) he saw it when he came into office,” Kleine said. “I knew we needed at least one more administrator, but Jayson looked at everything and said, ‘Let’s go ahead and be smart and add two.’”
Both Brown and Nicoson have already moved to the administrative office and have started their new roles.
“I learned a long time ago that the span of control in order to be done correctly should not be more than five people,” Combs said. “Unfortunately, over the past couple of years our chief had to take on quite a bit including some of the trustee duties as well as the fire chief responsibilities, and it was just too much.”
Combs noted adding more administrative officers mean more hands to deal with human resource issues and things like Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) compliance, which can require a single person to deal with.
“In looking at things, you could really see we were sadly deficient in covering some of those areas, and we really needed at least two people to help chief Kleine accomplish all that needs to be done, including the day-to-day operations,” Combs said.
Combs noted Brown is a longtime SCTFD employee with a proven track record for leadership and will handle many of the daily “cut and dry,” as well as harder issues that must be addressed. Nicoson, who is also well known in the Indiana fire service for being a strong team leader, will be tasked with the daily fire department operations of making sure staff and equipment are where they need to be.
“He’s also got some experience in working with Homeland Security and has been a district fire coordinator as well as a program manager with the state fire marshal’s office,” Combs said. “He’s highly intelligent and highly organized and is well connected in the fire fighting business.”
Now that Kleine has some help in the administrative office, he’s looking forward to getting the opportunity of being the chief and will now be able to get involved with some of the work he’s had to neglect due to past time restraints.
“I need to be out in the community, working with the public more, adding more input to things,” Kleine said. “I’m a people person, not a desk person, so I’m looking forward to that.”
