Mayor Sandy Stimpson has selected veteran firefighter Mark Sealy as his nominee for Mobile fire chief, moving to fill a leadership vacancy that has persisted since shortly after Stimpson took office in late 2013.
At a news conference, James Barber, the city’s executive director of public safety, said finding a permanent chief had been one of his “top priorities” since he took the public safety post on April 1. Barber assembled a review team that included Montgomery Fire Chief Miford Jordan, management consultant Dan Lumpkin, and Jeff Carter, director of Mobile’s Bloomberg Innovation Team, to lead the search.
The team received 13 internal applications for the job and narrowed the field to five finalists before settling on Sealy in what Barber described as a unanimous recommendation.
According to a city news release, Sealy has served with Mobile Fire-Rescue for more than 25 years and currently holds the rank of district chief of training. Before joining the department, he served in the U.S. Marine Corps. His credentials include a bachelor’s degree in fire science, a paramedic license and numerous technician-level certifications, among them the Alabama Smoke Divers certificate, a distinction Stimpson noted is held by only about one-tenth of one percent of firefighters statewide. Sealy is also currently enrolled in the Executive Fire Officer Program at the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, Maryland.
“He believes first and foremost every Mobile Fire-Rescue employee is a firefighter first,” Stimpson said, citing language from Sealy’s proposed strategic plan that emphasized a need to “do more with less.”
Sealy, who appeared at the announcement alongside his wife and two children, called the nomination an “incredible opportunity.”
“Our focus moving forward is the safety and health of our firefighters,” Sealy said. “They’re the ones that respond day and night, 365 days a year, and we’re going to focus our attention on them.”
Under state law, Sealy’s nomination must still be confirmed by the Mobile City Council. As of the announcement, the appointment had not yet been placed on the agenda for the council’s next regularly scheduled meeting on May 16.
Mobile Fire-Rescue has operated under two interim chiefs, Randy Smith and Billy Pappas, since Stimpson took office, but neither was formally put forward for confirmation. City administration officials have previously said they believed neither interim candidate had enough support on the City Council to win confirmation, leaving the department without a permanent chief for several years.