Fire Chief magazine awarded honors to the 2004 Chiefs of the Year in the opening general session of Fire-Rescue International Thursday in New Orleans. Ret. Chief Edward Plaugher of Arlington County (Va.) Fire Department was named Career Chief of the Year; Volunteer Chief of the Year is Chief Rick Haase of Staunton (Ill.) Fire Protection District.

Fire Chief editor Janet Wilmoth and John Randjelovick, president of Pierce Manufacturing Inc., sponsor of the awards, presented trophies to Plaugher and Haase at FRI, the annual conference and exposition of the International Association of Fire Chiefs.

Plaugher came to national attention when Arlington County Fire Department was the lead agency for the Pentagon response on September 11, 2001, but he has long been described as a visionary leader on a regional, national and even international level. In 1995, following the sarin gas attack in Tokyo subway system, Plaugher began pushing the Arlington County Fire Department and the National Capital Region to prepare for the possibility of a terrorist attack on the Washington area. Often a lone voice, Plaugher persevered to create the first locally-staffed terrorism response team in the nation.

More than 3,000 copies of his department’s extensive After-Action Report on the Pentagon response has been shared with departments across the nation and countless others have studied the report online on the department’s Web site. Recently, the 9-11 Commission's Final Report praised the coordination and control of the response, which mixed local, state and federal and mutual aid response forces, as a model of interagency response. Chief Plaugher was appointed to serve on the Department of Homeland Security’s Emergency Response Senior Advisory Committee. In addition, he is a member of the International Association of Fire Chiefs Terrorism Committee, the National Fire Protection Association and is a past president of the Virginia State Fire Chiefs Association. He was one of the early graduates of the Executive Fire Officers programs.

Plaugher and his wife, Melody, have four children. He is actively engaged in his community as a lecturer, author and mentor. A native of Virginia, Plaugher was nominated by the Virginia State Fire Chiefs Association, has served the Virginia fire service for more than 35 years. Plaugher served 24 years in Fairfax Fire Department before taking the job of Fire Chief in Arlington County Fire Department in 1993.

Chief Rick Haase worked his way up the ranks of the Staunton Fire Protection and served the volunteer department for more than 23 years. He was named 2001 Illinois Volunteer Fire Chief of the Year by the Illinois Fire Chiefs’ Association, an award recognizing his leadership skills among other Illinois departments.

Haase currently works for the ConocoPhillips Wood River Refinery in Wood River, Ill., as an Emergency Response Specialist/Fire Chief. Haase was nominated by a former winner of the Volunteer Fire Chief of the Year, Chief Fred Windisch. According to Windisch, Haase’s “commitment to sharing his expertise and knowledge with other agencies via his instruction is another amazing attribute possessed by this man.”

Haase has served the Madison County Fire Chiefs Association and currently coordinates the Command Overhead Team for Madison County’s MABAS Division. He is a member of many organizations, including the Society of Fire Protection Engineers, is vice chair of the IAFC’s Industrial Fire & Safety Section and is a field staff instructor for the Illinois Fire Service Institute.

Haase resides in Staunton with his wife, Jane, and daughters Olivia and Cecily. “We are extremely pleased to award Chief Plaugher and Chief Haase as winners of the 2004 Fire Chief of the Year Awards,” said Janet Wilmoth, editor of PRIMEDIA’s Fire Chief magazine. “This year we received an excellent roster of nominees and it was a challenge for our Editorial Advisory Board to single out two winners from such a prestigious field of contributors.”