The county’s search for a new Habersham County Emergency Services Director is well underway with County Manager Alicia Vaughn preparing an interview panel of emergency services experts for the applicants.
Previous Emergency Services Director Chad Black retired from emergency services earlier this month after over 30 years of service to the county. With HCES Chiefs Jeffrey Adams and Jason Davey serving as the interim directors, the county is working through the hiring process of bringing on a permanent director.
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“I’m hoping that people think of this as a good place to work,” Vaughn says. “We’ve had quite a few applicants. It is going to be a top priority for me because it’s such an important position, so I will take that very seriously.”
Vaughn says that, so far, 13 people have applied for the job. The application deadline is January 31. After that, county officials will begin interviewing candidates.
That interviewing phase will include in-depth interviews between county officials, emergency services professionals, recommended by Black, with extensive knowledge in their field, and those applicants.
“I feel very blessed, I reached out to those people and they have already agreed to do that,” Vaughn said. “That’s huge, because . . . the interview process takes a lot of time. They’re volunteering their time to do that, which I think is very important because it [the position] is so specialized, especially since we provide ambulance service in-house. We want to make sure that we have people on those panels that understand what that takes.”
This article has been updated to include the number of applicants for the HCES position
