Sean C. Morgan
Fire Chief Dave Barringer has begun work for the Sweet Home Fire and Ambulance District under the direction of retiring Fire Chief Mike Beaver.
Beaver, 60, will work officially through the end of the month, with Barringer taking over leadership of the department on July 1.
Also new to the department is Julie Mayfield, who has replaced Diane Shank as administrative assistant.
Mike Beaver
Beaver has worked in the fire service for 28 years, 23 of them in Sweet Home. He worked in Albany from 1989 to 1994. Before that, he worked in Sweet Home from 1985 to 1989. He became fire chief on April 16, 2001.
“It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long,” he said. “It’s gone by very quickly.”
Returning to Sweet Home was all but a foregone conclusion, but it has had its wrinkles.
“It’s my hometown,” Beaver said. “When you work in your hometown it’s really a double-edged sword. You know so many people.”
That can be an advantage on one hand, but on the other hand, “the very same thing can work against you when you,” Beaver said. He has seen many friends and family on the job. While distressing for the rescue personnel, that can also be calming for the patient.
He started as a volunteer when the fire station had but one full-time paramedic on shift.
He was playing softball with firefighters Loren and Doug Emmert and Rob Younger, he said, and they suggested he should join the Sweet Home Fire Department.
While volunteering, Beaver worked at Willamette Industries Sweet Home Plywood for 17 years. Willamette always accommodated him when he had to respond to calls, he said.
“I can’t tell you how many days I was on call with a paramedic,” Beaver said. There were some days he spent little time at work.
He ultimately pursued a career in the fire service on the advice of a Willamette employee, he said. The quality control person was a “really smart guy.” Beaver was working in shipping, loading box cars at the time. The fellow employee told Beaver he should pursue firefighting, suggesting that times were changing and Beaver wouldn’t be working at the mill in another 10 years.
Beaver went back to school while continuing to volunteer and work at Willamette Industries.
The department had a real need for volunteer emergency medical technicians, Beaver said. Diane Shank, retired administrative assistant, was EMS coordinator at the time. She talked him into starting EMT classes.
Joe Mengore was fire chief then, and he hadn’t been there for quite a year when Beaver said he decided to apply for an opening at Albany Fire Department.
He had never lived anywhere else, Beaver said, so it was a tough decision, but his experiences there helped round out his skills in a variety of areas.
He returned to Sweet Home when his father got sick, he said.
Since then, the department has accomplished much. Beaver was in Sweet Home to see the opening of the new Fire Hall in 1995, he said. “That was a huge boost, not only for staff’s morale, but the community.”
The district also broke away from the city in 2001 to form a special district, he said. That required a dedicated effort by many. He became chief while the district was still in transition from the city to a special district.
The district passed a bond in 2006 to improve its fire apparatus, he said. All of the district’s accomplishments are because the community has been so supportive over the years.
As a retiree, Beaver plans to spend time hunting and fishing, he said.
“I’ve got a couple of grandkids, so I’d like to spend more time with them.”
He is married to Michelle Beaver. He has one daughter, Lindsy, and one stepdaughter, Madisen Barringer. He has two grandchildren, Taylor and Drew.
“I’ll miss the interaction with the people,” Beaver said. “There’s people here I’ve known longer than I’ve been affiliated with the department.”
Of course he’ll still see them around, he said.
“It’s a good job,” and he loved the opportunity to help people.
Dave Barringer
Barringer, 46, started volunteering with SHFAD in 1993.
He began working full-time in Lebanon in 1996, staying there for five years while remaining a Sweet Home volunteer, before returning to Sweet Home as a battalion chief. He spent seven years at SHFAD before taking a job in Albany as a firefighter-paramedic.
When he applied for the Sweet Home chief’s position, after 6½ years in Albany, Barringer was an acting lieutenant there. He was a “traveler,” shuttling between four stations in a variety of positions.
“I enjoyed it,” he said. “It was a very good job.”
But like Beaver, his return was all but inevitable.
“It’s home,” Barringer said. “I’m community-minded. I’ve always enjoyed it here. I never moved from here. I would say community pride is probably my number one reason for coming back.”
He carries a sense of ownership in the Sweet Home fire department, he said. Coming home has been good.
“I’ve maintained relationships with people here,” Barringer said. “The first couple of days were weird (with a few new faces around the Fire Hall).”
But everything felt normal after a few days, he said. Beaver has been especially helpful.
The fire chief position is complicated and busy, he said, more so than he had imagined. The chief handles a variety of information and things going on in the office. He or she must deal with budget issues and keep up on notifications and legal changes.
Barringer said he was aware of all that, but it was much more significant than he realized, he said. “He’s done a good job of it. He’s a good administrator,” he said of Beaver.
“I’m excited. I’m glad to be here, and I’m looking forward to work with everybody here again. It’s exciting and it’s a challenge. There’s a lot to it, but it’s exciting. I hope I can make a difference.”
Barringer is married to Desiree Barringer, and he has three children, Samuel, 4; Jackson 7; and Madisen, 14.
Julie Mayfield
Mayfield took over as the SHFAD administrative assistant on April 1 when her predecessor, Shank, retired.
She had lived in Eugene and worked in Creswell as activities director at a nursing home. She also had lived in Redmond for five years, working in billing and administration at a busy clinic.
All told, she has 10 years of experience in billing and administration, Mayfield said, and 25 years in administrative work.
She grew up in San Jose and moved to Cottage Grove in 1995.
She has one daughter, Jennifer, and she is married to Eugene Mayfield, who is a mechanic and technician with Pape.
Her daughter and grandchildren live in east Linn County. She wanted to be closer to them, so she started looking for work. That’s when she saw the opening at SHFAD.
“I read the job description,” Mayfield said. “It was like reading my resume. It was a God thing. I know that. I like it. It reminds me of Cottage Grove even though Cottage Grove is a little bit bigger. It’s quiet. I like the small-town atmosphere. I like that you can get to everything in 2½ minutes. And it’s pretty here. Everybody here is friendly.”