Atchison Looks Back on Time as Chief

It's hard to imagine Doug Atchison apart from the Madison Fire Department. Heck, he couldn't even make it past his first morning after stepping away as chief without getting a call from the firehouse.

"The camaraderie is great," Atchison said only seconds before his phone rang with someone from the department asking where someone could send a card wishing him well. "I think it's part of why Brett Favre can't hang it up. He loves the locker room. It's like a second family."

It's not an odd reference for Atchison. The Madison Fire Department runs in his family bloodlines, even if it wasn't the original reason why he joined in the first place.

Orrin Atchison, Doug Atchison's grandfather, was a volunteer with the Madison hose company, as well as chief of the police department until he passed away in 1957.

Atchison himself has always lived in Madison. He grew up in a house on Lorraine Road as the youngest of four siblings, with mother Ann Fiske Atchison.

"I had a great childhood," Atchsion said. "We all got along pretty well."

Atchison joined the fire department in 1975 at age 19, almost by accident.

"I stumbled upon it," Atchsion said. "I just walked in one day–I didn't even know if it was pay or volunteer–and asked how to become a firefighter."

Atchison, like so many others, began his work with the department as a volunteer. He said that back then it was more of a volunteer dominated department, with many of the older members being World War II vets who the department gave an outlet and some excitement to after they returned from duty. He also said that, unlike now, it was much more of a social club.

A few years after joining the department, Atchison was at what he calls a fork in the road of his life. He felt he had an itch he had to scratch, and went on a trip with a friend to Australia for three months. They landed in Sydney backpacked up and down the east coast of the country, seeing things like the Great Barrier Reef.

Itch properly scratched, Atchison returned from Australia and worked at Automatic Switch in Florham Park as an assistant buyer for two years after being appointed to the position of probationary firefighter with the department.

It only took him six years to be promoted to lieutenant (now the position known as captain) in 1986. His promotion also came in the same year that he married wife Jill.

Four years later, Atchison was named chief, something he thought long and hard about before accepting.

"To be honest, I didn't know if I'd accept it. I knew I was young and a long way from retirement. I really thought it over."

One of the reasons Atchison decided to take the position was he knew he was the first person on the department to graduate from the Morris County fire academy, and the person who'd be taking his place at lieutenant/captain was someone who had done the same thing–Lou DeRosa. DeRosa is also the same person who now is taking over for Atchison as chief.

"We have a tremendous amount of respect for each other," Atchison said about his relationship with DeRosa. "He is like my alter ego. It is almost uncanny how we look at things the same way. I'm not trying to imply that he is a yes man. But when we did disagree it gave the other guy pause, because it was rare. We could have a disagreement and neither one of us would take offense."

Over the next 19 years Atchison took the department through changes that would make it what it is today. The most obvious is bringing it into the beautiful new Public Service Complex it resides in today. But one of the most challenging and less obvious changes Atchison had to make was regulating the department.

"When I was a volunteer, one of the most fun things to do was to ride on the back of the fire truck," Atchison said of a dangerous and time-honored tradition. "I was the guy who had to say, 'no more riding on the fire trucks."

It was Atchison's duty to help implement new state and federal mandates. Long-time members didn't always welcome the changes, but Atchison knew the department would benefit from them.

For example, Atchison was the one to require members to wear air masks.

"When I first joined, you weren't a man if you had to wear one," Atchison said. "It got to the point where I had to say, 'no one goes in without a mask.' Back then there were more natural fibers. As time went on, plastics made smoke deadlier and deadlier. Fires were also burning hotter."

Atchison also helped create Madison's incident command system, and as he leaves the department he is proud that no one was seriously injured or killed while he was chief.

He is also pleased with the public service he and the department provide. When Atchison was on the job for about four years, he remembers having to turn many people away, including close family friends, during a particularly bad rainstorm that raged over a few days. The residents were looking for the department to help pump out their basements, something it didn't do back then. Now, Atchison said he believes the department probably pumped out 1,000 basements over his 19 years as chief.

"The fire department is always there for them," Atchison said. "It will always be there for them to provide different services to them."

Atchison has told the department that he's going to stay away for a while so DeRosa can direct it in the way he wants. But he knows he won't be able to stay away too long without the urge to break bread with people he respects so much.

He says his stepping down comes at a time where other opportunities are opening up–those possibly coming with a vendor or at the state level. It also comes after a tough time in his personal life, as his mother passed away right before Christmas.

And though the timing seems right to walk away, Atchison knows how important the department has been and will remain in his life.

"I'm just very proud and fortunate to be able to work in the town I grew up in, a town my family has a history with," Atchison said. "I am grateful I could carry on the public service in the family's tradition. It never really dawned on me when I joined as a volunteer."