Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger has announced the appointment of Chris Adams as the county’s Office of Emergency Management director, succeeding Tony Reavley, who retired earlier this month.
Adams has been serving as interim director since Reavley’s retirement. Adams joined Hamilton County government in December of 2017, following a successful 30-year career with the Chattanooga Fire Department, where he worked his way up through the ranks, serving the last two years as the city’s fire chief.
This experience allowed Adams to acquire a broad knowledge and experience base of emergency services.
During his tenure as city fire chief, Adams built on the work done by previous chiefs and made improvements in staffing, training, and equipment, which led to the department achieving an upgraded Insurance Service Office Class 1 rating.
During Adams’ leadership, the department was awarded the top ISO Class 1 rating a month after his retirement. A Class 1 ISO rating is awarded to fire departments performing at the highest level of service and also reduces insurance rates for the city’s citizens. As chief, Adams oversaw the construction of two new fire stations and improved inter-operability with other response agencies.
New wastewater director selected
The Chattanooga Department of Public Works has announced a new director of the Wastewater Systems Division, Jeffrey Rose.
Since March of 2015, Rose has served the Department of Public Works as deputy director of the division. He succeeds Mike Patrick as director and has served as interim director of the division since April of this year.
In both roles, Rose has already accomplished much for the division. He facilitated the creation of a new safety initiative that engages all levels of staff and has significantly reduced the number of lost-time accidents, one of the department’s primary performance measures.
As director of the Wastewater Systems, Rose will work to continue the division’s strong emphasis on environmental compliance, customer service, and employee engagement. Rose will leverage the talent, experience, and training of the employees under his leadership to respond to the many challenges of a large utility system.
Rose brings 31 years of experience to the position. As the director of the Water Quality Control Department in Maryville for 12 years, he directed the department’s engineering, operations, and maintenance programs, administered the department capital plan, and focused department efforts on team building and employee engagement.
Rose has a master’s degree in environmental engineering and a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Tennessee. He is a certified Professional Engineer, a Tennessee Grade II Distribution System Operator and a trainer of leadership and personal development courses.
Dahlke named GPS varsity swim coach
Girls Preparatory School athletics has hired Roger Dahlke as varsity swimming coach.
Since 2012, Dahlke has been the head coach and program administrator of McCallie/GPS aquatics. He also served as the head coach of the middle school swimming program at McCallie for more than 20 years.
Dahlke is the current president of Southeastern Swimming and a USA Swimming certified coach. He was the head age group coach at Scenic City Aquatic Club from 2000 to 2012..
Coach Dahlke replaces John Woods, who retired from GPS this summer after 26 years.
Huisman joins McNabb Center
The Helen Ross McNabb Center has hired Ronda Huisman, nurse practitioner in family and psychiatric mental health, to its team of providers.
Huisman, who specializes in psychiatric mental health, is providing care at the Hamilton County adult center.
Huisman attended Southern Adventist University where she received her bachelor’s degree in nursing in 1996. She earned her master’s degree in nursing from the Frontier School of Midwifery and Family Nursing in 2009 and completed her post-master’s in psychiatric mental health at Southern Adventist University in 2017.
Prior to joining the McNabb Center, Huisman worked as a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner at Volunteer Behavioral Health and the Counsel for Alcohol and Drug Abuse Services, both in Chattanooga.
Huisman will provide psychiatric assessments and medication monitoring for children, adolescents and adults.
The Helen Ross McNabb Center is a premier not-for-profit provider of behavioral health services in East Tennessee..