MANSFIELD — Dan Crow still remembers the first call to which he responded as a new firefighter in Mansfield.
“It was on Dunbilt Court … a rooming contents fire, probably within a few weeks of me starting here at the department,” the 41-year-old Crow recalled minutes after being sworn in Friday afternoon as the new chief for the Mansfield Fire Department.
“I remember being a little overwhelmed. Things happen so fast when you’re new. Kind of like right now today. Things happen so fast but you really just rely on the experience of the guys around you.
“You follow and you learn and get more experience underneath you,” Crow said. “Things begin to slow down. But that first one definitely feels like everything’s moving really fast around you.”
Crow replaced former Chief Steve Strickling, who retired on Thursday after more than three decades in the department.
(Below are images from the ceremony on Friday afternoon for new Mansfield Fire Department Chief Dan Crow.)
No one could blame Crow — a Cleveland native who joined the MFD 18 years ago — for feeling Friday like he did on that first fire call. But the fire service is one for which he has prepared most of his adult live.
After graduating from Lutheran East High School, Crow enrolled at Oberlin College, earning a bachelor’s degree in Law and Society, an interdisciplinary program that covered topics such as psychology, philosophy “and a little bit of everything.”
But he also took part-time job for the City of Oberlin.
“Like a lot of kids who go to college, I really had no idea what I wanted to do. I saw a posting for a part-time firefighter position. I thought it would be a fun thing to do while I earned a little extra money while I was in school.
“I fell in love with it. It was pretty obvious to me this was something I wanted to do for a long time. I wanted to make it my career and I have never looked back,” Crow said.
Crow joined the MFD and began a rise through the ranks, earning a master’s degree in public administration from Cleveland State University along the way.
He was promoted from captain to assistant chief in November 2022, tasked with the new role of managing the EMS efforts at the department.
Mayor Tim Theaker, who is leaving office at the end of December, said a few weeks ago he selected Crow after “interviewing several qualified individuals.”
“Dan stuck out and I am sure he is going to be an excellent fire chief,” the mayor said before administering Crow a new oath of office in a packed ninth-floor conference room at the Municipal Building.
The new chief knows he faces challenges in a city plagued by miles of aging, four-inch water lines that have disabled fire hydrants around the city.
“The biggest challenge is there’s lot of needs and not a lot of resources. That’s something the city deals with in general. What we need to do is be strategic about how we plan.
“That’s going to be my focus from day one … make sure that every investment we put into our operations, our equipment, our stations … has an identifiable and quantifiable return so that we know we are going to provide the highest level of service.
“Our citizens expect that from us. We will be efficient in the resources we have and that we are using it to the best of our ability,” Crow said.
Crow assumes command of a department that has experienced difficult recent labor relations with members of the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 266. The union in 2022 had issued a “vote of no confidence” in Strickling, alleging the former chief created “unacceptable working conditions.”
The new chief, whose new badge was pinned on by his 10-year-old daughter, Isabella, said his message to firefighters Friday was cooperation and collaboration.
“We’re going to set expectations on performance, but we’re always going to have good lines of communication,” Crow said. “I think those guys know that.
“That’s kind of one of my philosophies. No matter how hard the situation, we need to be able to talk about it. We need to be able to come to a solution, even if we don’t agree with all the details involved,” the new chief said.
His college training both at Oberlin University and Cleveland State may come in handy along the way.
“I feel like there is a lot of things that I can not only pull from my education, but from my experience and my training to apply to whatever kind of situation we are in,” Crow said.
“It’s just a matter of figuring out which tool to use in the toolbox at the right time. But we’re going to give it our best shot,” he said.
