Former Edwardsville fire chief to head Highland EMS
There will soon be a new Highland’s emergency medical services (EMS) director in town.
On Monday night, Police Chief Terry Bell introduced Brian Wilson as the new head of the Highland EMS.
Wilson was 18 when he joined the Lake Forest Fire Department outside Chicago in 1977. Three decades later, the profession has taken him to departments across the country, including Edwardsville, where he was fire chief from 2004-2010, before he retired from the post.
In March 2010, he was named the state’s first fire service intelligence officer, a new post for coordinating first responders across Illinois.
Wilson, 57, will take over as Highland EMS on July 20.
He will replace Gary Crosby, who submitted his resignation on March 5. Crosby started to work at Highland EMS as a volunteer in 1996, and was named the city’s full-time EMS director in 1999.
The Highland EMS department is comprised of 12 full-time paramedics and about a dozen part-time personnel. Besides the city, Highland EMS also provides ambulance service for the Highland-Pierron, Grantfork, St. Jacob, Marine and St. Rose fire protection distrusts.
Wilson now lives in Edwardsville, but he will be required to move to Highland, Bell said.
Wilson said he and his wife, Patty, are looking forward to moving to Highland. He is also excited about joining Highland EMS.
“I have already met most the EMS staff,” he said. “It’s pretty obvious they have good talent here.”
Bell said Wilson was one of about 20 applicants for the job. The top three candidates were interviewed, he said.
About Brian Wilson
Brian Wilson serves as Illinois Mutual Aid Box Alarm System (MABAS-IL) branch chief of intelligence embedded daily in the statewide terrorism and intelligence center in Springfield. His duties include providing subject matter expertise regarding fire, EMS and HazMat operations to the fusion center, assembling and disseminating intelligence and information across the Illinois fire service, as well as educating and recruiting fire service personnel to serve as intelligence liaison officers for their divisions.
Wilson has nearly four decades of fire service experience, having begun this career as a paid, on-call firefighter/EMT in North Chicago. Concurrent with the 21 years spent with the Lake Forest Fire Department as a firefighter/paramedic, he was also affiliated with several fire departments corresponding with the communities he lived in. He has also served as fire chief in Minturn, Colo., College Park, Ga., and Edwardsville.
He holds an associate of applied science degree in fire science technology from the College of Lake County and a bachelor of science degree in fire science management from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He holds state certifications as a fire investigator, HazMat technician, instructor, fire inspector and fire officer III. He was a charter member of the Type III Incident Management Team and was deployed to New Orleans, La., following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Baton Rouge, La., following Hurricane Gustav in 2008, as well as several flooding disasters across Illinois.
Source: MABAS-IL
This story was originally published July 10, 2015 at 3:00 AM with the headline "Former Edwardsville fire chief to head Highland EMS."