Carpentersville’s Schuldt named fire chief of the year

Carpentersville’s John Schuldt has been named the 2011 Illinois Fire Chief of the year, an honor that has found the normally chatty chief without words.

“It leaves me speechless,” Schuldt said Thursday. “For most people that know me, it is a rare thing for me.”

The Illinois Fire Chiefs Association, which hands out the award, is consists of 1,222 fire chiefs and officers from fire departments and fire protection districts, according to its website.

Schuldt, Carpentersville’s chief since 1996, won the award in the category for a full-time paid or combination department that serves a population of more than 25,000 people. Mark Kirschhoffer, chief of the Newport Fire Protection District in Wadsworth, was named fire chief of the year in one of the smaller categories. A total of a dozen fire chiefs were nominated for the honor.

The association recognized Schuldt for his local, state and national contributions to the firefighting community, said President Ralph Webster, who is Woodstock’s fire chief.

On the local level, Schuldt has held sessions with teenagers on the dangers of alcohol and drugs, designed a fire prevention program for seniors and helped develop the Kane County Investigators Task Force that sends certified investigators to fire departments that need them.

Statewise, Schuldt was appointed to the Illinois Fire Advisory Commission by Gov. Pat Quinn in 2010, a position he still holds today. He also served as the association’s president in 2005 and 2006, during which time the group successfully pushed the state to require self-extinguishing cigarettes, according to nomination forms submitted by Carpentersville Assistant Chief John Skillman.

And on the national level, Schuldt, as president of the association, sat on the first committee that discussed inter mutual aid with 35 other states. Illinois was eventually used a model for developing mutual aid across the nation, Webster said.

But it is Carpenter Park’s healing field for about 1,900 missing in action Vietnam War veterans that made the association take particular notice in the longtime fire chief. Schuldt was one of the people who helped bring it to town.

“It was interesting,” Webster said. “It was something I had not heard of before.”

Schuldt, a Carpentersville native, has 34 years of service under his belt in the fire department. He thanks his parents, family, past and present village administration and the village board for giving him the opportunity to pursue state and national issues.

“Although I get the award ... it is a tribute to everybody and there’s thousands of people ... that have helped me do what I do day in and day out,” Schuldt said.