‘Change agent’: Former Mount Prospect fire chief was an innovator
Lawrence Pairitz was a TV repairman when he joined Mount Prospect’s volunteer fire department in 1958. He would soon become the village’s first full-time firefighter and 12 years later was serving as its chief at the age of 35.
Pairitz, who died April 29 in Naples, Florida at age 89, helped change the culture of the village’s fire service. He started public education programs, championed the use of sprinklers, embraced the concept of mutual aid and worked to establish the first centralized emergency dispatch center in the Chicago area.
“My dad was a change agent,” son Kurt Pairitz said. “He always was looking for the next big thing. How do we get better?”
Pairitz graduated from St. Gregory High School in Chicago then trained as a television repairman. He married his wife of 69 years, Lenore Savage, and moved to Mount Prospect, where he started a TV repair business out of his home, Kurt Pairitz said.
A chat with a neighbor changed his career trajectory.
“‘You should join us on the volunteer fire department. It’s a good way to meet people, and everyone needs to know a TV repairman,’” the neighbor told Pairitz, according to his son.
When the department transitioned to a full-time operation in 1961, Pairitz became the village’s first full-time firefighter, a resolution passed by the village board 25 years later states.
Pairitz was promoted to lieutenant in 1963 and in 1965 was put in charge of the village’s civil defense unit. He also served on Gov. Richard Ogilvie’s Civil Defense Advisory Council and was a member of the Northeast Illinois Civil Defense Directors Council board.
His contributions included putting a Civil Defense public warning system in the village, the organization of shelter facilities throughout town and the installation of an emergency warning radio system in schools and public gathering places.
After being named chief in 1970, he oversaw some of the most significant changes in the department’s history, with the formation of the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System and the creation of Northwest Central Dispatch, the area’s first centralized emergency dispatch system.
Pairitz also hired the department’s first public education officer, launched the annual Children's Fire Safety Festival and initiated a Fire Cadet program.
In 1972, along with Dr. Stanley Zydlo, Pairitz was instrumental in starting the Northwest Community EMS Paramedic program, one of the first efforts in the nation to bring advanced life support to the firefighting field.
The Illinois Fire Chiefs Association honored him with the Outstanding Chief Award for 1982.
He retired from Mount Prospect in 1986 and moved to Florida to take over as fire chief in the Miami suburb of Hallandale Beach.
He is survived by his wife and six children, as well as 16 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.