JAMES PINKERTON
Houston Chronicle
Reprinted with Permission

A veteran Arizona fire chief is Mayor Annise Parker's apparent choice to lead Houston's fire department, a decision she will announce Wednesday.

Terry A. Garrison, of Carefree, Ariz., ended a 30-year career with the Phoenix Fire Department as an assistant chief in early 2007. He was the interim chief of the Daisy Mountain Fire District until he gave his notice on Monday, the district spokesman confirmed Tuesday.

"He told us he had accepted the position with Houston Fire Department,“ said Capt. Dave Wilson, the public information officer for the district. "He said he looks forward to it, and is sorry to leave Daisy Mountain. His tenure here was short; he started as the assistant fire chief in March."

Wilson said the Daisy Mountain district provides fire coverage to a 120-square-mile area just north of Phoenix. The district serves a rural population of 45,000 with four stations and 90 firefighters.

"We didn't have a whole lot of opportunity to get to know him, his main focus was operations. He fell right in and got focused on the job,“ said Wilson, adding that the department chief died two weeks ago and Garrison took over as interim chief.

Garrison also served as chief of the Oceanside, Calif., fire department from May 2007 to December 2009.

"Houston is very fortunate,“ said Chief Ray Melendrez, who heads the administration division of the Oceanside department.

"We hated to see him go. He brought so many wonderful programs and a feeling of cohesiveness," Melendrez said. "We were a divided department when he came, and he was effective in bringing everyone to the same page."

Parker hired a consulting firm to screen the 26 candidates who applied for the job, and the firm evaluated their qualifications and recommended seven finalists.

Jeff Caynon, president of the Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association, said Parker told him last week that she had narrowed her choice to a pair of candidates. He said he favored a department insider.

"She said she had narrowed it to two and didn't have her mind made up but she was close,“ Caynon said. "She said one was local and one was from out-of-state.“

"We've said all along we need a qualified applicant who can run the department and obviously a department the size of Houston, the call volume and the complexity; it's the kind of job that lends itself to an insider,“ he said. "But at the same time, it's the mayor's choice and she's put this process in place and we'll see who she chooses."

The mayor limited her search for a new police chief to Houston Police Department insiders but chose a nationwide search for a new fire chief after she expressed dissatisfaction with the department's handling of complaints of racial and sexual discrimination.