City of Belmont Fire Department issued the following announcement on Oct. 24.
The first full-time chief of the Belmont Fire Department is a career law enforcement officer who most recently worked at the Belmont Police Department.
Chief Todd Davis said that his love for firefighting was sparked as a child, watching his father volunteer for Cramerton Fire Department.
Davis, who is now 51, said that he himself started in the profession by volunteering with Cramerton in 1988, when he was just 17.
He was drawn to "the camaraderie, the brotherhood, the giving back to the community," he said.
Davis enlisted in the Navy in 1989 after graduating from high school and served in the Navy for three years, working on firefighting teams.
After he left the Navy, he returned to Cramerton and continued volunteering at the fire department. He also began Basic Law Enforcement Training.
From there, he worked from Cramerton Police Department from 1993 until the year 2000, when he was accepted into school for the N.C. Highway Patrol. He retired from Highway Patrol in 2019, and in 2020, he began working for the Belmont Police Department.
Davis has not worked in firefighting since the early 2000s, when he fully transitioned to full-time law enforcement work, but he says he brings to the department leadership and administrative abilities that served him in his work as a law enforcement officer.
"I believe that's the experience that I'm bringing here," he said.
Davis replaces the former chief, George Altice, a part-time chief who, after serving as fire chief since December 2001, "unexpectedly retired via email" on Aug. 24," according to Belmont City Manager Adrian Miller. Davis is the department's first full-time chief, and he receives a salary of $88,000 a year.
Original source can be found here.
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