After several months in limbo, Mountain Vista Fire District will finally get its new leader Friday, Jan. 22, when Cheryl Horvath is sworn in as fire chief.
Horvath was most recently division chief with Northwest Fire District, where she spent a decade, and prior to that worked for 13 years with the Urbana Fire Department in Illinois.
Although sheβs achieved quite a milestone, becoming the third female fire chief the Tucson area has had, fire services wasnβt Horvathβs first career.
After receiving her degree in program management from the University of Illinois, Horvath went to work in parks and recreation, which she enjoyed for a number of years, until she was ready for a change.
While in between careers, she says, an ad in the newspaper for fire services caught her eye.
βI thought it sounded fun. I liked the idea of teamwork and the physical aspect to it,β Horvath said. βBut I didnβt have any friends or family who worked as a firefighter, so I literally went in pretty blind.β
She was in her early 30s when she began working at Urbana Fire Department, and says the life experience she brought with her to the job was a big help.
βI knew that if I worked hard, I could get through it.β
Horvath came to Tucson in 2006 after being hired as a Northwest Fire battalion chief.
βI was ready for some different scenery and I was also ready for a chief officer job,β she said. βI liked the idea of living out West in Arizona.β
In addition, Phoenix Fire Department had a reputation for being very progressive and Horvath hoped the same was true for Tucson.
She found that it was.
In her 10 years with Northwest Fire, Horvath was promoted to division chief and earned her masterβs degree in public administration from Anna Maria College.
She says her first priority as chief is to focus on relationships.
Mountain Vista district falls in Marana and Oro Valley, and the fire department works closely with police in both towns, as well as Northwest and Golder Ranch fire departments.
βMy biggest thing going in will be to work on the relationships and make sure that the services we provide meet the needs of the community,β she said. βWeβre also going to work on relationships internally. In a lot of ways, weβre still a new department.β
Mountain Vista had some troubles last August, when then-chief Ed Wilkerson resigned from his position, following a vote of no confidence from firefighters.
The department went for several weeks without a chief, before the board hired Glenn Brown until a permanent replacement could be found.
Horvath says that despite the events of last summer, morale among Mountain Vistaβs firefighters is good.
βTheyβre excited for all that to be in the past and for things to get settled down,β she said. βThey like the fact that the board brought someone in from the Tucson area and that Iβm familiar with things around here.β
Horvath is actively involved with the January 8 Memorial Foundation and the Girl Scouts of Southern Arizona. She is co-founder of Camp Fury, a camp for high school girls interested in careers in public safety.
Mountain Vistaβs district was formed in 2008 by a merger of three fire districts. It covers about 19 square miles, primarily north of West Ina Road, east of North Thornydale Road, just west of Oracle Road and extending north to West Naranja Drive. It serves nearly 38,000 residents.
In July 2014, Mountain Vista began operating on its own with 33 firefighters and three chiefs. Eighteen months later, itβs grown to 40 firefighters and four chiefs. Mountain Vistaβs two stations respond to roughly 4,500 calls per year.
