Michael Neuhard spent three decades climbing the ladder from firefighter to the head of the largest fire and rescue department in the state. Now, after just more than 3 1/2 years at the job, the 50-year-old Fairfax County chief is leaving.
Neuhard will join Stafford County Feb. 2 as a deputy county administrator. He sees his first departure from the county’s massive department as an upward move, where he’ll manage a broader array of agencies and issues.
“I’m being offered that opportunity,” Neuhard told The Examiner on Tuesday. “I find it hard, having spent 30 years in the county, not to take advantage of it at this age. It’s almost like starting a second career.”
His departure comes amid changes both internal and external for the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department, which has a staff of about 1,700 and an annual budget of about $170 million.
Neuhard was chief for the much of the recent post-Sept. 11 transition, which ushered in a movement to overhaul how counties and cities in the D.C. Metro region coordinate emergency responses.
“That’s the most important thing: That there is a sense of being part of a larger region [after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks], that there is a responsibility being part of that larger region,” he said.
The upper echelons of the department are also undergoing a transition. The county last week announced the promotion of two new assistant chiefs and a new deputy chief.
Some problems persist in Fairfax County. With an escalation of home prices in recent years, the majority of firefighters now can’t afford to live in the same county where they work. The department also continues to deal with staffing challenges in a swiftly growing area.
Michael Mohler, president of the county’s firefighter and paramedic union, said Neuhard fostered a “cooperative labor-management relationship,” and oversaw improvements in the department. Both men sat in the same class in the county’s fire academy in 1977.
