Emergency Management Director and Fire Coordinator David Sharp has already had plenty of experience in Clarke County to help him become acclimated to his new position since he was hired.
When Eddie Ivy retired, the Clarke County Board of Supervisors knew they had big shoes to fill and set out to find someone who they believe can maintain the high standards that were already in place. After looking at the applications for a few individuals, they chose to hire David Sharp for the position. His past experience working in the fields elsewhere is one of the contributing factors that convinced supervisors that he would be a great man for the job.
“When I was in high school, my parents owned an ambulance service in Newton County, so I started out driving an ambulance for them. They sold it when I was a senior in high school, and I worked for the people who bought it from them. In 1983, I went to work at the Meridian Fire Department and worked my way up from firefighter to training chief. I built the majority of the training facility up there and ran it for quite a while as well as doing the training for the fire department in town,” recalled Sharp. “The director in Lauderdale County used to be both the Emergency Management Director and fire coordinator. After Katrina, the county decided to split those. When they did, I put in for the EMA position and got it. I did that for almost 10 years. In 2014, I retired with state retirement and went into the private sector working on pipelines as a safety officer and did that for a while. Three years ago, I went to work for Georgia Pacific as a Safety Emergency Response Team Specialist. I was part of the safety division, but I was over the emergency response team on my shift. I did that for three years, but when Eddie retired, I came and put in my application for this position.”
Now that he is in the position, Sharp has already started to do different things to help benefit the volunteers in the county.
“I’m going to do everything I can to improve on what Eddie has already done down here. I have a lot of respect for Eddie, and it’s hard coming in behind someone like him. I’m going to try and make Clarke County the best that I can as far as emergency management and fire service,” explained Sharp. “I’m trying to write a grant right now that will help to provide some incentives for the firefighters and emergency management volunteers and to provide more training for them. They get trained in certain areas, but then they have to have continued education hours. That’s hard for them to find since there isn’t a whole lot of that offered in Clarke County. If I get this grant, we’ll be working with Jones College in Stonewall to do the classes there. Then, all the volunteers will be able to go there to take the classes, and they’ll get the continuing education hours they need to keep their certifications up. There will be classes to prepare entry level firefighters for moving up into officer ranks, and it will help the college out because every student we send for those classes is another student on their roster. It’s a win-win situation for everyone.”
Outside of his grant work and working hard to complete some of the on-going projects that Eddie had been working on before he left, Sharp has some short term goals that he is working on implementing already in the county to benefit the citizens. One of his goals involves being able to receive accurate information on the weather that occurs in the county.
“We are trying to get some of the things we need here. We don’t have a weather station here,” expressed Sharp. “If we get rain, we don’t know how much rain we get. We have to call the weather service and have them give us an estimate on how much rain they think we got. I’m looking at getting a new weather station put in here.”
He has also gotten approval and is working on a system that will strengthen the communication for the citizens of the county any time there is severe weather or closures to bridges and roads.
“I’m working on a mass notification system for Clarke County. If we have road closures, a hazmat spill, or bridges closed for different reasons, we can send out an alert. Anybody who signs up for it across the county will get it. It’ll come out of my budget, but it’s free for the county residents,” informed Sharp. “Once we get it set up, I’ll be able to set up administrative rights for the superintendents at the two school districts so that they can send out messages county wide for stuff going on at the schools. It would say from Quitman School District or Enterprise School District when they go out. You can go in and select all the types of notifications you want to receive from the National Weather Service as far as watches and warnings and how you want to receive the messages.”
In his time in the position, he has also had the Board of Supervisors pass a new ordinance which allows the county and fire departments to get some money back after working the sites of large wrecks.
“I just got the Board of Supervisors to adopt an ordinance to where I can bill insurance companies for everything we have to send out whenever there is a wreck with an 18 wheeler and oil is spilled,” declared Sharp. “Originally, we would always have to send out fire departments and have everyone standing around working for hours, and we wouldn’t get anything out of it. Now, I may be able to get $3,000-$4,000 back from the insurance companies to give back to the county and fire departments that were involved.”
He has made sure to keep emergency management working hard with the public.
“We had the River Run with the Chamber of Commerce, and we worked with them all day that day to make sure everybody got off the river safely,” stated Sharp.
Now that he is employed and working hard in Clarke County, he is trying his best to become part of the county. Unfortunately, the search for a home in the county hasn’t been successful yet.
“My wife and I are actively looking for a house down here,” said Sharp. “We are looking to come to Clarke County and become residents and tax payers here.”
Sharp is trying not to make too many changes to how everything is done, but he does acknowledge that he is changing a few things just because he and Eddie have a different way of doing some things. He is excited to be in his new position and is hoping to do everything he can to make everything better for the county.
