Derick Oswald gets 2011 award

Der­ick Oswald has tack­led many projects while he’s been a mem­ber of the Welling­ton Fire Dis­trict, and his hard work has earned him 2011’s Fire­fighter of the Year award.

Oswald was named the Fire­fighter of the Year at the district’s annual din­ner, which was held Jan. 28.

Oswald joined the force in 1998, when he moved to Welling­ton from Minnesota.

Through­out his career, he’s achieved cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for Basic EMT, is a cer­ti­fied car seat tech­ni­cian, is active with the district’s Fire Pre­ven­tion pro­gram, and is a Juve­nile Fire­set­ter evaluator.

As a Juve­nile Fire­set­ter eval­u­a­tor, he works with assis­tant chief Bill Brown. He said they bring in juve­niles who have set fires and try to get them on the right track again.

“We went through this so we could work with the child and teach them about fires,” he said. “If we don’t stop them young, they’ll get involved in the sys­tem when they’re older, and we don’t want that to happen.”

At the annual din­ner, Oswald also received an award of merit for his work with the child car seat program.

Oswald said mem­bers of the depart­ment voted on the award, so he was hon­ored to be selected.

“I’m very hon­ored and hum­bled,” he said. “I was picked by my peers, which means a lot. I was sur­prised and I’m def­i­nitely happy to receive this award.”

Oswald is a part-time mem­ber of the depart­ment, and also worked part-time for Pitts­field Town­ship, and is an EMT basic for the Cen­tral Lorain County Ambu­lance District.

Oswald and his wife, Theresa, have two kids, Maile and Lily.

Oswald admits he’s busy, but does his best to jug­gle all his responsibilities.

“I’m at home with my pager on in case a call comes in,” he said. “Some­times I may be watch­ing the kids, or we may be out of town, so it’s tough some­times to miss the big things that might happen.”

Oswald said it’s eas­ier to han­dle every­thing, though, because his fam­ily is supportive.

“I have a very under­stand­ing wife and two great kids,” he said. “They let me take on the extra jobs. With­out their sup­port, I wouldn’t be able to do all of this.”

As for the Fire­fighter of the Year award, Oswald said it’s nice to know his hard work has been recognized.

“It means a lot because I know what this award means,” he said. “I’ve obvi­ously been doing some­thing right. I want to thank (my peers). They obvi­ously see the hard work I’ve put in, and I’m proud to have them pick me.”

Posted by Terra Carlson on Feb 13 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.