Justin Cooper comes 'full circle' as Kennebunk's new fire rescue chief

KENNEBUNK, Maine — Justin Cooper joined Kennebunk Fire Rescue when he was 18 years old – his stepfather, Roger Ellenberger, a longtime member of the department, was the one who got him involved in local public safety.

That was back in the summer of 1998, after Cooper graduated high school and before he headed to college in the fall. At the time, Cooper was thinking he would pursue a medical career. But then, as he and Ellenberger began hopping on the engines and going to emergency calls together, Cooper began to see his future take a different direction. It was quite a summer, he said, with a local arsonist keeping the department busy by setting trash cans, dumpsters, cars and more on fire.

“I really got hooked, right off the bat,” Cooper said of firefighting.

How hooked? When he went away to college at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, he continued what he had started in Kennebunk. He joined the school’s student firefighting team. Then, after college, he returned full-time to Maine and to the Kennebunk Fire Department. He loved the profession so much that he not only helped keep Kennebunk safe, he helped Arundel and Biddeford stay safe too.

And now? He’s the new chief of Kennebunk Fire Rescue.

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The Select Board approved Cooper for the position last month, and he started his new post on July 5. Cooper succeeds former Chief Jeffrey Rowe, who recently retired.

Cooper, who had been a per diem deputy chief, applied for the department’s top spot because to him it “just felt like coming full circle.”

“This is the department I started in,” he said during an interview in his office on Wednesday. “This department gave me a lot of opportunities when I was 18 years old and just starting out ... When this opportunity arose, I felt really strongly that I wanted to have the opportunity to hopefully help foster and grow the department even more in the future.”

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In addition to his work with Kennebunk Fire Rescue, Cooper served as a captain and shift commander in Biddeford, working at the fire department in that city for the past 18 years. And, since 2003, he had also served at the Arundel Fire Department, most recently as a deputy fire chief. Cooper said he has relinquished his positions in those towns since becoming chief in Kennebunk.

Cooper has a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology-exercise physiology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Kinesiology focuses on sports, physical activity, health and wellness, and how they all affect quality of life and communities.

Plans for the department

Cooper said his number-one goal as chief is to attract and retain new employees to join the current ones, so that Kennebunk Fire Rescue becomes fully staffed and can meet the safety needs of the community in a thorough and timely fashion. Rowe had created and started pursuing a hiring plan, most notably with the eight new positions he filled through a federal grant he had successfully acquired for the town.

“In public safety, it’s hard to recruit, and it’s hard to retain currently,” he said. “That’s a huge focus of mine ... I want Kennebunk Fire Rescue to be one of the top places people talk about and say, the leadership is great there, the culture is great there, all the employees are great there, and that’s a place I want to be a part of.”

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Volunteers are key to pursuing this mission, Cooper said. The department needs dedicated volunteers who can be there any time of the day or night, including on weekends and holidays. There are a lot of avenues volunteers can pursue, and the department can provide the proper training, he added.

“We need the community support. If people have time they want to dedicate and volunteer, we’re always accepting help,” Cooper said.

When asked what is the single most important quality for effective leadership, Cooper is quick with his reply.

“Selflessness,” he said.

The job is all about taking care of others and helping them, he said. The higher a firefighter makes it up the ranks, the more he or she needs to focus their efforts on providing tools and opportunities for everyone else, so that they may learn, pass on their knowledge, and be prepared for any circumstances the team may face.

“There’s no place for ego,” Cooper said. “There’s no place for focusing on self.”

Cooper said he has been lucky enough to work for fire chiefs and others of higher rank who led without ego. He mentions a fire captain down in Massachusetts, for example, whose focus on his crew members and their growth and well-being really resonated with him.

Cooper named Rowe as selfless – as the kind of leader who shared his vision for the department with the staff and enlisted them in the mission, and had the confidence to accept, act and perhaps even change course when he received productive feedback.

“When you see leaders like that – who don’t have the ego portion of it – I think they’re a lot more successful,” Cooper said.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Justin Cooper comes 'full circle' as Kennebunk's new fire rescue chief