Effective with the retirements of Public Safety and EMA Director Ted Wynn on Jan. 31 and Emergency Medical Service Director Doug Vickers on Jan. 15, current BCCI Warden Randy Tillman will become Bulloch County's new public safety director, and current EMS Assistant Director Brian Hendrix will be the new Emergency Medical Service director.
During Tuesday's 8:30 a.m. Bulloch County Board of Commissioners meeting, County Manager Tom Couch announced Tillman's appointment to the top Public Safety Division role and Hendrix's promotion to the top EMS job.
Meanwhile, Assistant Public Safety Director Lee Eckles, who previously served as Emergency Medical Service director, is also retiring, effective Dec. 31.
“With a heavy heart, one thing that we’ll be missing when Mr. Wynn, Mr. Eckles and Mr. Vickers leave, is there’s about 120 years of experience, not just in their wheelhouse but with Bulloch County that will be going out the door,” Couch said. “But I think that with some of the replacements that we’ve mentioned and people who will be brought up that we’ll get pretty close to that.”
Tillman and Hendrix will be responsible for filling the former positions they are leaving, he said. But while Tillman will be public safety director, he will not serve in the other role Wynn is vacating, Emergency Management Agency chief.
Separate EMA chief
Instead, at end of 2023 or beginning of 2024, the county government will launch an internal and external search for an EMA director, to make this a separate job from that of public safety director, Couch announced.
“In consultation with Mr. Wynn, we think we’re at a point or precipice where we need to have a full-time and robust effort in EMA,” Couch said. “Ted has really worn the EMA hat along with his public safety director tag, but we think given the size of our community, you know, the growth in the community, Hyundai growth, natural and man-made threats, we need to get our game up, and we would anticipate trying to recruit an EMA director immediately.”
Couch had consulted commissioners but made the decision himself regarding Tillman’s new role as Public Safety Division chief. But the commissioners will have to vote to appoint an EMA director. Although in the county’s organizational chart the public safety director leads the division that includes the EMA, under Georgia law the EMA director must be appointed directly by the Board of Commissioners, Couch explained.
County staff, including the human resources office, will assist with the recruitment and can involve commissioners in interviews for that role, he added. Wynn is also expected to help with the transition until his retirement takes effect Jan. 31.
Departing experience
Couch’s 120-year comment was a casual estimate, but it turns out to have been less than four years over Eckles’, Vickers’ and Wynn’ combined 116-plus years’ tenure with the Bulloch County government, and that doesn’t include experience they brought with them from previous jobs. Eckles’ start date with the county was April 1, 1981; Vickers’ was Aug. 1,1982; and Wynn’s was Oct. 1, 1991, according to information the commissioners’ Communications Director Dal Cannady provided later Tuesday.
That’s 42 years and eight months service with the county from Eckles; 41 years, five months from Vickers; and 32 years, four months from Wynn.
Retirement receptions
A drop-in retirement reception for both Eckles and Vickers will be held this Thursday, Dec. 21, from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Bulloch County Emergency Medical Service headquarters, 26 W. Grady St., Statesboro.
A retirement reception for Wynn is slated for Jan. 18, probably 5-7 p.m., in the Statesboro Homebuilders Association building, 1223 Merchants Way, said Assistant County Manager Cindy Steinmann.
New Public Safety head
Tillman, now 59, was hired by the county five years ago last August as warden of Bulloch County Correctional Institution, the county-owned prison that houses state inmates, many of whom provide labor for local government agencies. Before that, his now 38-year career included more than three years as the Georgia Department of Corrections director of prisons, overseeing prison operations throughout the state.
“I look forward to helping continue what Mr. Wynn and Mr. Vickers have built,” Tillman said. “It’s going to be a fun adventure, but replacing their experience is going to be tough.”
New EMS director
Hendrix, 48, has been Bulloch County EMS assistant director for the past five years, out of 23 years full-time service with the agency, after four years before that with Evans County EMS.
He moves up to the director role just as Bulloch EMS has expanded from two stations to three and is preparing to staff a fourth.
“I’m very grateful,” Hendrix said of the promotion. “I’ve served the citizens of Bulloch County pretty much all of my adult life, and I look forward to continuing to serve the citizens in a new capacity. I’ll have a lot of good folks working for me, so that makes my job easy.”
The EMS has about 42 full-time and 25 part-time employees, mostly paramedics and EMTs, to operate around the clock 365 days a year.
Headquartered in Statesboro and long with a second station in Brooklet, the ambulance service has stepped up to 24-hour staffing of a station in Portal. As was done in Portal, the Bulloch County Fire Department station in Register is now being renovated in part to accommodate the EMS.
Wynn’s comment
Wynn was hired in 1991 as the county’s first 911 director to launch the centralized emergency dispatch service. The county leadership named him EMA director in 1992 and promoted him to public safety director soon after the Bulloch 911 center took its first call on Dec. 14, 1992.
The position has grown to include administration of five departments, in addition to the EMA, within a Public Safety Division: Adult Probation, Animal Services, the EMS, the Fire Department and the 911 Center. Couch said he also plans to return BCCI to being a part of the division under Tillman’s leadership.
Wynn, in a follow-up call Tuesday, said he had talked with Tillman beginning two or three months ago about becoming the division director.
“I was excited that he was interested,” Wynn said. “In my mind he checked all the boxes of being a great leader, and certainly being a people person, and his experience with the state prison system supervising people, and the very significant rank that he got during his tenure there. I think he’ll be able to do some great things in Public Safety.”