Posing for photorgraphers following today’s promotion ceremony were (l-r) Lt. Rob Yost, Chief Christopher Ackley, First Selectman Gordon Joseloff, and Assistant Chief William Dingee. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com
The Westport Fire Department has a new training officer and lieutenant.
Posing for photorgraphers following today’s promotion ceremony were (l-r) Lt. Rob Yost, Chief Christopher Ackley, First Selectman Gordon Joseloff, and Assistant Chief William Dingee. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com
William Dingee, a 16-year department veteran, was promoted to assistant fire chief and Robert Yost, an 18-year department veteran, was made a lieutenant during a ceremony at Fire Headquarters today.
It is the first of what will be several ceremonies promoting and hiring new firefighters.
Dingee will fill the training officer role, a position left vacant the last year after being reinstituted with the department, and Yost will slide into Dingee’s former lieutenant spot.
Fire Chief Christopher Ackley said the department promoted two outstanding firefighters who have shown they can always be counted on.
“In this business, it’s a compliment to say you were a good firefighter,” he said. “These two were good firefighters.”
First Selectman Gordon Joseloff said he has known both over the 15 years he has been a volunteer firefighter.
Lt. Rob Yost gets his new badge pinned on him by his wife, Tina, as mother, Frances, looks on. Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com
“I trained with them, I worked with them and I admired them,” he said.
Ackley cited two examples of the firefighters helping people in peril. Dingee was among three firefighters who saved a woman from cold waters during a 13-foot storm surge in 1992, he said, and Yost was searching for victims at a fire when a stairwell collapsed.
“It shows these two will do what they have to to save a life,” he said.
Dingee said he hopes to help his brother and sister firefighters with their continuing training and keeping everyone safe.
Yost comes from a line of firefighters, including his father, the late Norwalk Fire Chief Jack Yost.
Joseloff said all should give tribute to the family and all they have given to the fire service and Connecticut.
Yost said it seems like yesterday when his father was pinning his badge on him when he joined the Westport department in 1988.