After 30 years with the Montana City Volunteer Fire Department — 19 as chief — Rick Abraham is stepping off the ladder and hanging up his turnout gear to focus on family and hand off his white helmet to the new fire chief.
“I love doing this,” he said, “I will miss the calls and interacting with people. But there comes a time for anything.”
In his decades of volunteering for the fire department, Abraham has been extremely dedicated to his responsibilities, said long-time assistant fire chief Lyn Stimpson, who became chief on May 1.
Abraham said that working at the fire department has been an “intense side job” that could be hard on his family. When his pager goes off, he has to go on the call, no matter where he is or what he’s doing, he said.
“My wife, she’s been left at churches, luncheons, movies, had to call friends asking for a ride home because I had to go out on a fire,” he said.
He said his wife has been very supportive of his volunteering, and he’s loved doing it. However, it’s time for him to focus on his family, he said, and time for the fire department to see some new leadership and some new blood.
Plus, Abraham has four grandkids between Idaho and Ohio, and it was getting harder to schedule time to see them amid his busy fire and work schedules, he explained.
For the next year, Abraham will act as interim assistant fire chief, running calls and answering phones. He said that he will officially leave the department next June.
Stimpson said that one of the best things Abraham did was empowering other firefighters to assume responsibility and leadership positions. Stimpson said that if one of the captains was heading a call and doing a good job, Abraham didn’t jump in and take over, but rather allowed them to take that role and gain confidence in it.
One thing Abraham said he always impressed upon his fellow volunteer firefighters is that family comes first, job and career come second, and extracurriculars — including the fire department — come third. Without having the first two priorities straightened out, he said, a person can’t serve the department to the best of their ability.
Jefferson City Volunteer Fire Department Chief Bud Siderits said there couldn’t be anyone more knowledgeable and supportive to work fires with than Abraham. Even in the tensest of situations, he could “keep everything calm and cool, always with a smile on his face,” Siderits said.
According to Stimpson, Abraham cultivated an environment of accountability and leadership in the department so that if either Abraham or he were unavailable for a call, the rest of the crew could handle it just fine.
Stimpson also said that Abraham was the “driving force” behind getting a mil levy for the fire department on the ballot in 2006 to pay for operations and new fire equipment, such as fire engines, a ladder truck and other vehicles.
As chief, Abraham sat on the Lewis and Clark Volunteer Fire Council and was president of the Jefferson County Fire Council. He will remain on the Montana State Fire Chiefs Association board until his term ends next year.
Abraham said he spent much of his time as chief attending meetings, something Stimpson is quickly learning.
“I didn’t realize how many meetings there were until the last few weeks,” he said.
When Abraham isn’t enjoying family time or volunteering for the fire department, he works at Abraham Construction Services in Helena, a company he has owned for about three years. His company built Montana City Fire Station No. 1 in 2015.
“I did everything I wanted to do,” Abraham said of his time at the fire department. “Change is good, it’s just very hard.”
