West Valley Fire Department Promotions

By Natalie Mollinet | [email protected]

West Valley - The West Valley Fire Department is excited to promote six of its members to new positions in the department. Nick Dodge and Aaron Kissell were both promoted to captain and Ken Tucker, Craig Shepherd, Nick Herzog and Bret Rosenkrantz were promoted to engineer. All these promotions take time and dedication to earn, and our fire fighters are proud and excited to receive these promotions. 

Rosenkrantz is from Bluffdale Utah, attended Riverton High, attended some college and is now a member of the West Valley Fire Department. 

“It was like a dream I always had to become a fire fighter,” Rosenkrantz said. “My dad was a fire fighter in Sandy and through the years hearing him talk about how much he loved it, I thought it would be fun.” 

He eventually went through the training to become a fire fighter and realized just how much he loved the training. He looks forward to going to work every day. 

As an engineer, Rosenkrantz is responsible for driving the trucks and calculating how much water needs to be pumped and how far the water needs to be pumped from the truck. 

“Right now my goal is to make it to captain and then from there I’ll be happy staying there for a while,” Rosenkrantz said. “But I can see myself eventually wanting to go further than that.” 

Herzog, another fire fighter promoted to engineer, said he’s excited about the challenges that will help him grow. 

“You feel like you have to have a good handle on it,” Herzog said. “Me personally, I like challenge. You have to challenge yourself to learn and make sure that your skills are tip top.” 

The West Valley Fire Department gets the most calls from people in the valley. Many involve helping people more than fighting fires, but for Herzog, he enjoys never having a dull moment on the job. 

“We’re busy — we don’t just sit around,” he said. “We run a ton more calls and we’re usually pretty busy. Most of them medical calls.” 

Herzog said he wanted to become a fire fighter while he was in a program where he was an EMT. After that he worked at an ice rink driving the Zamboni; he knew he couldn’t stay there, so he went back to fire fighting in West Valley and has now been with the company for nine years. He hopes that with this new promotion he can continue to help and give the best care he can to the people in the city. 

“When the citizen calls, we want them to get people that won’t be incompetent,” Herzog said. “Just providing the best that will make their lives better is what I want to do.” 

Another promotion came for Kissell, who was promoted from engineer to captain, a position that involves testing, practicing in different scenarios and a lot of reading. He said he’s feeling good about the promotion and really enjoys being with the West Valley Fire Department. 

“We’re definitely not the largest unit, but I think unit to unit we’re working and doing calls and our department is by far busier,” Kissell said. 

Kissell wanted to become a fire fighter after doing EMT classes, and once he started working for an ambulance company, he got to see first-hand what fire fighters do. He saw the challenges they faced and wanted to do what they did. He hopes to be a good role model and impact the residents in a positive way. 

“There’s enough negativity and hardships in the world. When people call they’re not having the best day,” Kissell said. “What I would like to do is help by impacting their life in a beneficial way to be positive. It’s kind of hard to put it into words, but I want to make the city better.”