BATH

When he was interviewed for his first position at Bath Fire Department 27 years ago, the chief at the time asked him of his future goals.

“Eventually I want to be sitting in your chair,” Lawrence “Buddy” Renaud said he remembers telling Ron Clark, who was that fire chief back in 1987.

Years of experience on the job, filling roles of increasing responsibility and serving as chief for a dozen years for West Bath Fire Department, Renaud was given the opportunity to lead the department forward when the council appointed him fire chief on June 11. He’d served as acting chief since April when former fire chief Stephen Hinds retired.

The West Bath native had hung around the West Bath fire station growing up, where his grandfather Chester Swain was fire chief. He joined the West Bath Fire Department when he was old enough — age 17 — in 1978. Since then, he’s never taken a break from the fire service. Even when he worked at Bath Iron Works as a crane operator from 1980-1987, he went through the fire academy and did weekend fire attack schools, a couple stints at the national fire academy and spent a lot of time becoming educated. Invited to interview for a position with Bath Fire and Rescue in 1987, which he accepted, he remembers he would be getting about half the paycheck as at BIW.

That didn’t deter him because firefighting is what he always wanted to do. He served as West Bath Fire Department chief for 12 years before stepping down.

“It was destiny,” Renaud said as he sat at his desk Friday at the fire station on High Street.

It’s the excitement and the unknown, Renaud said, that makes firefighting appeal to him.

“You never know what you going to be responding to,” he said, noting you must be mentally and physically prepared for anything — whether it’s a fire, car accident or to deliver a baby.

“I’ve delivered one,” Renaud said of an occasion when a snowstorm kept his crew from getting the mother to a hospital in time.

“We’re public servants,” he said. “I run into people I’ve seen in their worst time,” and said they have an unspoken bond. He finds satisfaction in being able to make calm out of mayhem or chaos.

“Until you witness or experience someone who feels it’s over and everything is out of control …” Renaud added. “You bring that control back to them. They don’t call us when their life is normal.”

For fun, Renaud enjoys snowmobiling, and he may put 5,000-10,000 miles on his machine. It’s allowed him to see “parts of the state you can only imagine.”

Through all his years of firefighting, he has remained married to his high school sweetheart Maria Linn (Schram) Renaud. The two began dating in 1980, married in 1985, had their daughter in 1988 and son in 1994. His daughter Chelsey attended University of Maine, earning a master’s degree in childhood education and a minor in psychology, and son Max is attending Cornell University to become a chemical engineer.

Proud of his children and what they will contribute to society, “I attribute to good parenting,” and he emphasizes his wife is “an excellent parent.”

She is an “amazing, amazing woman,” Renaud said of his wife, who graduated at the top of her class and could have had a promising career but, based on their values, stayed home to raise the children and “let me have my career.”

“I’ve left her at restaurants, shopping,” to rush off to emergencies, Renaud said. The public safety field comes with a high divorce rate but these two are still together he says because they’re still in love.

Members of the department knew Hinds would retire someday, of course, Renaud said, but when he made the announcement earlier this year of his retirement effective April 15, it was a surprise. Renaud went to the city manager to voice his interest in leading the department in the interim and said “I’d love to have the opportunity to take the department to the next phase.”

The captains, he said, were told three or four years ago by City Manager Bill Giroux that he’d like to see one of them become the next chief when that time came, which does a lot for morale, Renaud said.

He wants to maintain continuity within the department and increase training. With the number of calls to which department personnel respond, Renaud is concerned they’re not getting the level of fire training they need. They will revisit the basics, drill more, endeavor to do whatever they do well and have proper procedures in place. In 2013, the department responded to 1,931 ambulance calls and 349 fire calls, and the calls seem to be rising each year lately.

His motto, Renaud said, is “everyone goes home.” Accidents don’t just happen, he said, but are a result of a lack of preparation.

“Complacency can kill you,” he said.

He’s been working diligently on safety standards, reviewing standard operating guidelines. On Friday, for example, he worked with the Sagadahoc County Communications Center on improving “mayday” procedures if a firefighter gets trapped or is unaccounted for.

His mission statement: “We’re going to do it together.”

Renaud said he isn’t chief because he’s the best firefighter or paramedic, but has the neccessary “allaround” knowledge. He’s done every job in the department and as its head of command, isn’t asking anyone to do anything he hasn’t done.

The fire station is home to the crew on shift and they live there. The department members are family and it’s something you have to live to understand, Renaud said. They clean up the sleeping quarters every shift, even the toilets, in addition to checking every piece of equipment daily, and train or drill in between. They are expected to work and don’t sit around watching television waiting for a call, Renaud said. He invites people to stop by and visit the station, full of the department’s history, its front adorned with a sign he designed himself with the BIW-built USS Drayton, DD- 366.

It’s a great department, Renaud said. Grateful to have the opportunity to serve as Bath’s next fire chief, Renaud said he’d have had a great career regardless.

“It humbles me that I’m going to end my career as the so-to-speak top dog,” he said.

dmoore@timesrecord.com