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BY ABBY FOX
Steven Hughes, the new fire marshal, wants you to know he’s prepared and he wants to work with you.
Hughes’ last job was for the Warwick Fire Department, as fire inspector, for seven years, before a brief stint as the assistant fire marshal. Coming from there to East Greenwich, he said, “the problems you face are very similar, but on a smaller scale.” A certified fire investigator, Hughes performed 300 investigations during his Warwick tenure.
Hughes said his philosophy is “we can get a plan” when it comes to businesses and residents becoming code-compliant. “My biggest thing is meeting people,” he said. “I want them to know I have an open office, I take the fire code very seriously, and I’m always willing to work with people. This job is 90 percent- follow through.”
On his fourth day of work, two weeks ago, Stanley Bostitch had a small fire, which made his entrée a little hectic, but now “the dust is beginning to settle,” he said.
The 44-year-old Warwick native and current resident said “you get more done with a positive attitude than with a negative one,” and that “I don’t find it difficult to relate to anybody.”
Hughes is getting up to speed on all the projects he’s going to follow, from New England Institute of Technology’s move to East Greenwich, to the senior and community center construction project, to the new department of public works offices in the former police station. As a matter of fact, at the time of this interview, he was a few hours away from meeting with New England Tech’s architect and said he was looking forward to being on site while the project develops.
Besides ensuring fire code compliance and closely following the current projects in town, Hughes said, he’s anticipating enjoying the lighter side of the job – the public education, primarily of children, that happens at schools and during the summer Main Street strolls, for example. He spontaneously broke into a short speech on fire prevention – “there’s so many things you can do in a home on a daily basis,” he said.
Hughes said he knows he has “big shoes to fill,” as the former long-standing fire marshal, Sue Hawksley, was “very organized, an excellent fire marshal,” but that “you have to take one day at a time.”
Hughes seemed especially cheerful at the time this past because on Tuesday, he had just learned he passed the national National Fire Protection Association test to earn certification in NFPA code. “It was a difficult test; I was very happy,” he said.
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