Meet Chief Joseph Dixon, the trailblazing fire chief redefining leadership in Baltimore County
When you become a pioneer, the weight of being the first anything to do anything can be overwhelming. However, not for Joseph Dixon, Baltimore County's first Black fire chief.
"I'm happy to be a qualified first black chief and it is important for me to be able to do the job, be able to do the job well, and let people know that regardless of the color of my skin, that I serve everyone," Chief Dixon told WJZ Reporter Stephon Dingle.
Dixon is a Baltimore native with decades of experience fighting fires and now, he is taking his historic first and making room for others.
"What I will say is that I stand on the shoulders of many others. I remember watching Chief Williams in Baltimore City, of course everybody knows Montel, but Chief Williams and many of the other pioneers here in Baltimore County," Chief Dixon said.
On any casual day you'll find the West Baltimore native inside the main fire house in Towson, inspiring his men and women and opening the door for transparency and leadership.
"They go out and touch the community every day. As a chief, it is important to me that they know who I am," said Dixon. "I'm a member of the team. I can't be successful as a chief unless they are successful."
Diversity and leadership
During Dingle's interview with the chief, as odds would have it, an emergency call came in.
"Probably a report of a structure fire or something hazardous of that nature," Dixon told Dingle.
Diversity and leadership were on full display as Chief Dixon's team headed urgently to their next call.
"Sometimes the community wants someone that looks like them or represents certain things about them that ultimately, they may want to see in the people that are coming to assist them," Lt. Cynthia Gee explained.
For Chief Dixon, that leadership and sense of upward mobility based on merit and hard work, to selflessly save lives for those in Baltimore County, is a legacy that is less about him, than it is those he uplifts and inspires.
"If you want to see your community be better and do better, no matter what the demographics, no matter red, yellow, black, blue, LGBTQ, as long as you can do the job, we want you to come out and be a part of our team," Dixon said.
With its first Black police chief, the county is embracing its diversity in other departments. As for Dixon, not bad for a seasoned vet who hails from West Baltimore.
"I'll tell you what, I'm an old man and I get emotional sometimes, because somebody saw something in me that I didn't see in myself and that's important to me to pass along and encourage somebody," he said.
The first and surely not the last, but let Chief Dixon tell it, there's a whole lot of qualified candidates to lead the future of Maryland's biggest county.
