Just a few days away from retirement, Thomas Bender’s office is mostly cleaned out.
He’s already boxed up and moved the bulk of his personal belongings, his office walls and shelves are mostly bare, his desk reduced to the basics.
But he’s far from checking out, or merely watching the clock for the next few days. The phone in his Pittsboro office continues to ring and most of his time between now and the end of May is booked with work.
And that’s the way Bender, Chatham County’s fire marshal since 1993, seems to like things.
He bought a boat a few years ago, he said, but admits that “it’s never been in the water.”
So getting the boat into water, and dropping a fishing line in, too, are on Bender’s to-do list after he closes his office door behind him for the last time on May 31.
Just as he won’t be idle this week and next, he isn’t planning on being idle after he retires.
“I can’t just sit,” he said.
Although nearly ready for a new occupant, Bender’s office, situated towards the back of the county’s Henry Dunlap Building, just off East Street, still has a few personal touches in place, particularly a dry-erase board on which, in Bender’s hand, are written a couple of short phrases that say a lot about Bender’s style. One is: “Make it happen.”
Beneath that is another phrase meaningful to the veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, where his work in firefighting and fire prevention began: “Failure is not an option.”
And above those two phrases, printed on an 8.5”x11” piece of paper and affixed to the board are three more reminder important to him: “Faith, patience, humility.”
The latter quality, in particular, is resonating with the retiring fire marshal as he reflects on his nearly three-decades-long career in Chatham County.
“I have a lot of people to thank,” he said.
He mentions first the residents of Chatham County, both young and old, including the hundreds of school children he met, usually during Fire Safety Week activities, who were so receptive and welcoming over the years to annual visits from Sparky the Fire Dog. In the guise of the fire prevention mascot, Bender offered important advice on fire safety and fire prevention to several generations of children.
Strong county leadership, Bender said, made his work easier.
“Folks in county government have been super supportive of what we do,” Bender said.
He mentions, too, the support his office has received from all the branches of law enforcement in the community.
And then there are the county’s first responders, including the volunteers and paid staff of Chatham County’s 11 fire departments.
“The big thanks go to them,” he said. “All of the first responders. The volunteers. Some are paid, of course. But they’re all equal. We’re all part of the same family. The camaraderie, the friendship, their devotion to the work. It isn’t about me. I’ve been blessed to work with them.”
A native of Wisconsin and, despite his years in the South a firm Green Bay Packers fan (“I’m a cheesehead,” he says), Bender began working in fire safety as a Marine. Following his service in Corps, he worked in a steel foundry for a time before taking a job with the City of Menasha, Wisconsin, where he worked as a paid firefighter for four years.
But he hadn’t forgotten his days at Cherry Point as a Marine. “The biggest thing that hit me,” he said, “was the smell of the honeysuckle.”
A job at Wayne County’s Seymour Johnson Air Force Base lured Bender back to the honeysuckle and he worked there for nine years, training a lot of firefighters.
In March 1993, he came to work in Chatham County.
The job of fire marshal wasn’t always easy. “To quote my favorite band,” he said, “it’s been a long and winding road.”
Overseeing new codes and new inspections procedures implemented across the state in the aftermath of the Hamlet chicken plant fire in Richmond County, which occurred in 1991, didn’t always endear the new fire marshal to everyone, he admitted.
“The tough thing was coming into a county where there was no fire inspection program,” he said. “But I had a code book and I had to do the right thing.”
With faith, patience and humility, Bender undertook the office’s mission, as stated on the Chatham County website, “to reduce and seek to eliminate the unnecessary loss of lives and property due to avoidable fires.”
Two years ago, the scope of Bender’s involvement in work toward that mission expanded further when he served his first term as president of the North Carolina Fire Marshal’s Association. Immediately following his first year in the post, he was appointed to a second.
Bender noted two things from his work in Chatham County of which he’s particularly happy to have been a part. One is his work with schools, sharing with students year-after-year important fire safety information; and the second is his role in the establishment of the 9/11 Memorial off Sanford Road in Pittsboro, which incorporates a steel beam from the World Trade Center that survived the 9/11 terror attack. After securing the steel piece in the months following 9/11, Bender, along with two county firefighters, drove a truck to New York and returned with the artifact, which is now a part of the permanent memorial in Pittsboro.
Bender’s work will continue with the statewide Fire Marshal’s Association, which recently appointed him the organization’s chaplain.
And after taking the month of June to relax and maybe finally try out his land-locked fishing boat, Bender plans to return to work, most likely something involving what he knows best: fire safety.
The Chatham County Board of Commissioners showed its appreciation for Bender’s service Monday night, honoring him with a wooden plaque recognizing his 26 years of service to Chatham County.
“We are bidding farewell to a fantastic public servant and an all- around decent guy,” said Mike Dasher, chair of the Chatham County Board of Commissioners. “We are sad to see him go. When you look up public servant in the dictionary, there should be a picture of that guy right there. Thank you so much for your service to this county.”