Hi all,
As most of you would have heard, Chief Officer Russell Rees today handed in his resignation. Attached is the official media statement.
A CFA Connect piece on Russell’s CFA career has also been provided below:
Four decades at CFA
Russell Rees has been involved with CFA for more than four decades.
He joined as a career officer in 1978 but prior to that was a volunteer firefighter at Moe and Belmont, and had been a junior member from the age of 11.
Russell has had a long and distinguished career in CFA working across a range of locations, including Melton, Ballarat, Ararat, Geelong, Seymour, Colac and Lilydale. For some time he was an instructor at CFA’s Training College at Fiskville and in his last two years there was the Officer in Charge of Operational Training.
After an organisational restructure of CFA in 1994, Russell was appointed the Area Manager for the Yarra Area, based in Lilydale. Russell was responsible for a range of organisational change initiatives, as well as leading his team during the 1997 Dandenong Ranges fires.
In 1998, Russell was appointed a Deputy Chief Officer at CFA headquarters, with responsibility for Policy and Standards.
In August 2001, he was appointed by the CFA Board to the position of Chief Officer, and has since been reappointed twice, in 2006 for three years and in 2009 for a further two.
Russell has played significant roles in CFA’s operational response during major campaigns such as the January - March 2003 North East and Gippsland fires, the December 2005 -January 2006 Grampians fires and December 2006 - February 2007 Great Divide fires.
Russell also has had significant involvement at state and national level, influencing the direction of emergency management in Australia. He has chaired the AIIMS Steering Committee of the Australasian Fire Authorities Council (AFAC) and sat on the Operations Strategy Group and Environmental Management Working Group at AFAC.
He has represented CFA across Victoria on a range of committees, including the Victorian Emergency Management Council Coordinating Group.
Russell is a recipient of the Centenary Medal awarded in 2003 and the Australian Fire Service Medal awarded in 2005.
Apologies if some of you may have already received this information.
Regards
Kris Perkovic
Media & Marketing Coordinator
CFA Outer Metro Norwest Area
