Last year, LeAnn Tacon retired after a 33-year career with the Mobile Fire Department, but her retirement was short-lived. Eight months later, she was named fire chief for the Daphne Fire Department just across the bay. “I wasn’t through,” she says. “I love being part of a fire department.”
Since January, she has occupied a spacious corner office at Daphne’s Fire Station No. 2 – but she only spends about half of her time there, taking care of her administrative tasks. The rest of the time, she’s in her element, either going on calls or visiting the three other fire stations under her supervision. (In June, the newest station will open, bringing the total in Daphne to five.) When she was offered the position, LeAnn was “ecstatic,” she says. Before she was officially on the payroll, she went around to each station to introduce herself to the 60 or so firefighters working there. Recently, one of them gave her a tremendous compliment when he told her, “I knew you were a firefighter in a chief’s shirt.”