Six years after he joined the department and two years after he was appointed the assistant fire chief, Gregory Leland was promoted to fire chief effective July 1.
Leland has a long tradition of fire service in his family, his father serving on the Tisbury fire department for 44 years and two other generations also fighting fires.
Fire Chief John Schilling, who is scheduled for mandatory retirement as of June 30, pointed out that Tisbury has had great success with its fire chiefs holding the position for a long time.
“This is a big deal. In the history of the Tisbury Fire Department, Greg represents only the 10th chief since 1895,” Schilling said. “When a chief is appointed to the Tisbury Fire Department, there is a history of that person being in that position for a significant period of time. To put that in perspective, in my 18 years we’ve had five police chiefs. So this is a big deal.