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Going to the birds at Willow Park Page 5 Editorial 6 Calendar 13 Sports 16, 17 Entertainment 19 Classifieds 21-23 Halton Hills Fire Chief Bob Meads will retire at the end of the year to take a new job in the private sector. Meads has been with the service for 28 years, and took over as fire chief in May 2001. Some of his achievements while he was chief include the move to Inspection Response Teams and making prevention and public education a priority. He was also instrumental in creating the Town's first Fire Master Plan. Photo by Ted Brown Fire chief to leave job at end of year LISA TALLYN Staff Writer After 28 years with Halton Hills Fire Protection and Prevention Services, Fire Chief Bob Meads is calling it a career. Meads, 57, announced Friday he will retire December 29 from the job he's held since 2001. The Georgetown resident feels sad about leaving the department he's been involved with since he began as a volunteer firefighter in 1978. "With 28 years invested in the fire service, I'm certainly going to miss it," says Meads. "It's going to be a huge culture shock for me in some respects. I'm not going to be walking around with a pager on my belt 24 hours a day, seven days a week." Meads says he had been thinking about retiring for some time and when "a really good job offer from the private sector came along" he decided now was the time. Meads wouldn't disclose details about the job, but called it a "once in a lifetime opportunity." It's the people that he's worked with within the department, and elsewhere in the town, that Meads says he will miss the most when he retires. "I've had a lot of great friendships established through the fire service. This decision didn't come easy." He says he's had a great five-and-a-half years as chief. "There have certainly been a lot of challenges. But it's been great." See MEADS, pg. 3