Marty Shelton is a man known in the fire and rescue community as a dedicated firefighter and educator. At 50 years old Marty has spent more than 60% of his life in emergency services through his volunteer and professional fire career.
Like many responders, his call to service started when he was young growing up in the Orebank community with many friends in the Orebank Volunteer Fire Department. The TV show Emergency certainly inspired him but a personal tragedy in the passing of his father from a heart attack when he was 10 years old created a drive to have the skills to respond when a person is in need.
Marty’s professional career started with the Greeneville Fire Department when he was 19 and continues to this day. His volunteer career includes 4 years at Orebank VFD, 10 years at Mosheim VFD where he was Assistant Chief, 15 years at the Rescue Squad with 5-1/2 of those as Captain. He also had 8 months at Camp Creek VFD, 5 years as the County Fire Association President and 11 years with Tusculum VFD where he has been Chief since 2014.
It does not take long talking to Marty to figure out his love of the fire and rescue service. As his wife, Bridget said, “it’s in his blood, it’s who he is”. His love of training and drills reflects his desire, “to be the best at what he does”. That goes for the fireground as well as the administrative side of the service. His ability to bring the knowledge from his experience to other departments inside and outside of the community is something he is very proud of.
The volunteer service is something also very close to his heart, but it can also be very difficult. This is a high demanding job with standards and requirements that you are asking volunteers to do for free. As a volunteer you are not getting paid for your service or getting a pension for retirement, “but you are getting paid by the satisfaction by the work you perform”. People also don’t have as much time to help; volunteers are down by half and you are competing with sports and other activities, so “you have to make it worth their time if they are willing to serve”.
With having than such a long professional and volunteer career Marty has several accomplishments to be proud of such as being instrumental in the implementation of the station backfill system when the home station is on call. He regularly instructs classes on siphoning and drop tank drills, so departments are not running out of water on scene. The goal with all of this is to perform to national standards, proven guidelines for firefighting.
Reflecting on his career no one item stands out. The calls have characteristics that are good and bad but there is nothing else he would ever want to do. It’s the fire family that makes it worthwhile, you are with them at work 1/3 of your day or nights and weekends in life and death situations. It’s all about the family.