Tom Marks
Age: 58
Family: Wife Terri, Daughter Dakota
Occupation: Health & Safety Officer
Education: HS
Previous elected office: None
Website: n/a
On Facebook: Tom “T-Bone” Marks Candidate For Arvada Fire Protection District
On Twitter: n/a
Why are you seeking office?
I am interested in serving on the Arvada Fire Protection District Board to get more involved in serving my community again. I am a retired captain with Arvada Fire, dating back to when the department was an all volunteer service. After my retirement in 2011, I find that now I have more time to invest back in the community. I am currently supporting the AVA (Arvada Vitality Alliance) and YMCA.
How have you contributed to the community?
I have 40 years of experience in natural gas emergency response, fire emergency’s and related EMS calls, and environmental emergency response and clean-ups.
I am currently the Senior Project Manager and Health and Safety Officer for Custom Environmental Services, Inc., an Arvada based hazmat & emergency response company, where I coordinate projects and oversee the company’s Health and Safety Program involving regulatory compliance and providing a safe working environment for all employees.
I retired from Xcel Energy in July 2011 after 37 years of service in the position of Manager of Gas Operations and Maintenance in Xcel’s Boulder Division. Other positions I held were Laborer, Apprentice Fitter, Fitter, Lead Fitter.
I was a member of the IBEW for 27 years and served as steward for 17 years.
A proven leader, I managed a $1.7 Million per year O&M budget for 10+ years at Xcel Energy.
My certifications and training include CDPHE Asbestos Supervisor, Firemanship Training, Fire Command Officer School, Fire Service Instructor VE-496F, Hazardous Materials Advanced #2, Fire Fighting I, II, & III – IFSTA 500 Sec. II, Fire Behavior for Compressed Gasses, Texas A & M Fireman’s Training School #134 Industrial Fire Protection and #50105 Firefighting V, also included are 40 hour Hazwoper, Safeland Basic Orientation, and E-Rail Safety.
What are the biggest issues facing your constituency?
I see four challenges facing the District in the next five years:
1) Improve quality of service on limited funds
2) Education
3) Candelas
4) CAD System
All four items are tied to the first statement concerning limited funds. As a Board we must prioritize our spending. We must educate all in the District, schools, business and residents, this can be done with staff on duty. We must meet the needs of the new developments out to the northwest. This would include potentially building of new firehouses, new apparatus and equipment, and most of all new employees to provide the service in this area. In this area we must also consider wild land fires, more grass land in this area, that must be prevented. I was the Natural Gas Liaison to the Great Basin Incident Management Team for the Four Mile Canyon Fire September 8-18, 2010 and after seeing first hand what these fires can do, in Boulder and Colo. Spgs I see the need for more education and mitigation efforts.
Some items I would hope to accomplish during my time on the Board are to maintain or improve the ISO rating to keep insurance rates down for the business owners and residents of the District. During a previous Board meeting they were discussing the implementation of a CAD system. While with Xcel Energy, I worked on a committee of six to implement MDT (Mobile Data Terminal) and CAD (Computer Aided Dispatch) to gas and electric responders in the 8 states Xcel serves. I believe a similar system would work well in the fire service. By implementing the CAD system we can then look at a centralized dispatch system with other departments that would save funds, improve communication and response times. With my past direct experience I think we could get a system of this nature implemented.