City gets first female deputy fire chief

Editor's note: This article was modified Friday, Sept. 2, 2005, to correct information about the salary of Colleen Walz.

After 18 years with the Pittsburgh Bureau of Fire, Colleen Walz will become the city's first female deputy chief today at an afternoon ceremony.

The promotion makes her one of the highest-ranking women in fire and police departments in Pennsylvania.

"I'm looking forward to the change," Walz said Thursday. "I have to say this about my job: One day is never the same as the next. And that has held true for 18 years -- it's always something different."

Walz, 43, of Brookline, has made a career out of proving herself in a male-dominated field. She started in 1987 as a firefighter at stations in the Hill District and Brookline. She worked with only one other female firefighter in the bureau at the time.

She said men, and women, who worked alongside her fighting fires were skeptical of her abilities.

"They still are skeptical," Walz said. "Across the board, whether she's a rookie or the most experienced fire service woman, when a woman walks through a door she has to prove she can do that job. When a man walks through the door, it's assumed he can do that job and has to prove that he can't."

Fellow firefighter Jim McCarthy was a rookie in October 1997 when he came under Walz's command when she was captain of Engine Co. No. 11 in South Oakland.

"She was a great boss," said McCarthy, 38, of Brookline. "She was the kind of captain that could take suggestions. She was more of a player's coach."

McCarthy, who is now a firefighter with Engine Co. No. 22 in Mt. Oliver, said he's grateful for Walz's leadership.

"To me, it didn't matter that she was a woman -- she could do the job," he said.

Walz, a mother of two, is full of Pittsburgh firsts.

She was Pittsburgh's first female lieutenant, captain and battalion chief before her promotion today, which puts her in an elite crowd of women at the top of firefighting nationwide.

According to Madison, Wis.-based Women in the Fire Service Inc., a group that tracks women in the fire service, there are 6,200 full-time career female firefighters in the United States. There are only 150 women nationwide who work as district chiefs, battalion chiefs, division chiefs or assistant chiefs.

Walz replaces former Deputy Chief John Gourley, who retired in July. She'll start as one of five city deputy chiefs Monday, said Chief Michael Huss. The other four deputies are men. Huss said he wasn't sure how many women work for the fire bureau.

As a deputy chief, Walz will be paid $80,328 a year.

Now she'll be in charge of running an entire shift of 159 firefighters and other personnel from her place in the deputies' office in Mercy Hospital, Huss said.

"It has been a rocky road at times," Walz said of her career. "But the rewards, I think looking back, far outweigh the negatives."