SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 Scranton fire Chief John Judge is leaving the department he joined nearly 24 years ago to become fire director for the Centre Region Council of Governments near State College.<\/p>\n
Judge said he informed Mayor Paige Cognetti on Thursday and planned to notify members of the Scranton Fire Department Friday morning. His departure date will be late November and will officially retire in January.<\/p>\n
The Centre Region Council of Governments provides shared services for six municipalities and Penn State University. Judge said its fire service combines career personnel, university live-in students and the volunteer Alpha Fire Company, serving an area of about 90,000 people across roughly 150 square miles.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a unique opportunity to help lead a fire department for a bunch of different municipalities that continue to grow down there,\u201d Judge said. \u201cIt just felt right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Judge began his career with the City of Scranton on Dec. 21, 2001, when he was hired as a patrolman through a community-development block grant. He moved from the police department to the fire department on Sept. 3, 2002.<\/p>\n
He has continued working part time as a police officer in South Abington Township, where he grew up, but said he expects to give up that position as he and his wife work through plans to move closer to State College.<\/p>\n
Judge said leaving Scranton will be emotional.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a department that I grew up in, and my heart will always be here,\u201d he said. \u201cI love this city, and I love what has transpired in this city over the last six years specifically. I think we\u2019ve really rebounded here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Judge credited Cognetti, who appointed him chief, and the department\u2019s firefighters and officers for the progress made during his tenure. He said the work was collaborative and that the department\u2019s successes are not his alone.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would have never had the opportunity if she didn\u2019t come in,\u201d Judge said of Cognetti. \u201cThe successes that we\u2019ve had at the City of Scranton and the Scranton Fire Department, they\u2019re not attributable to me. I benefited from good timing and great people that were around me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Judge said he hopes his successor continues to work closely with the department\u2019s firefighters, officers and command staff. He singled out Deputy Chief Dan Hallowich and other leaders for their commitment to the job.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe City of Scranton, they don\u2019t realize what a great asset they have in the fire department,\u201d Judge said. \u201cThe men and women in the department know how special they are.\u201d<\/p>\n
Judge, 52, holds degrees in criminal justice and fire science and recently completed a master\u2019s degree in emergency and disaster management from Georgetown University. He also recently began law school through Mitchell Hamline School of Law.<\/p>\n
He said he will miss Scranton but looks forward to continuing his public-safety career in another part of Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s time for somebody else to put a mark here in the City of Scranton,\u201d Judge said. \u201cI\u2019m going to miss it dearly.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Notre Dame fan, Judge said he’s always appreciated the Penn State Nittany Lions and believes he has room to cheer for both schools .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 Scranton fire Chief John Judge is leaving the department he joined nearly 24…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293804,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-293803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}