Kolbe held a number of different jobs since first being hired as a full-time firefighter in 1986.
For most of his life, Thomas Kolbe has served Cherry Hill Township as a firefighter. Kolbe’s journey in firefighting began in the late 1970s as a teenager in Cherry Hill and continued all the way through the mid-2000s, with Kolbe serving as fire chief the past four years.
On Dec. 21, Kolbe said farewell to the Cherry Hill Fire Department as he retired. Kolbe had spent the last 32 years as a full-time firefighter with the local fire district.
Kolbe’s firefighting journey began well before he was hired as a full-time employee. In 1977, Kolbe became a junior volunteer at Ashland fire station at the age of 16.
“Since you’re not considered an adult, you couldn’t do a lot of active firefighting things,” Kolbe said. “You did all of the running around, getting equipment off the truck, helping clean up at the end of a fire. You had a lot of responsibilities around the firehouse, making sure it was clean. I took pride in that.”
Kolbe loved volunteering with the fire station and spending time with the other firefighters. He quickly decided he wanted to make firefighting his career, saying there was something special about the field.
“It takes a special person to be a firefighter or EMT,” he said. “We’re out in the middle of the night, we’re out in the snowstorms, we’re out in the bad weather.”
Kolbe enrolled in Camden County College’s fire science program and later landed his first job as a civilian firefighter at the Naval Air Engineering Center in Lakehurst. He worked there for a little more than two years before being hired as a full-time firefighter in Cherry Hill in 1986.
Kolbe’s first job was back at Ashland station with Cherry Hill Fire District №4. Over the next three decades, he worked his way up the ranks. Among the many roles Kolbe held at one point in his career were union president for the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 2663 chapter, battalion chief of the fire department’s training and safety division, assistant fire chief for 13 years and, finally, fire chief.
Kolbe reached the position of chief after realizing early in his career he had a passion for being a leader and molding young firefighters in town. In 1995, Kolbe was promoted to lieutenant and began working with the training and safety division, a time Kolbe particularly enjoyed in his career.
“In that role, you have a direct impact on the people who work here, making sure they are getting the right training and making sure they’re following through,” Kolbe said.
“I felt satisfaction out of that because there’s a limited amount of people who go through that role,” he added.
Kolbe continued to mentor employees during his time as fire chief. One aspect of his job he felt was most important was encouraging others to continue advancing their education and training so the fire department could have a slew of candidates step in to higher positions at any time. Upon his retirement, Kolbe said he was confident in the direction of the department because he felt people were ready to step up into new positions.
“When people leave, you have people that can take the place,” he said. “Sometimes, it’s not an easy thing to do. There’s a lot of business and other agencies that don’t develop people, and then when somebody leaves, they’re caught off guard and they have a vacuum to fill.”
One of the biggest accomplishments the fire department had during Kolbe’s four-plus years as fire chief was in 2016, when Cherry Hill became the first fire agency in New Jersey to receive “accredited agency” status from the Commission on Fire Accreditation International. The process took the fire department two years to complete and involved a full evaluation of the entire fire district and its practices.
Kolbe said the accreditation process allowed the department to not only see what it did well, but also areas it needed to improve in. Constantly improving was something Kolbe preached as fire chief.
“In this job, you can’t sit around,” he said. “Techniques and skills and the world are changing every day.”
Kolbe said while he was ready to step down and retire, he will miss a lot of things about the job. More than anything, he is going to miss the many people he’s interacted with during his career.
“The thing I’m going to miss the most is the people; the people that work here and the people we go out and help,” Kolbe said. “Not being able to do that anymore is a sad feeling for me, but life goes on and the next group of people will take over and make it work.”
