Checking In With Todd Pangle

Tuesday, February 20th, 2024

Todd Pangle has worked for the City of Dalton since 1997, beginning as a Dalton firefighter before climbing the Dalton Fire Department ladder all the way to the top rung as Fire Chief. The past six months have probably been some of the most challenging of his career, though, as he moved to City Hall in August 2023 to become Assistant City Administrator. In his new role, he works directly with City Administrator Andrew Parker and Dalton's elected leaders to chart the course for the City government.  Roughly half of the City's departments also report to him, including the public safety agencies. 

Here's a brief interview with Dalton's new #2 on how he's adapting to his new position. 

You came over to City Hall late in August last year. How have you settled in to your new role?

I would say I’m still settling in to the new role. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I have completely settled in to the new role. I’m still learning some things that, obviously, I might have had some knowledge about but not a complete working knowledge about. I’m getting settled in to it, and every day it seems like I’m finding new little nuggets here and there to use on the following days.

Caption: Assistant City Administrator Todd Pangle sits at his desk at City Hall

Being the fire chief is a big job, obviously, and now you’ve taken on an even bigger challenge. How would you compare working at the DFD and City Hall?

Typically, on that side of things with the fire department, decisions come… I don’t want to say that they’re a lot easier to make, but a lot of times starting with the fire ground where you’ve got milliseconds to make a decision – where we can’t just let things drag out, maybe the decisions come a little quicker. Over here, there’s a process to making decisions on the City Hall side of things. Most things that we have to do day in and day out don’t require that kind of expediency, so there are processes that I’m having to get accustomed to and learn a whole new kind of patience is the best way to put it.

So are you enjoying the job so far?

Oh yeah, I’m enjoying it. I think that just getting to see the whole picture of the government, of how it works even on a daily basis has been a fun change. As the fire chief, I had one department to be concerned about. I had a lot of employees - with it being one of the biggest departments in the City with nearly 100 employees, I had plenty of employees under my supervision - but it was just one department. Now, in this role, I have multiple departments that are answering to me and I have indirect supervision over them. So, you know, having been the fire chief for 6 years, I was able to develop a vision and see a lot of that vision executed. Not all of it, but there are things that are in motion now because of the team I had surrounding me over at the fire department. Being able to come into this position and move into City Hall, being able to hopefully take some of that experience and some of that momentum and affect multiple departments is exciting to me. Being able to help further my mission that I had at the fire department from a different seat is exciting. So, it’s given me an opportunity to be able to better meet the needs of not just the fire department but not the fire department, but the police department, the municipal court, all of those that fall under my purview. Also, to be able to finish out my career learning something new and hopefully having an impact on the City of Dalton for years to come is great.

You’re from here, and I know you love this community. How cool is it to have a hand now in charting the course for the City of Dalton’s growth and what happens to the City?

Yeah, that’s the exciting part for me. I love Dalton. Seeing how far we’ve come as a community but also seeing where we’ve become a little stagnant as a community. And hopefully being able to play a part in some rejuvenation. To keep this as a thriving place, not make it a thriving place, but to keep it that way. And to help it thrive even more than it has been in years past.

How have you enjoyed working directly with (City Administrator) Andrew Parker?

Andrew and I, we spoke even in our previous roles with Andrew as the Public Works Director and even before then Andrew and I had the opportunity to work on several occasions together. I feel that it’s been a good fit with Andrew and I and I anticipate that will only get stronger and get better. My hope would be that we can support each other’s strengths and fill in any gaps where any weaknesses might exist.