SUPERIOR — When Fire Chief Scott Gordon started his career with the Superior Fire Department on Aug. 5, 1992, he said he always planned to retire at the end of 2022.

Thirty years later, Gordon said his last day as Superior’s fire chief will be Dec. 30.

"I had always planned on retiring at the end of this year, even back then,” Gordon said. “It's one of the advantages of being a firefighter. You can retire early and go on to the next phase of your life."

Now the police and fire commissioner is looking for his replacement. The commission Wednesday, Sept. 14, approved seeking internal and external candidates to lead the Superior Fire Department.

Gordon said he knew he wanted to be a firefighter when he launched his career in the fire department.

"Who didn't in my generation?” Gordon asked. “Growing up, my uncle was a firefighter down in Rochester, Minnesota. That was my first, when I was a really young kid — 5, 6, 7 years old — hearing him talk about what it was like in the fire station a lot. Then when I was in high school, I worked at the Y in Duluth, and the Duluth firefighters would always come in and swim. I worked in the pool, and they would come in and swim before going to work. I got to talk to them.

"I just always loved the idea of having a career that was rewarding and exciting, but that would also allow me to have the time off that I've always coveted," Gordon said.

For 16 years, Gordon served the department as the firefighter on the back of the rig.

“I liked the idea of being the first person on a medical, the first person to talk to the patient … and I always liked the idea of being the person to go into a fire with my hands on the nozzle," Gordon said. He said he didn’t seek promotions because he never wanted to drive the fire truck.

That changed after the departure of former Fire Chief Stephen Gotelaere in 2005, when fire chiefs Tad Matheson and Jim Rigstad led the department in a more positive direction, Gordon said. He said it was Rigstad who persuaded him to seek his first promotion within the department.

"I was the first person ever to go from firefighter to battalion chief,” Gordon said of bypassing steps as driver and captain. “I was also the youngest person ever to be promoted to battalion chief. And spent 10 years as battalion chief, in that time period worked with two different chiefs, tried to focus on bringing the department into a progressive environment."

Gordon said he planned to retire as a battalion chief at the end of this year.

Then in 2019, then-Fire Chief Steve Panger, the second chief Gordon served under as battalion chief, decided to retire early. At the time, Gordon said he was the most qualified to be fire chief "even though that was never my plan, my intention, nor my dream."

Gordon was appointed fire chief Sept 17, 2019, and stepped into the role Oct. 1, 2019, the day the police and fire departments responded to a bomb scare on Tower Avenue, near the new fire department headquarters.

During his tenure as chief, Gordon has guided the fire department through a pandemic with few infections among the staff. He persuaded city administration and the council to upgrade the department’s fleet, including adding the city’s first electric vehicle and replacing two fire rigs. He changed the way the department was managed, creating a management team among command staff. Gordon advocated for resurrecting the assistant fire chief position eliminated in 2006 and changed fire department shift schedules from one day on and two days off to two days on with four off.

"We got a lot done," Gordon said of the last three years. "That's the difference of having a command staff vs. a management team. Management teams can get stuff done."

Even as Gordon is planning his retirement, he is making plans that could save the city hundreds of thousands of dollars by energizing the fire halls using solar energy, something Mayor Jim Paine said he plans to invest in.

“If you had seen me in the meetings, it literally makes me jump up and down,” Paine said. “It’s so visionary. It’s one of those policies that just checks every box.” He said it’s a solution to rising utility costs, addresses the climate crisis and invests in renewable energy.

“And it saves us (taxpayers) so much money,” Paine said.

Paine said it has been a privilege to work with Gordon, who is always looking out for the fire department and the entire city.

“He had a short term in office, but he accomplished an incredible amount,” Paine said. “Among all the fire chiefs in the city of Superior, there have been very few who had his vision for not just improving his department but for protecting the city. Even in his last couple of weeks on the job, he’s still thinking about the department and the way it serves the city for the next 50 years.”