“No man is indispensable, but Ray came pretty close,” said longtime Fire Department member Joe Torre.

Torre is speaking of course, of former Fire Chief Ray Dick, who resigned his post effective the first of the year, after 35 years on the department and 20 leading it.

Milford Fire Chief Jack Kelly started at about the same time as Dick, about 35 years ago, when they were both newbie firefighters, and watched him climb the ranks in his own department.

“We’ve fought a lot of fires together,” said Kelly. “He was a good leader. He was always there. For every call, he always seemed to be in town and ready to go.”

“He was a lead from the front kind of guy,” said Jim Cutler, who served as Dick’s deputy chief before his resignation, and is now the interim chief of the department. “He was always in the front – that’s just where he was.”

So much so, in fact, said Cutler, that it was a bit of a running joke in the department that if a firefighter was going to find his way to the ambulance for treatment for smoke inhalation or something similar, it was most likely to be Dick. 

“He always wanted to be in the action,” said Cutler.

But once he was settled into his role as chief, he became proficient at running the scenes, said Kelly. 

“He didn’t mess around. He was all business,” he said. 

He knew when to be all business, said Torre, but he also knew his role as a leader of a volunteer department was best served when he was listening to the voices around him.

“I spent two years in the Army, and I know a lot about leadership styles, and I would say Ray is a consensus builder,” said Torre. “It appears he makes the decisions, but what he really does is builds a consensus, and most of the people around him are already on board when he makes a decision.”

“When he first became chief, he would say it’s his way or the highway – he said that, but he didn’t practice that,” agreed Cutler. “He learned to discuss things, and came to the realization pretty quick that other people have good ideas, too.”

Dick himself said his leadership style was successful because of the men under him, comparing himself to the conductor of an orchestra or a bus driver – one man at the head, but the rest making it work. 

Like Dick himself, the members of his department see his lasting legacy in the recently renovated and expanded fire station, which Torre referred to as the “jewel in the crown of his 20 years.” 

“The fire station had definitely improved our capacity. The old fire station was holding us back from getting modern equipment and it was lacking in many of the new safety codes,” said Torre. “The new station is very functional.”

Kelly said that he would miss his long history with Dick and the rhythm that they had developed in assisting each other with calls on both sides of the Milford-Wilton line. 

“I knew how he thought, and he knew how I thought,” said Kelly. “We’ve been through a lot together and I’m going to miss him for sure, and I think that the town of Wilton is going to miss him, too.”

A retirement party for Dick is being planned for Friday, March 24, at the Milford VFW.