With the retirement of its most qualified female firefighter and no women in its succession planning program, it looks like the Burnaby Fire Department will be without a female firefighter in its top ranks for the foreseeable future.
Fire Captain Cathy Van-Martin retired on June 30 after a 26-year career with the department, according to a report that will go to city council today (Monday).
Just last summer, however, Van-Martin had applied for two senior positions, a deputy chief post vacated by now-Chief Chris Bowcock and a new staff officer position.
Despite an impressive resume, she was passed over for both.
At the time, Van-Martin was a 25-year veteran of the department, with a master’s degree in crisis, emergency and disaster management, according to a now-deactivated LinkedIn profile.
Van-Martin’s management experience had included consulting for the Office of the Fire Commissioner of B.C. and the Fire Chiefs’ Association of B.C. to help develop a Wildland Urban Interface toolkit after the devastating 2017 wildfires.
And Bowcock himself wrote a letter recommending Van-Martin for the Canadian Risk and Hazard Network’s 2015 Larry Pearce Education Award for emergency and disaster management.
In the letter, which had been posted on LinkedIn, Bowcock said Van-Martin had “excelled in the fire service with specific, high impact contributions in the areas of personal performance, fire company performance, facilitating development and leadership.”
“As an individual, Lt. Van-Martin performs at the highest level; incorporating an unmatched level of theoretical knowledge, practical emergency management skills, problem solving capability and a willingness to take on any challenge, both emergency and business process related,” Bowcock wrote.
Van-Martin had been in the department’s succession planning program – the pathway to senior management – for about five years and completed numerous courses in preparation for a leadership role when she applied for the deputy chief position, but the job went to longtime union executive Miles Ritchie instead.
Multiple sources have told the NOW Ritchie had been in the leadership program for only about two weeks before being promoted to deputy chief, but neither the fire chief nor public safety director Dave Critchley would answer questions from the NOW about how long Ritchie had been in the program.
“We don’t comment on personnel matters. I have nothing further to add,” Critchley wrote in an email after multiple requests from the NOW over a month-long period.
Van-Martin’s retirement was announced in June, one week before another deputy chief position (vacated by departing deputy Chief Darcey O'Riordan) was filled by another of her male colleagues.
Ian Hetherington, who had been promoted to the staff officer position last summer, is now the department’s newest deputy.
The need for more diversity in the Burnaby Fire Department was a recurrent theme in a comprehensive review of the fire service published last year.
After hiring its first female firefighters nearly 30 years ago, the department has yet to promote a single female firefighter to its senior management team.
Follow Cornelia Naylor on Twitter @CorNaylor
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