Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners quarterly awards and recognition ceremony.

Commissioner Myers is going to give the invitation and pledge.

Commissioner, you're recognized.

Okay, can everyone please stand?

I pledge allegiance to the fly of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God, indivisible with liberty, and justice for all.

Today's ceremony celebrates the employees whose work and accomplishments help make Hillsborough County a great place to live, work, and play.

But if you have some flexibility, please try to stay for the entire ceremony.

Commissioner Cohen will present our first recognition.

As someone who has witnessed this team in action during real emergencies, including the twenty twenty-four hurricanes, I will tell you that it is awe-inspiring to see them execute their mission.

The emergency management accredited, known as EMAP, is the nation's only voluntary accredition program for emergency management organizations.

Accredation is awarded only after an extensive multi-year evaluation and exhaustive certification, demonstrating compliance with national standards for emergency management.

The accredites a program's ability to bring together experts, resources, and communications from a variety of agencies and organizations in preparation for and in response to any type of disaster.

In earning accreditation, the Hillsburg County Fire Rescue Office of Emergency Management successfully demonstrated compliance with all 73 EMAP standards covering administration, planning, mitigation, preparedness, response, recovery, continuity, communications, logistics, training, exercises, and public information, completed a comprehensive self-assessment and documentation process, successfully underwent an independent peer reviewed on site assessment conducted by nationally certified EMAP assessors, and received approval from both the EMAP program review committee and the EMAP Commission.

Additionally, over more than two years, the Office of Emergency Management led a countywide effort involving county departments, constitutional offices, municipalities, public safety agencies, health care partners, nonprofit organizations, private sector stakeholders, and state and federal partners to strengthen every aspect of the county's emergency management program.

For these efforts, the emergency management accredited commission has granted full accredition to the Hillsborough County Fire Rescue Office of Emergency Management, a testament to the department's unwavering mission to achieve professional excellence.

Congratulations, and in the words of Commissioner Myers, now is when you can applaud.

So first of all, thank you, Commissioner, and uh thank you, uh Bonnie Wise and the rest of the commissioners up here with us for taking the time to recognize this team today.

Uh I want to say thank you to the men and women of our emergency management uh team that's here today, uh especially CK Moore helped uh move this forward with the team.

But what is this accreditation really mean?

I think that some of the few key words there that the commissioner uh talked about was out of the um 73 benchmarks that we met, uh two-year process, and what it means in Hillsburg County.

It means that we have coordinated and partnered with all of Hillsburg County, all departments to provide the citizens of Hillsburg County with the very best emergency management team there is in coordinating and responding to the events.

I think that was uh evident in 20 uh 24 when we had the storms and uh this accreditation, this uh uh memento here to say that we went through the process is just a small reward of recognizing all the folks in Hillsburg County and this emergency management team for the work they do every day.

So uh thank you to all of you.

Uh, as you're in the back of the room, we're gonna come forward and take a picture with the team, so thank you.

Thank you very much.

And we'll go ahead and take the photo.

My understanding is you are then to return to the podium, and Commissioner Bowles will take it from there.

Okay.

Well, as Commissioner Cohen said, we got to keep you up here for one more.

I always wondered one of these things.

Guess I gotta do a lot to get it, right?

Good morning, everyone.

It's a privilege for me to be standing here with you with a friend of mine and my brothers and sisters out here, both at OEM and in the fire rescue department and county employees.

Uh really is uh a pleasure to be here.

Um you know, I think that uh for us to kind of sit here and wonder about what Chief has done to deserve this.

Uh he he kind of spoke to some of that earlier, but for me it's a privilege to stand here and honor such an outstanding leader and dedicated public servant who's had more than 25 years of experience in key roles here in Hillsborough County.

Um, and actually in Georgia.

We won't really count that too much, but you know, but I guess it has to go on the resume.

Uh but he was born and raised here in Tampa.

Uh he was a fire rescue, and he is our fire rescue chief.

And he began his illustrious career in Georgia in 1999, and later served as a training chief with Tampa Fire Rescue before we stole him away.

In 2016, he joined Hillsborough County Fire Rescue, one of the largest fire departments in the state.

I think we're number four or five, at least at that time, and we continue to grow.

Uh, we are grateful to have him.

I know I was.

For years he performed exceptionally well as a deputy chief of operations, deputy chief of fire administration for Hillsburg County Fire Rescue.

And in December 2023, he was named the seventh fire chief in Hillsboro County history.

A pinnacle and already successful career.

But his commitment to excellence didn't stop there.

For the past two years, his distinguished service to the department and the county has been phenomenal.

He thrives in his leadership roles.

He uniquely understands and sincerely values the important perspectives of the frontline people.

And I think I could say without hesitation that that is truly felt throughout the department.

It really is.

Chief Doherty's hard work, commitment, and team first mentality earned him the honor of being named the Florida Fire Chiefs Association State Fire Chief of the Year.

As a description of this prestigious honor reads, the distinction was established to recognize a truly outstanding fire chief whose acts and deeds in their profession, home, community, and count country, serve as an example and challenge for all other chief fire executives throughout Florida.

I would agree that this statement perfectly fits Chief Doherty.

Chief, thank you for everything you've done for our county and our residents, and congratulations on being recognized not only by us in some regard, but by the state of Florida and your peers.

Uh, there's uh we have uh 16 total, including myself that manage over 1,400 employees, and those employees are our players, and those players on the field, uh, the men and women of Hillsborough County Fire Rescue, they're what uh helps uh days like this happen because without them on the field doing what they do every day, the incredible job they do, uh nobody receives this individual award.