Deputy Chief Steven Mossotti will serve as assistant chief/training coordinator for the Mehlville Fire Protection District.
Mossotti replaces outgoing Assistant Chief John Schicke, who retires June 3 after more than 37 years at the district. The Board of Directors unanimously approved Mossotti’s promotion on May 16.
Since joining Mehlville in 1975, Mos-sotti has been decorated with the Bronze Medallion of Valor and two Phoenix Awards.
He traveled to New York City Sept. 11, 2001, as part of the first federal search team at Ground Zero, spending 10 days assisting in search and recovery operations at the former World Trade Center.
And as plan manager of Missouri Task Force 1, a federal urban search and rescue team, he was deployed in 2003 to Virginia in the aftermath of Hurricane Isabel.
At Mehlville, Mossotti has jumped the ranks of engineer, captain, training officer, deputy chief and now assistant chief to newly hired Chief Jim Silvernail.
Mossotti earned a master’s degree in management from Webster University and a bachelor’s degree in management and in-dustrial safety from Central Missouri State University.
He is a graduate of the Executive Fire Officer Program at the National Fire Acad-emy in Emmitsburg, Md., and teaches in-cident command, man-agement and leadership courses throughout the United States.
Mossotti’s also an associate instructor for the University of Missouri Fire and Rescue Training In-stitute as well as a member of the National Fire Protection Association’s Technical Committee on Fire Officer Professional Qualifications.
In addition, he serves as an operations section chief for the State Mutual Aid Regional Incident Management Team and is a longtime member and past chairman of the St. Louis County Fire Academy Board of Directors.
At Mehlville, Mossotti has served on the Pension and Apparatus committees and has developed and implemented the district’s computerized incident reporting, per-sonnel and training record system.
Furthermore, Mossotti served as chairman of the fire district’s Strategic Planning Committee and currently serves as the media liaison.
He is a lifelong resident of Mehlville Fire Protection District.