Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory Assistant Chief Aaron Bolinger, left, gives the oath to Capt. Brian Drobitsch, Lt. Jason Neher and Lt. Jeremy Williams at the promotion ceremony Wednesday.

Text and Photos
By David Slone
Times-Union

WARSAW — Surrounded by their families, friends and co-workers, four Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory firefighters had their promotion ceremony Wednesday afternoon, April 24.

Firefighter Joel Shilling was promoted to fire marshal, with Lt. Brian Drobitsch promoted to captain and firefighters Jeremy Williams and Jason Neher promoted to lieutenants.

Williams has been with the WWFT for 18 years.

“I was young. It was what every kid wanted to do at times in high school, here to help people, and I just followed my dreams. Eighteen years later I’m still here,” he said of why he became a firefighter.

“The best part about the job, it sounds cliché, but helping people. Being there at people’s worst time,” he said.

He is married to Alicia Williams and their children are Hayden and Aliya.

Drobitsch has been with the department for over 20 years, having served as a volunteer at Plymouth before joining Warsaw.
He said the best part about being a firefighter is hanging out with the guys as firefighting is a “brotherhood.”

As captain, he’s in charge of a three-man engine crew. He’s in charge of fire station 3 as far as maintenance and the like.

He had his daughter and grandchildren with him Wednesday to celebrate the promotion. Granddaughter Kinsley helped pin his badge on his uniform.

Shilling has been serving as fire marshal after Joe Fretz retired.

Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory Assistant Chief Aaron Bolinger, left, gives the oath to Fire Marshal Joel Shilling at the promotion ceremony Wednesday.

“It’s just a different form of helping people. It’s just interesting to me the investigation side of fires, and then just the inspections – getting out with the public and meeting the public. Helping them with their problems that they have. It’s just interesting to me,” he said.

To become the fire marshal, Shilling had to get inspector and investigating training. “I knew that so I kind of worked toward that, knowing that I kind of wanted to go that avenue. So I just pursued that training, along with other firefighter training,” he said.

He’s been a firefighter for 12 years, starting as a volunteer with Leesburg, becoming career at Warsaw in 2016.

“Just serving the community, helping the community, hanging out with the guys. There’s a good group of guys here who are more like a family and I enjoy that part of it,” Shilling said of what he enjoys most about the job.

He and his wife, Andrea, have three children, Knox, Kole and Konor.

Neher has been with WWFT for 12 years. He’s also a volunteer at Claypool.

What he likes about firefighting is the “unknown on the calls. Every day is different, and from call to call, every day is different on the calls.”

Being promoted to lieutenant, he said what that means to him is “serving the guys. Be there for them. Bring the new guys up to be the best firefighters they can.”

He and his wife, Mandy, have two daughters.

Before giving the four men their oaths of office, Assistant Fire Chief Aaron Bolinger said, “It’s an honor to be able to do this with these guys, having been on when each one of them come onto the job. Joel has been a great asset as far as helping getting our radio station updated and going. Right from the beginning, he has been a big help on a lot of the technological things that we needed at the department. And him moving into the fire marshal is going to be great with his task-oriented mindset.

On Drobitsch, Bolinger said he was able to start with him as a firefighter when Bolinger was a lieutenant downtown, and then later got to serve with him as a battalion chief when Drobitsch was a lieutenant.

“Him coming from a long line of firefighters in Chicago, we are very blessed to have him here and his love of just doing the job at all ranks,” Bolinger said.

Williams was the first to come on the department who had a degree in fire science. “Jeremy is one of those people who does a lot of the behind-the-scenes things, making sure we have all the supplies that we need. He does the things that aren’t seen that you don’t get a T-shirt or sticker for. Jeremy helps keep things going,” Bolinger said.

Bolinger has known Neher since he was a firefighter at Claypool. When he joined WWFT, Neher already had a wealth of knowledge and became a great asset to the department.

“And the thing about Jason, he is always learning,” Bolinger said, “… and he makes us all better while he is here.”

After the oaths, family members pinned the badges on the firefighters.