COVENTRY TWP.: It is hard to dispute in southern Summit County that just about everyone who shares the surname Calderone is passionate about the fire service.Coventry Township fire Chief David Calderone is no exception. But after following in the footsteps of his father, the late Mickele “Mike” Calderone, the first fire chief in the city of Green, and his older brother, Bob Calderone, the second fire chief in the city, that passion seems to have taken a detour and expanded into the larger role of public servant.David Calderone, who has led Coventry’s fire department for 23 years, will retire Dec. 31 to follow another path — one he hopes will put him in a better position to improve the community in which he has dedicated most of his career.On Nov. 8, voters elected Calderone from a field of five candidates to lead the community of 11,000 residents as a township trustee. He has recommended trustees leave the department in the hands of Deputy Fire Chief John Dolensky on an interim basis until his successor is named.The department responds to about 1,700 alarms each year, 80 percent of which are calls for emergency medical service.Calderone, 53, is also stepping down as service director, an office to which he asked to be appointed in 2009.Fire service is his first love, but he thinks the first thing on his agenda as a township trustee will be to explore and determine the value of trash-hauling aggregation in the community. This also fits with his passion to manage resources wisely.Retired fire Chief C.C. Bittner, who worked with all the Calderones in his career with the village of Lakemore, said that when it comes to emergency preparedness, few people can compare with the family.“David’s whole life has been dedicated to trying to make people smarter and safer,” Bittner said. “He’s a rock-solid person. He understands the meaning of honesty and integrity. His handshake is his word, and you don’t see that in people every day.”Calderone said teaching, particularly the most efficient ways to manage resources, communications and leadership, is something dear to his heart.“Firefighter deaths are way too high. They are as high today as they have ever been,” he said.Calderone is taking the tools he honed from 36 years in fire service to continue to advocate to keep emergency personnel safe. And teaching such protocols are his forte, he said, “And, I’m pretty good at it.”Calderone has served on the Summit County Emergency Management Executive Committee for 23 years.In 2010, his wife of 33 years, Becky, formed CalTek LLC, a business that specializes in providing reality-based training associated with incident command and emergency management. Together, the couple travels around the state teaching responding agencies how to handle large-scale disasters. The company employes eight people.In August, David Calderone led an Ohio emergency management team to New York in response to Hurricane Irene.He has also been active in the county as a member of the Summit County Dive Team and Hazardous Materials Team.Calderone’s years of service to the county will serve him well in the future, Copley Township fire Chief Michael Benson said.“Chief Calderone possesses the ability to analyze a problem and design an immediate solution, while keeping a long-term, big-picture perspective; which is why he will be a good trustee for Coventry Township,” Benson said.Township trustee Tom Seese said he enjoyed working with Calderone as chief and is looking forward to working alongside him as a trustee.“He’s very capable, very thorough. He has an advantage that other people don’t have,” Seese said.Learning the ropesIt wasn’t always that way, Calderone admits. Some 23 years after accepting the job as chief and 13 years of experience as a firefighter and officer, he now says he was still green behind the ears.“I grew up in a fire chief’s house, worked as an officer for 13 years and had no idea what the fire chief of a community did until I sat behind the fire chief’s desk,” he said.Calderone graduated from Green High School in 1976 and applied as a volunteer in the city’s fire department in July “against my dad’s wishes.”He and his brother were two of the first four people hired as full-time firefighters for Green in 1981.In 1989, at the age of 29, Calderone, became the youngest fire chief in Summit County after scoring in the top spot on the test given for the job. He was six hours away from earning a business degree from the University of Akron.He said the trustees took some heat because they considered hiring someone from Green.“I was young and brash and thought that’s just what we needed,” Calderone said.Another of his goals as a trustee will be to work with other elected officials in southern Summit County to improve the efficiency of 911 calls. Currently, all emergency calls in Coventry, Green, Lakemore and Springfield Township go first to the Summit County Sheriff’s Office. Dispatchers then screen calls and forward them on if they are seeking an ambulance or fire response.Calderone wants to take the middleman out of the equation by combining dispatching services in one location, eliminating the need to forward emergency calls.The family knows firsthand what can happen.Some five years ago, when the elder Calderone suffered a pulmonary embolism, his wife, Coralyce “Corky” Calderone, who works as the director of Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety at the University of Akron, had her call transferred from the sheriff’s dispatcher before the paramedics could be sent.“She just wanted the ambulance to come and help my father. Can you imagine the frustration Corky felt as she was trying to get help when she had to call downtown Akron to get the ambulance from a quarter of a mile up the street?” Calderone asked. The dispatchers all did their jobs, Calderone said, but “it is the dispatching system that is flawed, and I will continue to do everything I can to change it.”Kathy Antoniotti can be reached at 330-996-3565 or kantoniotti@thebeaconjournal.com.