Shane Dobson

Shane Dobson is the Deputy Chief of Administration with a north metro Atlanta department and has over 30 years in the fire service. He started in 1992 as a volunteer in the county where he grew up and currently lives. He traded that for getting paid to fight fire with the City of Woodstock until 1996 when he made a move to DeKalb County Fire Rescue. During that time, he also worked at Roswell Fire Department on a part-time basis with Hatch and Pabel.

The vast majority of his time with DeKalb was spent in Operations with a concentration in hazardous materials and other things “regular” firefighters don’t like to be around. He held every rank in the department up to Deputy Chief of Operations where he supervised a 450 firefighter response force. When he retired from DeKalb, he was the Deputy Chief of Training and Professional Services making sure everyone got certified and got paid (which is critical, way more difficult than it should be, and not particularly glamorous).

He has lots of letters (and some Latin) behind his name, but doesn’t drop them on you unless he has to. They include an MBA from Reinhardt University (Magna Cum Laude), a Bachelor’s Degree in Organizational Management and Leadership, and an Associate Degree in Fire Science. He’s also a certified Chief Fire Officer. And if you haven’t figure it out yet, he’s a lifelong learner and is committed to the continual development of himself and the fire service.

Shane’s happily married and will be celebrating his 31st anniversary this year. He has three grown children in their twenties who make him very proud and are all at the start of living their lives. His son is a welder/fabricator and travels all over the south. Shane has a daughter who is a Labor and Delivery nurse at a large downtown Atlanta hospital, and another daughter who is finishing her teaching degree at Kennesaw State University.

More times than not, Shane has gotten the rest of the podcast into something we weren’t expecting (GoRuck, long frigid and rainy hikes on the Appalachian Trail, etc.). He believes that living outside of your comfort zone is truly where personal growth resides. Shane and Bill have successfully solved most of the world's problems during many years of their early morning hikes, but they’ve conveniently forgotten most of the solutions (probably so they had a reason to keep hiking). He believes that clarity of identity and purpose can be found in the outdoors.