MUSCATINE, Iowa — For Muscatine fire chief Steve Dalbey, retirement won’t mean rest and relaxation.

“I am busier now personally and professionally than I have ever been in my career,” Dalbey said while greeting friends at his retirement party Tuesday at City Hall. Dozens of people turned out for the event.

Dalbey will retire Friday after nearly 30 years with the department. He has been chief since 1991.

His successor hasn’t been picked yet, but a committee chosen to help winnow the field has fished five candidates from a pool that originally started at 30.

The Muscatine Fire Department’s assistant chiefs, Garry Lee and Jerry Ewers, and Capt. Mike Hartman are the local finalists. They will be interviewed on Thursday.

Deputy Chief David Luers of the Burlington Fire Department and Capt. Steve Thornburg of the Omaha Fire Department in Nebraska, were interviewed and met with local firefighters last week.

Mayor Dick O’Brien will make the final decision in selecting the chief with assistance from a hiring committee. That committee includes:  

O’Brien

 City Council member Jerry Lange

 Steve Boka, director of planning, zoning and building safety

 Muscatine human resources manager Stephanie Romagnoli

 Dan Brown, fire chief from the City of Dubuque.

The new chief should be hired within one month.

Dalbey, 54, is preparing to hand over the reins to assistant chief Kevin Cannon, who will oversee the department until a successor is hired.

Post-retirement

Dalbey is working on his master’s degree in business continuity management. He plans to work in disaster planning in the private sector.

Hartman attended Dalbey’s party Tuesday — one of many celebrations that will be held among his family, co-workers and friends.

“I think he’s been a very good leader for the department in the sense that he has been able to make decisions based on fact and truth as opposed to emotion,” Hartman said.

Hartman added that while the firefighters and paramedics are running around making snap decisions that could be a matter of life and death, Dalbey has been behind the scenes figuring out the best resolutions to the department’s problems.

Dalbey said he’s been “working on leaving for a year and a half.” He added that one of his main contributions to the department was “seeing that everyone else had what they needed to do their job.”

Jeff Carter, Muscatine’s emergency management coordinator, said Dalbey did a great job of hiring and training people from neighboring towns. Those people were often part of volunteer fire departments that took their training and exercise knowledge back to those departments to better the communication between all 11 departments in the county.

“He made the whole structure better. I’ve got to give Steve credit for that,” Carter said.