The Howell community is mourning the loss of one of its giants: Jim Reed, retired chief of the Howell Area Fire Department, who died of cancer Tuesday at the age of 78.
Jim was one of my favorite people in Howell. I got to know him well during my time at the local paper, where he was a favorite of the reporters and photographers who ran into him at fire and accident scenes, and who found him great to work with.
The Howell community thought highly of Jim, too, so much so that in 2001 it bestowed upon him one of its highest honors: grand marshal of the Fantasy of Lights Parade.
Jim was a truly good, decent man with an innate sense of fairness, and a strong sense of community. He also had a great sense of humor, and we shared a love for Uptown Coffeehouse, where I often saw him; I enjoyed our Uptown conversations greatly.
Before he was Howell’s fire chief, Jim was a decorated Vietnam veteran who served with the 101st Airborne Division, and who in 1973 joined the Howell Police Department as an officer and detective (as well as the city’s fire marshal). During his time as a detective, Jim successfully investigated some high profile crimes, including a series of rapes in Livingston County and southwest Michigan, and the murder of a clerk during a robbery at what was then Slayton Party Store on Grand River Avenue (now Cars Trucks and More, next to the Howell Bowledrome).
It was his position as Howell’s fire marshal that led him to becoming first a volunteer and then a part-time firefighter. Eventually, he moved from the police department to the fire department full time, working his way up from firefighter to lieutenant, to assistant chief, and then, finally, chief, a position he held from 1989 to 2008.
Jim led the department during a time of great growth, taking it from a one station volunteer department to what it is today: a highly skilled state-of-the art department covering 145 square miles with multiple stations and over 70 employees. That growth changed the role of the local fire department, Jim once said, explaining that improved training and additional stations made for better and faster responses, and the number of total-loss fires went down. But that growth also means that the number of accidents to which the fire department responds are up. “Sometimes I think we should be called ‘Accident Department,’” he once joked.
Considered an expert, Reed taught arson investigation techniques at the National Fire Academy in Maryland, as well as for Michigan’s Firefighter Training Council. He also served on the Livingston County fire investigation team.
Jim was a member of the board of directors of the Southeastern Michigan Fire Chiefs Association — and as its president in 2005 — and on the board of directors of the Livingston County Chapter of the American Red Cross.
As well known and respected as Reed was for his work with the Howell police and fire departments, he was just as well known and respected for his skill at tying flies and fly fishing — which he did in places like Alaska, northern Saskatchewan, Idaho, Montana and New England .
How good were Jim’s flies?
He was named world champion at the prestigious annual International Fly Fishing Show and Conclave in Montana; his flies have been fished successfully in many of America’s best-known bodies of water; and he’d been featured nationally and internationally. He also helped found the local affiliate of the Federation of Fly Fishers.
Reed once said that the best part of being fire chief was that he could spend his whole career in public service.
“There’s a lot of personal rewards that come with working with the public,” he said.
