Department says goodbye to Chief Lohr at dinner

Peachtree City didn’t have to go far to select an acting fire chief to replace the retiring Stony Lohr.

The department’s assistant chief, Ed Eiswerth, was named Thursday to the position while the city completes a search process to name the next fire chief. City Manager Bernie McMullen appointed Eiswerth to the position.

Eiswerth initially served in the Peachtree City Fire Department as a Volunteer Firefighter/EMT from 1989 to 1992, earning recognition as Rookie of the Year in 1989 and Firefighter of the Year in 1990 and 1991. He left the department in 1992, but returned as a full time Firefighter/EMT in 1994, earning his paramedic certification in 1995.

Eiswerth was Promoted to Operations/EMS Captain in June of 1998, and was named Assistant Chief/Operations in October of 2001.

“Ed’s knowledge of the department operations, both in Fire and EMS, give him a good background to serve as Acting Chief of the department,” McMullen said.

In addition to serving as assistant chief under Lohr, Eiswerth worked with the retiring chief at the Weber Fire Station which came to be affectionately known as “Fort Weber” with the military style under which Lohr and Eiswerth operated it when they were on duty. Both were retired lieutenant colonels from the military.

Eiswerth also remembered that whenever the department ran out of EMS supplies and needed to restock, they just went by Lohr’s house to pick them up because he had everything that was needed.

City officials and fire department staffers said goodbye to Lohr Tuesday night with a dinner at the Flat Creek Club, and Eiswerth provided some of the humorous moments of the night, recalling how long it would take to unload the “Stonymobile,” which was a very older model brown van that Lohr carried his equipment around in.

Lohr was particularly lauded by several fire staffers as bringing training to the forefront for the department, particularly by having staff train at the Georgia public safety training center in Forsyth.

In his parting words to his crew, Lohr beseeched them to continually improve themselves and the department. Not doing so, he said, would mean the department would fall in decline because there is no such thing as keeping pace, he added.

Lohr was also known as a workaholic in some respects, during the midnight oil and then some in the office. Though Lohr was ribbed for his deadpan, matter-of-fact way of speaking, fire department chaplain John Weber noted that Lohr would often come to visit him, sharing concerns about the well-being of his staffers.

That showed how much Lohr cared about his people, Weber said.