{"id":15723,"date":"2013-07-01T03:07:47","date_gmt":"2013-07-01T03:07:47","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2013-07-01T03:07:47","modified_gmt":"2013-07-01T03:07:47","slug":"Berkeley-appoints-first-Asian-American-fire-chief-in-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=15723","title":{"rendered":"Berkeley appoints first Asian-American fire chief in US"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>After 23 years of service, Gil Dong was appointed chief of Berkeley Fire Department at Tuesday\u2019s city council meeting, also becoming the first Asian-American fire chief in the continental U.S.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Dong has served as interim fire chief since last December, after the retirement of previous chief, Debra Pryor. Since joining as a paramedic in 1990, Dong has worked in every division of the fire department.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe work doesn\u2019t change, but the title does,\u201d Dong said.<\/p>\n<p>Acting deputy fire chief Avery Webb said Dong has been an efficient administrator since the day he stepped in as interim, immediately taking action with a strategic plan to address the strengths and weaknesses of the department.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Though Dong said he felt honored to be the first Asian-American fire chief in the continental U.S., he also said he felt torn that it took such a long time to recruit an Asian fire chief in the mainland.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it\u2019s reflective of the culture and the problem we have recruiting Asian-American firefighters,\u201d  Dong said. \u201cAsian parents want you to become doctors, lawyers, engineers. We need to break through some of those barriers and show that being a firefighter is just as honorable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>According to Dong, there needs to be more aggressive recruiting of minorities and Asian Americans into the fire service.<\/strong> Diversity outreach is also a priority on the strategic plan to demonstrate that fire service is a viable career for minorities as well.<\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailycal.org\/2013\/06\/30\/berkeley-appoints-first-asian-american-fire-chief-in-continental-u-s\/\">dailycal.org<\/a><\/em><br \/>\n<!--break--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After 23 years of service, Gil Dong was appointed chief of Berkeley Fire Department at Tuesday\u2019s city council meeting, also<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-highlighted-post":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-small":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x90.jpg","colormag-featured-image":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-default-news":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","colormag-featured-image-large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-block-extra-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-small-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-medium-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"Admin","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53e6cdc30765aade0129f85e5aeb50124b1d3f5bb9a70373be31e4eb328371e0?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"0","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"After 23 years of service, Gil Dong was appointed chief of Berkeley Fire Department at Tuesday\u2019s city council meeting, also","magazineBlocksPostCategories":[],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":143,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":2,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"medium":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg",113,150,true]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"Admin","author_link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?author=1"},"magazine_blocks_comment":0,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53e6cdc30765aade0129f85e5aeb50124b1d3f5bb9a70373be31e4eb328371e0?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}