Prince William assistant fire chief leaves 'great legacy'

In March, 1978, Hadden Culp walked into his first fire station in Prince William County, excited to receive brand new turnout gear.

"I remember taking it home and showing everybody my gear. Pretty proud," Culp says.

Talking to Culp, it's obvious the now-assistant chief and fire marshal is just as proud today as he retires.

"I feel like I haven't had to work a day in my career. It's been so much fun," he says of his 33 years and nearly as many job duties.

Years of Service

Culp was an electrician in a slumping housing market in 1978 and also had five years of volunteer firefighting in Vienna under his belt, but there were bills to pay. So he took a paid position in Prince William County and began as a back-up driver at Station 13, Hillendale.

Moving through the ranks, Culp has worn many hats, but he won't be pinned down to which single assignment he enjoyed the most.

"You don't just fall into an assignment knowing how to do everything. You have this little bit of a nervous motivation, or nervousness that motivates you, to make sure that you do your best, because if you don't, you might let somebody down and if you let somebody down, best case, they'll be disappointed in you, worst case, somebody could get hurt because of that," Culp said of becoming a pump operator/driver. "I took it on my shoulders to set very high standards for myself as a pump operator, not only working the pump, but maneuvering the truck, knowing my first due, knowing the community, knowing the streets, where the fire hydrants were."

He said he enjoyed being a lieutenant in charge of a unit and later a station manager.

As operations chief, he was responsible for about 400 people. "While you're not running up and down the road on a fire truck anymore, you've got all these other people that are out there doing their job and they're like your children and you just worry about them."

He describes his most recent position as fire marshal as "incredibly intriguing" when he realized he was no longer responsible for 400 people, but for all of Prince William County's more than 400,000 residents.

"The whole community, their safety, as it relates to fire, is the division that I'm responsible for."

Lessons Learned

"My whole career has just been about helping other people and doing that day-in and day-out, whether it's helping someone who's fallen down, fallen off their bed and needs to get back up on the bed, or been in an auto accident, or had a fire...those are everyday things you enjoy doing as a firefighter because you're here to help them and that's applying your trade."

Sometimes applying his trade has taken Culp outside Prince William's borders to hard hit areas around the country.

Culp and a crew went to North Carolina 10 days after Hurricane Fran made landfall in 1995. They relieved exhausted local volunteer firefighters and helped 28 families by cutting trees off homes.

"The nicest thing anybody did was just give you a hug, you know, for helping them out...sometimes that's what it's all about, just helping people."

After the 9/11 terror attacks, Culp and a group of about 40 Prince William firefighters found themselves at the Pentagon.

"The government wasn't going to shut the Pentagon down for symbolic reasons, and they still had fire, active fire going on," he recalled. "They were having a hard time getting the power isolated so that the search and rescue crews could get into different parts of the building. You also had water pouring down from broken pipes."

Culp ran into a man with a book which happened to be the blueprints to the Pentagon. He brought the man and the crews trying to isolate the water and electricity together and before long, they were able to shut down what they needed to make the area safer for rescue personnel.

"That was a pretty good feeling, able to do a little bit of something to help out."

He witnessed first-hand Hurricane Katrina's devastation to New Orleans in 2005. It was "pretty humbling," he remembered. "It just shows you how powerful nature can be and you have to be prepared."

Each disaster taught Culp, helping him to strengthen Prince William County's fire department: "You get experience doing things on a bigger scale and identify what needs to be done to make sure we're more prepared."

Those lessons haven't gone unnoticed within the department. Fire Chief Kevin McGee addressed the Board of County Supervisors meeting last week: "There isn't an aspect of the high quality service that we provide in fire and rescue that hasn't been influenced by Hadden and he truly leaves a great legacy in fire and rescue." Culp was present and received a standing ovation.

Remembering the Fallen

Culp's legacy isn't only about day-to-day firefighting operations, and it won't end with his retirement.

He actively honors those killed in the line of duty, by going to Emmitsburg, Maryland every October for the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation Memorial Weekend.

In 2002, when the foundation moved the event to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception Washington, D.C. to remember those killed on 9/11, Culp lead the candlelight service. New York City lost 343 firefighters when the World Trade Center towers fell.

The department's honor guard, which Culp began 25 years ago, participates in memorial weekend.

"It's just another one of those things where you get involved in it and it tugs at your heart strings, so you want to make sure it's successful, so we've been going back year after year."

Executive Director of the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation Ron Siarnicki said, "Chief Culp has shown great leadership and has always gone the extra step to support the Foundation's mission of honoring the fallen, supporting their survivors and preventing firefighter injuries and fatalities."

The honor guard did not serve during the 2008 ceremonies, as is customary when a department honors one of its own. That's the year Prince William firefighter Kyle Wilson was remembered during the ceremonies. Wilson died during a house fire in Woodbridge in April, 2007. He was the first and only line of duty death in the county during Culp's career.

But Culp said no single incident started his passion to honor the fallen. "It's just a good cause. Then of course when we lost Kyle, it did take on some new meaning to me."

He says his primary responsibility in retirement will be as president of the Virginia Public Safety Foundation. The foundation supports surviving spouses and children of all public safety officers killed in the line of duty.

Because Virginia is one of only six states without a memorial honoring those who gave their lives, "the governor asked our foundation if we would raise the money for and build the memorial in Richmond," Culp said. To date, the foundation has about one-third of the needed $1.5 million.

Initially, planners thought there would be about 400 names inscribed on the wall, but as they asked the public for more information, they realized the number is closer to 1,000.

The memorial's dedication, another Culp legacy, is set for summer 2013.

The Prince William Fire Department invites the public to a retirement party for Asst. Chief Culp in the Powell's Creek Conference Room at McCoart County Complex on Thursday, Dec. 1 from 2-4 p.m.