Trotter Named Chief Emergency Officer, Orozco New Fire Commissioner for Chicago

Mayor Richard M. Daley announced that Cortez Trotter will retire as Fire Commissioner to become Chief Emergency Officer, responsible for long-range planning and coordinating the activities of the Police and Fire departments and Office of Emergency Management and Communications.

Trotter will be succeeded as Fire Commissioner by Raymond E. Orozco, who currently is Assistant Deputy Fire Commissioner in the Bureau of Operations.

"Chicago's Police Department, Fire Department and Office of Emergency Management and Communications are among the best in the nation -- and they work extremely well together," Daley said at a City Hall news conference. "But I believe we could do an even better job of preparing for emergencies if we had a single person in the Mayor's Office to oversee and coordinate the emergency activities of those three departments."

Daley said, "there is nobody better qualified for the job of Chief Emergency Officer than Trotter, who headed the Fire Department for the last two years and the Office of Emergency Management and Communications (OEMC) for the previous three years.

At the OEMC, Trotter was intimately involved with emergency planning and coordination. He worked with every city department, as well as with suburban, county, state and federal agencies and the private sector.

"Chicago is well-prepared now," Daley said. "But with Cortez Trotter in this new position, we will be even better prepared."
Orozco, a 26-year veteran of the Fire Department, has been trained both as a firefighter and as an emergency medical technician. He coordinated operations at the LaSalle Bank fire Dec. 6, 2004; the Ford City Shopping Center natural gas explosion on Jan. 12, 2005; and the Metra train derailment on the South Side on September 17, 2005.

Orozco is a graduate of Western Illinois University and has taught at the City Colleges of Chicago and the Northwestern University Center for Public Safety. His father, Raymond E. Orozco Sr., was Fire Commissioner from 1989 to 1996.

"I'm sure Ray learned a lot from his father -- like many of us -- and he's obviously extremely well qualified in his own right," Daley said. "I'm confident he'll carry on the great leadership that Cortez Trotter has provided to the department."