About the Whitefish Fire Service Area

Chairperson

Mark Carlson

Mark Carlson was born and raised in the Flathead Valley and graduated from Whitefish High School in 1982. He served four years in the Army, then came home to work at Equity Supply in the creamery. He helped his parents start Carlson Sand and Gravel and worked there alongside them for more than 20 years; Schellinger Construction took the business over and still employs him. Mark volunteered with the Whitefish Fire Department for 24 years, and he has served on the Whitefish Fire Service Area board for 12, as its president in 2021 and as chairperson now. He has also put in 10 years on the Fair Board. He and his wife Debbie have been married 32 years and have two children, and they live off Whitefish Stage inside the fire service area. Voters re-elected him in May 2026.

Vice Chair

Ed McGrew

Ed McGrew grew up on a cattle ranch in Oklahoma, where his uncle Joe, a cattle driver, taught him to smoke brisket and pork in pits and trenches. He worked for Dell Computers in Oklahoma City before coming to Whitefish in 2004 to help his brother Martin remodel a house. He meant to stay a month. He took IT work when he arrived, got tired of it, and started cooking barbecue for friends instead. Enough people asked him to cook for them that it grew into a mobile catering business, which he ran for about 15 years around the valley. In 2019 he took over the kitchen behind Lakestream Fly Shop on Spokane Avenue and opened Ed McGrew's BBQ, which he still runs. Voters elected Ed to the fire service area board in May 2021. He served as the board's secretary and is now its vice chair, with a term running through May 2027.

Treasurer

Thomas Moran

Tom Moran worked on the railroad for 40 years and retired from BNSF about a decade ago. He held a range of jobs in the operations departments of BNSF and the railroads that came before it, at locations across the system, working from yard and train service into management. He got involved in Whitefish Fire Service Area business during the last round of contract negotiations with the City and stayed involved after they ended. He is now the board's treasurer, which puts him in charge of tracking the fire service area's funding and fund balances and reporting on them to the rest of the board. He and his wife Nancy designed a house and property before he retired, and he has been building and improving it ever since. He has also gone back to live music, both listening to it and playing it.

Trustee

Jim Dyon

Jim Dyon has lived in Whitefish for about 40 years. He worked as a machine shop supervisor at Applied Materials, and for more than 25 years he has run his own business. Jim was appointed to the Whitefish Fire Service Area board and served as its secretary during his first term. He says he stays on because he likes volunteering in his community. On the board he has pushed to plan ahead for growth, including more fire halls and the people to staff them. His term runs through May 2027.

Trustee

Dave Kauffman

Dave Kauffman grew up in Whitefish and graduated from Whitefish High School. He left to earn a BS in chemistry, then came back, got interested in law enforcement, and spent six years as an officer with the Whitefish Police Department. He then served 29 years as a deputy with the Flathead County Sheriff's Department before retiring. Dave volunteered to fill a vacancy on the Whitefish Fire Service Area board and was approved by the County Commissioners. Voters elected him to a full term in May 2026. He and his wife have been married 38 years and have four children. They live in rural Whitefish.

Executive Director

DC Haas

DC Haas transferred from Penn State to the University of Montana meaning to study biology, with the idea of trapping black bears in Montana the way he had in Pennsylvania. He started volunteering as a firefighter instead and switched his major to forestry. That turned into a fire career of more than 30 years. He was a firefighter with the Missoula Rural Fire District, then a statewide fire prevention specialist and later fire program manager for the Montana DNRC. He spent 18 months in Oregon before coming back to Montana to be closer to family. He was assistant fire chief in Kalispell, worked seasonally for Glacier National Park and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, and then served as fire chief at Smith Valley. He stepped away from the fire service for a stretch to be around more for his two children, driving a school bus for Kalispell School District and working summers for a rafting company, which he still calls one of the best jobs he ever had. WFSA hired him in 2024 as its first executive director, to do the planning, research and grant work a volunteer board has no time for. He describes the job as part coach, part mentor, part fire manager.