Neighbor Spotlight: Penn Hills EMS supervisor's journey focuses on her love of the community and its people
Editor’s note: Neighbor Spotlight is a monthly feature that aims to let our readers learn more about the people in their communities who are working to make them a better place, who have interesting stories to tell or who the community feels deserve “15 minutes of fame.” If you would like to nominate someone as a Neighbor Spotlight, email Neighborhood News Network editor Katie Green at kgreen@triblive.com.
Diane Fitzhenry doesn’t particularly enjoy talking about herself.
In fact, when she was tasked with speaking to a reporter for this Neighbor Spotlight story, she named several others in the community who would be a better interview.
“I just do my job,” she said.
She works as the EMS supervisor in Penn Hills, a position she has held there since 2009. She got her first job with the municipality in 1975 and stayed ever since in a variety of roles.
Fitzhenry, 64, worked for several companies in the area during the first summer after graduating from high school. She then saw a newspaper ad for a position as a receptionist in the municipal manager’s office.
As a 1975 graduate of Penn Hills High School, Fitzhenry had some experience in secretarial work and stenography. The school, back then, had a solid commercial curriculum that prepared “the secretaries of the world,” she said.
“I applied. It was close to home, and I figured I had the skills they were looking for. It was a good entry level position, one I thought I could move up in,” Fitzhenry said.
Over her 45 years working in the municipality, she moved up, across, down and up again in her various roles. So when she described the “very hardworking” people of Penn Hills as those who have a certain “stick-to-it-ness” about them, she was also describing herself.
To illustrate her word – stick-to-it-ness – she pointed to the Johnstown Flood of 1977. She had been on the job in Penn Hills for a couple of years and said she remembered the buzz around the event, which claimed 84 lives after a foot of rain fell in just 10 hours. The flood caused five dams to fail and inundated the area with millions of gallons of water.
“The people of Penn Hills raised money in the shopping centers, they put together care packages, people contributed lots of money,” Fitzhenry said. She said Turner Dairy Farms even stopped producing milk for a time in order to bottle water to send to the people of Johnstown. She said the municipality’s volunteer fire departments sent truckloads of food there. And Johnstown was able to purchase a fire truck for its West End Ambulance Service.
“The people here are really good people,” she said, choking up again.
So when she sees drug overdoses, shootings and other violence happening in the town she has grown to love, it hurts. She has worked hard behind the scenes to help people in need – even those in the news media.
Liza King of Penn Hills started her career as a reporter for the Green Tab Newspaper, which published in Penn Hills. Her beat in the mid to late 1970s was Penn Hills.
“She was always a great resource for me,” King said. “And she was always honest, she didn’t dodge questions, returned calls.”
King said reporters often get a bad rap for focusing on the negative stories. But no matter how negative or potentially bad the story presented Penn Hills, Fitzhenry always helped.
“Even if she wasn’t the person to answer the questions, she could get that information. And she never sugar coated anything,” King said.
King described Fitzhenry as an “amazing person” who is phenomenal at her job. By the time King left the newspaper for a teaching job at the Community College of Allegheny County’s Boyce campus in 1984, she said the two of them became friends.
King said she still relies on Fitzhenry to this day as state Rep. Tony DeLuca’s chief of staff. Whenever she has a question about emergency management services that constituents might have, she relies on her friend.
“She’s an invaluable resource to Penn Hills,” King said.
Fitzhenry has worked as a manager, secretary and deputy clerk. She worked closely with the municipality to set up its citizen services center – and then she ran it, answering various questions from the community. During that time, in 1984, she became an emergency medical technician. She used that knowledge to help the municipality set up ambulance billing, and she volunteered with a Plum fire department to run ambulance calls until 1988.
And when Penn Hills wanted to make significant changes to its Home Rule Charter, she served on the charter review and revision committee both in the 1980s and 1990s. She’s also served on the municipality’s 911 committee and has worked as a notary since 1977.
Fitzhenry served on the Penn Hills Library Foundation board of directors for a number of years and a variety of other community boards and clubs.
By the time 2007 came, she earned her degree from the University of Pittsburgh in public administration and legal studies. She also married Daniel Fitzhenry in 1982. Together, they’ve raised two sons, David and Dan. She now has two grandchildren.
She had also earned professional designations and certifications through organizations such as the International Institute of Municipal Clerks and the Pennsylvania Association of Municipal Administrators.
When she graduated from Pitt, the municipality was looking for an EMS Supervisor. She applied and was hired by former manager Mohammed Rayan. Her experience as an EMT and in different roles within the municipality helped her earn the job. A few years later, she became a licensed paremedic to keep up with her education.
She has served as a resource not only to residents and reporters, but colleagues, too. Chris Blackwell, the municipality’s planning director, began his career in 1994 as a planner for Penn Hills. He remembers Fitzhenry as being his “go-to” person for anything about the municipality.
“She’s just eager to get things done,” he said. “And she’s always been eager to take on new challenges. It’s like she has 10 plates in the air at one time. If she’s asked to do something she never says she’s too busy.”
Blackwell, who has now been a co-worker of hers for 27 years, said he can’t say enough about Fitzhenry.
“She’d be hard to replace,” he said.
When Fitzhenry was asked about retirement, she responded simply, “I still enjoy coming to work.”
So although she couldn’t find words to talk about herself, and instead pointed to other residents’ “stick-to-it-ness,” she could very well serve as that word’s definition.
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