Fire chief, parks head introduced

City Manager Jared Langenegger introduced two new city department heads at Thursday’s Tucumcari City Commission meeting.

He introduced Fire Chief Doug Hogan and a new parks department superintendent, Tomas Gallegos.

Hogan brings 22 years of firefighting experience to the fire chief’s position. He comes from San Antonio, Texas, where he was logistics manager and an instructor at the San Antonio Regional Fire Academy. Previously he was an assistant fire chief for the Williamson County fire department north of Austin, Texas.

Gallegos was most recently a mechanic for the Tucumcari Street Department. He held that job for three years. Previously, he had been a heavy equipment operator for the New Mexico Department of Transportation for six years, and a mechanic for the city of Tucumcari for five years.

Gallegos supervised crews while working with NMDOT, he said.

He said the parks department will benefit from his experience as a heavy equipment operator and mechanic. Until now, he said, the park department was dependent on availability of street department operators to get some park jobs completed.