Employees of the Year

Firefighter of the Year
Our Firefighter of the Year has been with Vista Fire for many years (25 years) and currently is one of our Fire Captains.

He leads his crew with a positive, “let’s get it done” attitude and consistently puts the needs of our citizens and patients at the highest level. He encourages teamwork and quality service. He is constantly working to improve the response times of his crew and currently ranks high on the response time chart.

He continually strives to improve himself through various educational programs and courses and is enrolled in a Bachelor of Arts program and is in the process of attaining his Chief Officer’s Certification.

He has been an instructor in our Explorer Program, in which his son Jake is currently a member, following his father’s footsteps into the fire service. Additionally he has coached youth sports in the community, and the City’s Vistans ROC program designed to assist the less fortunate with home remodeling.

Our Firefighter of the year researched and discovered grant dollars and was able to secure a grant for the department to replace our existing Plymovent exhaust system, he worked for quite a while securing costs and comparisons for fuel suppliers which resulted in an agreement to supply fuel for the department at a tremendous cost savings. The City bestowed an award on him for this endeavor.

Again, he doggedly pursued information to secure a new landscape vendor for the department and spent numerous hours analyzing possible “waterwise” landscape design plans to hopefully save the department and the City money in the future.

He was responsible for having the patio roof replaced at Station 2 due to its dilapidated, dangerous condition – once again spending time to determine the best possible costs.

He has always provided mentoring to our new personnel and been involved with their development. He was an Acting Battalion Chief, thereby expanding his horizons of knowledge and certainly administrative challenges.

And last, but not least, he is the Co-chair of our Station Design Committee. With the excitement of our new stations and our Station 1 remodel, he is actively involved with this important step in the department’s future.

Our Firefighter of the Year is a family man, with a lovely wife, Sandi, and two wonderful sons, Jake and AJ and is heavily involved in his community and church.

Congratulations to Captain Kevin Magoon, our Firefighter of the Year.

Employee of the Year
The Vista Fire Department is proud to announce Toni Kleider as this year’s Employee of the Year.  Toni has been with the City of Vista for 17 years and with the Fire Department for 14 years.  Toni is involved in overseeing the department’s budget, supervising the department’s Office Specialists, administers and schedules the Fire Chief’s schedule and manages all facets of the department (employee records, injury reports, holiday celebrations, employee schedules).  Away from work Toni enjoys reading, being with her four grandchildren, crossword puzzles and movies.

Toni is an intricate part of our department and it wouldn’t be able to function the same without her.