Bill Hanna was honored as outstanding public servant of the year by the MAAC Foundation at Thursday’s second annual awards dinner.
Former Valparaiso Fire Chief Phil Griffith was named as volunteer of the year, the first time the award was given.
Hanna, executive director of the Dean and Barbara White Foundation, has a lengthy resume listing his public service, including as former head of the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority and as city administrator and deputy mayor in Valparaiso.
As a soldier, he helped guard the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery and was there when it was opened to retrieve the remains of the Vietnam veteran once there was information that could identify the unknown soldier.
“It was a very sacred sort of function for us because as guards you never touched the tomb,” Hanna said.
Former Porter County Board of Commissioners President Jeff Good, who received the inaugural outstanding public servant award last year, introduced Hanna. During Hanna’s tenure at the RDA, the agency facilitated more than $2.4 billion in new investment in infrastructure, including at Gary/Chicago International Airport and South Shore commuter rail service.
“Jeff and I, we’re not only friends, we grew up not even a quarter mile from each other,” Hanna said.
They both tried to “deliver good service and good government and ethical delivery and business practices and clarity and transparency and fight corruption,” Hanna said.
Being honored by an organization dedicated to training first responders was humbling, Hanna said. “There’s a sacred bond that’s created and in that kind of service and the handling of a flag to a family who’s lost a loved one in the military or as their first responder,” he said. “I think what that did to me is kind of shake me to the core.”
“We have an obligation to honor that sacred commitment to those who made the sacrifice required for public safety,” Hana said.
At the MAAC (Multi Agency Academic Cooperative), “we’re leading the nation,” he said. “We’re showing up every day with the right answer, pulling people together, knocking down walls. We have firemen and policemen and women all in the same spot, communicating in a way that doesn’t exist in other areas. We’re seeing better and better results.”
Hanna toured the public safety training campus with Beth White, who walked across the gravel in high heels and a dress and was glad to take up the offer to break a vehicle’s window while firefighters were training how to deal with car fires.
“Every week or so I’m looking at the paper and I see another story where they’re in the healthcare space, they’re in the school space,” Hanna said.
“Making sure that our kids are safe, this is real stuff,” he said. “It’s not only strategically important, it’s saving lives.”
Hanna told of going on a trip with his wife to visit refugee camps. “Some of these folks were refugees in Syria and Afghanistan and fleeing wars and conflicts and everything that’s going on in our world. It was very interesting, just sort of heartbreaking in a lot of ways.”
“The first couple of things that they say to you is No. 1, I want to be safe and I want my kids to be safe, and No. 2, I want them to be educated.
“We live in a world that worships material success,” Hanna said, but he wants to honor the troops and first responders for their work to make America safer.
Those refugees said they wanted to go to America, their first choice, or Germany. “They want to get somewhere that’s westernized, democratic,” he said. “This still is the greatest country in the world. It’s still the place where some want to go.”
“What an engaging leader Bill is, and how blessed we are to have him in our lives,” MAAC President and CEO Celina Weatherwax said.
Ireland Hanna, his daughter, said her father instilled in his children the value of public service and the desire to be a humble leader.
“The support of your parents your teachers your friends and the community around you is what makes you strong and enables you to grow and pursue what you want,” she said.
Daughter Madison Hanna said, “Public safety is an important component of any successful initiative.”
Griffith was given a mailbox that looked like a red firetruck, modeled after one he used to use. Now Griffith wants to figure out how to add a solar panel and put lights on it.
“He has taught thousands of thousands of people CPR” and how to intervene in emergencies, former Task Force Tips President and CEO Stuart McMillan said. McMillan’s dream led to the creation of the MAAC campus, which continues to grow.
In 2016, when the MAAC campus was created, “I thought gosh, we’ve got a fire hydrant and a building in a gravel lot. That’s all we need,” McMillan said. “We found out we needed more.”
Since then, the campus has grown to 40-plus structures and training props all across the campus, Weatherwax said.
It has served 81,652 first responders, offering nearly 450,000 training hours over the past eight years.
Jacki Stutzman recently offered a sizeable donation to help pay for a K9 training facility there. “I want the K9s to be recognized as first responders,” she said.
“Stutzman Hall will be approximately 6,000 square feet of training space,” Weatherwax said, with an open bay and classrooms as well as restrooms, something lacking on the east side of the campus.
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
