Housing and Development Newsletter
Widling left Montecito in 1991 to spend the next 23 years rising through the ranks in the Santa Maria City Fire Department to become the operations battalion chief in 2011. In 2015, he returned to the Montecito Fire Department as a shift battalion chief; and in July 2019 he was promoted to the division chief – operations position.
Widling has been an instructor for Allan Hancock College Fire Academy since the late 1990s and achieved the level of confined space rescue technician - senior instructor with State Fire Training in 2008.
Widling participated in the Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) program and currently serves as the chairperson for Santa Barbara County US&R Regional Task Force (RTF-12) and as deputy chairperson for the California Statewide US&R RTF Working Group, which is made up of all 12 of the state’s RTFs.