About

Tim McPhillips has been familiar with the fire service culture since he started spending the night at Chicago’s engine 61 when he was 10 years old. His father was a firefighter at Engine 61, a single engine house located on Chicago’s southside, at 5349 S Wabash. As a young boy the firemen he listened to at the firehouse kitchen table were mostly war veterans from WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. For an impressionable young boy, watching these men respond to fire calls, he thought the men were invincible and imagined himself growing up to be like them. Tim didn’t get a chance to follow in his father’s footsteps until much later in life, after he had already started a career in accounting and finance. In 2003, he entered the Quinn Fire Academy at the young age of 35. He was first assigned to Truck 25 in the Rogers Park neighborhood and then Engine 47 wedged between Chicago’s Woodlawn and Englewood neighborhoods. He is currently a lieutenant assigned to Truck 1 in the downtown area.

Tim continues to work in finance and accounting, serving in municipal finance roles, he has been a trustee of Firemen’s Annuity and Benefit Fund and served as the interim CIO and Executive Director of that pension fund. Tim has earned his undergraduate degree from Marquette University and his MPA from Northwestern University. Tim and his wife of 29 years have 3 children and reside in Chicago’s Edison Park neighborhood.