By Megan Guza
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
PITTSBURGH — Mark Bocian was a policy guy and rule-follower who held the medics who served under him to high standards — the definition of “by the book,” friends and family said.
But he could bend the book, too.
“He’d never admit to that, though,” said Ron Romano, a former EMS chief who spent decades working alongside Mr. Bocian with Pittsburgh emergency services until his own retirement in 2022.
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Crows’ feet were one example.
“You have some people, when they’re overseeing people, they want to discipline every little thing,” Mr. Romano said.
But Mr. Bocian gave out warnings — “crows’ feet,” he called them. Three crows’ feet and you’d get written up. No one could quite recall why, exactly, they were called crow’s feet. But that’s what they were, friends said, and they summed up that wry part of the former chief’s by-the-book personality that was willing to bend.
Mr. Bocian, who spent more than 40 years with Pittsburgh EMS, including five as chief, died July 22 after a short battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 72.
He began his career in Pittsburgh as an emergency medical technician in 1975, just a few months after the city’s EMS bureau was created.
He was a rising star from the start, said Jim Holman, a retired division chief who was part of the inaugural class of medics that began a few months before Mr. Bocian came on board. He started as a paramedic at the Medic 3 station in the city’s West End, but his “calm, cool, and collected attitude toward things” meant he moved up the ranks quickly, Mr. Holman said.
Along the way, he served in just about every role within emergency services — crew chief, district chief, assistant chief — and as the first president of what was then the newly formed Fraternal Association of Professional Paramedics.
And he became a mentor, said Deputy EMS Chief Jeffrey Tremel.
Chief Tremel would eventually become president of the union himself, and he recalled Mr. Bocian once telling him, “Jeff, there are things I can’t tell you, but I will never lie to you.” Chief Tremel said those words stuck with him, and he quoted the remark in an essay he had to write when he applied to become a district chief.
“I had all respect for him,” he said.
Mr. Bocian was named acting EMS chief in 2012 and confirmed by city council in late 2014. He retired from Pittsburgh’s EMS bureau in 2016.
“As with most careers, it is always the people that you meet and befriend that are important,” Mr. Bocian said in announcing his retirement. “And I have had the privilege to be surrounded by and work with some of the best. They will be missed.”
Friends and colleagues reflected that sentiment back onto the career EMT and avid fisherman nearly a decade later.
“I’m a better man for having known him,” Mr. Holman said.
Mr. Bocian introduced him to fishing in the 1980s, and the pair spent decades traveling together for fishing trips. Their sons and, eventually, Mr. Bocian’s grandson would join them. A favorite spot was in rural Potter County — God’s country, Mr. Holman called it.
He recalled one trip where a mishap left a fishing hook stuck in Mr. Bocian’s scalp. Carefully, his fellow paramedic, Mr. Holman, clipped the line and removed the hook.
“He said, ‘Boy, I’m glad you’re here,’” Mr. Holman recalled. “I said, ‘Why is that, Mark?’ He said, ‘I’d have had to fish the rest of the day with that lure hanging out of the back of my head.’”
That was Mr. Bocian, he said — for as by-the-book as he was, he was constantly joking and teasing just about everyone around him. He once sent his niece, who’s a bit squeamish about animals, a stuffed squirrel for her birthday. She’d send him a fruit basket — pears, specifically, because he hated them.
“Mark was the funniest ... happiest, go-luckiest type of guy,” Mr. Holman said. “He was always the one to say, ‘Hey, relax, it’s going to be OK.’”
Mr. Romano recalled the same.
“We [worked with] these two guys who, let’s say, they didn’t do a lot of work,” he said. “One weekend, I’m ranting and raving about how they leave us all this work. [ Mr. Bocian ] said, ‘Relax — they make us look good.’”
He liked good wine and playing tricks, though they were never malicious, friends said. He loved to spend time outdoors, liked to go to casinos, and enjoyed cruises — in fact, he went from one cruise directly to another earlier this year, just to stay out of the harsh Pittsburgh winter.
Mr. Romano and Chief Tremel said they often called Mr. Bocian even after he’d retired, looking to pick his brain or get advice. Mr. Romano called him a good leader and good friend who will be deeply missed.
“He was ‘Chief Bocian,’” said Chief Tremel. “But he was also ‘Mark Bocian.’”
Mr. Bocian is survived by his wife of 50 years, Chris; siblings Mike Bocian and wife Debbie, of Pittsburgh; Tim Bocian and wife Amy, of Grove City; and Bonnie Breit and husband Albert, of Pittsburgh; and children Matt Bocian, of Pittsburgh; Brian Bocian and wife Maria, of Butler; and Keith Bocian and wife Sarah, of Delaware County.
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