Meet St. Cloud’s Fire Chief With A Passion For Service

St. Cloud Fire Chief Matt Love always wanted to be a firefighter.  This is the story of Matt Love.

Early Years

Matt was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado to a father who was a project manager at a engineering group that supported the military while his mother stayed at home with Matt and his brother.  Matt says his mother was a flight attendant prior to his birth.  He is the youngest of 2 children, his brother is 4 years older and is currently a financial advisor in Colorado Springs.

High School

In middle school Matt was involved in football and while in high school he was in a singing group.  He says the singing group was acapella.  Matt recalls singing at concerts but that's where it ended.

Firefighting

As a young person Matt always wanted to go into firefighting.  He got involved in team roping because his family was interested in it.  Matt says many of the people he met involved with team roping were firefighters, which peaked his interest in the career.  He started as a firefighter at the age of 16 as a volunteer.

Full Time Fire Fighting

Matt says when he turned 18 years he was officially sworn in as an official firefighter in the Colorado Springs area.  He says he was drawn to helping people and the rewards received by solving problems.  Matt was also drawn to the excitement and the danger of the job.

Education

Matt says firefighting is heavy experienced based but additional education was also important to him.  He recalls working full-time for one fire department, part-time for others and he also worked ambulance as well.  Matt says his goals was to rack up experience.  Love also spent weekends going to college to further his education.  He earned a bachelor's degree in emergency management and a masters degree in executive fire leadership.  Later in life he also earned an executive leadership administration degree from Harvard.

Time in Colorado

Matt worked for the city of Colorado Springs Fire Department for 11 years, and was a fire chief in a small area outside of Colorado Springs.  He recalls doing these jobs simultaneously.  Love primarily slept and worked.

Gets Married

Matt met his wife, Kristen Love in 2005.  He says she was the only one who could compete with his love of the fire department.  Matt had been a firefighter in Colorado for so long that he felt to become a better firefighter he would need to get out of his comfort zone.  Matt and his wife left Colorado for Fort Myers, Florida.

Time in Florida

Matt says Florida was a completely different fire service with concerns about barrier islands and hurricanes as opposed to wildfires and snowstorms in Colorado.  He recalls expecting to stay in Florida for 5 years and they ended up staying there for 6.

Move to St. Cloud

Matt indicated after 5 years in Florida he and his family decided if they were going to move one more time, that would be the time to do it.  Matt and his wife have two young boys, who are now 14 and 10 years old.  He says he and his wife had opportunities across the country in both large and small communities but there was something about St. Cloud that really fit.  Love felt St. Cloud would be a good fit for his kids and the city was interested in increasing the presence of the fire department in the community.  Love and his family arrived in St. Cloud in December of 2021.

Goals

Love has goals of improving response time, and training standards in St. Cloud.  He also was happy to rebuild the leadership team over the past couple of years.  Love is working to build the department and is exciting about where they are going.  In 2025 Matt volunteered to be a dancer in the Dancing With Our Stars charity event.. an event he won.

If you'd like to listen to my 4-part conversation with Matt Love, click below.