Walter Duzzny

AUSTINTOWN — Walter Duzzny left this world Dec. 16 after spending a lifetime making Mahoning County safer.

Whether it was serving his country in the United States Army, serving as director of the county’s emergency management planning organization or running his own emergency planning consultation firm, Duzzny built a name and legacy on protecting others.

“When it was freezing outside, he’d be standing in front of the county administration building saying ‘Check on your pets and your elderly neighbors’ and when it was 99 degrees in the summer, he’d do the same thing,” said Nick Modarelli. “He always did it to make sure people knew there was help available. He just got into it.”

As head of the civil division of the Mahoning County Prosecutor’s Office, Modarelli worked closely with Duzzny for many years, as did former Youngstown Police Chief Robin Lees, who now directs the Mahoning County Emergency Management Agency.

“He was great to work with, and I dealt with him until last year, even during my tenure as chief, and he was always there to help and lend some guidance,” Lees said. “We all remember the exercises he would design, and he always carried through with interesting twists and turns in those.”

Duzzny, 86, passed away peacefully, due to an infection, in Kendrick Hospital in Sun City, Florida, where he resided after his retirement from the county and as president of his own firm, Emergency Planning Associates LLC.

He retired from the Army as a full colonel, and, throughout his professional career, he leveraged his military knowledge and experience into helping the community. He also used his leverage in the county to bring former soldiers into the public service sector.

“He was able to get involved in the early ’80s, working with the (Mahoning County) commissioners through the CEDA (Community and Economic Development Associates) program to help military personnel and others get jobs with the county,” said his son, Jeff Duzzny. “He parlayed that into an organization that got 911 into the county, he got the sirens working, he was just instrumental in pushing Mahoning County into the next generation of safety awareness.”

Modarelli said most of the initiatives Duzzny led began under what was first called Disaster Services, which operated in the basement of the Mahoning County Courthouse.

“He really started off with the Community’s Right to Know program, assembling all the information about what chemicals were stored in what buildings, and we took that show on the road, and we would hold training sessions at the fire departments and even at YSU,” Modarelli said. “Walter and I and the Board of Health would get together with fire chiefs and first responders. He was at the cutting edge of all that stuff.”

He said Duzzny always planned for the “What-if?”

“The courthouse had emergency response units in the basement to practice for various scenarios, like if terrorists blew up the bridge and then they hit the city admin building, and so on,” Modarellio said. “They used to call him the master of disaster.”

Modarelli said Duzzny’s planning was far ahead of the times.

“In the early ’90s, we already had an emergency response plan for the county. Walter would hold these sessions, and he would get all the different agencies or departments you’d need to respond in case of emergency, and that included utilities like Ohio Edison, Northeast Ohio Gas, ODOT and, of course, law enforcement and fire.”

Modarelli said Duzzny had a philosophy for getting people to show up.

“He always said ‘If you feed them, they will come.'”

The county’s emergency management plan was so advanced it was still a blueprint even after 9/11.

“When they formed the anti-terrorism task force, a group of state, federal and local agencies

met at the federal building in Cleveland in February or March after 9/11 and they asked everybody to send in an emergency preparedness plan,” Modarelli said. “When I walked into the room, a copy of Mahoning County’s plan was at everyone’s seat. They asked how we put it together so quickly, I said, ‘Look at the date, we’ve been doing this for 10 years.'”

On that terrible day in 2001, Modarelli said, Duzzny was instrumental not only in getting county buildings evacuated but also in ensuring the safety and comfort of several hundred passengers who came into Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport after the FAA closed the nation’s air space.

He said Duzzny organized truckloads of beverages and got Crystal’s Catering to transport food to the airport for the marooned passengers.

Throughout his time Duzzny obtained countless grants for law enforcement, first responders, county safety and health programs, and many large pieces of equipment.

Lees credits him with the BEAR armored vehicle that the county SWAT team has used for more than 20 years, as well as the first mobile command post — which Modarelli said was affectionately known as the “emergency Winnebago.”

“We still have it, and it is only being replaced by a new one next year,” Lees said. “Walt was instrumental in working to get funding. And he was the reason the building on Industrial Road was set up.”

Duzzny’s personality, drive and unique capabilities even overcame the tide of countywide political change.

When David Engler won a seat as county commissioner, he tried to have Duzzny fired, Modarelli said.

“Walt got up there, he read the resolution out loud, put it down in front of them, and the next day he came back into work, and he just kept working and nobody ever did anything about it. They just kept paying him,” he said.

The way Jeff Duzzny tells it, even the heavens seemed to intervene on his father’s behalf.

“There was a major flood incident that occurred right about that time, and they asked him for his help, and he was able to step in and point them in the right direction,” he said. “Nobody really knew how to do that job and nobody was truly sure if he was actually fired. He said nobody gave him a pink slip and ‘until it’s official I’m going to show up to work.'”

After that, he said his father maintained a good working relationship with the commissioners and the rest of the county right up until his retirement.

“He loved his job, loved the county, loved helping people; he always tried to strive to make things better,” Duzzny said.

And county government wasn’t the only responsibility Duzzny took on.

He was active with the state’s public employee retirement system, OPERS.

“He led people to get involved, to say ‘Your vote matters.’ He was always involved in multiple organizations, from the masons to the church to military retirement associations. Somehow he always ended up president of these organizations,” Duzzny said. His father’s obituary states that Col. Duzzny was a member of the American Legion, president of the Mahoning Chapter of the Reserve Officers Association, a charter member and past president of the Military Officers Association of America, Mahoning Shenango Valley Chapter (Ambassador Award and the Colonel Boals Award for leadership), and appointed by the Department of Defense as the military outreach director of the state of Ohio for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve.

Duzzny was a member of Sts. Peter and Paul Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and he served as past president and vice president of the Ukrainian Orthodox League of the U.S. and Ukrainian American Veterans Inc. He was the past president of the board of directors for the Safety Council, Ohio Chapter, a past instructor and trainer for the criminal justice programs at Youngstown State and Kent State police academies, a member of Argus Lodge 545 F&AM, past president of Public Employees Retirees Chapter 18, and a member of the Lowellville Rod and Gun Club.

Duzzny said his dad was a very loving and devoted father and husband but also expected a certain degree of character and discipline from his children.

“He was very to-the-point, and he wanted to see results. If you start something, you finish it out to the end. If you don’t want to do it again, fine, but you don’t quit halfway through,” Duzzny said. “He would always be very supportive. He didn’t force us to enlist in the military. He laid out the pluses and minuses of the military and let us make those decisions.”

Whatever his approach, it instilled in his children a similar drive for professional success. After serving in Operation Desert Storm, Jeff Duzzny went to Airborne School. On the civilian side, he joined the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Department, served as assistant team leader on the county SWAT team, of which he was a member for 27 years, and worked with the U.S. Marshals Task Force. He retired two years ago, fully vested after a 30-year career in the department.

His brother, Walter Duzzny Jr., retired from the U.S. Army in 2024 as a major general. He served as Ranger Platoon Leader and Battalion Training Officer, 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment. Commander, B Co., 1-5th Infantry, 25th Infantry Division; Battalion commander, 1-148th Infantry.

He has earned numerous prestigious military awards and commendations.

Their children also have established promising military and law enforcement careers. Duzzny said it’s all because of what his dad instilled in them.

“We’ve done well for ourselves, and it’s all because our father pointed us in the right direction,” he said. “You could always throw ideas at him and he could always tell you if it was a sound idea or if you should rethink. I was lucky enough to have my father be someone you could turn to if you made a mistake, and he may get upset but he’d always try to help you find a solution. I was beyond blessed to have him as a father, and he will be very very, very missed.”