Mr McLean is making the move from the McPherson Street depot to the McLachlan Street office building after three years at the helm.

Taking his place is Crystal Sanders, who has volunteered with the SES in Ballarat and Horsham since she was 16.

Mr McLean is now charged with developing and running training courses across the Wimmera and western Victoria.

"For example general rescue training, road crash rescue, whether it be safe working at heights and things like that," he said.

"Each unit has a certain scope of what they train in, and my role is to make sure they can fulfill that requirement. We have 14 operational units in the midwest from Bacchus Marsh to Kaniva, and including Edenhope, Goroke, Warracknabeal and St. Arnaud.

"Each of them has core roles - some of them do road rescue and some don't. Horsham's major role is the high-angle rescue capability, and we have a specialist crew based out at Natimuk."

Mr McLean was born and bred in Horsham, but his SES career started in Nhill 22 years ago. He then moved to Goroke and came back to Horsham.

Ms Sanders said she moved to Pimpinio ten years ago after joining the SES in Ballarat as a junior member.

"My Dad Neil and brothers Shaun and Tim were involved in it from when they were quite young, so being involved and being able to help them train and see what they did was a good learning experience. I got meet a lot of great people," she said.

"The role is a lot about people managing and working on where members want to go, and how I can get them there."

Ms Sanders said she was hoping to expand the Horsham unit, both in member numbers and facility size. She said there were 18 members at the unit, five of them recruited during a campaign earlier this year.

"Horsham's population is growing: We're getting more jobs but before the recruitment drive we had the same amount of members," she said.

Related: Horsham SES Unit calls for more volunteers

"We're always looking for new volunteers to fill admin roles like bookkeeping, finance and communications - and operational roles, so any time anyone can give is amazing. It's up to each individual member how much time they want to put in and what they want to do."

Ms Sanders has taken on the role while continuing to raise her two children Brodie, aged four, and Isabella, aged one.

"They're part of my support crew," she said.

"They come with me to the unit when I have to manage the administrative side of things and they love having a look at the trucks."

While you're with us, you can now receive updates straight to your inbox twice weekly from the Wimmera Mail-Times. To make sure you're up-to-date with all the news from across the Wimmera, sign up below.