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Vartan Gharpetian, a member of the Glendale City Council in California, published few pictures on his Facebook account in January, announcing that two fire trucks from his community have been donated to the Rescue Department of Yerevan.

Aysor.am conducted an interview with Mr Gharpetian to get details of this generous contribution, for which he also thanked Glendale City Manager Scott Ochoa and Glendale Fire Chief Gregory Fish.

Aysor.am: Mr Gharpetian, you posted in your Facebook, that in December you introduced a motion to donate two fire trucks to Armenia. Can you please elaborate more about that effort?

Gharpetian: In the Glendale Fire Department, quite often fire trucks, after being used for a while, have to retire. We either give those to other departments, or cities or sell them. In 2015 I made a motion to donate two trucks to Republic of Armenia, but then the trucks had to go to the Fire Academy, where we train our firefighters. I followed it up then, and when the trucks have been retired from the Academy, I introduced my motion again in December 2016.The idea received full support on the floor and the Council Members voted for it unanimously.

These are top quality fire trucks in very good condition and with many functions.

Aysor.am: There is not much about your activities in Armenia available in open sources, while one would expect at least some information published about many contributions you make regularly. How often do you visit Armenia?

Gharpetian: I have huge ties in Armenia. My uncle moved back to Armenia in 1947, and now I have fourth generation relatives in motherland. I try to visit Armenia every year and even got a little living space in Yerevan. My children speak, read and write Armenian perfectly.

And if you are asking what we have done in Armenia so far, you know, we do not advertise things that we do, because we do not do it for recognition. We are trying to bring some businesses to Armenia. Not just to create jobs, but jobs that pay high salaries so that the head of household, who works, can take care of his family by working in one job.

Our goal is to help the local economy. A lot of people expect that others from Diaspora would come to Armenia and make investments. But what about the investors, the business people in Armenia? We should help them to start growing their business and hire more people and pay higher salaries. These are the issues that are near and dear to my heart, as I have many more family members in Armenia than anywhere else, and the goal is to create the niche that would help grow the national economy.

My main focus is to create better paying jobs in Armenia, so that people earn more and spend more in the local market, and thus develop the economy.

Aysor.am: And what is the plan for the next few months?

Gharpetian: I want to put together a delegation, comprised of our Fire Department and some city management people, to bring to Armenia next summer in order to start a new relationship between the Glendale city Fire Department and their counterparts in Armenia. Some cross training, exchange of ideas and discussion of operating systems between two departments would be a useful thing to do to learn from each other and reach a bilateral agreement of cooperation. There is such a “gentleman agreement” between the two police departments of Glendale and Yerevan, for example. I think this is something that touches everyday life of people and is a useful thing to do.

Aysor.am: Mr Gharpetian, thank you for this interview.