Mitchell County Building Inspector Dillon Phillips was honored at a recent Mitchell County Board of Commissioners meeting for having been named the 2025 Building Inspector of the Year.
Jason Rogers of the North Carolina Building Inspectors Association made a presentation to the board explaining the award.
“At the 2025 North Carolina Building Inspectors Association annual conference in July, Dillon Phillips was presented with the Building Inspector of the Year Award,” Rogers said. “The award is the NCBIA’s second-highest award and is given to the individuals who, over the last year, have strived to maintain the high standard of excellence as a North Carolina building official.”
Rogers said that Phillips has excelled in learning his craft.
“Dillon completed, in essentially 12-13 months, his Level 1 certifications,” Rogers said. “He’s not allowed to even test for that for six months after he was hired. To accomplish this task in seven months is unheard of.”
Rogers also said that Phillips did a good job of representing the challenges facing Western North Carolina’s rebuilding effort following Hurricane Helene (downgraded to a tropical storm after slowing down over land).
“Mitchell County became a focus of a lot of things, and the building inspector that ended up on TV just so happened to be Dillon,” Rogers said. “I know, I know, y’all laugh about it, but now let me tell you, as a seasoned inspector, I sat there watching it on TV, just breathtaking at how professional he was and how well he answered your questions, and how he really done what needed to be done, what us as NCBI see as a professional building inspector.”
Board Chairman Jeff Harding also congratulated Phillips on his award.
“I think this board is very proud of what you’ve accomplished,” Harding said. “I mean, this is top of the state. And you did it, certainly not at the best of times, in the midst of the storm.”
Emergency Management
The board heard a presentation from Emergency Management Director and Fire Marshal Andrew Brewer about changes in Emergency Management since Hurricane Helene.
Brewer said that his department has re-written the county’s Emergency Management Plan to reflect lessons learned from the storm. He also noted that October is National Fire Safety Month.
“The big thing we’ve accomplished this year is wildfire preparation plans for severely affected areas,” he said. “We’ve also had the development and production of the Mitchell Ready App. You guys have probably seen that everywhere. If you’re in here and you don’t have the Mitchell Ready App, download it.”
Brewer said that Sheriff’s Deputy John Masters came up with the idea for the Mitchell Read App.
“We wanted to be transparent to our citizens,” Brewer said. “We wanted preparedness to start at your house, not after the storm.”
School traffic
The board approved a motion to request that the North Carolina Department of Transportation begin improvements on the roads in Ledger outside the new combined Mitchell Middle and Mitchell Elementary schools, to accommodate increased school traffic.