Marnie Grondahl was among a group of the first female firefighters to join the Duluth Fire Department back in 1987.
"It was tough," Grondahl said. "There were a lot of old-school guys that didn't really think women should be in the fire service. I think it just made me work even harder because I wanted to prove that I belong here. So my whole career I tried to focus to get where I wanted to be."
Now, after 32 years with the department, Grondahl's focus as well as the evolving attitudes surrounding women in the workplace have contributed to her becoming the first woman in the department's history to take on a chief-level position.
Chief Shawn Krizaj appointed Grondahl, the most senior member of the department, to the role of deputy chief of life safety and administration, which oversees permitting, inspections and fire investigations.
The position, along with another called deputy chief of operations, were both created in February in order to replace the former deputy chief position, meaning there are now two deputy chiefs instead of one.
When Krizaj occupied the role of the sole deputy chief before becoming chief this year, he said there was too much to do and too little time, so he counted on Grondahl.
"I couldn't really concentrate on both divisions to their needs," Krizaj said. "I depended on Marnie as the fire marshal to really kind of run that division anyway and she did a really, really good job of that."
After 12 years of fighting fires, Grondahl moved over to the fire prevention office where she worked as deputy fire marshal and later, fire marshal. Since May, she's been an interim deputy chief due to Krizaj moving up to chief.
Krizaj referred to Grondahl as a mentor to others in her division who is full of great ideas, adding that no one within the fire department knows more about fire code and inspections.
He called the department's move to hire her as its first female chief-level officer as an "important step" and one that's probably overdue. He hopes it can help set an example to children and students that firefighting isn't just for white men.
"If you go and talk to a group of children, whether it's a school group, or a Girl Scout group, there's a lot more impact when you have a person in a leadership position who is a female saying, 'You can be a firefighter, too,'" Krizaj said.
The idea that women can also be firefighters was slow to catch on widely, considering women have been serving as firefighters for more than 200 years.
Grondahl recalled the first fire she ever responded to. While waiting to turn on the hydrant, a man approached her to tell her she shouldn't be there because she was stealing jobs from men.
Even the design of the fire department wasn't prepared for female firefighters when Grondahl and two other women started in the '80s.
"It didn't have locker rooms. They just didn't have facilities for us so they had to make space and make room for us," Grondahl said.
"Over time things have changed for good," she later added. "A lot has changed since I started and I really appreciate the growth the department has done."
Currently, the fire department has nine female firefighters and 15 women total throughout the department. Now, with Grondahl as a deputy chief, at least one woman exists at every position, Krizaj said.
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