Fire Chief Reg Garcia sent shock waves through fire stations all over the city when he suddenly announced his retirement, effective Sept. 17. He said he expects City Manager Phil Kamlarz to name his replacement in the next few weeks.
"My decision is not based on any personal conflict, or on any particular problem or incident," he said in an e-mail to his firefighters. "It is simply time for me to begin a new phase in my life. I am looking forward to life beyond public service and a less stressful existence."
Garcia hadn't intended to make the announcement so soon. But when word started leaking out, he decided to go public.
"This is intended to put speculation to rest and hopefully limit rumors," he wrote.
The news was greeted with dismay by the rank and file, who regard Garcia as one of their own.
"We're happy that it was his decision, that he's not being pushed out, but we're sad to see him go," said Marc Mestrovich, president of Berkeley Fire Fighters Local 1227. He called Garcia "an effective chief, especially given the budget constraints he's had to work under."
Among Garcia's accomplishments, he said, were new fire engines to replace obsolete ones, a multimillion-dollar grant from FEMA to upgrade disaster preparedness, and council approval for a second fire station in the hills.
Garcia has been fire chief since 1997, after serving as Oakland's assistant fire chief in charge of operations. In that position, he played a major role in fighting the 1991 Oakland hills firestorm, when he learned some hard lessons about disaster preparedness that he later put into practice in Berkeley.
Among those innovations, said Deputy Fire Chief David Orth, are decentralized caches of disaster equipment secreted all over the city, and "stand-alone" fire engines, with all the equipment they need to hold a fire at bay until reinforcements arrive.
"Stand-alone engines can leverage our manpower tenfold, because we can use volunteers -- as we did during the 1991 firestorm -- a combination with these engines to fight multiple fires at multiple locations, all at the same time.
This capability is seldom used, but when you need it, you really need it."
But Mestrovich said the chief's most enduring legacy will be his management style.
"He's a good communicator who was able to get labor and management to work together. We didn't always see eye-to-eye, but his door was always open."
Whenever I went to him with a concern, he never made me feel unwelcome."
Earlier this year, when firefighter Bill Wigmore was fighting what ultimately turned out to be a losing battle against cancer, his fellow firefighters shaved their heads in solidarity, auctioning the rights to do the shaving to raise money for cancer research.
Garcia was one of the first to volunteer to have his noggin shorn, going for the highest bid of the day -- a cool $300.
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