Veteran Lifeguard Tapped to Lead Honolulu's New Ocean Safety Department
The Honolulu Star-Advertiser
(TNS)
The five-member Honolulu Ocean Safety Commission unanimously selected Kurt Lager as the first commission-appointed chief of Ocean Safety in the department’s short history.
Lager, a 20-year lifeguard veteran whose candidacy as a finalist was supported by Mayor Rick Blangiardi, had been serving as the Ocean Safety Department’s appointed director since July 2024.
Lager, who will be paid $201, 984 annually as the new chief, is scheduled to be officially sworn in on Monday, the Mayor’s Office stated.
“I am humbled and filled with gratitude right now, and I’m excited to build on the progress we have already made by working collaboratively with the commission, community members and our entire lifeguard ohana. I look forward to leading our department into this next chapter, ” Lager said in a statement after his selection on Friday.
The mayor stated he was “extremely pleased with the commission’s decision.”
“Over the course of the last 18 months, Kurt has distinguished himself with his leadership of our Ocean Safety department, and the commission’s selection validates everything we know to be true about his character and his capabilities, ” Blangiardi said in a statement. “I also want to thank the members of the Ocean Safety Commission for their commitment to our communities, and to the men and women of Ocean Safety, in making this very important leadership decision.”
The city’s stand-alone Ocean Safety Department was created by Blangiardi in May 2024, while the Honolulu City Council unanimously approved of the new sector’s formation.
The city’s lifeguard services had previously operated as a component within the city Emergency Services Department, along with Emergency Medical Services.
During the 2024 general election, Oahu residents voted to amend the City Charter to establish a commission—similar to the Honolulu Fire and Police commissions—to help oversee the newly created Ocean Safety Department.
The five members of the Ocean Safety Commission were nominated by Blangiardi on June 23 and confirmed by the Council on Aug. 6.
After meeting for the first time on Sept. 4, the commission’s selection process for a chief of Ocean Safety occurred in November and December of this year.
Others applied, and were deemed finalists, for the seat as well.
They included John Titchen, Honolulu’s former top lifeguard, who was terminated from his city job in 2024 over claims of insubordination following an alleged row inside the Mayor’s Office.
Ron Bregman, a retired city lifeguard lieutenant who now works as aquatics director and chief lifeguard for Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kaneohe, had also applied.
Titchen, who’s now employed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, previously told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that being chosen as a finalist for the city’s Ocean Safety chief is “great.”
“I’m excited to see this process play out, and I’m glad the commission is in place, ” he said previously. “And I’m glad there’s a number of qualified applicants.”
A proponent of transparency via an independent commission, Titchen said he’s pleased to see an Ocean Safety Department “that looks like the rest of the public safety organizations in the county and in our state.”
As such, the Ocean Safety Commission makes recommendations on the department’s annual budget, reviews its operations and recommends improvements, and appoints or removes the Ocean Safety chief, among other powers.
The chief oversees a staff for 43 lifeguard towers around Oahu who use trucks, personal watercraft and all-terrain vehicles to patrol city beaches and the island’s nearshore waters.
Lager will continue to lead a department responsible for monitoring the roughly 227 miles of coastline and nearshore waters around the island of Oahu and rescuing thousands of people in distress every year, the city said.
The department typically performs more than one million preventative actions in any given year, warning beachgoers and visitors about ocean conditions that could prove dangerous to inexperienced swimmers, surfers and snorkelers, the city said.
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