The process to bring on a new chief at the Vashon fire department has come to a close, and islander Charlie Krimmert, an architect and longtime volunteer with the department, is slated to step into the position next week.

When former fire Chief Hank Lipe left Vashon Island Fire & Rescue (VIFR) in June, the fire commissioners began working on hiring his replacement. The several-month hunt for a new chief, led by an executive search firm, included a November interview process involving the commissioners, members of the community and department staff and volunteers. Just days after that, the board extended a conditional offer of employment to Krimmert. With the required background checks and medical exams complete, they made his hiring official last week.

Board Chair Candy McCullough met Krimmert when he participated in the firefighter academy she led when he first joined the department as a volunteer in 2001. Last week, she expressed enthusiasm for him taking on his new role.

“Right away I said he is going to be a leader. I never expected he would be chief, but I did anticipate he would be a leader,” she recalled. “I am thrilled. I am totally thrilled.”

The same night the fire commissioners finalized the process with Krimmert, they finalized making Bob Larsen the permanent assistant chief of operations; Larsen had been serving in that role on an interim basis since shortly before Lipe left. Prior to that, he was the district’s facilities manager and a volunteer assistant chief.

McCullough added she believes the district will benefit from having leaders who rose from the department’s ranks.

“The thing that thrills me is that because we had the opportunity to promote from within with both Bob and Charlie, we have a great opportunity for open communication, and I think we can be way more collaborative and have a happy, healthy future for VIFR.”

Krimmert, who referred to himself as a “dark horse” in the hiring process because his professional background is in the private sector, talked last week about his roots as volunteer in the fire service, his work as an architect and how he expects that combination will influence his work as chief.

When Krimmert was growing up in New Jersey, his dad was a volunteer firefighter and moved up the ranks at the local department. After church every Sunday, he said, they would stop by the firehouse.

“My sister and I grew up running around the apparatus room,” he added.

When he was a senior in high school, he joined the department’s rescue squad, which specialized in vehicle extrication. He continued in that role until he went off to college in Montana, and again when he returned in the summers. He resumed it — and also responded with the ambulance crew — in 1990, when he and his wife, Laura Neuman, returned to the community following his father’s death.

After their return to the West Coast in the early 1990s, he was not active in the fire service again until 2000, when he accepted a position with Callison Architecture in Seattle, and the family, which includes twins Winter and Chance, moved to Vashon from San Francisco. Before they moved, the island’s fire department had already figured into their plans.

“One of the reasons we picked Vashon was because I could serve again,” he said.

Work conflicts initially delayed his volunteering, but in 2001, he completed the firefighter academy and served as a volunteer firefighter until 2007, when he also became an emergency medical technician. In 2011, he was promoted to lieutenant. His involvement with the department has included helping teach the district’s fire academy, serving as the volunteers’ representative to the board and holding officer positions, including serving as president, in the Vashon Firefighters’ Association. He also assisted with VIFR’s teen Explorer program.

Meanwhile, professionally, Krimmert rose to become senior associate vice president/senior project manager at the architecture firm, now called CallisonRTKL. There he developed a reputation as a problem solver, someone who stepped in if things were going wrong.

“My claim to fame there is if a job is going south, give it to Charlie,” he said.

At Callison, he said, architects need to be designers, but need another specialty as well. His became dealing with the administrative tasks related to projects, including managing staff, contracts and financials. As his role grew there, he said, he worked mostly internationally, predominantly in the Middle East. In 2004-05, he lived for 15 months in Qatar, where he was the company’s senior representative in charge of building an island from the ground up. That island, called The Pearl-Qatar, now is home to thousands of people and hundreds of businesses.

As of Thursday, that line of work will come to an end, and Krimmert will turn his full attention to VIFR, which is facing several challenges, including inadequate department funding, insufficient volunteers and aging vehicles and facilities.

“We are in trouble here,” he said.

He noted that he applied for the position because he frequently disagreed with decisions of the previous administration and because he believes his skills will be beneficial to the district at this juncture.

“I understand that all my experience is in the private sector and I am on a straight-up learning curve, but I think my skills are applicable,” he said.

Krimmert speaks highly of the district’s staff and volunteers — noting that the challenges the district faces are not readily apparent because “an incredibly small group of people” have been committed to district operations.

“The department is incredibly flexible and fluid,” he said. “We have been doing the work of a much larger department.”

One of the tasks ahead of him, he said, is to reach out to the community, raise the visibility of the department and get more people engaged with it — a potential challenge, given Vashon’s abundance of charitable organizations. Still, he said, given his background outside of the fire service, he may look at challenges differently than someone on a more typical track to become a fire chief. He noted, for example, that he would like for people to be able to volunteer for the department in a variety of non-emergency ways and not only in the traditional paths open to them. Also, he said, he would like to explore the possible creation of a nonprofit to help support the district financially.

Regarding the district’s dwindling volunteer numbers, particularly among those who live on Vashon, Krimmert says he intends to address that as well. He noted the sense of tradition that often accompanied serving has greatly decreased from when he volunteered with his home department — just as his father had — and he wants to re-capture that.

“We need to start showing up at Chautauqua, McMurray and the high school and create that next generation of parents that will enter the fire service,” he said.

He added that the fire service used to be seen as a calling, but now is often dismissed as a blue collar job. That is not an accurate assumption, he said, as college is becoming standard for firefighters and the job requires a tremendous amount of skills.

“I want to engage the young people of the island and help them see us as an option,” he added.

While reaching out, he said he also hopes members of the community will stop by and meet with him, promising an open door policy whenever possible.

“If I am available, I will talk,” he said. “I need to know what they want, and they need to know what we can provide.”

Looking toward Krimmert filling the chief’s job, Randy Tonkin, the president of Vashon’s firefighters’ union, expressed support.

“I think I can speak for all of the firefighters and EMTs in our department when I say that we are pleased with the selection for our next fire chief,” Tonkin said in an email, noting that Krimmert’s years as a VIFR volunteer mean he already understands the organization and the community.

Tonkin added that Krimmert’s management experience, including financial and human resources management, will be beneficial to the district’s future health.

“We look forward to working with Chief Krimmert, Assistant Chief Bob Larsen and the board of commissioners to move our department forward and provide the best possible service to our community,” he added.

Last week, Krimmert indicated that in addition to his management and fire service backgrounds, he might also bring a bit of the East Coast with him. There, he said, everyone knows where the firehouse is. That is not necessarily the case here — and he noted locally the term is fire “station” — a distinction he thinks is important. Looking around him at Station 55, he noted he hopes to change that.

“I would like this to be the firehouse,” he said.