Healdsburg has a new firefighter of the year, reserve engineer, Robert Morris. Morris and Berenice Garcia, who runs the administrative side of the fire department, were both honored at the department’s annual awards dinner on Feb. 7
Last year’s firefighter of the year was Lance Macdonald and Macdonald was able to pass on his title at this year’s ceremony.
Morris, who also runs the custom crush grape business, Grand Cru Custom Crush, in Windsor and Fideaux boutique in Healdsburg with his wife, is a part-time engineer and is the one who drives the engines out to calls.
“I was totally surprised. It was interesting to know that my wife actually knew, she was in on the whole thing,” Morris said laughing. “I was blown away. It was a big moment for me.”
Garcia, who took home the “All In” award, was also surprised to be recognized.
“I was totally surprised. I never thought that I would be chosen for that,” Garcia said.
Garcia started working with the city of Healdsburg in 1994 right after she graduated from Healdsburg High School.
“I started in the community services department and then I moved over to our finance department,” Garcia said.
From there, she worked in the finance department for 21 years and then moved to the administration role at the fire department where she manages the finances and administrative duties.
Morris signed on with Healdsburg Fire in 2014.
“I became a reserve employee in November of 2014,” Morris said.
He was part of a reserve academy that moved through the department. Almost his entire class is still at the department either in a reserve, or a full-time capacity.
The only difference between a reserve firefighter and a staff firefighter is that a reserve firefighter is typically on a stipend for calls whereas a staff firefighter is on paid staff on shift. Reserves also get to choose their own schedule.
Reserve firefighters usually respond to any second call in the district and any larger calls.
“It has been a great time ever since,” Morris said.
For Morris, firefighting was in the family, but he started out his career in mechanical engineering.
“My grandfather was in the fire service, my dad was in the fire service in a volunteer status. He was in it when he was enlisted in the Air Force during Vietnam and he was also a volunteer when I was a little kid. Fire service is great, but it never really clicked for me until we (Morris’ family) came by the fire house seven years ago for an open house gathering one day,” Morris said. “I thought, ‘Ya know, maybe this is a really cool thing to do, I should give this a try.’”
Morris talked with Healdsburg Fire Chief Jason Boaz, who at the time was a lead captain, and expressed interest in the job.
“Now that I have been doing it, there is nothing else I would rather do,” he said.
Before he made the move to firefighting, Morris was a mechanical engineer with Hewlett-Packard and became involved with the wine business in 2002.
Morris currently owns Grand Cru Custom Crush. The facility has multiple tasting rooms featuring their member wineries and is a co-op wine production business. They produce 25,000 cases annually.
While Garcia is a Healdsburg native, Morris grew up in the California foothills and went to college at U.C. Santa Barbara.
Duties at the fire department
“I do whatever anybody needs in the front office, I’ll help them out with the reserves, with the awards dinner, their classes, anything that they need,” Garcia explained.
She also played an important role during the Kincade Fire, manning the phones, making maps and organizing resources throughout the entire event.
“She was able to leave her four girls and husband Oscar as they were being evacuated and came to the fire station to answer phones, make maps, track and organize resources and helped anyway she could. She stayed at the fire station for days with us and was a huge asset,” states a post from the Healdsburg Fire Department Facebook page.
Morris said they love having Garcia work at the department, “She’s like a gift from the gods, she keeps us all in line.”
Morris started out with the basic firefighter rank, but a year after that department captains approached him and said they would like Morris to be an engineer.
An engineer’s main duty involves driving the fire trucks. In order to do so, Morris had to go through additional training and classes to get promoted to a reserve engineer.
When asked if it is difficult driving such a big vehicle, Morris said it can be tricky, especially with the ladder truck.
He did say he must be pretty good at driving the trucks because one time before a call, he left his metal coffee mug on the roof of the truck and when they returned to the department, his mug was still there, intact.
“A lot of times what happens (during rain storms) is the water swells up pretty quick and then people will stop their car and they’ll feel like they’re in trouble, so we’ll go out there and help them and the main engine left to go out on the freeway and help them and we were here in our ladder truck and one of our captains said, ‘Let’s go out there cause I think they’ll need help and we’ll be right there,’ so I put my clothes on and my pants on and I had a coffee cup and I set it on the outside of the engine and I forgot about it. I drove all the way across town, waited underneath the freeway in the pouring rain, we ended up not having to go on the call, turned around and came all the way back, and we got out and a firefighter said, ‘Hey, who’s coffee cup is this?’ and I thought, ‘Oh my god it was there the entire time,’” Morris said. “The captain said, ‘Well, I guess you’re pretty good at driving the ladder truck.”
Morris also serves on the department’s apparatus committee, a group that focuses on researching, designing and getting new fire engines.
So what is the most rewarding part about working at the department? Morris said it is hard to quantify because there are so many wonderful aspects to the job.
Garcia said she enjoys the people and learning something new everyday.
“It is just fun coming to work,” Garcia said.
While Morris said the job can be challenging in terms of work/life balance, he said that firefighting is a great line of work.
“This is an absolutely amazing line of work. When the phone rings, somebody is having a really bad day and we go there and we try to make it better and then people are usually very happy after that and that’s like another feather in your cap,” he said. “It is a crazy feeling, it can be just several minutes, it can be several hours, but you make a difference… and that is what it is all about.”
He added that the department has a good, can-do attitude that gets the job done. He referenced the Kincade Fire, where even though everyone knew the blaze was growing rapidly, everyone came through and did what they needed to do with a smile on their face.
“We worked until we could hardly see straight, but it is all for the better, it’s all for the good. In these really terrible times, we are out there making a difference and you feel so damn good about that process,” he said.
