A fireman to the end Sign On San Diego Article

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jkphotog1
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A fireman to the end Sign On San Diego Article

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A fireman to the end

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib ... tirem.html

Retiring Ron Edrozo is one of the best firefighters in San Diego

By Tony Manolatos
STAFF WRITER

June 22, 2008

As one of San Diego's most experienced firefighters, Capt. Ron Edrozo knows his way around elevators. He can break into most of them – to free people trapped inside – but one particular brand always gave him trouble.

Capt. Ron Edrozo, who retires Tuesday, has seen it all in his 35 years with the San Diego fire department.
He knows the logo well. So it stuck out like a bull's-eye when he and his crew were called to a downtown hotel recently to free a group of frightened people stuck in an elevator.

Edrozo remembers feeling helpless as the men and women inside waited nearly three hours for a manufacturer's representative. The next day, he went to another hotel to study a glass elevator identical to the one that broke down. He watched the parts move as people filed in and out.

“I had to study it for a while, but I figured out how to pick it (open the doors),” he said.

Edrozo, who turns 60 next month, has worked for the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department for 35 1/2 years. His list of accomplishments – big and small – would fill a notebook.

He worked the PSA Flight 182 crash in 1978, he supervised two rescue teams at Ground Zero a week after 9/11, and he fought the 2003 and 2007 firestorms.

He's retiring Tuesday.

Fire Capt. Ron Edrozo talked to a small group of recruits at the training center. In 35 years, Edrozo taught at 24 academies, meaning he's trained just about every firefighter on the payroll, including the chief.
Those who work with Edrozo say he will be remembered for his skill, his tenacity, his toughness and his desire to help younger, less-experienced firefighters. They say he's part of a dying breed – firefighters who are good with their hands and quick on their feet.

“He's a legend,” said Capt. Steve Martino, Edrozo's counterpart at Station 4, which is in East Village just beyond the center-field fence at Petco Park. “He's been working in this station since – none of this was here. It was a warehouse district.”

Edrozo excelled in a variety of areas, but it's his work as an instructor that really stands out. He taught at 24 of the department's 70 academies, meaning he's trained just about every firefighter on the payroll, including the chief.

The last group of recruits who studied under Edrozo graduated from the academy on Friday, four days before his last day.

As an instructor, he staged countless controlled burns and rescues, but he always seemed to be teaching.

Capt. Ron Edrozo checked recruits' rope work. The last group who studied under Edrozo graduated from the academy Friday.
“He expects a lot out of us, but the guy knows anything you would ever want to know about rescues,” said Geoff King, a veteran firefighter who works with Edrozo at Station 4.

His philosophy on training is simple.

“If I step it up, then they'll step it up. And soon you have a department full of firefighters who have taken it up a notch,” he said. “I want to give them that good attitude.”

At 5-foot-7 and 185 pounds, Edrozo understandably relies more on his brain than brawn.

“Ron understands how things work – where to push, where to cut,” said Mike Rea, one of the firefighters who rides with Edrozo on Engine 4 and Rescue 4. “There will be a big hole when he leaves.”

Years ago, Edrozo taught Fire Chief Tracy Jarman how to repel, or slide down a long rope usually slung down the side of a cliff, canyon or building.

“Any rescue you can think of in this city – if Ron's there it's going to go well,” said Jarman, who called him the department's “rescue guru.”

She's grateful for the mark he left at the academies.
“Each and every one of us carry a little of Ron's skills,” Jarman said. “A great part of him will live on in the organization.”

Edrozo's son, Ron II, will help carry on his father's legacy. He has been a San Diego firefighter for eight years. Edrozo's only other child, Marisol Eaton, works as an administrative aide for San Diego County. He has two grandchildren, Juliana, 4, and Ava, 2.

Unlike his son, Ron Edrozo never dreamed of being a firefighter. When he was 5, his parents split up and left him and a sister with their grandmother. She raised them in a small house at 43rd and Market.

After graduating from Lincoln High School, he enlisted in the Air Force, where he served from 1966 to 1970, including a year in Vietnam. Back in San Diego, he did plaster work and tinkered on cars. One morning, on a whim, he let his roommate convince him to take the firefighter recruit test.

“It was the best decision I ever made,” Edrozo said.

Edrozo spent the first 15 years of his career working as a roofer on his off days. He credits his grandmother, a Protestant missionary from Mexico, for teaching him the value of a hard day's work.

“She would take us down to Mexico to build missions and dig footings,” he said. “She was my inspiration. She taught us always to do the best we can and never be satisfied with doing enough.”

It's why he's worked so hard for so long, and it's why he studied the glass elevator in the hotel.

“I got it. I got it. I know how to get into an Otis elevator,” he said back at the station.

Martino, one of the captains assigned to Station 4, shared the story. Afterward, he said: “The ability level isn't as high with a lot of the younger guys.”
N6ATF
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Post by N6ATF »

Wow.
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