Tracy Jarman finally got the job offer she's been waiting for, and now she's days away from becoming San Diego's next fire chief.
The appointment would place her among just two dozen female fire chiefs in the United States, and the first in San Diego.
JIM BAIRD / Union-Tribune
Assistant Fire Chief Tracy Jarman has been selected to succeed former Chief Jeff Bowman.
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“I'm excited, very appreciative and grateful,” Jarman said yesterday. “This is something I've dreamed about for a long time.”
Currently interim chief, Jarman inherits a struggling agency, but it's one she's familiar with. She started with the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department 22 years ago as a recruit. She was planning to retire this month, but she changed her mind when the chief's job opened up.
Former Fire Chief Jeff Bowman, who resigned June 2, promoted Jarman to assistant chief and put her at the top of his succession plan shortly after he was hired four years ago.
“I'm very pleased for Tracy and for the department,” said Bowman, a constant critic of the state of fire protection in San Diego. “This is the best thing for the organization.”
Jarman's salary is expected to be between $155,000 and $165,000. Bowman earned $173,000.
While Jarman agrees the department lacks the resources it needs to best serve a community of 1.3 million residents, she said she would tackle shortcomings through her own priority-based plan.
Mayor Jerry Sanders said when he offered the job to Jarman yesterday, he encouraged her to make the department her own.
“That's what leadership is all about,” Sanders said. “You develop your own style. You assess what's important from your perspective, and you drive the change to meet that. She's the fire chief now. It's her organization. She needs to put her stamp on it.”
Sanders offered the job to Jarman after a search that attracted 30 applicants, he said. A five-member interview panel narrowed the field to two finalists before voting unanimously in favor of Jarman on Friday.
The other finalist is a fire chief in the Bay Area, but San Diego officials haven't released his name.
Sanders plans to formally announce his decision today, and he expects the City Council to approve his recommendation as early as Monday.
“I have no doubt Tracy is going to be an excellent leader,” Sanders said. “She's tough when she needs to be, but she's also forward-thinking and caring. And she has an excellent reputation.”
Dean Cherry, a 16-year veteran with the department and one of two captains at Station 35, said Jarman would make a great chief.
“She's got the knowledge and she knows her way around the politicians downtown, which means she can keep our firefighters safe and in the best equipment,” Cherry said. “We had an excellent chief . . . but I think Tracy was a good choice to bring back confidence in the department.”
Steve Salaz worked beside Jarman in the late 1980s at Station 18, where both were firefighters.
“A lot of people don't know her because she's been upstairs a long time, but she was aggressive,” said Salaz, a 22-year veteran with the department. “She was brave. When it was time to fight fires she was always there.”
A captain when she left the field 10 years ago, Jarman took a job overseeing the department's radio communications, a position she held for a year. She then became a battalion chief, holding a variety of administrative positions until being named assistant chief in 2003.
Jarman, 50, was raised in Escondido, the daughter of a mechanical engineer and a stay-at-home mom. She lives in Del Mar with her domestic partner, who was the first person Jarman called yesterday.
“We've been waiting to hear this for a long time,” said Jarman, who remains close with her father. Her mother died in 1996.
“She would have loved this. . . . My dad says it's a lot of responsibility, but he thinks I can handle it,” she said with a laugh.
The biggest challenge facing Jarman – and just about every other department head in San Diego – is balancing her agency's needs with the realities of a city wrestling with a host of financial problems.
Faced with a $1.43 billion pension deficit, Sanders and the City Council increased the fire department's budget by $9 million, to $170 million, for the fiscal year that starts July 1.
“We have finite resources, but I told her I need her to come in and be very honest with me about the department's needs,” Sanders said.
National firefighting standards, set by the Commission of Fire Accreditation International, say a city the size of San Diego should have at least 22 more stations than the 46 it has, and 400 more firefighters than the 901 on staff. About 75 are women.
Bowman has said it would cost at least $100 million to build and equip the stations, and $40 million a year to staff them.
“In a perfect world, that's what we need, but that's not the situation we're dealing with,” Jarman said. “It's got to be an incremental approach, given the fiscal restraints we have.”
She plans to lay out her vision for the department in six months, which she said includes remodeling one station and adding three.
Of the 24 female fire chiefs in the United States, only one, Joanne Hayes-White of San Francisco, runs a department larger than San Diego's.
San Francisco has about 1,800 paid firefighters who staff 41 fire stations and serve about 800,000 residents under an annual budget of $227 million.
“It is a very traditional field, but I think this is a sign of the times,” said Hayes-White, a 16-year veteran with the department who took over as chief in 2004.
“The job really has nothing to do with gender,” she said. “It's about moving the fire service in the future, dealing with the community, keeping your members safe and being fiscally prudent.”
Jarman agreed, saying the job is about qualifications and abilities.
“It's a passion I have,” she said. “It's the right time to step up and be fire chief.”
Tony Manolatos: (619) 542-4559; tony.manolatos@uniontrib.com
