From the appearance of Jim Geering’s office, it doesn’t look as if he was just named the city of Chula Vista’s newest fire chief.
Instead, one would think he is a budding rock star.
Geering, 50, had the interim removed from his title on Dec. 26, replacing former chief Dave Hanneman who retired from the city in September and is now fire chief in Idaho Falls, Id.
Geering’s duties include managing the department’s $24 million budget, fostering relationships throughout the community and providing resources to fire fighters.
However, fire chief duties come with lots of stress.
A way Geering said he deals with the stress is by playing the drums in his office.
The aspiring drummer has a full drum set in his office for those stressful occasions.
But he insists he won’t be giving up his day job where he makes an annual salary of about $180,597.30.
“I am not that good (on the drums),” Geering said.
One of the items on his bucket list was to play in a bad. Recently he did that at an event as a member of the Fire Department’s band. He played two songs, one by the Stray Cats.
Geering, a lifelong Chula Vista resident and graduate of Chula Vista High School, said he only lives minutes away from Fire Station No. 1.
He said the fact that he lives so close to the workplace is advantageous and makes him accessible.
Geering said his philosophy is to having a bottom-up approach, instead of a top-down one, meaning that communication starts with the bottom level employees and works its way to the highest position.
City Manager Gary Halbert said Geering’s qualifications made him the ideal person for the fire chief job.
“Jim is uniquely skilled for managing a fire department, and more specifically for Chula Vista Fire Department,” Halbert said.
“He’s very intelligent, very experienced.”
Geering had served as interim chief before in 2008.
“That was a really tough time,” he said.
In that time, Geering navigated the department during the economic downturn while the city suffered from budgetary cuts.
But this time Geering will have new leadership at City Hall and more resources to work with.
“Things are much different now,” he said.
He said he is taking the experiences he learned the first time he was the interim chief and applying them now. One of the biggest mistakes he said was not putting the people in the department first. He said that is changing and will build relationships and trust within the department.
Before Geering was appointed as the city’s fire chief, he had submitted his retirement papers for December. His retirement plans changed and he said he happily accepted the fire chief job.
He said he couldn’t skip out on retirement if it weren’t for his supportive wife of more than 20 years and his four daughters.
“I certainly couldn’t be the chief, I couldn’t even be a fire fighter, if I didn’t have the support that I have from my wife and my family,” he said. “They love what I do.”
