Life’s next station: former Fort Fire Chief Rausch to head new project in Minnesota

By Kim McDarison 

When Fort Atkinson Fire Chief Daryl Rausch tendered his resignation to City Manager Rebecca Houseman in April of this year, he fully intended to retire, he said. 

Then, while browsing through industry publications online, as is his habit, he found an ad. 

That changed his thinking, he said. 

While Friday was Rausch’s last day serving as the chief of the Fort Atkinson Fire Department, it’s not his last station. 

In July, he will be joining the Otsego, Minn., city staff as its emergency services director. 

Rausch said moving on from stations after completing their projects has been a theme in his career. 

“I’ve always been very project-driven,” he said, noting that in Otsego, he will be beginning a station from the ground up — the city has presented him with 21 acres of land it has purchased. From that beginning, city officials are looking to build a police, fire and EMS station and the corresponding departments with which to fill it, Rausch said. 

It was a challenge, he said, he saw as a perfect fit. 

From gas station to fire station 

Rausch said a firefighting career was not his childhood choice. While in high school, he thought he might like to be a pastor. 

His family owned a gas station, he said, noting that much of his youth was spent there. 

It was a Phillips 66 station in the small town of Guttenberg, Iowa, situated along the Mississippi River, Rausch said, adding that he was the youngest of three children. After he graduated from high school in 1978, he entered the U.S. Air Force, beginning a four-year tour, first at Torrejón Air base in Spain for two years, and next on a base in Omaha, Neb., for two more. 

While he was in Omaha, he said, he became interested in firefighting. 

Rausch said he lived in a small, neighboring town, above a hardware store, while he served in Omaha, working part-time on weekends at the store. The owner of the store was a member of the community’s all volunteer fire department and he suggested Rausch might like to join. 

He began volunteering in 1980, and by 1982, he was discharged from military service and returned home to Guttenberg. 

Upon his return, Rausch began operating the gas station with his brother, and he volunteered as a Guttenberg firefighter. 

A career in firefighting 

Remembering his first station, Rausch said it had about 13 volunteers and two trucks: a 1966 Dodge with a mini pumper and a tanker. In those years, he said, ambulance services were often provided by funeral homes. The department responded to some 40 calls a year. 

In Guttenberg, the volunteer department had 33 members, and responded to about 70 calls a year. 

As he became more involved with firefighting, Rausch said, he recognized that he “really enjoyed it.” 

Rausch said he served with the Guttenberg department for 21 years, and during that time, his first captain introduced him to his daughter, Gail, whom Rausch married in 1986. She was an EMT when they met and finished her career, retiring in 2016, as a paramedic. 

While at the department, Rausch moved through the ranks, becoming a lieutenant, and subsequently chief, in the 1990s. 

By then, the ambulance service was city-run, he said. 

In 2001, Rausch said, his brother’s son graduated from high school and expressed an interest in helping his father run the gas station. In this, Rausch said, he saw an opportunity to leave the family business in good hands and pursue a firefighting career. 

In January of 2002, he recalled, he was recruited and began working as a member of the full-time career staff at the fire department in the Wisconsin city of Monroe.

Rausch and Gail moved to Monroe. By then, the couple’s two daughters had grown to adulthood and they remained in Iowa, Rausch said. Today, the couple has 10 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, he added. 

Throughout the course of his firefighting career, Rausch said, he sought out opportunities for training. 

He attended training classes on nights and weekends, earning a four-year degree in business administration from Westmar College, Iowa, in 1989, and he attended other state-provided firefighting training opportunities. 

When Rausch arrived in Monroe, he recalled, he was one of four career firefighters serving alongside 48 members of the volunteer staff. The department handled some 200 calls for fire-related services a year provided to a population of about 14,000 within the full fire district. The department had about 10 trucks he recalled, likening it’s size to that of Fort Atkinson’s fire department. 

In 2005, he said, the fire chief retired, and Rausch was appointed as his successor. His full tenure with the department was 14 years. 

Continuing his pattern of education and training, Rausch attended the National Fire Academy, which, according to online information, is one of two schools in the United States operated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) at the National Emergency Training Center (NETC) in Emmitsburg, Maryland. 

Rausch said be began teaching courses offered through the National Fire Academy and Emergency Management Institute in 2004, and continues in that role today. He also has taught classes at several technical colleges within the state including those of Blackhawk, Northerncentral, Lakeshore, and Northwood. 

In 2016, Gail retired, and Rausch said, he might have done the same, but instead he was approached by a fire chief in Milton, who said then-Fort Atkinson Fire Chief Mike Reel was preparing to retire. He encouraged Rausch to apply. 

Rausch recalled undergoing a hiring process, and he was identified as one of three finalists. He accepted the job as Fort Atkinson’s fire chief that summer. 

The move to Fort Atkinson 

Rausch said that upon his arrival in Fort Atkinson, city leaders had already identified elements within the fire and EMS system which they saw as in need of updates. 

As he met with members of the city’s Police and Fire Commission, the department’s volunteer staff and community leaders, he said he heard the same themes: the call volume had become unmanageable with part-time people and the station needed an update. 

In this, Rausch said, he saw projects. 

Rausch said that throughout the course of his firefighting career he has been engaged with projects. 

He described Fort Atkinson as his third “project station,” noting that while he was in Guttenberg, he was involved with overseeing the construction of a “large addition” to the station and building a rescue squad. 

In Monroe, projects included building a regional training center and a second station. 

Rausch said he gravitates towards projects. 

“I’ve always been very project-driven. When the project is finished, I move on,” he said. 

He likened the process to assembling puzzle pieces.  

“When you are managing a project, the job is to put the pieces in the right order,” he added.  

Arriving in Fort Atkinson and taking on the project of building a new firehouse was among milestones in his career, Rausch said, adding that his previous projects at other departments prepared him for the task. 

In 2016, when he arrived, 2022 had already been identified as a year in which city leaders hoped some of the identified elements could be achieved. Rausch said the process began to unfold, with an initial meeting to prioritize issues and start the process to build a new firehouse in 2017. By 2018, he said, the city had set goals and priorities regarding new construction, and in 2019, the first construction plan was presented. 

The three-phased, $5 million construction project would bring the city’s fire station from a 2,400-square-foot building, with limited opportunities to expand the department to include more career firefighters, to one of approximately 21,000 square feet, with space to hold the department’s equipment and an upstairs dormitory to support full-time fire and EMS staff. 

Construction took two years to complete, with COVID bringing some disruption to the schedule, Rausch said, and while much of the construction was completed in 2021, the project was fully completed in April of 2022. 

Over the course of his Fort Atkinson career, he said, he believed the most important change for the community was bringing EMS services in house. A second milestone was the completion of the new station. 

“I think it is an attractive building,” he said. 

The project was named a “Project of Distinction” by a national industry association called “Associated Builders and Contractors,” in 2022. An earlier story about the recognition is here: https://fortatkinsononline.com/fort-fire-station-to-be-recognized-as-wisconsin-project-of-distinction/. 

In April of 2022, voters in the city of Fort Atkinson approved a public safety referendum which allowed the city to increase its levy by 9.774%, for a total levy of $8,640,949 beginning in 2023, and then on an ongoing basis by an additional amount of $769,336 each fiscal year. The increased revenues were used to hire 12 additional firefighters with emergency medical training and two additional police officers. 

An earlier story about last December’s hiring of 12 additional EMS personnel is here: https://fortatkinsononline.com/fort-welcomes-a-dozen-new-ems-responders/. 

Looking back, Rausch said, at the time, he advocated for the fire department to continue to work on site as construction was underway. In hindsight, he said, “I’m not sure if I had that to do over I’d do it again.” 

Department is ‘community treasure’ 

As Rausch prepared on Wednesday to leave the office he’s held for nearly seven years, he offered some thoughts and advice. 

He called the department a “community treasure,” noting that its members work together well. 

“Many departments have discord in them. This department does not have that. We are an extremely cohesive department, and that is a reflection on everyone who has been here,” he said, adding that his predecessors — he named Reel, and former fire chief Tom Emrick — were each responsible for helping to assemble the project puzzle. 

“I was just sitting in the chair when all the pieces came together,” he said. 

He also noted most of the department’s full-time hires have come from within the paid-on-call contingent.  

“That speaks volumes for this department,” he said, adding: “we have a waiting list of volunteers.” 

While he said he has stayed away from becoming involved in the hiring process for his replacement, which is currently underway, he recommended that the city’s next chief “should come from a volunteer environment.” 

Said Rausch: “Running a non-career department takes a lot of hands. You can’t force a paid-on-call staff to be here. You have to make them want to come. You can’t tell them, you have to ask.” 

He also noted the support the department receives from members of the community.  

“I will miss the support from the community. It by far exceeds any other community where I’ve been. hardly a shift goes by when somebody doesn’t bring food into these folks,” he said.  

Today, the department has a total of 46 members, with 16 of them members of the full-time career staff. 

He described the department’s members as “excellent, efficient, and dedicated to the community,” further noting that the department handles between 1,000 and 1,200 calls for fire and EMS services a year. 

With the improvements made to the firehouse, and the mix of paid-on-call and career department members, he said the call volume stress on the paid-on-call staff has been mitigated, however, he noted, “the volunteer contingency is so important. 

“We’ve gone from calling them several times a day to several times a week. Ninety-eight percent of calls are handled by our full-time staff.” Still, he said, “we’ve needed them about 100 times this year as opposed to 600 times last year.” 

While Rausch said he looks forward to his next project, citing Fort Atkinson, he said, of all of the departments in which he’s served, “this is the department that felt most like home.”