Community to bid farewell to retiring chief on March 13

A farewell for Ozaukee Central Fire Chief Bill Rice, who is retiring after 46 years in the fire service, will be held at the Grafton firehouse on Friday, March 13.

The event will begin at 2 p.m. and there will be a presentation at 3:45 p.m. The program will conclude with a formal walk-out at 4 p.m.

Rice, who announced his retirement in January, has been with the Grafton Fire Department since 2008, when he signed up to be a volunteer firefighter.

In the summer of 2013, after the Grafton department went from a volunteer corporation to an arm of the village, he became the first full-time fire chief in the community’s history.

Rice shepherded the department as it evolved, first serving as chief of both the Grafton and Saukville departments — he was appointed Saukville’s chief in 2020 — as they worked separately but cooperatively and later as they merged into the Ozaukee Central Fire Department.

He was named the first chief of the merged department.

Rice was a proponent of consolidation throughout his career, and when Ozaukee County studied the issue he became a vocal supporter.

He also supported the idea of hiring full-time staff, realizing early on that departments can no longer depend on the volunteer model that sustained them for decades.

Hand in hand with that, Rice successfully worked to get the communities participating in the department to approve measures to hire additional full-time paramedics.

“I planned on doing my best to use my experience and knowledge to guide the consolidation for a Jan. 1, 2025, startup and a year of follow up,” Rice wrote in his resignation letter.

“I have achieved that goal.”

The 65-member department has 18 full-time paramedic-firefighter positions, one of which is open, and the department plans to hire an additional staff member this year.

Rice, 64, began his career as a paid-on-call firefighter in Bayside when he was 18, and he stayed there for 15 years.

He was hired full time by the Wauwatosa Fire Department in 1987, and he spent 27 years there, 16 as chief, while continuing to work in Bayside before joining the Grafton department.

The decision to retire, Rice said in January, was bittersweet.

“It’s difficult for me,” he said. “I love this job. I like to go on calls. I like dealing with people. But I know it’s time for a younger person. I’m going to miss it.

“I feel like I could do it forever.”