For Dave Kraski, his foray into firefighting began with a knock at the door.
The Arlington High School graduate was working for United Parcel Service in the early 1990s, and Fire Station 47 opened near Arlington Airport to serve residents in new neighborhoods nearby like his own in The Woodlands and Gleneagle.
“There was nobody out there, and the firefighters went door to door trying to find people to volunteer at that station,” Kraski recalled. “They knocked on the door at my parent’s house, and I said, ‘Yes, I’ll do it.’”
The city came knocking again Monday when they made the 27-year veteran Kraski permanent chief of the Arlington Fire Department.
Kraski’s two daughters, Jordan, a sophomore at the University of Louisville (Ky.), and Olivia, a junior at Arlington High School, pinned the chief’s badge on their dad in the City Council Chambers. He and his wife Denise have been married for 25 years.
Several firefighters, police officers, family and friends attended the ceremony.