“Country girl from Tecumseh (Oklahoma) did pretty good,” is how Kelly White summed up her 30-year-and-counting career with the Ventura County Fire Department.
Recently promoted to assistant fire chief of the department’s administrative services bureau, the 56-year-old Camarillo resident has become the highest-ranking woman in the department and in VCFD’s 91-year history.
“It’s a great feeling to be acknowledged in that way,” White said. “I don’t see it that way when I’m working. . . . I believe that more will come after me. A rank is a privilege that I can’t minimize because it gives me the privilege to lead our people.”
Breaking down barriers isn’t new to White, who in 1989 was one of only a few female firefighters in the county. The first female firefighter in the county, Sue Debrunner, had been hired just three years earlier.