The cadence of Rich Rodgers’ voice is sharp and to the point.

He carries a no-nonsense tone yet is mindful of the audience before him.

Teaching first aid is serious business to Rodgers, regardless if the group that sits around a table before him on a recent January evening happens to be an inquisitive Cub Scout troop of 8- and 9-year-olds from Oak Harbor.

“Once I got a blister on my pinky and I popped it by accident,” one youngster said.

“Try not to do that,” Rodgers said.

“What is the biggest organ in your body? Your skin. Now if you pop a blister, that opens your skin up to infection.”

Rodgers, 65, is the longest-running firefighter in the Oak Harbor Fire Department. He’s been with the department as a paid on-call firefighter for 40 years, longer than half the personnel around him have been alive. Rodgers has worked under five fire chiefs, five City of Oak Harbor mayors and watched the city he’s lived in since 1957 grow up around him.

“When I started, we had three sirens in the city,” he said. “You’d listen and go, ‘You hear the fire siren? We gotta go.’ You’d get in the car and you’d drive down to the fire station. We’d run into the police station and get the slip that said where the fire was. Then you’d run back into the fire station and you’d say, ‘It’s on Third Street and it’s a brush fire.’ And then you’d get on the appropriate apparatus and we’d go put the fire out.”

Pagers, laptops and numerous other technological advances have changed all that.

But some things never change.

“Unless you’re in the fire service, nobody understands what the family is like down here,” Rodgers said. “Any of these guys on my crew would do anything. We all help each other. We all have to. That’s the way we do it.”

Rodgers’ wisdom, skills and leadership are heavily valued at the Oak Harbor Fire Department, which employs 10 career staff, one administrative assistant and 32 paid on-call members.

He is one of only six in the department qualified to serve as the on-duty command officer, which means he’s in charge of the entire department for three or four 12-hour shifts each month.

“Rich has definitely been an asset for this department,” said Ray Merrill, Oak Harbor’s fire chief. “He has a wealth of knowledge that he brings to new firefighters. He’s our CPR instructor and our first-aid instructor. He’s one of those guys we like having around because he’s a very dependable individual.”

Merrill spoke about Rodger’s contributions to the department during a recent City of Oak Harbor council meeting where Rodgers was recognized and received a placque for his four decades of service.

At an age when some consider slowing down, Rodgers enjoys the busy pace in his life and is grateful to have a wife of 24 years who understands his passion for the fire service.

Between the fire department, his full-time job at Hansen’s Furniture in Mount Vernon and part-time teaching job at Skagit Valley College in Oak Harbor, Rodgers can easily put in an 80-hour work week.

During one stretch this week, he worked a full day at Hansen’s, showed up at the fire department at 7 p.m. for a 12-hour overnight shift, then rose to work another full day at the furniture store.

Next week, he’ll start teaching again at Skagit Valley College.

“I just can’t get away from it,” he said. “I know it’s sick, but I still love all of it.”

Always on the go, Rodgers totes a water bottle around as he isn’t one to rely on caffeinated beverages such as coffee.

“Never touch the stuff,” he said. “No, God no. No. No. No. Water. Tons and tons of water.”

Rodgers, a Class of 1967 Oak Harbor graduate, is passionate about serving the community he’s lived in since he was 8 when his father, a former navy pilot, was transferred to Whidbey Island Naval Air Station.

Although he does receive an hourly wage during shift work at the department, Rodgers also sees his work as a way to give back to his community and takes great satisfaction in helping others.

He said his wife, Bobbi, has put up with “a lot of missed dinners and missed birthdays.

“She understands the passion I have for this and that I still love it,” Rodgers said. “I hear a lot of people say, ‘How how much longer are you going to do it?’ I don’t know. I’m being honest. I do not know. I still enjoy it. I still love it.”

Even though, the job isn’t the same.

“When I first started, our biggest concern was just putting some water on a fire,” he said. “Now we have to worry about meth labs and drugs. Unfortunately, in the community, just down the road we had an active shooter. We go through active-shooter training all the time. Three of our rigs carry body armor. It’s the world we live in today. It’s not a little chimney fire we go to and put the fire out and we’re done. We’re done with that.”

That’s why even when he’s away from the department, his firefighter family is  always on his mind. His phone will vibrate when he gets a text alert that describes a call.

“I’m like a mother hen sometimes,” he said. “I worry about what goes on down here.”