Bill Gresalfi has been saving lives as a volunteer in the Mineola Fire Department for the past 37 years, but his biggest save may have been revitalizing the Mineola volunteers’ junior fire department.
When his friend Gary Mazur became chief of the department in 1998, Gresalfi said the junior fire department’s active membership was down to five members.
Mazur said he knew that Gresalfi was the man to revamp the junior ranks, and he asked him to do it.
“Bill’s a go-to guy and he doesn’t know how to say no to anybody,” Mazur said.
Gresalfi, 70, was still an officer in the Nassau County Police Department at the time, but he accepted the additional responsibility enthusiastically.
“I’m a lifelong resident of Mineola. I love the village. I love to volunteer for my village,” Gresalfi said.
Gresalfi said one young junior firefighter at the time suggested holding a pasta dinner as a recruitment event and fundraiser. The event drew community support and an annual Mineola Junior Fire Department tradition was born.
By Christmas of 1998, Gresalfi had recruited 20 new members for the junior ranks. But he knew a new tact would be needed to keep them coming back.
“You have to give them more responsibility,” he told the department fire council of department officers.
The department leaders agreed and Gresalfi instituted a program training with the junior firefighters with the regular volunteers once a month. He also assigned them to one of the three fire department companies on a rotating basis, so they would be familiar with the regimens of Mineola Fire Department Engine companies 1 and 3 and Truck Co. 2.
Today, Gresalfi still works with the juniors as co-advisor with Mazur. For several years they shared that duty with former Mineola Chief Rob Connelly.
“We work well together. We feed off each other’s ideas. Bill’s a very compassionate guy. He’s a very religious guy,” Mazur said.
There was another major shift for the juniors when Village of Mineola Mayor Scott Strauss became department chief in 2003 – the first chief who had been a junior firefighter. He lowered the age for junior department members to become eligible to be regular volunteers from 18 to 17, and replaced the old fire gear they had been using with new gear.
But the biggest change he instituted was permitting the juniors to respond to fires with regular volunteers and assist them after they had six months of training and received parental permission.
“The idea of hopping in a truck and responding to a fire is a big thrill,” Gresalfi said.
The training regimen for the juniors also changed, with training scheduled weekly with the regular volunteers on Sunday or Monday night.
Mazur, who said he thinks of Gresalfi as a brother, gives him full credit for following through on the mission he was given to revive the junior ranks. He noted that more than 50 of the 150 volunteers in the Mineola Fire Department started out as junior members. That includes Joseph Pratt, current department chief, and the four prior department chiefs.
Brian Strauss, associate advisor for the Mineola Junior Fire Department, was a junior member under Gresalfi and said he holds his current post as associate advisor because of him.
“He’s definitely fun to be with. He’s a guy with a big heart,” said Strauss.
Strauss said he thinks the Mineola Junior Fire Department, now also an Explorer post of the Boy Scouts of America, is the best junior fire department on the East Coast.
Ironically, Gresalfi’s father, Benjamin, was a Mineola fireman, but Gresalfi resisted his father’s encouragement to join.
He later joined the Mineola Fire Department at the relatively advanced age of 33. He recalls being encouraged to join by some friends at a dinner on a Sunday night in 1976. He joined Engine Co. 3 the following Tuesday and also started visiting Mineola schools to instruct students on fire prevention.
“I jumped right in,” Gresalfi said.
At age 70, he said, he still makes half of the fire calls the Mineola department receives each year. And he and Mazur have kept hatching new plans for the junior fire department.
Perhaps the biggest innovation they’ve established is an exchange program established with the Hamburg, Germany fire department. Gresalfi discovered the Hamburg fire service had its own junior department while surfing the Web one night. He made contact, thinking the departments might exchange shirts and hats.
But in the fall of 2006, two firemen from Hamburg visited Mineola and made a presentation about their department to the Mineola juniors. The following spring, Gresalfi visited the Hamburg department with two other Mineola volunteers. And in July that year, three junior department advisors from Hamburg visited Mineola with 15 of their junior members. The Mineola juniors have visited the Hamburg Fire Department twice and the exchange program is still in place.
“Our kids get along very well with them,” Gresalfi said. “It brought us recognition.”
Gresalfi retired from the county police force after 32 years in 2002. He has been fire prevention chairman of the Mineola Fire Department for more than 20 years and president of Engine Co. 3 twice. He has also served as the fire department’s delegate to the 1st Battalion of county fire departments.
He’s a member of the Knights of Columbus in Mineola. He’s also a member of Corpus Christ parish and the Nassau County Policeman’s Association Holy Name Society.
And he’s still a ‘go-to’ guy in fire service as co-advisor to the junior members.
“He always talks about handing over the reins, but he never does,” said Mazur.
Gresalfi and Mazur will almost certainly be presiding together at this year’s junior fire department pasta dinner on March 10.
