Amid bitter divisions, fire chief presses on

Fraser grows isolated in push for reforms

A week before former US Navy commander Roderick Fraser Jr. took over leadership of the Boston Fire Department, the head of the city's firefighters union issued a stern warning: If Fraser didn't support the union's goals, Local 718 President Edward Kelly publicly declared, "We will sink his battleship."

Fraser responded by presenting Kelly with a copy of the children's board game Battleship and a clear message: Let's play.

Eighteen months later, the battle is blazing. The Fire Department is deeply divided in a bitter war over its future. Fraser is attempting to impose long-sought reforms including random drug and alcohol testing of firefighters. But the powerful union is resisting and has turned the effort against Fraser, calling him an enemy of the rank-and-file.

Even the high-ranking deputy chiefs who are supposed to help Fraser run the department turned against him last month after Fraser questioned the outcome of an internal inquiry into the deaths of two firefighters last August in a West Roxbury restaurant fire.

Fraser said the inquiry should have included autopsy results that indicated that one of the firefighters was legally too drunk to drive at the time of the fire, and the other had traces of cocaine in his system. After that remark, the three highest-ranking chiefs under Fraser's command issued a memo praising the work of investigators, "despite intense, unwarranted and vicious external pressure."

Their statement made it clear that, although Fraser continues to enjoy the support of Mayor Thomas M. Menino, he is becoming increasingly isolated.

"He is a man on an island; it's him against the world," said Jeffrey W. Conley, head of the Boston Finance Commission, an independent agency charged with rooting out mismanagement.

Fraser concedes that life at fire headquarters, a squat, three-story concrete building in Dorchester, has grown lonely. But, as the first outsider to run the department in 30 years, he says he has grown used to being the most unpopular person in the room.

"I've learned to stop taking it so personally," he said in a recent interview.

With the mayor's support, Fraser says, he can hold his ground and force the tradition-bound department to modernize.

"My responsibility is to make this the best fire department for the people of the city of Boston," Fraser said.

Menino says he consults with Fraser daily and remains firmly behind the commissioner despite the public turmoil.

"I say, 'Rod, it's for the good of the department, it's for the safety of the public. I'm with you all the way,' " Menino said.

Although he is the first civilian leader of the department since 1975, Fraser, 6 feet 2 inches tall and lanky, has a military bearing and a buzz cut to match. He spent 20 years in the Navy, and now, at 44, says he remains dedicated to public service. He has an advanced degree in marine studies, but he also has a quick temper and a penchant for expressing his unvarnished opinion. Fraser is the kind of guy who says yes when his wife asks if an outfit makes her look fat.

"If something's wrong, I can't say it's not," he said.

It is a trait that has rubbed his enemies the wrong way. "I think he thinks very highly of himself," Kelly said.

Fraser grew up in East Millinocket, Maine, a small town 60 miles north of Bangor whose motto is "the town that paper made." His grandfather worked in a paper mill, as did his father. His mother worked at the local school.

As a boy, Fraser said, he dreamed of being a sailor. He attended a small college, the Maine Maritime Academy, on a Navy scholarship. He earned a bachelor's degree in marine engineering and was commissioned in the Navy in April 1986. He later earned two master's degrees - one in marine affairs at the University of Rhode Island and another in national security affairs and strategic planning at the US Naval War College in Newport, R.I.

Fraser eventually took command of the USS Underwood, a guided missile frigate deployed to the Persian Gulf in 2004 and 2005.

In the military, Fraser's leadership style was hands-off and straightforward, said John Norton, a former Navy lieutenant who served with him. He delegated tasks and expected they would be handled properly. When they weren't, Fraser had no qualms pointing out the shortfalls.

"We used to call it 'taking a chunk of flesh out of your behind,' " recalled Norton, a Dorchester native.

Fraser spent off hours playing cribbage with officers like Norton. To the approximately 350 enlisted sailors on the ship, Norton said, Fraser remained aloof. But he also was well-respected, he said.

"Some of the leadership tried to be buddy-buddy with people, some tried to play favorites," Norton said. "He was comfortable with himself and with his position - not thinking he's any better, but he was very good at what he did."

In 2006, Fraser was retiring from the Navy and answered an employment ad listed with the Military Officers Association of America, one of several organizations that the city used to advertise the fire commissioner position. The only firefighting experience he had was overseeing firefighting training at a Navy education center in Rhode Island.

But he had antiterrorism knowledge and leadership experience that Menino wanted. The mayor chose Fraser out of more than two dozen applicants, saying he would be just the type of commissioner he needed to overhaul a department that had resisted change for decades.

"Rod Fraser is a tough guy," Menino said.

It was a surprising choice to many at the time, but city watchdogs hailed the mayor's decision to bring in an outsider with antiterrorism experience who appeared more likely to make changes because he did not come up through the ranks and therefore was not bound to the union.

When he began work in September 2006, Fraser set out to learn as much as he could about the department, which has been the subject of numerous reviews. He scoured a 58-page report of the O'Toole Commission, a panel convened by Menino in 1999 to recommend improvements. He met with fire chiefs and union leaders. For several months, he visited neighborhood fire houses and spoke with rank-and-file firefighters about their concerns, many of which focused on broken equipment.

Fraser was the first commissioner in years to invite a group of black and Latino firefighters to meet with him regularly at headquarters, winning their support.

"The other commissioners felt that we were just a bunch of malcontent troublemakers," said Karen Miller, president of the Boston Society of Vulcans, an organization of black and Latino firefighters.

Fraser quickly began implementing changes. He went to City Hall and secured $1.3 million for new ladder trucks, and he created a five-year plan to spend millions more to replace aging equipment. He started the first comprehensive training program for firefighter officers and extended training for recruits at the firefighting academy. He also launched a year-round recruiting effort and mentoring program for new recruits.

In April last year, after the commissioner's first seven months on the job, union leaders praised Fraser's efforts.

"He has the same views on where we need to go on this job, and he is certainly a partner with us in this respect," Kelly told the Globe at the time.

But privately, the speed of the changes and Fraser's management style alienated some within the department. Fraser was quick to anger at times and raised his voice in meetings. "He talks down to people, which I think is a holdover from his military career," Kelly said.

Fraser says that is not true, though he admits he grew frustrated sometimes by resistance from his commanders and the strong hold of the union on the department.

"At first, I lost my temper a few times because I just found it unbelievable that someone could be in this department for 30 years and not really get it," Fraser said.

The developing rifts grew wider after autopsy results leaked to the media in October indicated Warren Payne had traces of cocaine in his system and Paul Cahill had a blood-alcohol content of 0.27 when the two firefighters died Aug. 29 at the Tai Ho Restaurant in West Roxbury.

City Hall immediately launched a fresh outside review of the fire department and demanded random drug and alcohol testing of firefighters. Fraser agreed, a position in direct conflict with the union.

Tensions boiled over shortly thereafter in a dispute about the makeup of a strategic planning committee charged with implementing department improvements. Without consulting the union, Fraser appointed firefighters who had not participated in management before, including a representative from the Vulcans, a black lieutenant with a business degree.

Kelly was incensed, but Fraser was not swayed. "He just said to me, 'It is what it is,' " recalled Kelly, who said he "declared war" on Fraser at the December meeting.

Fraser angered the union again when he publicly questioned the integrity of some firefighter disability claims, and, particularly, when he assailed the department's investigation into the deaths of Cahill and Payne, which had been conducted by five longtime chiefs and two lieutenants who are all union members.

The battle is now entwined with contract negotiations between firefighters and the city. But some say the assaults on Fraser will continue even if the contract dispute is settled.

"The attitude is, 'How dare he come in and tell us what to do?' " said Miller, a critic of the union's approach.

Samuel R. Tyler, president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, a business-funded city watchdog group, says Fraser will have to stand strong for months, maybe years, before the union will relent.

"I think he's addressing issues that need to be addressed to improve management of the department," Tyler said. "But it really makes it difficult when it seems you're by yourself."

Donovan Slack can be reached at dslack@globe.com.