His great-great-uncle was chief of the Charleston Fire Department. His grandfather served 37 years there, too. Dad was a firefighter before becoming a cop, and Chief Rick Krantz has spent 34 years of his own life in the fire service, including 26 at the College.
“It’s a bloodline that is thick and deep,” says Krantz.
When Krantz was hired as a fire marshal by the College in 1985, he ran a one-man shop and helped process workers’ compensation claims in addition to his life-safety duties. Now he supervises two fire marshals, oversees an award-winning student-led EMS group, maintains a fleet of emergency vehicles and continually improves the College’s state-of-the-art fire alarm systems and medical rescue stations. He’s become an expert in how not to use a microwave, witnessing how students use the device in attempts to dry damp shoes, cook pasta without water and heat up potato chips within aluminum packaging.
Krantz can chuckle about those smoky episodes now, but he emphasizes that student safety is no laughing matter. Each year he introduces himself at the College’s New Student Orientation, telling freshmen the same thing he’s said for the last quarter of a century: “It’s my job to ensure that you get a safe, valuable college education in the four years you’re
here on campus.”
