After helming emergency response efforts in almost every natural disaster and health emergency in the region, Jim Reid, director of the Pikes Peak Regional Office of Emergency Management, has announced his retirement.

This week, community officials have gathered to celebrate the longtime El Paso County and city of Colorado Springs leader, whose last day of a 20-year-long career in the region is Friday.

“Every day is Saturday after that,” Reid said, laughing.

Most recently, Reid guided the merging of the county’s and city’s emergency management offices to form the now joint regional office in mid-2018. Before then, Reid served as executive director of the county Department of Public Works beginning in April 2013, where he at the time oversaw a $35 million budget and managed about 170 employees that supported 2,100 lane-miles of roadway, 22,000 acres of right of way and over 270 bridges, according to previous Gazette reporting.

Reid joined the Air Force in 1980 and served in Germany, Arizona, California, South Korea and Colorado, and served as a firefighter during the 1981 terrorist bombing at Ramstein Air Base in Germany among other first responder roles on global bases, according to a resolution of appreciation passed by the City Council on Tuesday.

After retiring from the Air Force and pushed by a passion for firefighting, Reid returned to the state and became Monument’s fire marshal in 2000 and in 2003 became El Paso County fire marshal with the Sheriff’s Office, most notably guiding the Pikes Peak region through the 2012 Waldo Canyon fire and the 2013 Black Forest fire, which each caused two deaths and burned nearly 350 and 500 homes, respectively.

“All I ever wanted to do was fight fire ... and preserve life,” Reid said.

Also Tuesday, county commissioners approved a resolution honoring Reid’s work doing just that.

During the hearing, county engineer Jennifer Irvine reminisced on Reid’s “service above self” while directing the Department of Public Works and told him he’d set the example for future county leaders.

“A leader has to be ready to understand change and embrace it and ... has to be optimistic and have courage, credibility, honesty and trust,” Irvine said. “But really, leadership is about relationships and those are the things Jim cultivated not only within the county but outside in the community.”

Reid said that out of the many emergencies that arose in his career, the sudden onset of the COVID-19 pandemic caught him the most offguard. Still, as the Pikes Peak Regional Office of Emergency Management director by that time, he spearheaded coordination efforts with El Paso County Public Health to combat the virus.

In several cases, Reid took it upon himself to find a solution for residents personally, including when homeless people needed shelter, said El Paso County Public Health epidemiologist Marigny Klaber during the commissioners’ meeting Tuesday.

“I can’t thank Jim enough for literally hitting the ground on his feet and knocking on doors and going to motels and hotels himself ... to try and meet that need,” Klaber said. “I appreciate all he has done to support public health, down to pounding on doors.”

Reid pioneered the county and city joint emergency effort, which became more efficient with the 2018 merge by saving resources, easing communication during crisis, coordinating disaster response in one building location and conducting regional training exercises for all kinds of events, like plane crashes at the municipal airport, active shooter situations, wildfire evacuations and more.

“The more that we do things together, the stronger we become, and the better we serve the folks of this community,” Reid said, recounting his most memorable takeaway from his career.

“Whoever takes this job over is fortunate, because the cornerstone has been laid and we proved that it works,” Reid added. “The hard part’s over, trust me. When you bring two cultures into one room, it’s tough.”

Much of what the Pikes Peak Regional Office of Emergency Management does is “in the background” of first responders and law enforcement — like providing food and resources to those in the field or rehoming hotel guests during an outage or wildfire victims, as just a few examples — as its employees coordinate with local agencies as well as the Colorado Department of Transportation, American Red Cross and other organizations before or while a disaster strikes.

“If you get into this job for notoriety, you’re in the wrong job,” Reid said.

Reid was also praised by commissioners and other officials alike for his humility, lead-from-behind nature and — with jest — his notable candor.

Reid said he’s cleaned out his desk and office, spending his last days raising up his next in command. He will soon hand in his trusty work cellphone, which he said has at least 1,750 saved contacts — just some of the number of people for which he was only ever a “short phone call away,” county Treasurer Chuck Broerman said Tuesday.

Looking ahead, Reid said he and his wife — to whom he presented flowers and many thanks Tuesday — hope to set out and see the United States in their fifth-wheel camper.

“There are a lot of good people in this country, and I wanna get out and meet them,” he said.

He’s not exactly sure where they’ll set up next, but it will be some place warm, like a half-acre in Florida or somewhere along the Texas coast, where “they also have hurricanes,” he noted.

But, equipped with the mobile camper and his career behind him, he is, after all, more than prepared.