Battalion Chief Rolland Harvest, Firefighter 3 Rick Karasaki and Dean DeMello, fire equipment supervisor, will be recognized by the 200 Club and the department at a luncheon today at the Monarch Room in the Royal Hawaiian Hotel.

"They're outstanding employees who are willing to give and they do quality work, yet they're very compassionate with their own employees," said HFD Capt. Kenison Tejada. "They all make everybody better because of the way that they work, especially Dean and Rolland who are in supervisory roles."

The 200 Club is an organization of business leaders that was initiated in 1968 to financially help the widows of police officers, said former police chief Francis Keala. The group added firefighters years later and now holds recognition banquets and finances training programs for police and firefighters.

Karasaki was instrumental in coordinating the department's move to certify firefighters, giving them training that is recognized nationally, Tejada said.

Harvest, 50, oversees the entire 4th Battalion which stretches from Waikele to Wai'anae, the busiest battalion on the island and where most of the brushfires occur. With 60 people under him, Harvest said the award brings recognition to all of his personnel because he couldn't have been chosen if they weren't top notch.

"I'm glad they're getting recognition indirectly," Harvest said. "For me I'm a little embarrassed to receive this award because, to me, I'm receiving an award for doing what I'm suppose to do."

Harvest has been with the department for 22› years and has served his entire career in the 4th Battalion. Firefighting wasn't his first choice of careers. He was in the airline industry before being laid off, but lucked out, he said, when he was accepted to attend fire fighting school.

DeMello, 40, is part of the unit that is responsible for 30,000 pieces of firefighting equipment and equipment, including rescue tools, nozzles, pumper trucks, fire trucks, sedans and water crafts. After 15 years of service — 11 as a supervisor — DeMello said he was surprised by the award and like Harvest sees it as a group award.

"For me it's not so much an individual award," DeMello said. "To me it's a team thing for the department and the men and women who work here."

Karasaki, 43, and working under a mandate from Fire Chief Attilio Leonardi, was instrumental in setting up a program to certify Honolulu firefighters under national standards.

Once the department earned national accreditation in 2000 it moved to implement training that met national standards, said Karasaki, who designed the training program. The department can certify Firefighter I and Hazmat training and has set up a five-year time line to add a level of training each year.

Karasaki, with 15 years in the department, said setting up the program required lots of traveling and working with experts from around the country, but it was exciting work because he was in the vanguard of change. The award has left him with mixed feelings, he said.

"I feel honored," Karasaki said. "On the other hand there a lot of good people that could have easily gotten the same recognition, I felt."