COURTESY PHOTO
Joe Reed was administrator of
Civil Defense since 1995.

Reed retires
from Oahu Civil
Defense post

Colleagues praise him as
effective and even-tempered

---

By Gordon Y.K. Pang
gpang@starbulletin.com

Joe Reed, whose low-key and confident demeanor as Oahu's Civil Defense administrator helped bring order back to an agency in turmoil, retired from the city last week.

Reed, 68, has been suffering from a rare form of kidney disease and other ailments. He has been at Tripler Army Medical Hospital since early June, according to his daughter, Vicky.

Paul Takamiya, the Oahu Civil Defense Agency's plans and operations manager, has been acting administrator since Reed became ill.

The agency coordinates safety and rescue efforts associated with natural and man-made disasters on Oahu.

Takamiya said the agency's eight-member staff has been devastated by Reed's absence.

"He got along very well with all the staff and was really a positive influence to all of us," Takamiya said.

He said Reed worked well with other agency heads, from the police chief to emergency services.

Reed, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel who flew B-52 bombers in the Vietnam War, first began working for Civil Defense in 1984.

He became administrator in April 1995 after a period in which the agency was embroiled in conflict over who was its leader. When former Mayor Frank Fasi returned to City Hall after a four-year hiatus, he attempted to replace then-Administrator Malcolm Sussel with George Kekuna. The matter reached the Hawaii Supreme Court, which sided with Sussel's position that the job is civil service, and therefore he could not be replaced without proper procedure.

"Those, of course, were difficult times," Takamiya said. "But once (Reed) took over, things really settled down."

Robin McCulloch, chief of the city's emergency medical services branch, agreed.

"When he took the job, he had to bring the staff back together and working as a team again, and he certainly did that," McCulloch said.

Takamiya said, "He's courteous and even-tempered, a gentleman."

Vicky Reed said her father put in his retirement papers before his recent illness.

City spokeswoman Carol Costa said the administration has not yet decided on a timetable for finding a permanent successor through the civil-service process.