Longtime firefighter Robert Wetherille Jr.

Firefighter Robert Wetherille Jr., who was the longest-serving member of the Minneapolis Fire Department, led pension fund efforts for the city's firefighters.

Wetherille, whose father had been the second longest-serving member of the department, died on July 19 in St. Louis Park. The Minneapolis resident was 81.

When he retired as a district chief in 1992, Wetherille had served the department for 43 years, eight months. A previous record holder, at 43 years even, was his father, Robert Wetherille Sr., who retired in 1962.

Beginning in the 1950s, Junior (his firefighting nickname) began helping to improve and maintain firefighters' pensions managed by the Minneapolis Firefighters' Relief Association.

At one time he led the organization and was on its board at the time of his death, said the Relief Association's current leader, Walter Schirmer, a firefighter and arson investigator.

Schirmer gives a lot of credit to Wetherille for the pension's success, the best-funded in the state, that in most years garners the best returns on its investment among public pension funds.

The pension serves 27 active, senior firefighters, and nearly 600 retirees, survivors and disabled firefighters.

"He was a watchdog for the Relief Association," said Schirmer. "He was diligent and strong for his cause."

When in the 1980s, he was president of the National Conference of Public Employee Retirement Systems. His efforts on behalf of pensioners affected public employees of all types around the nation, Schirmer said.

He lobbied members of Congress and testified at hearings in Washington.

Wetherille was a candidate for the fire chief's job in Minneapolis in 1971 and 1983.

Over the years, he worked to establish a minority recruitment program for the department, and succeeded in having Minnesota fire departments use OSHA standards.

Over the years, Wetherille and Okeson worked together in their off hours on a screen and storm window business. "We just got along beautifully," Okeson said. "He was the closest I came to having a brother."

Wetherille graduated from North High School in Minneapolis in 1944. After service in the Navy from 1944 to 1946, he studied engineering for two years at the University of Minnesota.

He represented the fire department in many civic groups, such as the Aquatennial and the Muscular Dystrophy Telethon, as well as serving on the Citizens League Committee on Pensions, the Chamber of Commerce Committee on Taxes and Legislation and a mayoral committee on retirement.

He is survived by his wife of 59 years, Rhona; two sons, Robert Wetherille III, of Eden Prairie, and Randall, of Minnetrista; a daughter, Denise Bussa, of Duluth; nine grandchildren and a great-grandchild.