The City of Golden Valley has named Assistant Fire Chief Bethany Brunsell to its top Fire Department leadership position, filling the vacancy left by the December 2023 retirement of Fire Chief John Crelly.
Brunsell has more than 13 years of fire service experience. She has been an assistant Golden Valley fire chief since 2019. Before that, she spent two years as the fire prevention specialist for the Maple Grove Fire Department, where she handled education, firefighter, and fire investigator duties, and three years as a fire and life safety educator with the St Paul Fire Department. She also served as a paid on-call firefighter with the West Metro Fire-Rescue District from 2011-2022. Before that, she was taught middle school orchestra and classroom music at FAIR School in Crystal, MN.
Brunsell holds a bachelor’s degree in music education from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. She was pursuing a master’s in music education at the University of St Thomas when she decided to change careers in 2014. Since then, she has taken fire science courses at Hennepin Technical College in Eden Prairie and is completing a master’s in fire executive leadership and public administration from Columbia Southern University.