A mainstay at fire department breakfasts, Kevin “Bacon” will be missed.

Shaun Farrar

Mar 07, 2026

The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Edward Jones Financial Advisor: Elise N. Frank.

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TRENTON—Some might say that a handshake and a hug in the middle of a government body’s public meeting, rather than waiting until the end, could be an indicator of the level of respect and appreciation gained when someone is announcing their retirement.

It’s what happens when someone earns that respect.

It’s what happens when someone helps save lives and property for more than thirty years.

It’s also what happens when someone is the kind of person who laughs easily and feeds many.

All of those reasons are exactly why Trenton Volunteer Fire Department Deputy Chief Kevin Hallett received a mid-selectboard meeting hug.

The hug happened when Fire Chief Steve Heckman told the Trenton Select Board at its March 3 meeting that Deputy Chief Hallett had announced his retirement effective June 30, 2026, just that day.

After that announcement, Deputy Chief Hallett stood before the select board and said a few words. When he was finished speaking and was returning to his chair, Select Board Chair Fred Ehrlenbach rose from his seat, called him back, and gave him that handshake and hug.

During the retirement announcement, Chief Heckman said of Deputy Chief Hallett, “He is concluding almost four decades of service and on behalf of the fire department I want to thank him publicly here for his service to not only the department but to the community.”

Deputy Chief Hallett stood before the select board and said, “I have gone through, well, I haven’t gone through, I have worked with six different chiefs in the 40 years that I have been here. It’s really hard for me to give it up because I like volunteering for a community. I will probably still poke my head in because I am kind of considered a lifetime member.”

It’s been a life of rushing to accidents, serving pancakes, putting out fires, rolling hose, and offering people a friendly face when terrible things are happening or when their hoping for some bacon during the fire department’s pancake breakfast fundraisers.

“I have been lucky, I have worked with really good people,” Hallett continued.

Town Administrator Carol Walsh said, “Kevin, Jamie is worried about the bacon.”

“Tell her not to worry,” Deputy Chief Hallett replied saying that he would be doing the June breakfasts and then after that he will see how it goes.

“There’s not enough good one can say about Kevin Hallett,” said Walsh, adding that the deputy chief has been an integral component of the pancake breakfast fundraisers.

Ehrlenbach concurs saying, “He’s in at 2:00 a.m. preparing for pancake breakfasts. He mans the grill and is well known for his famous blueberry pancakes.”

At those breakfasts, manning the grill, the deputy chief is “turning out plain and blueberry pancakes like a pro. We at the office have nicknamed him Kevin Bacon, as he usually sets things up and cooks the bacon for the breakfast the Friday before, sending a heaping plate of bacon to the town office staff,” Walsh said in an email.

Regarding department breakfasts, Chief Heckman said, “He is also a familiar and welcoming face at our community pancake breakfasts and fundraising events, strengthening the connection between the department and the residents we serve.”

But alas, firefighting is not just cooking and serving pancakes and bacon. It is a world of sudden stress, a world shared by first responders and not experienced by all of those they serve.

“During his tenure, he rose through the ranks to deputy chief and has been a steady, dependable leader. His deep knowledge of our department’s history and the reasoning behind many of our operational decisions has been invaluable,” Chief Heckman said.

In 2019, Hallett was assistant chief. He had already been with the department for 33 years when an October 17 article by Sarah Hinckley came out in the Mount Desert Islander. According to that article, Hallett joined the Trenton Volunteer Fire Department in 1987.

That year, Hallett responded to a fire in Trenton as a civilian.

“I have to say, I was hooked after that,” Hallett told Hinckley.

When he responded to that first fire as a civilian in April, he grabbed a pike pole to help and one of the firefighters onsite advised him not to help because he wouldn’t be covered if he got injured. Hallett asked that firefighter how to join and was a member of the fire department by May.

“For 39 years, Kevin has shown up. Whether it’s three in the afternoon on a hot summer day or 3 a.m. in a snow storm with sub zero temperatures a structure fire, motor vehicle crash or just a lift assist. When the pager go off, Kevin shows up!” said Ehrlenbach.

“I didn’t join the fire department to get paid. I mean back when I first joined it was to help my community out,” Hallett said about one of his reasons for being a firefighter. “When the kids were little, we had a fire down on Bayside and it was burning. It got down behind the hearth and was burning on the sills and stuff down in the basement. We got toned out for it and Lisa (Hallett’s wife) says, ‘You really gonna go?’ I said, ‘Yeah, because if I don’t and everybody else has that same attitude, who’s gonna go?’”

Who’s gonna go is a defining question for Kevin Hallett and many on-call firefighters.

According to Chief Heckman, Hallett “was known for arriving early to trainings and events, always ready to help, and for mentoring countless members in pump operations, apparatus use, and department procedures.”

“I am very apprehensive about leaving because 40 years is a better part of my life. In the 39 years that I’ve actually been here, I have never found anybody that was, that you could be upset over or mad at or anything like that. They are very professional people to work with,” Hallett said about retirement adding that the fire department is like a second, extended family to him.

It’s a family that supports each other, keeps its community safe, a family that trains and learns together.

Walsh, too, commented on Hallett’s apparent fondness for learning saying, “He’s always one of the first to arrive here at the fire station when there is a call. He has done all of the trainings that have been available in the 14 years I have known him.”

The skills to deal with these types of situations can be learned but the best often have some sort of innate ability that just seems to kick in and take over when the need arises.

Hallett may be one of those types of people with that innate ability. In a February 19, 1987, Ellsworth American article by Roy Zaleksy, Hallett is featured as a grill cook at Jordan’s Restaurant in Bar Harbor.

When Zaleksy asks how Hallett handled 300 orders in just over an hour, Hallett responded, “I really don’t know how we do it. Just try to line things up on the grill and remember what goes together. It just comes to you. You just do it.”

Hallett was also a baker in the Navy and not even that could have prepared him for working at Jordan’s he said in that same article.

But it does.

Every bit of experience and training comes together in those moments of need and help people perform well under pressure. Sometimes people that don’t know each other but have similar training and experience can come together at a moments notice and perform like a team that has been together for a long time.

In 2014 when Hallett was working at Hinckley Yachts, he was part of a group of coworkers who most likely saved another coworker’s life. In a March 13, 2014 Mount Desert Islander article by Liz Graves, Hallett, another volunteer firefighter from Steuben, Nick Tucker, and a third coworker, performed CPR on employee John Norwood after he had a stroke inside of a boat under construction and his pulse disappeared.

In that article, Hallett said, “Everyone stayed very calm. It was as if we had trained together for years, even though the three of us had never worked together before. You get tunnel vision in a situation like that.”

Once an ambulance arrived, paramedics were able to get Norwood’s heart started again and he survived his ordeal.

For the “better part of 40 years that pager has run my life. I mean, I have left my wife at the grocery store. I have left her at restaurants,” reminisced Hallett. “I am gonna miss it; I’m not gonna tell you I’m not. I don’t think my wife will.”

Who’s gonna go is going to be a question that Hallett won’t have to answer. His friends and second family will keep up the work. Hallett’s influence, however, and his friendships will remain.

“I consider it an honor to call him ‘friend,’” Ehrlenbach said.

Walsh said, “The Town has been extremely fortunate to have 39 years of service from Kevin, and he will be sorely missed.”

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All photos not otherwise specified are via the Trenton Vol. Fire Department’s Facebook page.

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