Larry Whitney is the Ronny Rice Volunteer of the Year, the Benicia City Council, led by Mayor Elizabeth Patterson, proclaimed this week.

For the past four years, Whitney has been the coordinator of the Benicia Emergency Response Team, an all-volunteer organization that has reached a membership of 422 and has trained hundreds more in the organization’s series of free classes.

BERT’s goal is to make Benicians self-reliant so in an emergency they can take care of themselves and their neighbors until other responders arrive. The program was born in the aftermath of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

Originated by the Benicia Fire Department, BERT is an adoption of a San Francisco concept, the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) that has spread throughout the Bay Area.

Whitney’s award is named for Ron Rice, the first Benicia Volunteer of the Year and a volunteer firemen since 1954. Rice’s credits include being a docent at the Benicia Historical Museum and the Benicia Capitol State Historic Park, and the driving force n the creation of the Benicia Fire Museum that opened in 1981.

Whitney’s own credits include assisting in the design and development of citywide BERT exercises that give volunteers the opportunity to practice what they would do in a variety of emergencies.

Those can be extensive operations that test amateur radio operators’ abilities to provide communication when other methods are interrupted, and that give BERT leaders experience in organizing teams to treat injured neighbors, seek out missing residents and judge whether a building is safe to enter. The training sessions may simulate a serious fire, an industrial explosion, an earthquake or some other disaster.

But Whitney has done more than plan simulated emergencies. He also works with Solano County officials to obtain grants so that disaster preparedness equipment and supplies can be purchased.

Some of his volunteer work is lower key, such as participating in local events, where he can be found at information booths, talking about BERT and emergency preparedness.

At most meetings, Patterson reads the proclamations by herself. But Tuesday night she asked the rest of the Council to join her, not merely standing by her side but also in reading portions of the proclamation as Whitney and other volunteers were praised.

April 6-13 is National Volunteer Week, and Benicia’s volunteers were acknowledged: BERT members, volunteer firefighters, police volunteers, amateur radio operators, library and parks volunteers and those who serve without compensation on the city’s advisory panels.

They have given so much time to the city that if appropriate wages had been paid them, Benicia would have had to pay $616,377 for their 27,840 hours of service in 2013, the proclamation noted.

In fact, the volunteers who flocked around the Council members held up a simulated check with the value of their gift to the city.

After the city expressed its gratitude to Whitney and the others, the volunteer award winner in turn thanked the city, especially Fire Chief Jim Lydon and division chiefs Nicolas Thomas and K.C. Smith, for their support of the BERT program.

“Many CERT teams recognize that we’re supported,” he told Tuesday’s audience.

He also acknowledged his fellow BERT members, saying they “put in the time and effort so we can be ready as a team when an emergency arrives at our doorstep.”