Slowly but surely, Bill Oakes is taking over Island County.

The public works director just got his fourth “hat” last week. Now he’s not only the director of the county’s largest department, he’s the county engineer, the parks director and the director of emergency management.

“It’s busy,” Oakes said in his famously understated way.

Oakes inherited his latest responsibility after Dave Hollett, the former director of Emergency Services, quit the county to take a job at the Navy hospital in Oak Harbor.

The department of emergency management was at the center of controversy a couple of years ago after the department was placed within the sheriff’s office. Two of the county commissioners blocked the sheriff’s plan to lay off Hollett and replace him with a deputy.

But then Hollett quit, leaving the county without a director for the beginning of the storm season. Although taking on the additional role wasn’t his idea, Oakes said it is logical. He has years of experience planning for and dealing with emergencies in his former job in King County and nine years in Island County.

On Thanksgiving, for example, he said he was out working with his crews “from 4 in the morning to 4 in the afternoon” on weather-related emergencies.

Of course, Oakes isn’t going to run the Emergency Management Department alone. He said the county will soon advertise for an emergency services coordinator, who will report to Oakes. The county contracts with Mike Simmons to do emergency management work on Camano Island.

Unfortunately for Oakes, all the extra responsibilities haven’t come with pay increases, although he has saved the county a significant amount of money by taking on the extra work.

Oakes started amassing extra titles when Dick Snyder, the former county engineer, left in 2006. The county is required by law to have a “county engineer” position filled. Oakes become public works director and county engineer, though he has an assistant county engineer, an assistant public works director and a public works manager to help with the load.

A couple of years ago, Oakes also became the parks director after the commissioners transferred the department into public works. That was about the time the parks department fell victim to the budget axe, leaving just a third of its funding for 2011. He now has one part-time person on each island handling all the maintenance in 67 parks and habitat areas.

“We’re below sustainable,” he said. “We can limp along like this for a little while, but eventually something has to change.”

If Island County ever opens a coal mine or procures a nuclear reactor, Oakes could easily take on even more responsibility. In his life before public works, Oakes worked his way through Penn State by laboring in a coal mine. He graduated with a degree in engineering with a mining specialty.

He then went to work in another windowless environment. He joined the Navy and worked on a nuclear-powered, fast attack submarine. When he left active duty after eight years, he was the assistant engineer and was qualified to run a nuclear reactor and a nuclear submarine.

His record for staying underwater in a submarine, on a mission that was apparently strictly hush-hush, was 89 days.

“It’s a different life,” he said.

After leaving active duty, Oakes spent 12 years in the Navy Reserves before retiring as a commander. He worked as an engineer in King County for a decade before coming to Island County.

And the rest, as they say, is history.