New Postmaster Named to Run Dana Point Office

A new postmaster was named Monday to help heal the troubled Dana Point Post Office, where 12 employees have left since a gunman went on a rampage in May, killing one postal carrier and injuring another.

Ray Voisine, a postal worker for nearly 20 years, replaces Postmaster Don Lowe, who never returned to the office after the shootings. On that morning, police say, a recently fired mail carrier with a history of psychiatric problems sneaked into the post office on Del Prado Avenue and opened fire.

Since then, Voisine and San Clemente Postmaster Ken Capps have run the office on an interim basis, said Art Martinez, the manager of the U.S. Postal Service’s Santa Ana district. Martinez said that it was important to find a postmaster with good rapport among employees and that Voisine’s selection has boosted morale already.

Voisine “is very popular and known to be someone very good with employees,” he said. “I would say, given the circumstances of May 6, they are doing extraordinarily well down there.”

That day, police say, Mark Hilbun fatally shot a close friend, Charles T. Barbagallo of San Clemente, and wounded another worker.

He also shot through the locked door of Lowe’s office, with Lowe inside, before leaving the building and touching off a countywide manhunt that lasted two days.

But Dana Point postal employees said the troubles in the office started months before the shooting, while Hilbun was stalking a female mail carrier. Earlier in the same week, the employees had been warned at a staff meeting that extra security precautions should be taken, because Hilbun had threatened the female carrier and could be dangerous.

Because of the shootings, the U.S. Postal Service decided to let any employee who wanted to transfer from Dana Point, said Christine Dugas, a postal service spokeswoman.

“If people did not want to be there, we did not want to force them to stay,” Dugas said. “The postal service did what they could to assist them in a transfer.”

Although 12 employees did ask for transfers, Martinez said the number is not necessarily unusual. The workers left for a variety of reasons, not all related to the May incident, he said.

“Transferring is something that’s done within the post office all the time,” Martinez said. “It’s a normal function. We have thousands of employees nationwide who transfer from one place to another.”

But Voisine, 44, acknowledged that staffing the 73-worker office has been one of his first priorities since arriving in Dana Point from the Anaheim Hills post office. So has attempting to put May 6 behind them, he added.

A conscious effort has been made to organize social activities outside the office, such as a picnic Sunday in San Clemente, Voisine said.

“We are trying to get people’s minds off what happened,” Voisine said. “What happened, happened. But we still have our lives to live and a job to do.”

Although a dozen employees have left, other mail carriers have transferred in voluntarily to fill those jobs, he said. He described the mood in the office now as “very good.”

“We have gone on what you might call a healing process,” Voisine said. “We’re taking it one day at a time.”

A Marine Corps and Vietnam War veteran, Voisine started his postal career as a mail carrier in San Clemente. He and his wife have five children.

Because he worked his way up in the postal service, Voisine said, he has been an employee-oriented manager.

“People knew me here; that helped quite a bit,” Voisine said. “It wasn’t somebody coming in out of the dark.”

The Dana Point postal employees have established a memorial fund in honor of Barbagallo to benefit the R.H. Dana School for children with exceptional needs, where he delivered mail and knew the students. Donations may be sent to the Dana Point Memorial Fund and will be accepted until Nov. 1.