Rep. Peter T. Ginaitt is leaving the General Assembly and a 16-year career as a state legislator in which he distinguished himself as an open-minded leader dedicated to “the dialogue of compromise.”

The Warwick Democrat submitted a letter of resignation to the House leadership earlier in the month, but announced his decision yesterday. His last day as an elected official will be Friday, nine months after winning his eighth consecutive election.

State law requires a special election be held within 90 days to select a successor.

The 46-year-old retired fire captain says that neither politics nor scandal played a role in his decision to leave Smith Hill. He will walk away from his elected duties to pursue career opportunities with the Lifespan hospital network, where he assumes the duties of director of emergency preparedness next week. Ginaitt held the same title over the past four years at Rhode Island Hospital, one of the network’s five Rhode Island institutions.

“You reach a point where something has to give. Whether it’s your family that’s giving, whether it’s your employer that’s giving, whether it’s the legislature that’s giving,” said Ginaitt, the father of two teenagers. “I’d like to make sure I’m doing things to the best of my abilities and not saying, ‘I’m giving it what I can.’ I know that the time is here for somebody else to take over.”

First elected to the Assembly in 1992, Ginaitt has served for more than a decade as the chairman of the House Committee on Environment and Natural Resources and vice chairman of the Committee on Health, Education and Welfare.

He backed legislation to allow the dredging of Narragansett Bay, banned mercury from products made or sold in Rhode Island and established the drunken-driving blood alcohol level .08, among other things.

In recent years, he has been instrumental in the Assembly’s push to amend the state fire code. A 21-year Warwick Fire Department veteran, he was among the first responders to the Station nightclub fire that killed 100 people in 2003.

Ginaitt was instrumental in efforts to strengthen the fire code after the fire and equally influential in the push to relax the code following widespread complaints from the business community in recent years. He served as co-chair of the House Oversight Commission to Study the Ramifications of the Fire Safety Code, an advisory committee also chaired by Rep. Joseph Trillo, R-Warwick.

“I am shocked and disappointed. It’s like a kick in the stomach, to be honest,” Trillo said when notified of Ginaitt’s departure yesterday. “Peter brought a unique aspect to the fire issue — he was a fireman, a first responder, in a leadership position. He brought a unique set of skills to the table.”

Trillo and Ginaitt represented different political spectrums. But they worked together to produce a legislative package that cleared the House but stalled in the Senate during the Assembly’s final hours in June.

“He was the kind of guy who had a pretty good relationship with everybody. You could argue with him — and I had some heated arguments with him — but you could move past it,” Trillo said. “Sometimes you get the most accomplished when you don’t see eye to eye, especially when you keep an open mind. And Peter always had an open mind.”

Ginaitt’s absence won’t have an immediate effect on the Assembly, which isn’t scheduled to reconvene until January. House Speaker William J. Murphy issued a statement congratulating Ginaitt on his new role at Lifespan.

“It is a sad day for Rhode Island to lose a state representative of Peter Ginaitt’s caliber,” Murphy said. “For well over a decade, he has been deeply committed to public service and always put good policy before politics.”

Ginaitt had no political experience when he took office in 1992. But he was a familiar face in Warwick.

A longtime firefighter and owner of a local landscaping business, Ginaitt depicted himself as a “middle-income, blue-collar worker” who would provide a fresh voice for the General Assembly.

It was a sales pitch that worked. In the 16 years since, Ginaitt has faced little competition for his job — running unopposed in all but three elections.

Warwick’s Republican Mayor Scott Avedisian speaks highly of Ginaitt.

“He was a great advocate for the city. Every time I went to the legislature on any issue, he was right there to be supportive of any issue the city was looking to do from health care to the environment to fire-code issues,” the mayor said.

State law dictates that a special election be held at least 70 days and not more than 90 days after Ginaitt’s resignation becomes official. That means Warwick could have a new representative by late November.

Political figures largely declined to speculate yesterday about possible replacements for Ginaitt. But one name surfaced as a possible Democratic candidate: Joseph J. Solomon Jr., son of Warwick City Council President Joseph J. Solomon and a relative of Providence City Council member Michael Solomon.

The younger Solomon, 23, has never held public office. A graduate of Providence College, he is in his final year of law school at New England School of Law in Boston, though he still maintains residence in Warwick.

Asked yesterday about the possibility that his son could stage a run, Solomon was circumspect, saying he hasn’t officially spoken to Joseph Jr. on the matter. “I can tell you my son has grown up in Warwick and has first-hand viewed relatives close to him who’ve devoted a good deal of their private lives to public service,” he said.

State Democratic Party Chairman William Lynch said he had not discussed the younger Solomon, saying only, “I’m confident in that district we will see a very strong Democratic candidate who will hopefully continue the tradition that Peter has established.”

“From the party’s standpoint, this seemed like a tremendous opportunity for him and his family,” Lynch said of Ginaitt. “We hate to lose him, obviously, but your family has to come first.”

Ginaitt’s district, which includes Warwick Neck, Bayside and parts of Oakland Beach, is considered a heavily Democratic part of the city and it is generally expected that a Democrat will ultimately replace him.

Warwick Director of Elections Joseph E. Gallucci said the election, expected to cost about $10,000, won’t be scheduled until after Friday, the day Ginaitt’s resignation becomes official.

Meanwhile, Ginaitt said he’s confident that “a flurry of interested candidates” will emerge.

His hopes his successor will “take part in that dialogue of compromise, which is really what we’re here for.”

“You have to be very, very open to change your mind. If you go into something predisposed, you’re not going to be a good negotiator,” he said. “I think I’ve done, in my eyes, a very good job. At the end of the night I put my head down, and I don’t have a problem sleeping.”

cneedham@projo.com