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Photograph by Paul Myers
Doug Sporleder (left) who recently retired as Santa Clara County fire chief, relaxes with his brothers Steve (center), former Saratoga Fire Captain, and Bert (right), former volunteer firefighter for 21 years. The Sporleders' father, Louis Jr., pictured below, posed with the Los Gatos Fire Department fire engine in the 1950s.
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All in the Family
The Sporleder brothers trace their firefighting heritage back 100 years
By GLORIA I. WANG
When Doug Sporleder retired as chief of the Santa Clara County Fire Department on Dec. 31, he ended a century-old family tradition that spanned three generations and three fire departments.
Sporleder's younger brothers, Steve and Bert, are both retired from the fire service--Steve as a Saratoga fire captain, Bert as a volunteer firefighter with the county.
Their father, Louis Jr., was the assistant chief of the Los Gatos Fire Department. So was his father, Louis Sr., who, according to family records, joined the department in 1901. And then there are the uncles and brothers and cousins who were involved in fire service in one way or another.
The situation, Doug says, is uncommon in this area but not on the East Coast, where one fire department often employs several members of the same family.
The Sporleder brothers say that firefighting came naturally.
"It's something that's in your blood, I guess," Bert, 58, says. Bert became a volunteer firefighter with the Los Gatos Fire Department in 1966 and stayed on through the department's consolidation with County Fire. He retired in 1987.
Doug, 59, says he "couldn't wait" to become a volunteer firefighter in Los Gatos at the age of 21, but hadn't thought it would become his career. But after a series of promotions in Los Gatos and then the county department, Doug found himself as fire chief in 1982.
The Santa Clara County Fire Department serves the unincorporated parts of the county and most municipalities, including Cupertino, Los Gatos, Monte Sereno and parts of Saratoga. As chief, Doug oversaw the operations of 16 stations and 265 employees throughout the county.
Doug says his decision to retire was logical but at the same time difficult. "I had done almost everything I wanted to do," Doug says. "It's not an old guy's game." Having been with the department for almost 39 years, he had reached maximum retirement within the system and had gone as far up in management as possible.
Leaving was bittersweet. He says he misses the sense of belonging and "being part of something that you've watched mature and grow into being a very viable part of defense in the community. ... You give something that much of your life, just to disconnect is kind of tough."
Doug's last official day in the office, Nov. 29, was an especially emotional one. Because he had a breakfast meeting, he was dressed in his uniform and preparing to leave his house when he heard a knock on his front door. Doug opened the door to find Los Gatos-Monte Sereno Police Officer Dave Fishback, who said that he had come to escort the fire chief to work. Behind Fishback were 10 vehicles from Los Gatos-Monte Sereno police, Campbell police, CHP and the county sheriff's office. He was saulted on every corner on the way to work.
That night, Doug began tearing up as he described the scene to his wife, Susan. "He said, 'All I could think about was my dad. He would've been so proud,'" Susan says.
"You usually don't get to see things like that," Doug says. Customarily those processions happen upon the death of an official, and to be honored like that on his retirement was "just something."
Ben Lopes, interim fire chief, worked with Doug on the department's administration for 21 years. "It was great working with him. I don't know how you would describe it any other way," Lopes says. Doug always faced the good and the bad with his sense of humor and a vision for the department, maintaining a positive work environment in the meantime, Lopes says.
Although it's hard seeing the chief retire, Lopes says, it's one of the "passages in life ... nothing can go on forever."
The family tradition began when the Sporleders came to Los Gatos in 1888 with 3-year-old Louis. Back then, the Los Gatos Fire Department was a separate entity, and all the firefighters operated on a volunteer basis. In those days, the only full-time, paid employee of the department lived at the Tait Avenue station with his family.
Historical records indicate that Louis Sr. was one of the volunteer firefighters in 1901, when he was 16 years old, along with his brother Roy. Louis' day job was as a teamster, hauling freight and luggage from the train station to the points of delivery. Louis married, raised six children and became assistant chief of the department, an unpaid, elected position, in his lifetime. He died in 1953.
The position then went to his son Lou, who had been with the department since 1935. Lou and his wife, Virginia, built their family home on Hernandez Avenue and raised three boys.
Lou ran the Shell service station off Los Gatos-Saratoga Road, sometimes rushing over to fires in his Shell uniform. Growing up, the boys would hear the bells and horns indicating that there was a fire in town. If they were ready to go, their father let them jump onto his jeep, hanging onto the back since the car had no seats, and they would rush to the fire with sirens sounding and red lights flashing.
"We knew the fire codes better than we knew math," Doug says.
Photograph courtesy of Susan Sporleder Sawyer
According to Doug, what attracted his father to fighting fires was the camaraderie with other firefighters and the community service aspect. "My mom and dad were always in that mode of giving something back," Doug says. Lou and Virginia were active in a local fraternal organization, and Lou served on the high school board and the town's personnel board.
Lou died in 1965 of a respiratory illness. "I blame it on the fire service," Bert says. Back then, firefighters had insufficient breathing equipment when they were on the job. Doug says, however, that the cause of the illness was not proved. "It was not an issue," Doug says.
After Lou's death, the town council issued a resolution commending Lou for his years of service to the town. There's also a water fountain at the Los Gatos fire station that's dedicated to the memory of Louis Sporleder Jr.
While attending San José City College, Steve worked as a seasonal firefighter for what is now the California Department of Forestry, fighting flames in the mountains. When a position in the Saratoga Fire District opened up in 1968, he jumped at the chance.
"It was a very intimidating job for a 21-year-old," Steve says. The young firefighter had to work 24-hour shifts in a 72-hour workweek by himself, handling all the duties, such as taking calls about fires, alerting other firefighters and cleaning equipment. These days, eight workers are on duty per shift, and a workweek lasts 56 hours.
The brothers have had a handful of opportunities to work together through the years. According to Bert, in the early 1970s, the three and their families were sitting down to their Christmas Eve dinner when they were called to a blaze at Alma College. They stayed for several hours, missing dinner and the holiday with their families.
In one of his early years as chief, Doug supervised the handling of the 1985 Lexington fire. "It's the largest event that I'd ever been a part of," Doug says. More than 3,000 firefighters from all over the state came to help put out the flames, destroyed about 14,000 acres.
The county fire department has gone through an "unbelievable change" in the past four decades, Doug says. The technology, the department's infrastructure and the firefighters are all completely different from what they were in the 1960s. But, Doug says, the firefighters' "sense of purpose" has not changed through the years.
Bert says Doug would have liked to retire quietly. "He wanted to just go away," Bert says, like Steve did. "He cleaned out his desk a little more each day. When his last shift came, he just left and never looked back."
Doug agrees. "I would've been just as happy to go out and be done with it."
Since his retirement, Steve has been doing some personal property management, playing golf, trying to publish his novel about a disabled firefighter and, on occasion, visiting old friends at the fire station.
Doug has no specific plans for retirement, but does say that he hopes to be more active with the Billy Jones Wildcat in Los Gatos Railroad. He's been on the board of the railroad for 10 years and calls it "an asset that we need to maintain."
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Cupertino, California Since 1947
