Photograph by Kathy De La Torre

Brian Hinman, the Los Gatos resident who purchased the Alma Fire Station property, points to areas where additional helicopter pads will be put.

Aspiring helicopter pilot a local hero

By Nathan R. Huff

After suddenly coming forward last week to rescue the Alma Fire Station, Los Gatos high-tech exec Brian Hinman may have earned himself an "honorary mountain man" title.

Hinman, who stepped into failing negotiations between the station's property owners and the state, has become a bit of a local celebrity. His purchase, and impending lease or handover of the land to the California Department of Forestry, ensures that the Santa Cruz Mountain's first line of fire defense and only firefighting helicopter will remain where they are.

"I joke about fan mail," 38-year-old Hinman said, "but it's been really overwhelmingly positive. Literally, people have been sending me cards and letters--it's shocking."

A resident of downtown Los Gatos since 1992, Hinman read about the station's expiring lease and the struggling negotiations in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times. After witnessing the destruction caused by the 1993 Cats Fire, Hinman decided to take action in the best way he knew--he bought the station.

Hinman paid $1.6 million for the four-acre parcel, effectively ending the negotiations between Oregon-based developers the McDougal Brothers and the state Department of General Services. Given the nearly $500,000 gap between the state's offer and the McDougal Brothers' asking price, Hinman may very well have saved the station from moving elsewhere in the valley.

On July 28, Hinman took a break from his job as CEO of 2Wire Inc., a San Jose company that expands in-home DSL connections, to meet with state and CDF officials about how best to handle the land. Lawyers are hashing out a mutually beneficial agreement that protects all parties from liability while also accommodating Hinman's one request--that he be allowed to fly his personal helicopter from the site.

Hinman just purchased a six-seat helicopter which he hopes to use for pleasure and to ferry employees from the company's Grass Valley offices to San Jose. The helicopter would also be available to CDF for firefighting emergencies.

"My wife thinks it's a midlife crisis," Hinman said of his helicopter purchase. "I've been thinking about it for a long time. I think she just thought it was a fad."

Whether he'll be able to use the CDF landing pad or whether a new pad will be built is one of the issues that still has to be worked out. Hinman favors putting as many pads as possible at the station, which is adjacent to the Lexington Reservoir. Other helicopters often use the station as a staging ground when fires break out in the surrounding mountains.

"But hey," Hinman said, laughing, "compared to the questions before, this is the fun part."

Hinman and his wife first moved to the Bay Area in 1991. Living in Palo Alto, Hinman said they spent their weekends driving around the valley looking for a place to settle down. "Halfway through the search, we came to realize that the town we liked best was Los Gatos," he said. The couple moved into an old Victorian on Broadway, and three children later, Hinman says he "can't imagine living anywhere else."

He said he had just left for the East Coast when the Cats Fire broke out. "I got a message saying 'don't worry, we went by your house and it didn't burn down,'" Hinman said, adding that until that fire he had no idea the helicopter was even up there. "1997 really brought it home to me," he said.

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