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The Sporleder brothers come from a long line of firefighters. Doug (front) recently retired as chief of the Santa Clara County Fire Dept.; his brother Steve (left) is a former captain with the Saratoga Fire District; and Bert is a former volunteer firefighter with the county. The hat belonged to their father, who was assistant chief when Los Gatos had its own fire department.
Photograph by Paul Myers
All in the Family
Tradition of service started in 1901 with Louis Sporleder Sr.
By Gloria I. Wang
Photographs by Paul Myers
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 District 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 brothers--all of medium height, with dark hair, and all lifelong Los Gatos residents--are close to each other and say the only experience they had with sibling rivalry was picking on youngest brother Steve while they were growing up. Bert still refers to the three of them as "the boys" and Doug says, "I think my brothers are my best friends."
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.
"I always wanted to be a firefighter. I couldn't think of anything else I wanted to do," says Steve, 54, who was involved with Saratoga Fire District until his December 2000 retirement. Steve worked his way up the ranks through his 32-year career at the district, starting out as a firefighter and ending as one of the district's three captains.
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 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."
Photograph by Paul Myers
Susan Sawyer holds up a picture of her great-grandfather, Louis Sporleder Sr., with other members of the Los Gatos Fire Department in the early part of the 20th century.
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. As the procession traveled through the streets of Los Gatos and toward the station at Lark Avenue and Winchester Boulevard, a firefighter stood at every street corner, saluting the chief.
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 (now the Los Gatos Museum) 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, both Los Gatos High School graduates, 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 the entourage would rush to the fire with sirens sounding and red lights flashing.
"We knew the fire codes better than we knew math," Doug says.
Growing up, the boys played on a 1927 fire engine that was parked in their grandfather's barn. The engine, twice refurbished, now sits in Oak Meadow Park as a piece of playground equipment.
Photograph by Paul Myers
The Sporleders have a collection of helmets from the different eras their family has worked in the Los Gatos Fire Department. Bert wore the black one when he was a volunteer in Los Gatos; the white helmet belonged to his father, Louis Jr., who was the assistant fire chief in Los Gatos.
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.
Doug joined the Los Gatos Fire Department in April 1963. When he graduated from San Jose State University in 1965, he was asked by the chief to stay on as a summer relief firefighter, allowing him to work on his teaching credential in the fall. A paid position opened up that year and Doug applied for and got the job, thinking, "I've got nothing to lose." When Lou died in December, however, Doug knew that he needed to help out with the service station and be there for his mother, and dropping out of school was the only option.
Bert became a volunteer firefighter when he was 23, while running the service station until its sale in 1977. "I wanted to help. I wanted to put back something into the community," Bert says of his joining the department.
In 1970, Los Gatos fire became part of the larger Santa Clara County Fire Department. Although he was loyal to Los Gatos, Doug says, the Los Gatos Fire Department had inadequate resources and personnel to keep up with the growth in town. Moving to a regional system meant that "a much higher level of service was being provided," Doug says, "but I think my father and grandfather probably spun over in their graves."
While attending San Jose 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.
Steve was promoted to engineer in 1970 and captain in 1974. As captain, he supervised different shifts and shift personnel and ran inspections and training. He had always planned to take an early retirement, and did so on Dec. 18, 2000. "The feeling I had was, I'll miss the people--I won't miss the work, and I certainly won't miss the politics," Steve says, referring to the long battle in Saratoga over a merger with the county fire department which was being promoted by the rank and file within the district.
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.
The Sporleders' father, Louis Jr., posed with the Los Gatos Fire Department fire engine in 1961.
Photograph courtesy of Susan Sporleder Sawyer
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 that destroyed about 14,000 acres.
Doug also oversaw the Loma Prieta earthquake followup in 1989 and the Cats fire in 1997. The Cats fire was especially difficult to deal with, Doug says, because he had to deal with it on a professional as well as personal level. The flames were so close to downtown Los Gatos that a wind change could have caused the town to go up in smoke. "I had emotional issues, that this is happening to people you know by first name," Doug says. The CDF helicopter, which helped put out the fire, "is a vital resource, and we are so fortunate to have it here," Doug says.
The county fire department has gone through an "unbelievable change" in the past four decades, Doug says. The technology, the department's infrastructure and 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." Instead, his wife, Susan, and friends from the department are putting together a Jan. 12 dinner with more than 350 guests. "I'm going to get a kick out of it," Doug says, but it's more for other people to have closure and say their good-byes.
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."
None of the brothers' children have shown an interest in joining the fire service. Steve, who lives alone in Los Gatos, has two grown children and a new granddaughter. Bert and his wife of 34 years, Trish, have two children and three grandchildren.
Doug and Susan have been married for seven years and live in Los Gatos. Doug's son, Kenneth, is a church administrator at St. Luke's Episcopal Church, and his daughter, Susan Sawyer, works for the Los Gatos-Saratoga Recreation Department. Susan has a young son who perhaps will one day show an interest in firefighting, Doug says, making the family tradition last for more than 100 years.
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
