Fighting fires a family tradition for Bob Sandman

Bob Sandman has been fighting fires for as long as he's been legally allowed - down to the day.

"I left my birthday party and got put on a fire crew and was fighting fires all night," said Sandman, who now manages the Stillwater State Forest for the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation.

The Pattee Canyon Fire near Missoula broke out the night of Sandman's 18th birthday, and he was at the ready, having watched his father fight fires for years.

Now 45, Sandman has been fighting fires for nearly 30 years, and in January he's poised to begin leading one of the country's 17 elite disaster response teams. The position as a Type 1 Incident Commander means Sandman will manage responses not only to wildfires but to other disasters such as hurricanes.

For Sandman, going into fire fighting was a given.

"I know it's difficult for some people to understand," he said of the decision to jump onto a fire crew. "But I was born and raised in that and it's in my blood."

Sandman's father, Dick Sandman, had long been a firefighter and eventually rose through the ranks to become Montana's chief wildfire manager. His father's line of work meant the Sandman family, which included Bob's mother and younger brother and sister, moved throughout the state, making stops in Libby, Helena and Billings.

Sandman, though, was born in Whitefish, where he now lives with his wife of 13 years, Paula.

When his parents brought him home to their house that still stands across the street from the Stillwater State Forest's headquarters, they didn't know it was the home where Sandman would later live when he took a job on the Stillwater.

Sandman's father managed the Stillwater from 1959-61 before he began working as a branch fire chief. Sandman took over the job management job in 1996.

That he would follow in his father's footsteps for fire fighting was no real surprise, but that he would eventually fill the same position as a forest manager was less certain when Sandman was a teenager.

When he graduated from high school, Sandman had no intentions of going to college. Instead he planned to follow a friend to Washington state where his friend could get them both good jobs in the then-booming construction industry. Sandman's parents, though, thought college was a better idea.

"We definitely weren't in agreement about what I should do," he said. "But I think I respected my parents enough to say, 'Ok, I'll go for a year.'"

He headed to the University of Montana, where he admits to devoting more of that year to partying than to studying. And a job at a local beer distributor meant parties weren't hard to come by, he said.

At the end of the year, Sandman was on academic probation. But the construction industry had gone bust, and many, including his friend, were out of a job. Sandman enrolled for another year of college and later earned a degree in forestry from the university.

In 1983, Sandman married Shari Lafley, who now is a guidance counselor in Columbia Falls. The couple had one child, Logan, now 16, and divorced in 1990.

In 1984, Sandman took a new position with the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation as the fire supervisor. Dick Sandman was alive then to see his son get his first permanent job, but he died of complications from leukemia treatments before he saw his son take on his former position on the Stillwater.

A position for a fire forester opened on the Stillwater in 1985, and Bob Sandman and his family soon moved into the house where his parents had lived in when he was an infant. His supervisor on the forest had worked with Dick Sandman, and he joked that he felt old seeing two generations come through the Stillwater office.

Bob Sandman says that aside from bringing to mind the classic tune Mr. Sandman, his name has been a recognizable one during his career in fire fighting and with the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation. When he was younger, he often worked with people who knew his father.

When asked about his father, Sandman pulls out a photograph of his dad framed with a memorial note one of his coworkers wrote when Dick Sandman died at age 50. The note talks about Sandman's father as a man of strong will, worthy of respect and always up for a challenge.

His mother also possesses those traits, Bob Sandman says, and he calls them as "the family fortitude." As an example, he mentions that after his father's death, his mother went back to school to become a flight attendant and still is working for Alaska Airlines at the age of 65.

His parents passed on those characteristics to him and to his brother and sister, who both work for Boeing in Seattle, he says. He says it's those character components that helped him earn his current position as forest manager.

But Sandman is quick to give credit to his staff of about 15 people for helping him successfully oversee the Stillwater's 120,000 acres.

A note on his wall, titled Sandman's Law, states his personnel management philosophy: "Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself." That statement means he's not afraid to delegate, but he also takes seriously the idea of clear communication and working well with others, he says.

Communicating clearly, as well as being comfortable with making decisions in stressful situations, is a tool he learned on the fire lines and is one he has carried over into the office, he says. But he continues to hone those skills on the fire lines when he works as an incident commander.

Sandman has managed numerous teams of fire fighters throughout his career, including the people he supervised when he was a regional, or Type 2, incident commander from 2002-03. In that position, he led his team during the initial attack on the Wedge Fire two summers ago. His team also helped on the Robert Fire that same season.

As a national level commander, Sandman will travel the country. During hurricane season, Sandman spent 12 days in Florida helping manage supply distribution.

During his training for that job, he was away from home for 100 days in the 2000-01 season.

Being gone is manageable for about the first month, but 30 days seems to be the cutoff point where his absence takes its toll, he said. He says an excellent, capable staff keeps the office running while he's away. And his wife, who has three grown children of her own, picks up the slack at home.

"I give her all the credit in the world," he said, "for having to run the store, so to speak, by herself while I'm somewhere else."

The couple met in Libby where they are both members of a choir group. Sandman, a tenor, also directs the choir at St. Peter Lutheran Church in Whitefish. Not short on musical talent, Sandman says he passed up a full scholarship to a Chicago music school for his bassoon and drum playing in high school.

But what he's most proud of in his forestry and fire fighting career, Sandman says, is having implemented real fire fighting into the agency's curriculum. The agency used to teach fire fighters how to control fires, but didn't have them actually fight live fire.

That approach just didn't make sense to Sandman and colleagues, so they videotaped correct fire fighting techniques, showed them to the students and then had the pupils practice on live fire. That curriculum addition earned Sandman an award for trainer of the year in 1994.

These days, though, Sandman doesn't spend much time outdoors unless he's responding to an incident. His managerial work on the forest keeps him inside more often than not.

"I'm lucky to get out in the woods 12 days a year," he said.

Sitting in the office on a beautiful day can be tough, but Sandman says the challenges that come with managing a forest and with handling situations such as wildfires and hurricanes keep him motivated to work, even if it is at a desk.

Reporter Camden Easterling can be reached at 758-4429 or by e-mail at ceasterling@dailyinterlake.com