Thomas Goldenbee Oral History Transcript
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GOLDENBEE, Tom 08-24-04 03__Corrected U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service Region Five History Project Interview with: [Thomas Edwin] “Tom” Goldenbee Interviewed by: Larry Hornberger Location: Goleta, California Date: August 24, 2004 Transcribed by: Mim Eisenberg/WordCraft; October 2004 Corrected by: Linda Nunes [Begin CD 2.] [CD 1 was a short equipment test.] LARRY HORNBERGER: Okay, it’s August 24th, and this is Larry Hornberger interviewing Tom Goldenbee, T-o-m G-o-l-d-e-n-b-e-e. I guess I should say your full name, Tom. It’s Thomas— TOM GOLDENBEE: —Edwin Goldenbee. HORNBERGER: So T-h-o-m-a-s E-[d]-w-i-n G-o-l-d-e-n-b-e-e. My name is Larry Hornberger, L-a-r-r-y H-o-r-n-b-e-r-g-e-r, and we’re at my home at 404 Santa Barbara Shores Drive in Goleta. The time now is about 1:30 p.m., and with that, Tom, we’ll start off asking you to give us a brief biography of your own life: where you were born, where you went to high school or school. So with that, Tom, go ahead. GOLDENBEE: I was born in Los Angeles on May 1st, 1937. I lived in the Culver City area until approximately 1948, and then my father passed away in 1945, and my mother moved, along with myself and my brother, to Crestline, California, on the San Bernardino National Forest. I spent my days growing up in the woods in the Crestline area, and I finished grammar school in the Crestline area, went to high school in the San Bernardino area, and graduated from high Tom Goldenbee Interview, August 24, 2004, page 2 school in San Bernardino. Continued living in the Crestline area, doing odd jobs while I was in high school and for the first year or two after high school. I had met several people that had worked for the Forest Service that lived in the Crestline area and got to know them. They were really fine people. They kind of convinced me that I ought to look into the Forest Service. Being a volunteer fireman in Crestline, I was quite interested in participating in the fire program and had, during high school and after high school, worked on several large fires. The Forest Service would pick us up part time on large fires and let us work, and we could make a few extra bucks. HORNBERGER: So did you ever work summers, then? GOLDENBEE: Not full time. I didn’t start until roughly—about two years after high school. I was about nineteen, not quite nineteen, I guess. September of ’57 I think I hired on with the U.S. Forest Service as a tank truck operator and started driving an engine. HORNBERGER: That was on the Arrowhead District, then. GOLDENBEE: That was on the Arrowhead District of the San Bernardino National Forest. HORNBERGER: Which is at Crestline, isn’t it? GOLDENBEE: Well, the district office was up at Lake Arrowhead. We had stations scattered around on the Arrowhead District: Arrowhead and Running Springs and North Shore and several other places. And so I went to work for the Forest Service, and I worked for about six months, and I was lucky and got a permanent position in the Forest Service, and so I continued working on the Arrowhead District from roughly ’57 until 1964. HORNBERGER: So a TTO, as a tank truck operator. GOLDENBEE: Well, I did several jobs in that period. I started out as a tank truck operator, and I worked in a patrolman’s job, and I worked as an engine foreman, I worked as a helicopter Tom Goldenbee Interview, August 24, 2004, page 3 foreman, and I did a lot of different project work in the wintertime, recreation and slash and disposal and timber pruning and just all kinds of different jobs. And insect control work. Did a lot of that. And then in 1961 I got married [dog barks]—in ’63, excuse me. [In] 1963 I got married to Roberta, my wife, and we had two children, a boy and a girl, and we lived at Deer Lick ranger station for a while and the Arrowhead Ranger Station for a while, and then in 1964 I transferred to the Cajon Ranger District, to the Del Rosa Hot Shots, as a foreman on the Del Rosa Hot Shots. HORNBERGER: Directly to foreman, huh? GOLDENBEE: Yes. And I worked there on the Cajon District from 1966 to 1971 as foreman on the Del Rosa Hot Shots. Then my knees started giving me problems, so I took a job back on the Arrowhead District, transferred back to the Arrowhead District into a recreation job, and I worked as assistant recreation officer on the Arrowhead District from roughly 1971 till the end of 1972. During that period of time, I got involved in the construction of Lake Silverwood and building several new campgrounds in the area. I also stayed very active on the fire end of it, too, during that period, mainly in the air program, working out of Ryan Air Attack Base. Aerial recon and helped with lightning patrol and also did the first air attack [unintelligible], developed the first air attack [unintelligible] job. Then at the end of 1972 I transferred back to the Cajon District as assistant fire control officer on the Cajon Ranger District and was in charge of the engine crews and all the suppression end of the district, and worked there till, oh, about 1977, and was promoted and transferred to the Santa Barbara Ranger District on the Los Padres National Forest, where I became the fire management officer. I also was involved and participated in—during my time, I Tom Goldenbee Interview, August 24, 2004, page 4 participated in—helped developing the ICS system, and writing the job descriptions for the ICS system. HORNBERGER: ICS meaning incident command system. GOLDENBEE: Incident command system. And then I was chosen to be the first operations section chief of the first ICS regional fire team and was involved with that for about, oh, three years and helped train all the other regional fire teams on the ICS, incident command system. Then I continued in that job working as operations chief on large fires for the next roughly twelve years until, in 1988, when I retired. After I retired, I took probably a year—two years and worked part time at different jobs. I worked at a golf course, and I worked driving the fire crew bus for a while, and I worked in the dispatch office on the LP [Los Padres] part time. And then in 1992 a retardant company asked me if I was interested. They had just been awarded a five-year contract for a combined air tanker base, Forest Service and CDF [California Division of Forestry] tanker base in Ramona, California, to contract a retardant out of there and if I would be interested in managing the base, the retardant base. So I took that project on, and I went down and— HORNBERGER: Who was that company? GOLDENBEE: Hunot Retardant Company. I took that project on. I went down to Ramona, and we tore all the old system out. It was one of the older bases around, and made it quite a [noise; unintelligible]. So I got involved in tearing the old systems out and putting new systems in and taking care of it and getting it up and running. I worked there until, oh, 1997, and they renewed the contract for another five years, but I wanted to come back to Goleta, home. I was gone from home too much. So I came back to Goleta and took over managing the retardant base at Goleta, Tom Goldenbee Interview, August 24, 2004, page 5 and rebuilt the system there and the offices and worked for about another two years until about 2000, and then I retired completely. HORNBERGER: About the time your wife, Roberta, retired, right? GOLDENBEE: Right, yes. She retired in roughly 2000 from the county probation department. And so we have been retired and involved in a home—we had a new home built in Carpinteria, and we are involved in that, and I haven’t been doing anything for the last year or two. HORNBERGER: Well, Tom, you’ve seen a lot of change, I’m sure, in the fire side of the organization in your career, because that’s really where you spent all your time. But I know firefighting back in your Del Rosa time—it was really [an] aggressive organization, a lot of pride and esprit de corps, top-notch reputation. We had a consent decree in Region Five, a lot of effort to put women into the organization and find their place also. Not to say they aren’t talented, but it’s been a lot of change. What are your thoughts and feelings on some of this? How do you feel about it? GOLDENBEE: Going back a number of years, I’d say back to the hot shots when I was on the hot shots and even when I was on the engines, on the San Bernardino it had seemed like we fought fire a lot more aggressively than they do today. We were trained by people that had been around for years. I worked for a lot of people that had been around for years, knew the areas, were familiar with the areas, knew what a fire was going to do when it started, could pretty well predict things and— HORNBERGER: Who learned fire behavior the hard way.