My First Forest Service Boss — A Gem of a Man

Back in 2008, as some of you may remember, we had a historic lightning bust in Northern California.  In June.

I was acting Chief 1 on the Klamath NF (regular position, Chief 2), and we were getting our asses handed to us.  We, as well as most national forests in Northern CA, had numerous fires, lumped into complexes.  The lightning storm started on June 20^th and lasted into the next day.  Our firefighters did an amazing job catching numerous fires across this very difficult landscape, but they just couldn’t get to all of them.  No one could’ve.  Before we knew it, we, along with our neighbors on the Shasta-Trinity NF and Six Rivers NF, were ordering Incident Management Teams (IMTs) and Area Command to assist us with the fires that escaped initial attack (IA).  Even though IMTs and Area Command come in to help, those of us working on the forest still had a ton of work to do – ongoing IA, in-briefing IMTs, working with our cooperators, holding public meetings, strategizing two and three weeks/months ahead, attending planning meetings, reviewing plans.

Even for those of us not on the fireline, we were working 14-16 hour days.  The person who had detailed behind me actually was done with his detail the day after the lightning bust.  Doug’s home unit allowed him to stay on a few more days, but with everything going on regarding the fires none of us thought to get another detailer.  We just didn’t have the bandwidth.  Fortunately, my team was made up of several high-performing bad-asses and we just pulled together.  Regardless, I was running myself ragged.  Many of the Incident Command Posts were a two- or three-hour drive from my office.   And if any of you have driven the roads on the Klamath, you know there is little margin for error.  One brief loss of situational awareness could put you right into one of the many rivers.

I was on the phone with the Regional Fire Director just about every day.  After about a month, on one of those calls, he asked me, “Riva, do you have any friends?”  I laughed and said, “It depends on the day, Ed.”  He laughed, too, and said, “What I mean is, do you have someone you can call to come out and be your buddy?  To help you with driving while you’re covering all those miles so you can return phone calls, to remind you to eat, to help you track all the meetings.  Because my best friend from Arizona is here helping me do just that.  Find yourself a friend and just place an order to get them here to help you.  Seriously, please do it.”

I knew he was right, and I so appreciated the suggestion.  But who could I get?  Hell, nearly everyone was out fighting fire.  I had to think of someone who would be free and willing to come help me.  And then I thought of Andy.  My first ever District Ranger who was now a GS-15 Regional Director in Atlanta.  I sent him an email but didn’t get an immediate response.  I called his cell phone and left a message asking if he could come out and help, my voice shaking with emotion and likely sounding a bit desperate.  Finally on Thursday, July 24^th, he called me back.  “Hey, I’m in West Virginia at a meeting.  No internet and shitty cell coverage.  I’m literally standing on a rock which seems to be the only place with cell reception.  I’m headed home tonight and can fly out tomorrow.”  He didn’t even ask any questions.  No “What exactly do you need help with?” or “Isn’t there anyone else you can call?”  Nope.  He was ready to drive home to Georgia and get on a plane to CA the next day.  I was nearly teary-eyed with relief.  “No, Andy, go home and spend the weekend with Laura.  But if you can fly out on Monday that would be perfect.”  “Okay.  Send me a resource order and I’ll see you Monday.  It will be good to see the old stomping grounds.”  Andy had started his career on the Six Rivers, and I knew that would also help me since he knew this country and its long list of challenges.

Two days later, Saturday July 26^th, we had a burn-over fatality on one of our Type 3 fires.   I wrote about that previously in one of my other essays.  An enormous shit-storm engulfs all who are involved in one of those, and it was the darkest time of my career.  But a bright spot named Andy Colaninno showed up just in time that following Monday.  When he walked into the office I nearly wept with relief.  I’m pretty sure I did cry when I hugged him hello.  Nearly nineteen years after I first walked into his office as a young, nervous trainee forester.

In the summer of 1989, I was working as a contractor doing seedling surveys and silviculture exams on the Allegheny National Forest in NW Pennsylvania.

During the fall, while working at Rite Aid, my COR called me and told me they had a new hiring authority and I should apply for a trainee forester position.  Back then it was nearly impossible to get hired on permanently with the US Forest Service.  Many people worked as temporaries/seasonals for years without ever securing a permanent position.  This was a BIG DEAL.  I neatly hand-printed my SF 171 and turned it in.  A few weeks later I got a call from the HR specialist, Maureen.  She offered me the job!  Andy was the District Ranger, and he had selected me.  I am fully aware that I was a rare cat, at that time, in getting a permanent position with the FS after never having worked as a temp.

I tossed and turned the night before my first day.  I was exhausted, nervous, and excited when I showed up.  As a trainee forester, Andy decided he would be my supervisor for the first year.  Which was rare. I walked into his office, and he got up from his desk to shake my hand.  He stood maybe my height (5’ 3” ish), and had a full head of black hair and a black beard streaked with wisps of gray.  He spoke quietly and offered to take me around to meet everyone.  I would soon learn that although Andy was a man of few words, he had very deep thoughts and an ever-busy mind.  After introductions, he said, “Well, let’s go take a ride around the district.  You can drive.  Consider it your driving test (that forest didn’t issue official driver’s licenses like many did/do).”  He put on his mountaineering sunglasses and handed me the keys.  I drove him all around the district that day.  He gave me the history and also the current challenges.  He talked about his vision and goals for the land and the workforce.  It was easy with Andy.  Never awkward even during silences.  However, I was so tired from lack of sleep I was terrified I would close my eyes too long and run us off the road.  I envisioned killing us both in a fiery crash.  On my first day. Fortunately, we both survived.

I was too ignorant of FS culture or norms to know I was supposed to be intimidated by the District Ranger.  But he was my supervisor. And I think a lot of that was just how Andy was.  Although an introvert, which did rub some people the wrong way, to me he was always approachable.  A lot of people wanted a Ranger who would walk around the office first thing in the morning and ask everyone how their weekend/night was.  Who would engage in small talk.  But Andy was not that Ranger.  He hated mornings, for one thing.  He would come in at 7 or 7:30 and sit quietly and work in his dark office for a couple of hours.  We all knew not to bother him unless we really had to.  He wasn’t grouchy or irritated if we had to bug him, but we just tried to give him his morning space.  His door was literally always open.  The only time it was closed is if one of the employees was in his office and asked him to shut his door.  Once I started to walk in and he said “Stop. Don’t come in here.”  I stopped in the doorway.  “I have an upset stomach.  It’s better for both of us if you don’t come in.”  “Oh, okay,” I said and asked my question from the door.  I look back now and laugh at that.  It’s not many bosses who warn you about their flatulence.  Some people just never got past his demeanor and completely missed how much he cared about his employees.  I’ll take the genuine introvert any day over the phony extrovert.

Andy was really funny, too.  Not in a belly-laugh kind of way.  You had to pay attention.  His humor was dry and wry.  And he would get a little smile on his face when he thought something was funny.  If you got him to actually laugh?  Man, that was gold.

Andy gave me so many great lessons in my formative years.  I don’t recall what precipitated the discussion, but I uttered those famous words that most of us do when feeling wronged. “It’s not fair,” I said.  “Riva,” he gently said. “You have to learn that life isn’t fair.  And life in the Forest Service really isn’t fair.  And the sooner you come to terms with that the easier it will be.”  He was right.  When I was taking basic fire school, I was struggling with the difference between burning out and conducting a back-fire.  So, I asked Andy.  He had a lot of fire experience.  Although he was a frighteningly intelligent person, he was able to break it down and explain to me the difference.  He never made me feel stupid and never once acted like a question was dumb or that he didn’t have time.  He always had time for me.

During the first few years of my job, the Forest was so broke that no one could order uniforms, even us new employees.  Back then, especially in R9, everyone wore their uniform.  Every day.  I always felt like I stuck out without one and didn’t look professional.  Our wildlife biologist had been working with PA Game Commission to reintroduce otters, my favorite animal.  We were doing a big, public release of otters on Tionesta Creek.  There would be media as well as many conservation groups and cooperators.  I really wanted to go but I didn’t have a uniform.  Andy said, “Come over to the house.  We’re about the same height. You can have one of my shirts and a pair of pants.  Laura can take them in for you.”  They lived in Forest Service quarters, and so I went over after work.  Laura, a bubbly, sweet, funny, intelligent, talkative woman, had me try them on and then took in the waist of the too-large but just-the-right-length pants.  I got to go to the otter release and now had a uniform I could wear for special occasions.

Back then we had a program called “Older Americans” (which was later changed to something else and is now no longer) – we employed senior citizens from lower income brackets part-time.  Most of these gems worked in recreation and engineering.  Emptying trash at the campgrounds, cleaning toilets, helping the road crew.  One such gentleman was named Joe, and he was Native American (I can’t recall what tribe).  He asked us to call him Indian Joe.  Well, Joe was getting up there in years, and his eyesight was starting to go.  After two pretty serious driving mishaps (blowing through a school zone and not securing a boat trailer properly), Andy had to revoke Joe’s driving privileges.  Joe was quite upset.  It took away a lot of the autonomy he had, and he never really forgave Andy.  When Andy got another Ranger job in Florida, we had a nice going away party for him.  Joe made a lovely beaded necklace for Andy.  As he presented it to Andy, he spoke only in his native tongue.  We had no idea what he said.  As he placed it around his neck, Andy looked visibly uncomfortable.  I assumed it was because he just didn’t like the attention.   Later, as I was helping Andy load up his gifts, he took off the necklace and matter-of-factly said “I’m pretty sure Joe put some kind of curse on this.  He’s never forgiven me for taking away his driving privileges.”  He smiled, and I laughed and laughed.

Not only did Andy believe in diversity but he embodied it.  He actively recruited, and supported women and those of different races and ethnicities.

When the forest hired its first black dual career couple in about 1992, they struggled to find a place to rent in lily-white rural NW PA.  Andy nearly stepped in to rent a place under his name.   He had no tolerance for racism and bigotry.  And it wasn’t only people of different races or ethnicities whom he welcomed, but the flat-out misfits, too.  We had some real characters on the district.

Andy was a proud dad to two girls, now women.  He always told me he had more women friends than men.  That he liked being around women, especially smart women.  He knew what women faced in the male-dominated, para-militaristic US Forest Service, and he was an ally and supporter of women his entire career.

Andy loved science fiction (he wrote a novel about Mars!).  Our district was struggling in the eyes of the Supervisor’s Office.   We were the misfit district led by a misfit ranger.  He wasn’t Type A.  He wasn’t interested in team sports (he was into road cycling and mountain biking, hiking, skiing).  He wasn’t tall, his voice didn’t boom.  He didn’t have a need to make small talk.  He was so smart and his vision was so honed that people just didn’t know how to take him.  At meetings it always looked like he wasn’t paying attention – he’d fidget and look out the window and say little.  Until it was time to say something important.  And then he would, and it became clear he was not only listening intently but thinking of solutions.  He knew that his reputation was impacting the district.  One day he brought in a video tape and had us watch an original Star Trek episode.  It was called “The Corbamite Maneuver.”  A diminutive alien, Commander Blalock, tricks the crew of the Enterprise.  He initially accuses them of being hostile towards his crew/ship, but it is a ploy to find out if they are indeed hostile or friendly.  He’s a lonely one-man crew in a small ship, therefore at a significant disadvantage in space.  He’s also desperate for company and conversation.  When he determines they are friendly he has them board his ship.  He serves them a drink called Tranya as a sign of peace.  Andy’s idea was that we use the Corbamite Maneuver to our advantage.  When someone or small group do something good (no gesture too small) for our district or one of our employees we would honor them with a Tranya Ceremony.  Andy had buttons printed up that said “Corbamite.”  Instead of boarding an alien spaceship, our ceremonial party, usually 2 or three district employees, would drive to the office of the honoree, serve them juice in a fancy crystal decanter someone donated.  They would present the honoree with their own button and toast to their effort with “Trayna.” It was a pretty big hit, and it became a goal for others to be honored.  Of course, it also perpetuated the notion that we were a bunch of weirdos led by a bigger weirdo.  We loved it.  Well, most of us did.

After Andy left the Allegheny to be District Ranger on the Apalachicola Ranger District in Florida, I got to see him when my hotshot crew went down to do some prescribed burning.  A year later he and his Deputy Ranger, Ray, recruited me to come down to the district permanently.  I jumped at the chance.  To work for him again (!), and to also go from an asbestos forest to one that burned a couple hundred thousand acres a year, was just too good to pass up.  Once again, Andy saw the potential in me and provided me another opportunity that would change my life for the better.

Though Andy grew up in South Florida, the panhandle is like a completely different state.  It’s rural, and it’s also the Bible Belt.  But Andy loved it.  He felt more accepted even though he was still a bit of an enigma.  He did take some shit for not living in Liberty County where the Ranger Station was. Like a lot of people who worked there, he lived across the river in Blountstown.  Though it was just a 10 minute drive, it was in the Central Time Zone and had a lot more amenities.  Liberty County was, and still is, the least populated county in Florida.  Bristol, the Liberty County Seat and home of the Apalachicola Ranger Station, had one stop light and, at that time, no grocery store (it now hosts a Piggly Wiggly).  And it still bothered some people that he didn’t walk around the office every Monday asking folks how their weekends were.  Fortunately, his Deputy Ray Haupt, fulfilled that duty.  Ray was Andy’s opposite in many ways.  Tall and outgoing.  Quick to laugh. But also smart and good at seeing the Big Picture. They played beautifully off each other’s strengths and weaknesses.  They were a great team.

The Apalachicola Ranger District is a really interesting place.  A small part of the culture and tradition there is worm grunting.  When Andy decided to raise the cost of permits to grunt for worms, there was a bit of a rebellion.  A reporter and photographer showed up from The Atlantic to do a story on it, and Andy was featured in the article.  It’s a great article, “Can of Worms,” and you can read it here:  Part 1    Part 2    Part 3.     I think it really captures Andy well.  He had an idea, misunderstood the outcome/effects, admitted he was wrong, and then worked with the grunting community on a solution that benefitted them and the US Forest Service.  My favorite part was the reporter’s description of Andy.  “Colaninno was a scaled-down version of a big, bearish, bearded type that is common in the Forest Service. He stood about five feet seven, more a yearling black bear than an Alaskan brown bear. His close-cropped beard was somewhat more grizzled, perhaps, than one would expect in a man of forty-three.”  The reporter was generous with Andy’s height.   And I think Andy liked the comparison to a bear.  To me, though, he was always more like Gentle Ben than anything.

There was a woman who lived near the Ranger Station, and she suffered from pretty serious mental illness.  She would show up unannounced and ask to see Andy.  Most people would’ve had the front office folks tell her he was busy or unavailable.   But Andy would tell them to send her back, and she would sit in his office and talk  and he would just listen.  She would vacillate between talking coherently and intelligently about a topic and then veer way off into paranoid conspiracy theories.   As long as he had the time, he would just let her talk.  Never once was he condescending, impatient, or disrespectful.  I asked him once why he would let her come in and talk and he said, “She’s a very smart person with some unfortunate mental illness issues.  I don’t mind listening and giving her someone to talk to.  Maybe it helps her a little bit.”

I loved working on the Apalach and working for both Andy and Ray.  I made life-long friends there, met my future husband there, and learned so much about fire.  We did a ton of prescribed burning (100,000 acres/year just on that district – that’s not a typo), and both of them would come out burning with us often.  Andy usually just wanted to drag a drip torch.  He had no interest in being the burn boss or firing boss.  He was just happy to get out of the office and into the woods.  And no one rolled their eyes when “the ranger and deputy” came out burning with us.  We were glad.  They understood what it took to pull off that program.  They came out on wildfires, too.  Not just as curious-non-producers, but they helped with logistics or burning out or contacting cooperators or running interference with the SO.

When I was working on my Burn Boss 2 qualification, we were conducting a 2,000 acre prescribed burn on a Saturday.  A couple of the guys burning off with ATVs got turned around and accidentally lit outside the unit on the other side of a swamp.

As Mike, the DFMO/RXB2, and I drove around the unit a hunter flagged us down and told us we had fire across the swamp.  We drove over to the helispot and jumped in the ship to take a recon flight.  Sure enough, we had a lot of fire outside the burn unit.  Mike and I discussed whether or not we should try to cut the fire off by putting in a dozer line or just go ahead and burn that compartment off (it was through NEPA and had a burn plan completed and approved).  We decided to just burn the whole compartment off.  “Hey Trainee, you better call Andy and let him know what’s up,” Mike told me.  We were fixing to put up a lot more smoke.  I called Andy, and he immediately answered, “What’s up?”  “You getting smoke over your way?” I asked.  “Yes.”  “Well, you’re going to get more.  We accidentally put fire outside the compartment, and Mike and I decided to just go ahead and burn the next one instead of putting in a new dozer line.”  “Sounds good.  Need anything from me?” “Nope,” I said.  “Okay, thanks for calling.  See you Monday.”  And that was it.

As good Southerners, we looked for any excuse to have a potluck or fish fry or oyster roast at work.  All holidays meant food.  Several times a year we’d have an after-work party.  Someone would drive down to the coast and buy bags of fresh oysters and shrimp.  We’d assemble at a local park, the fish fryers and grills lined up, flames turned up high.  Andy and his wife always came.  Ray and his wife came.  Mike would break out the guitar and most of us would sing along.  It was the last place in my career where we did things like that.  We all lived local and we all valued camaraderie and each other.

When I started dating my now ex-husband, he was in my chain of command, supervised by someone I supervised, and so we knew we had to go to Andy.  We started dating right before Matt got laid off for the summer (field season in Florida is winter, not summer), and he went to Montana as part of the Helena Hotshots.  He came back the following winter for his temp job in Florida, and so we knew we needed to let Andy know.  We had tried to keep our relationship quiet, which was pretty easy with Matt being in Montana all summer.  We walked into Andy’s office, sat down, and announced we were dating.  “Yeah, I know,” he said.  What?  “How’d you know?” we asked?  “I could tell.  I’ll take care of it.”  He assigned Matt a different supervisor outside my chain of command, and it worked for everyone.

Ray left first, getting his dream job as District Ranger on the Klamath NF.  Eventually Andy left for a Deputy Forest Supervisor position on the Chattahoochee-Oconee NF in Georgia.  Matt and I weren’t far behind and struck out for Utah.  We stayed in touch, sharing emails occasionally, sometimes phone calls.  We were on each other’s Christmas card lists.  I would call Andy for advice, and he always did right by me.

And that’s how I came to ask Andy to come help me that unforgettable summer in 2008.

A lot of things had already been set in motion by the time he got there.  Chief Packer’s best friend and two men from his fire department had come down to handle the autopsy and some of the coordination necessary.  We had a small team working on the procession from the funeral home to the airport to transport Dan’s body back to his fire department in Washington.  The investigation team members began showing up and we were lining up interviews.  The OSHA investigator wouldn’t be far behind.  All the while we had numerous fires still burning.

Andy sat in with me on nearly every meeting I had (and there were a lot).  He would quietly stand or sit in the back.  Often people wouldn’t even notice him.  But when someone finally did and asked him who he was he’d just say, “I’m Riva’s driver.”  They’d look at him quizzically and try to read his name tag.  This was a GS-15 Regional Director who could have easily just said that.  But his role there was to support me, and that’s what he did, in any way I needed.

We covered a lot of miles in my G-ride, Andy doing most of the driving.  We had to go over to the coast one day to in-brief a new IMT with the Six Rivers NF, and Andy drove the Forest Supervisor and me.  On the way we made an overnight stop at the incident command post for another of our complexes.  Patty was to speak about the fatality at the operational briefing the next morning.  I saw a lot of old friends at fire camp that night and next morning.  So many people came up to me and gave me a hug and/or a kind word.  Some of these friends I hadn’t seen in years.  I’ve always loved that most about being in wildland fire.

The next morning we continued West towards Eureka.  Patty ended up getting sick, and so after we briefed the Alaska Type 1 IMT, we put her on one of our fixed wing aircraft to get her back home (it was that or a twisty four-hour drive back to Yreka).   As Andy and I made our way to Happy Camp so I could speak for Patty at another IMT’s operational briefing, he said to me, “You know, you have a lot of fire season left.  It’s only late June.  Have you thought about if another fatality or bad accident happen?  Because you need to. This is a helluva fire season in rough country.”  Damn.  I had not thought about it, but he was right.  I needed to.  We gamed out some scenarios, talked about what had gone well so far, what had not.  What we should do differently if we had another shitty day.   It was great to have his perspective and experience.  When a helicopter went down on the Iron 44 Fire on the Shasta-Trinity NF, for a few brief moments I thought a Klamath NF crew was on board.  It turned out that it was part of a contract crew out of Oregon.  We didn’t have to put our learning into motion again that summer, but our friends next door did.  Tragedy seemed to find its way to Northern California.

As Andy drove along the Klamath River on Highway 96 he looked over at me and said something that I’ve tried to live by ever since.  “I watched at fire camp and with the IMT today.  You had a lot of friends come up to you and give you big hugs.  And you always hugged back.  And every person who did that took a little bit of your pain away with those hugs.  They were happy to do that for you.  They wanted to do that for you.  But not everyone gives their pain away.  Some people stay closed off and unapproachable and they hold tightly to their pain. And you didn’t.  So, keep doing that.  Let your friends take some of your pain away.”  Ever since that terrible summer I’ve tried to do that for others, and I really hope I have.

Andy’s two weeks flew by in a haze.  Some memories are burned into my brain from that summer, and some I can’t recall even now.  I remember him picking up Mr Big (the Deputy Regional Forester) and me from the little county airport after we returned on the old DC-3 from escorting Dan’s body back to WA.  I remember him sitting quietly in Patty’s office as we talked to the Investigation Team.  The dust had settled a bit by the time Andy went home to Georgia.  He checked in on me a lot that summer.  I thanked him repeatedly for his help, but he always seemed a bit uncomfortable about it.  Meaning, he didn’t see it as a big deal.  Because those things are what we do for our people.  For those in our wolf pack.

In 2009 I moved back to R8 and got to see him and talk to him quite a bit which was great.  He and Laura had gotten into yoga and traveled around attending retreats.  They were also enjoying spending time with their daughters and grandkids.  After I moved to Oregon, he retired from the Forest Service.  We lost touch.  When I decided to move back to Asheville, I was excited to be able to see Andy again.  He and Laura didn’t live too far from me.   I’ll reach out soon, I told myself.  I had only moved back in May of 2022.  There was time.  I was busy with fire assignments and travel.  Maybe in the winter after things slowed down.

And then this past October 31 I was on Facebook and saw a post on Laura’s page that Andy had died.  No.  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  It couldn’t be.

I went to Laura’s page and scrolled down, desperate for information.  Andy had died of pancreatic cancer.  It looked like it happened pretty fast.  I was in shock, crying.  I reached out to several mutual friends and no one else was aware.  None in our old work circle knew he had been sick.  I then felt overcome with grief and regret.  That I’d lost touch.  That I hadn’t reached out upon moving back to NC.  That I thought I had time. That I didn’t get to tell Andy how very much he meant to me.  I reached out to Maureen, the HR specialist who had hired me after Andy selected me.  I told her how bad I felt.  “Don’t carry that around, Riva.  Andy was so proud of you, and he always knew how much he meant to you.”

Knowing Andy, I’ve no doubt he met his diagnosis matter-of-factly with grace, bravery, and humor.  But I’m sure he also mourned for the life still left to live with his wife, daughters, and grandkids.  The life we all think we have ahead of us.

I take comfort being sure Andy knew how much he meant to me and how much I appreciated him, because I did tell him that over the years.  So, reach out to those special people in your life.  The ones who believed in you, who saw your potential and gave you opportunities to prove it to others.  Even if you haven’t seen or talked to those people in a long time.  You’ll make their day, I can assure you.  Do it now. Before it’s too late.

 

Friends by Elton John and Bernie Taupin