County’s first fire chief was ‘visionary’
Santa Fe County’s first fire chief, credited with unifying several volunteer-driven fire districts and making the regional emergency dispatch center a reality, died recently of cancer.
Stan Holden, who served as the county’s fire chief from 1997 to 2011, died in Tyler, Texas, where he had worked as chief of emergency medical services for more than nine years.
The Santa Fe County Fire Department announced Holden’s death over the weekend.
“Chief Holden, you will be missed, but never forgotten,” the department said in a post on its Facebook page.
Several firefighters who had worked with Holden said that without him, the county might have waited years to establish a department.
“Building the ship called the Santa Fe County Fire Department is his legacy,” said Dennis Patty, who manages the agency’s fleet of vehicles.
Among the many firsts in his 14-year tenure, Holden, who previously worked in other emergency services leadership roles in
Albuquerque and San Juan County, brought together small, mostly volunteer fire districts scattered around the county to create the department. He strove to combine them all into one central unit.
Over time, volunteers fighting fires as a community service worked alongside career firefighters to create the professional department of today.
It was not an easy task, those involved with the process recalled.
“At the time, that was a very huge and successful undertaking,” said Martin Vigil, assistant fire chief for the county. “There was a lot of ownership of these volunteer districts, a lot of pride, and to have somebody come in and say, ‘OK, we’re gonna bring everybody in under one organizational umbrella,’ is challenging. Stan is still seen as the guy who knew how to do that operation successfully.”
Former firefighter John Wheeler said Holden’s vision was to ensure every citizen in the county had access to up-to-date firefighting and emergency ambulance services. Holden’s calm but determined personality won a lot of people over along the way, he added.
“Stan was the consummate listener,” Wheeler said. “He had been a paramedic and firefighter in the field for a very long time and had learned over that time that it’s not just your capacity that counts but your capacity to bring others along with you.
“There were lots of strong personalities involved, some conflicts along the way,” he added. “But Stan had a vision and with the connectivity he developed with the volunteer districts, he was able to achieve a lot of stuff.”
With the backing of county officials, Holden then began bolstering the professional force and finding new funding sources to build up the department’s fleet of vehicles.
Colleagues said he drove the company Blazer he was given for most of his 14-year tenure, putting up with constant jokes from co-workers about the need to get behind the wheel of something new.
“He was a very humble man,” Vigil said. “That’s a characteristic that’s not all that common. He wanted to be viewed as not having the newest equipment. He wanted the troops to have the best equipment. He drove that old Blazer. He was in it the whole time.”
Later, Holden played a critical role in the creation of the Santa Fe Regional Emergency Communication Center, a move that consolidated fire, ambulance and police dispatchers into one central location. In 2011, the Santa Fe County Commission called Holden a “visionary” for his role in that action when commissioners signed a proclamation honoring him for his contribution.
The proclamation noted that in 2001, the dispatch center was recognized by the National Association of Counties for outstanding service to New Mexico citizens.
In a 2011 interview with The New Mexican, Holden said he first got involved in firefighting as a teenager living in the northwestern New Mexico community of Kirtland. Because men in the area commuted to work at power plants, high school students were trained and expected to staff the volunteer fire department during the day.
Vigil, who first met Holden
during that time, said the two fought some of the biggest industrial fires in “the Wild West.” He said that as an on-the-ground firefighter, Holden was “great, very good at what he did. There were a few of us then who were all very young and part of that system, and we learned as we fought fires and provided paramedic care. We were the 911 responders.”
Wheeler said Holden maintained that sense of learning as he ran the Santa Fe County Fire Department.
“He was an amazing mentor, but at the same time he was a really wonderful student who was never beyond learning something new,” Wheeler said.
Holden, who later married and had three children, was a devoted family man, he said. “I think all of his energy outside of work was about bringing up his kids and their activities — sports, music, what have you.”
Patty said Holden had a dry sense of humor. “He would say something and you had to read between the lines, and he had this wonderfully warming little grin and you would realize he was pulling something on you,” Patty said.
Efforts to reach members of Holden’s family for comment were unsuccessful. His colleagues said his last wishes were to have a private, quiet memorial service.