CARIBOU, Maine — Steve Sperry was spending so much time at the fire department as a teenager, so the story goes, that they hired him.
“They told him he was around so much he might as well be a part of the department,” passed along Caribou Fire Chief Scott Susi.
Sperry’s 46-year tenure at the fire department meant an opportunity for the captain to touch the lives of community members and fellow firefighters in his own modest way.
“Steve won’t brag about himself — he’s very easygoing,” said Chief Susi.
Sperry is the only captain Susi has had at the Caribou department, and he remembers how Sperry’s focused attitude helped the now-chief at his very first fire.
“One of my first fires I went to on Steve’s crew. I was very excited,” Susi recalled.
He pulled up to the fire with the truck, and Steve’s words displayed his easygoing nature.
“He said “Great job getting the truck here, but what are we going to do with the power cord?’” Susi recalled with a smile. In his excitement, Susi had forgotten to unplug the truck before driving it out of the garage, and it was trailing the cord all the way to the scene.
Sperry’s leadership meant taking everything in stride to get the job done — something that the captain imparted to scores of firefighters he’s trained over the decades.
“Steve is one of those captains, a lot of the new firefighters would always end up on his crew — someone would move on or someone would move up, and it always seemed to come from Steve’s crew,” Susi noted.
A lot of the current firefighters at CFD were trained by Sperry — and that subject came up at the tenured captain’s retirement party last month.
Respecting how modest Sperry is, the crew tried to keep the party small. Between firefighters and Sperry’s family, the guest list was easily over 100 anyway.
While the crew is happy for Sperry and wishes him well in retirement, he’s missed at the firehouse. Working 24-hour shifts, the firefighters spend a lot of time together and view each other as family. They’re happy for Sperry — but they kind of miss him too.
“It’s weird,” Susi said with a big smile. “I call him sometimes.”
Within Sperry is an encyclopedic knowledge of all things Caribou Fire and Ambulance Department — even before he was a firefighter himself, Sperry was learning about the department as his father was the chief.
“He’s a wealth of information and if he doesn’t know something, he can find it out for me,” the chief said.
Though Sperry is spending more time with his family, Susi said he does stop in for coffee — along with other retired family members.
“It’s your family,” the chief emphasized.
