If Lee Soptich had been a fire chief when I was a child, and he had made as big an impression on me then as he and his Eastside Fire & Rescue firefighters do today, I would’ve said I wanted to be a firefighter when I grow up.
He loves the people who work for him, he loves his profession, he loves the communities he serves, he loves his family and he loves his Creator, all with a combination of humility and humor that’s rare, if not unique, these days. His retirement on Nov. 30 matters.
One of my favorite pictures in our files tells the whole story: It’s of Soptich in 2008, looking straight at me with twinkling eyes bugged out and an expression that combines fear and laughter, and his hair is in a Mohawk as he is getting shaved bald.
The first thing you have to realize, if you’ve never met him in person, is that Soptich has a really great head of hair, thick and not graying, so we’re talking about a big (although admittedly temporary) sacrifice. In a picture before the shearing starts, he was definitely biting his lip.
The next important thing to know about this picture is that it was part of a fundraiser for EFR office staff member Rona Harris, who was fighting breast cancer and about to undergo rounds of chemotherapy and radiation.
While Soptich was just one of the 60 firefighters and staff who went bald to raise money to support her, it was the bidding on shaving Soptich’s head that raised $1,773! Everyone had a turn at the clippers.
“She definitely inspires our group,” Soptich said at the time. “That is what she does for us. She is always worrying about everyone else, and this is our chance to worry about her for a bit. We just hope this will make her feel a bit better and to help her get courage to continue to fight.”
Other photos tell similar stories. There’s one of Kalsa and Scott, two of his seven children, joining him on “Shadow Your Parents At Work Day” in 1999, with their dad after a natural gas leak at Gilman Village.
Another photo shows Soptich in 2012 trying his hand at cutting through inch-thick steel plates with a new high-tech torch.
Another one shows him on top of a flatbed EFR truck as teachers and the principal at Creekside Elementary hand him 2,639 pounds of food for delivery to the Issaquah Food Bank for the holidays in 2010.