H.B. “Doc” Smith
“Doc” was born in Mississippi and grew up in southern New Mexico and west Texas. He graduated from high school in El Paso, Texas and then went in the Navy where he served during the tag end of the Korean War.
After service in the military, he went to Colorado and worked in mines for a year, before enrolling at Colorado A & M at the College of Forestry and Natural Resources in Fort Collins, CO. While in college he worked summers on the Coeur d’Alene National Forest in northern Idaho in 1958, and then in 1959, he was a smoke jumper out of Missoula, MT. After receiving his BS in Forestry in 1961 he started out on the San Juan National Forest at Dolores, Colorado as a timber sales forester.
While at Dolores he was very active in fire and became qualified as a sector boss, division boss, and trained as a line boss. After leaving Delores, he moved to Minturn, Colorado on the Holy Cross District of the White River Forest. From there he became district ranger at Lander on Shoshone National Forest in Wyoming for seven years and continued his involvement in fire, becoming fire boss qualified.
He moved on in 1975 to become a district ranger in Utah on the Wasatch National Forest; and then later on the Toiyabe National Forest in the Sierras. From there, “Doc” and his wife Kathy moved to Arizona on the Kaibab National Forest, where he was fire staff officer. He became an area commander on the fire side and served on at least seven national incidents across the West.
He retired from the Forest Service then in 1994 and enrolled at Northern Arizona University to work on an advanced degree. In addition to receiving his Master in Forestry, he also became part of the Ecological Restoration Institute where he worked until he finally retired for good. “Doc” and Kathy moved to Phoenix to be closer to their family.
“Doc” was very proud of his Forest Service career and remained involved with National Smokejumpers Association, National Museum of Forest Service History, National Association of Forest Service Retires, Rocky Mountaineers, Amigos, Society of American Foresters, and all the Forest Service Reunions
He is survived by his wife, Kathy and daughter, Kelli, and son, Ken, and their families all in the Phoenix area.
The service for Doc will be on Saturday, March 4th, from 13:00 until 16:00. It will be held at the Flagstaff Elks Lodge, which is located at 2201 N. San Francisco St., in Flagstaff.