Deputy Chief retires after 24 years with RR

Deputy Chief Marc “Skippy” Sandoval retired after 24 years of service on Halloween, and the Rio Rancho Fire and Rescue Department is sad to see him go.

“It feels kind of weird. A lot of stresses are off my chest now. Whenever you’re up at the executive level, there’s a lot of things going on,” Sandoval said.

The next step for him, he says, is to get into a new routine.

“You’re kind of a bag of emotions whenever you are going to your last day, and then the next day it feels like, ‘OK, what is my routine going to look like?'” he added.

He says leaving has created mixed feelings for him. He’s not the only one having a “bag of emotions,” though.

Fire Chief James DeFillippo marveled at some of Sandoval’s accomplishments.

“Deputy Chief Marc ‘Skippy’ Sandoval proudly served the citizens of Rancho for 24 years as a member of Rio Rancho Fire Rescue. We will miss his years of experience and dedication to the department. Throughout the years, Marc represented the Rio Rancho Fire and Rescue Department on numerous wildfires across the country. His knowledge and expertise were recognized, and he was often requested for these large-scale incidents,” DeFillippo said.

Sandoval joined RRFR before it became an official department on Oct. 18, 1999. He came in with some experience from volunteer work as a fire medic and from an official capacity in Los Lunas. He got started in Deming in a program called Health Occupation Education (HOE), which allowed him to go to the different departments in a hospital for two hours of the day in high school.

“The acronym is kind of derogatory. A mentor of mine says, ‘Do you want to be part of the HOEs?’ and I am like, ‘What are you talking about?'” he laughed out.

Through that program, Sandoval was able to volunteer in the emergency room. Then he volunteered for the Deming Fire Department to take transfers from the hospital to Las Cruses.

“So I started in the emergency medical kind of field before I even graduated high school. Then I went to the NMSU Fire Department. Then I worked in Las Cruses Ambulance. Then I worked in Hatch,” he said.

He says he worked his way up to the official capacity by the age of 25. That’s when he says he got the job in Los Lunas. After that, he went to Isleta Ambulance. Finally, he made his way to Rio Rancho.

“DC Sandoval served as a member of my executive leadership team for the past two years and was a significant driving force in keeping RRFR as a premier service provider for emergency services throughout the state. I wish Marc the best in retirement, and I am thankful for the opportunity to work alongside such a great firefighter and leader,” DeFilippo added.

Before becoming a deputy chief, Sandoval had been in every rank in the Rio Rancho fire department.

“I started as a paramedic firefighter, then I was an engineer — someone who drives the big trucks with the ladder on top — then I went to a driver, then a captain, then a battalion chief, then a training battalion chief, then an EMS battalion chief, then a C shift battalion chief and from there I went to the deputy chief of operations,” he said.

The experience that Sandoval has acquired through the years, he says, has showed him how much a department can develop in time.

“It’s interesting to see how it developed to what it is now,” he said.

When he started, there were only one or two people at some of the stations.

“How the model worked was if there was a fire, we would go in with just the two of us and the police department would come in, take off their gear and put on fire department or bunker gear and they’d help us out,” Sandoval reminisces.

He added that sometimes it would be just one person as an EMS and a police officer would have to pick them up and drive them to the hospital.

“We did that for three years when I was starting. Then more people got added. Once we had enough people, police and fire separated,” he said.

According to Sandoval, police still respond to the calls but they do not have to drive the ambulances anymore.

While Sandoval will miss the “family” that he has come to know at RRFR, he says he won’t miss the stress of the job.

“That first thing I am going to miss is being with them all the time. I am not going to miss seeing people at their worst. There’s a point where I think the job changes you down the road, because you start becoming numb. This is just my experience and not an experience people have throughout the whole fire department. But you start getting numb to things like death,” he said.

Sandoval will also be glad to have more time with his family.

“For instance, I got married at 9 o’clock in the morning on November 21st, and by 2 o’clock in the afternoon I was up in a mountain fire. We were expecting a baby and needed the money, so I took the shift,” he said.

He also looks forward to having vacations during warmer months. Most of the fires Sandoval responded to were during the dry summer months, so vacations with family had to be planned around that.

As an experienced RRFR member, Sandoval doesn’t want people in the department to get discouraged when things change.

“Change is going to happen, so don’t get comfortable in what you see today, because it will be changing,” he said.

He also says people should stay dedicated.

“Don’t idle by. Don’t just be present. Don’t just exist. Take the classes. Try to excel in your career and move up the ladder,” he said.

Sandoval had some last words to say to the residents of Rio Rancho and his RRFR family.

“To the citizens, I am humbled that you allowed me to do this for so long. To RRFR, exciting times are coming,” he said.

According to Sandoval, a new station and a training center are on the horizon.