Robert Schroeder:  

What have I been up to? I was fortunate to have Dick Youngblood write me up... Thanks for taking the time to read it. Dick: Youngblood: Robert Schroeder's burning curiosity Dick Youngblood Star Tribune Published Dec 2 2001 Robert Schroeder's workplace can range from a fertilizer plant in western Minnesota to a diaper factory in Argentina to a 50,000-head hog-feeding operation in northwestern Alberta. His job has even put him on a horse, picking its way above steep dropoffs on the trail to a remote mountainside in the Sierra Nevadas. Robert Schroeder Photo: DICK YOUNGBLOOD STARTRIBUNE Schroeder is an international consultant who earns his keep conducting so-called "autopsies" of fires and explosions to determine cause and potential liability. He is one of a handful of experts with both years of experience in fire investigation and advanced degrees in fire safety engineering and materials science, said Minneapolis attorney Russ Melton. "It's an exclusive club, maybe 10 in the country" with that mix of practical experience and scientific training, said Melton, an attorney with the Foley & Mansfield law firm. "His credentials bring a lot of credibility to the witness stand." Gary Gordon, an attorney with the Minneapolis law firm of Rider Bennett Egan & Arundel, agreed. "There are a lot of fire investigators and a lot of fire scientists, but very few who combine those specialties," he said. Schroeder, 47, owns Schroeder Fire Inc., a Minneapolis business he started in 1987 with a partner who since has retired. The company is headed for 2001 revenue of $270,000, up from $231,000 in 2000 and $210,000 in 1999. Schroeder Fire is based in his Minneapolis home, where Schroeder's wife, Mary, serves as business and financial manager after a lengthy career as a Norwest loan officer. But his operational base is a hangar -- painted red, of course -- at Crystal Airport, where he keeps his equipment and the single-engine plane he often flies to investigation sites. Born story-teller Schroeder is a slender man with long curly hair and a mustache. He's also a congenitally loquacious gent, a born storyteller with enough material to fill a book. In fact, you could fill two chapters simply by asking how his day is going. But the talk is fascinating. Consider, for example, that trek into the Sierra Nevada wilderness, where a Civil Air Patrol plane had crashed, killing the two pilots and leaving a rear-seat passenger severely burned. "I'm not a horseman," said Schroeder, a Minneapolis native. "So you can imagine how it felt to be looking straight down a sheer cliff at times." He was hired to investigate the scene by the injured passenger's attorneys, who contended that their client had to squeeze through a window as leaking fuel ignited in the cockpit because he couldn't get the pilot's door unlocked. The manufacturer disputed that claim, arguing that he must have used the door. Schroeder sifted through the wreckage for two days before he found the door's locking mechanism -- still locked. Later he discovered that the fu...Expand for more