Gary Edward "Flip" Erb, 93

Gary Edward “Flip” Erb, age 93 of Polson, passed away on Friday, Nov. 28, 2025, at his residence. He was born on Aug. 17, 1932, in the Missoula Elmore Hospital.

Gary’s sperm donor, Phil Erb, divorced Margaret prior to Gary’s birth and he, as well as the extended Erb family, remained non-entities physically and financially throughout Gary’s life. Gary’s preschool years were spent with his older sister, Fay “Mickey,” and Margaret in the Missoula area where she struggled to support the three of them during the Depression.

Eventually, Margaret resigned parenting and allowed Gary and Fay to be separated for approximately five years to live with relatives at the Missoula Saint Francis Xavier boarding school and with regional unrelated families who took in boarders.

When Gary reached about 10 years old, he and Fay were reunited and taken in by their maternal grandparents, Frank and Rose Roberts, who lived in Deer Lodge. Frank was an elderly retired Northern Pacific Railroad Bonita/Clinton section foreman who maintained their small sparse two-room rented home while Rose was employed as a practical nurse/matron and resided at the Warm Springs Mental Hospital.

Rose traveled occasionally back and forth between Warm Springs and Deer Lodge on the Northern Pacific “Galloping Goose” as neither grandparent owned, nor was capable of driving a vehicle.

Their grandfather died when Gary and Fay entered Powell County High School as freshmen, requiring them to live alone for two years. Fay married early in their junior year and departed Deer Lodge. Gary remained in the house by himself except for continued visits by his grandmother.

Gary worked as seasons and schooling permitted, delivering newspapers, pin setting in a bowling alley, at a pool hall, and as a restaurant dish washer. He immediately joined the U.S. Navy, where he qualified to become a Naval Aviation Cadet.

Immaturity led Gary to resign after six months of flight training and he returned to Deer Lodge with an honorable discharge. With the ongoing United Nations action in Korea and the expectation of being drafted into the U.S. military, he decided to enlist into the U.S. Army.

Eventually, after basic training and parachute jump school at Fort Benning, Ga., he was assigned in March 1953 to the original 10th and 77th Special Forces Groups, spending the remainder of his enlistment at Smoke Bomb Hill, Fort Bragg, N.C., receiving his honorable discharge in June 1955.

Gary applied for a position with the U.S. Forest Service Smoke Jumper program in Missoula shortly before his U.S. Army departure, believing he had a strong chance of acceptance because of his military training and experience. He had earned senior jumping status, jump master, rigger and heavy-drop qualifications. He had also undergone mountain climbing training in Colorado, and glacier climbing in Wyoming.

The Forest Service responded that Gary was not qualified. That rejection remained as a lifelong regret.

Shortly after returning to Deer Lodge from the army, Gary was offered a ride in a pickup truck by Alice Brenton. This fortuitous encounter resulted in a whirlwind courtship ending with their marriage in Butte by a blind justice of the peace in February 1956.

With GI eligibility, and Alice’s urging, Gary enrolled in the fall of 1957 at the Montana School of Mines in Butte. Ongoing, Gary worked as a Butte miner, as a head driller in an open pit phosphate mine near Garrison, at the ACM smelter in Anaconda, as a railroad switchman and as a welder’s helper on a natural gas pipeline between Deer Lodge and Missoula.

Meanwhile two daughters, Kary and Kim were added to Alice and Gary’s family. They then moved to Missoula where Gary graduated from the University of Montana in June 1961. Gary spent the summers in Missoula employed by the U.S. Forest Service mineral survey, investigating mining claims throughout Region One including paid extended horseback trips into the Bob Marshall and Absaroka wildernesses.

After receiving his UM degree, the U.S. Naval Photo Interpretation Center in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., offered Gary a photo interpreter position, where he remained for 11 months. During this period, Alice gave birth to their son, Montana, a name Alice agreed to in a weak moment shortly after leaving the delivery room.

A career change occurred at this time when Gary was notified that he had been accepted as a Central Intelligence Agency officer trainee. He became a National Clandestine Service staff/case operations officer upon completion of a year plus training in foreign intelligence collection and paramilitary operations at a Virginia facility and in Panama.

In 1964 another daughter, Shawn, joined the family in Virginia as they were preparing for Gary’s initial overseas assignment in northern Laos for two years where he lived with and supported indigenous tribesmen who opposed Communist Lao forces during the Laos civil war. Several overseas and domestic assignments occurred thereafter with family accompaniment depending upon the security/condition of the foreign area concerned.

Gary retired overtly as a CIA NCS staff officer and followed that up with two other retirements as a CIA independent contractor that altogether spanned approximately 34 years. He participated in covert action, foreign liaison, paramilitary and counter terrorism operations, concluding his career as a training officer at the same facility where his career began.

He was active in Panama, Thailand, Laos, South Vietnam, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Philippines, Jamaica/Bahamas, Spain, Pakistan, Jordan, Iraq and Afghanistan, in addition to the U.S.

He climbed Mount Powell near Deer Lodge on Aug. 17, 1959 (Hebgen Lake earthquake) and again on his birthday at the age of 65. Twice, in his early 80s, he made the trek to the “M” on Mount Sentinel near the University of Montana in Missoula.

In retirement, Gary was a volunteer VA driver into his late 80s; worked with the Montana Adopt a Highway cleanup program for 15 years; was an America Reads tutor at Polson Linderman School for five years; and, as an avid Griz fan, was a Mission Valley Grizzly Scholarship Association board member for several years.

Gary is preceded in death by his daughter, Kary Erickson, maternal grandparents, sister Fay “Mickey,” his 15-year-old granddaughter in Missoula on Dec. 26, 2009, in-laws Al and Kathryn Brenton, and surrogate parents Margaret and Phil.

Gary is survived by his wife, Alice, of 69 years (missed 70 years by two months); daughters Kim Erb and Shawn Erb Cearley and son Montana “Kip” Erb; granddaughters Erin Dunn, Caitlin Erb, Hanna Erb and Jacey Erb; grandson Brannon Cearley and great-grandson Dominick; all-but-adopted daughter Debbie Franck and children Chad, Cara and Christina; nieces Teresa Sullivan, Shannon Neubauer and Kathy Mullins; and nephews Brad Neubauer and Guy Neubauer.

Gary’s request was to be cremated and at his request no services will be rendered. A wake service will be held during warmer times. Memories and condolences may be sent to the family at lakefuneralhomeandcremation.com.

Arrangements are under the care of The Lake Funeral Home and Crematory.