Sam Fisher is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell series of video games developed by Ubisoft as well as a series of tie-in novels. He was created by the writer JT Petty and designed by artist Martin Caya. Fisher was originally voiced by veteran actor Michael Ironside in the first five installments of the series. In 2013, Eric Johnson assumed the voice and physical role in Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist. Ironside later returned to the role in 2018, participating in a crossover downloadable content for Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands and again in 2020 for Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Breakpoint. He was also added as a playable character in Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Siege, voiced by Jeff Teravainen. Fictional biography Sam Fisher (LCDR, USN-Ret.) is a former employee of Third Echelon, a top-secret black bag operation sub-branch within the National Security Agency (NSA) and a former member of its subsequent "Splinter Cell" program. Sam is currently the commander/head field operative of Fourth Echelon, a newly created covert special operations/counter-terrorism group that reports only to the President of the United States. Early life and education Samuel Leo Fisher was born on August 8, 1957, in the Baltimore suburb of Towson, Maryland. While not much is known of his childhood, it is known that Sam was raised by his paternel grandmother and attended a military boarding school after the death of his parents when he was a child until being accepted into the United States Naval Academy, where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in Political Science and was commissioned as an ensign in the U.S. Navy. Soon after, his personnel file was flagged for recruitment by the Navy SEALs, which he joined after passing their grueling selection process and training program. In the mid-1980s, while Fisher was attached to the CIA (though still on active duty with the Navy) and working under an official diplomatic cover in Georgia (at the time part of the USSR), he met an NSA crypt-analyst named Regan Burns and they were married in a small ceremony at Rhein-Main Air Base in Frankfurt, Germany, after learning that Regan was pregnant with their child. On May 31, 1985, Regan gave birth to the couple’s only child, a daughter whom they named Sarah. Fisher and Regan divorced after three years of marriage, and after gaining custody of Sarah, Regan reverted to her