 Capt. Mark Fuerstenau, the new Auglaize County administrative captain of jail operations, inputs data into a computer in his office earlier this week. He ventured from southeastern Michigan to Alaska before settling back in the Midwest. Staff photo/Matt Nichols By MATT NICHOLS
Staff Writer
For more than two decades, Capt. Mark Fuerstenau answered a call to the wilderness, spending his life on the furthest fringes of North America.
But after 23 years of a life far away from the nearest bustling metropolis, it was family who called Fuerstenau back home to the Midwest.
Fuerstenau has warmed up quite well to his new job as the Auglaize County adminstrative captain of jail operations, where he strives to maintain efficiency of the county’s jail. But a career in law enforcement really was never in the cards until later in life.
Education would be the first career path he would carve out, earning a bachelor’s degree in education from Oakland University, in Roschester, Mich.
Fuerstenau said a teaching career was evident early on in life.
“I had always liked working with kids,” Fuerstenau said while sitting in his office. “I had been involved in church activities, working with kids that way. So I don’t think it surprised anyone when I went into that line of work.”
He taught middle school classes in Richmond, Mich. up until the age of 26. He enjoyed the work, but he yearned for something more. Growing up in Michigan, Fuerstenau gravitated toward his father, who was an outdoorsman.
His father’s interests rubbed off on him, and ultimately led to a decision Fuerstenau said was one of the greatest of his life.
“I got a hankering to see more of the country, so I got a two-year leave of absence (from work), and sent resumes out to areas in Colorado, Wyoming and Alaska,” Fuerstenau said. “Then I got a call from the superintendent of schools in Nome, Alaska.”
So, Fuerstenau and his wife trekked to wintry and forested northwest in 1976 to begin a new life. He taught for three years in the Nome school system before a new opportunity arose that would change his livelihood again.
Taking a minor break from teaching, Fuerstenau dabbled as a stringer for the Nome Nugget, Alaska’s oldest newspaper. After covering some local sports and some photography, the paper’s owner, Albro Gregory asked if Fuerstenau would be interested in taking over the paper.
Fuerstenau jumped right into the opportunity.
“I ran it for two years and actually helped broaden our coverage,” Fuerstenau said with a bit of pride in his voice. “We went from a circulation of 1,200 to 3,000.”
By purchasing a process camera, the newspaper was able to shoot their own negatives, saving one-third of the paper’s cost. The move put the paper back in the black, and kept Fuerstenau away from home.
One early Wednesday morning, after the paper was put to bed, Fuerstenau was asked a question by his second wife, dj, whom he met in Nome.
“She asked me if I had known how many hours I had worked the last three days,” Fuerstenau recalled. “And she told me 44. And that was just Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.”
Fuerstenau said his wife issued him an ultimatum — one he said he knew he would receive sooner or later.
“She said I had a decision I had to make,” Fuerstenau said. “I needed to decide if I wanted to run the paper or see my kids grow up. And she was right.”
So Fuerstenau applied to go back into teaching. He moved to Nenana, a town south of Fairbanks, and helped educate and bring Athabascan natives into the village. He worked there for five years before moving back to Nome where he taught high school journalism and junior high school English and math for 16 years.
After retiring from teaching in 1999, Fuerstenau’s son registered for auto mechanics classes at the University of Northwestern Ohio, in Lima.
Fuerstenau saw the opportunity as a way to return close to home to be with his parents who were in their later years.
The decision to leave Alaska was a difficult one, Fuerstenau said, citing one example of an Alaskan night while mushing dogs.
“One night I was all by myself with the dogs, going across the tundra and the northern lights are just blazing overhead,” Fuerstenau said. “And I’m thinking, ‘It just doesn’t get any better than this.’ “
After searching job listings in Lima, he found an opening in Lima for a re-entry specialist at Allen Correction Institution, (ACI). Once he arrived in Lima, Fuerstenau said he was floored with how quickly everything fell into place.
“By the end of the first week, I had the job, we rented a house, bought two cars and got my son registered at school,” Fuerstenau said. “We just knew it was all meant to be.”
Fuerstenau briefly worked at ACI and the Lima Correctional Institution until budget cuts forced him to find work at the WORTH Center where he worked as a case manager until 2002.
That year, a training supervisor position opened at the Auglaize County Sheriff’s Office, and Fuerstenau was accepted into the position.
He held the job until March when he became the interim jail administrator, and took over for good in June.
“I’ve really enjoyed it,” Fuerstenau said of his new position. “I’ve inherited a real good program.
“I’ve been fortunate I took over a program that was running so smoothly,” he said. “I haven’t really had to make any changes.”
Similar to his former professions, Fuerstenau said he enjoys the randomness the day brings. Nothing is ever the same today as it was yesterday, and that is right up his alley.
There are, however, obvious differences, Fuerstenau admits, and hundreds of miles across the continent, away from the city lights was a place he called home decades.
He said he has no plans to live like that again, but he won’t rule out a brief visit to his Alaskan home.
“I’ll never be far from the wilderness, but I think I probably got the most of it that I could,” Fuerstenau said. “I might head back for a visit, but I’ve got five more years to think about that.”
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