Kalispell says goodbye to long-serving employees

Kalispell loses almost a century of combined municipal government experience this month with the retirements of Finance Director Amy Robertson, Assistant Police Chief Roger Krauss and Fred Zavodny, a longtime employee in the Public Works Department.

Robertson is leaving after 27 years with the city, Krauss after 36 and Zavodny after 33. The last day of work for each of the three is Friday, June 29.

Fred Zavodny

Working for Kalispell since 1979, Zavodny’s fingerprints are all over the city. That includes larger projects such as the extension of First Avenue East across the railroad tracks to East Idaho Street and the extension of Meridian Road south to Seventh Street West.

It also includes scores of smaller projects: Crosswalks, sidewalks, street lights and pothole fixes.

“I used to keep a little map of where I’d been and done something,” said Zavodny, known as “the historian” around City Hall. “I put little dots on it and it wound up just being a big glob.”

Over the years, those small projects have added up to so much more than the big ones, said Zavodny, 66. And they have introduced him to at least half of Kalispell’s residents, some of who now want him to run for mayor. Zavodny’s response: “I’m not jumping into that for any amount of money.” Governor? Maybe, he jokes.

Zavodny originally is from New Jersey. The Air Force first brought a joke-cracking Zavodny to Montana.

In Kalispell he spent 11 years as city surveyor, 11 years as design technician and the last 11 years as project manager. He thanks former Public Works Director John Kain, former Mayor Norma Happ and former council member F.T. O’Boyle for giving him a chance to work for the city.

Along the way he’s learned some lessons.

Boom times mean longer hours for everyone, weekdays and weekends. And any project in Kalispell’s core, where infrastructure is old and poorly inventoried, is going to be a challenge with “surprise after surprise” and every shovelful of dirt an adventure.

When asked, Zavodny acknowledged that growth has made it hard for some developers to come up with unique street names for their projects. Names can’t be repeated too often because of the county’s address-driven 911 system.

To that end, other city officials in Kalispell are aiming to eventually name a new street “Zavodny Way,” thinking it should be a while before another request for that one comes in.

A lot has changed since Zavodny first came to town. Back then Kalispell was small, quiet and friendly. It’s still friendly but not so small or quiet.

“As I jokingly say, when I first got here I could walk out of the building and close my eyes and walk to the post office and not worry about getting run down or hit. Try that today,” he said. “It’s gotten busy.”

Other than some traveling, Zavodny plans to stay in Kalispell. “I’m going to become a better fly fisherman, a better gardener and learn how to cook,” he said of retirement.

For the last month, Zavodny has been training his replacement, Keith Haskins from Saratoga, Wyo. “He’s still here and comes in every day so I haven’t scared him off yet.”

Zavodny expects to miss the job and the people. “But there comes a time to retire, and it’s July 29. June 29. Don’t put down July 29 or they’ll hold me to it. They will. They keep reminding me there’s a police department over there and they know where I live.”

Amy Robertson

Robertson has been involved with Kalispell’s books since 1985, when she was 35 and hired as city accountant. Raised on the East Coast, her first introduction to Montana was when she spent a summer working in Jackson Hole, Wyo., and visited Glacier National Park to go camping.

She met her future husband the next year in Maine and kept telling him that he had to come see the park. “We came out and got jobs at St. Mary Lodge. We worked for Hugh and Margaret Black and stayed there for several years.”

They’ve been in Montana ever since.

With a degree in human resources, Robertson went back to school and became a certified public accountant. She spent a few years with the Montana Department of Commerce and then the Local Government Services Bureau, traveling the state to look at cities’ books.

“When an opportunity arose to come to Kalispell, I was lucky enough to get hired by Mayor [Leroy] McDowell,” she said.

Like Zavodny and Krauss, Robertson never expected to work for Kalispell as long as she has. But her husband found work with the National Park Service and then Columbia Falls, and along came their two daughters. And the job was enjoyable and a constant challenge.

A lot has changed, from accounting rules to mayors, council members, city managers and technology. Robertson’s predecessor did his budgets in pencil. When she started, Kalispell had just bought its first computer.

“They’d had the computer for three months when they let an auditor touch it. He dumped the whole system and there were no backups,” she said. “So I got to learn the computer really fast, because I had to put everything back in and reconcile and balance it.”

Robertson’s co-worker of 12 years, Rick Wills, will be Kalispell’s next finance director.

In retirement, Robertson plans to spend time with her daughters, get out to ski on weekdays and enjoy all of her other hobbies. She also plans to travel. A trip to visit a friend in Homer, Alaska, is set for shortly after her last day.

But just like Kalispell’s budgets, those future travel plans will depend somewhat on health insurance and other ever-rising costs. Robertson also is finance director for the Robertson family. “Nobody else wants the job,” she joked.

Fortunately, the family’s a bit less demanding than state auditors and accounting regulations. “As long as there’s some beer in the fridge and a few things to eat, we’re good.”

Roger Krauss

Krauss wanted to be a cowboy growing up, but started working for Kalispell in 1976 when he was 24.

After graduating from Flathead High School, Krauss had worked in the woods and in various mills but found himself out of work more often than not with the lumber industry a wreck. In those down times he tended bar.

Then a couple of friends at the police department suggested that Krauss apply. He went in and convinced the chief that he was serious about it. The rest is history for Kalispell’s most senior member on the force.

Krauss was promoted to patrolman in 1978, filling in for an officer who was injured in a bar fight, and he became one of the department’s first motorcycle patrolmen after it got a grant to buy two Kawasaki 1000s.

Back then, downtown Kalispell was “bars, bars, bars.” Canadian Days brought out a steady stream of drinkers and fighters and that meant knock-down, drag-out times. Police sometimes had to line up and wait to book people in jail on weekend nights.

“I went through six pairs of pants that first summer, in regards to fighting,” Krauss said. “Bar fights was one of the biggest things we had when I started here.”

Krauss was promoted to sergeant and in 1992 started working for the detective division. He was made chief of that division in 1998 and then promoted to assistant chief of police in 2002.

Krauss has worked hundreds of felony crimes: Robberies, burglaries, murders, rapes, assaults. A few cases stick out in his mind and earned him meritorious service medals from the department.

In February 1998, Krauss jumped in his personal vehicle and helped nab two armed robbers who hit the Rose Casino.

Krauss was off duty but on call that day. Two men robbed the casino at gunpoint, rammed a cruiser and almost ran over an officer, with one of the suspects getting shot and injured, and then robbed several families for vehicles as they tried to escape.

Krauss and another deputy cornered and arrested the two men after a high-speed chase that ended in Somers.

The following year, Krauss helped identify, arrest and convict a California parolee who had become known as the “West Side Rapist” for binding, gagging and raping a number of Kalispell women.

The police chief’s phone was “ringing off the hook” because of community concern about the brazen home invasions and rapes, and it was one of the first convictions in Montana to rely on DNA evidence.

“Most crucial, these were all team efforts,” Krauss said. “We all work as a department, one that I’ve been very fortunate to be a player in.”

While Krauss has been a police officer for the last 36 years, he never really gave up on that dream of being a cowboy. He’s a rodeo veteran who still enjoys roping and has a ranch in Lower Valley.

“We raise cattle and put up a couple hundred acres of hay a couple times a year. Every spring we sell to a lot of team ropers and bulldoggers.”

In retirement, Krauss will drive trucks for public works a couple days a week, at least for a while, and plans to keep up with his ranch and spend a lot of time with his wife, Susan, and their two sons, Shawn and Justin.

“My most treasured family. That’s how I plan to spend my time,” he said.

Reporter Tom Lotshaw may be reached at 758-4483 or by email at tlotshaw@dailyinterlake.com.