Fred Rasmussen’s legacy of public service
By Angie Landsverk
The city of Waupaca has had just five police chiefs in the last 60 years.
The late Fred Rasmussen was chief for 30 of them.
“When I started working here in ‘94, the people that I worked with – the officers and the administration – always talked about Fred Rasmussen,” said Brian Hoelzel, Waupaca’s current police chief.
Twenty-five years later, he continues to hear residents and business owners talk about Rasmussen.
“That’s a real lasting impression,” Hoelzel said.
He said Rasmussen was a strong leader.
“Maybe because I grew up here, or maybe not – I always called him ‘Chief,’” Mayor Brian Smith said.
He did so even after Rasmussen was no longer the chief.
The number of years Rasmussen served as Waupaca’s police chief is amazing, Smith said.
“What I remember most about him is he was somebody who everybody easily recognized. He was always out in public,” the mayor said.
Rasmussen passed away on Jan. 7, at the age of 85.
“He was quite a leader. There was no question who was in charge at the police department,” said Bob Lewinksi, a retired city police officer.
Rasmussen joined the department in 1955, and was appointed police chief in 1958.
When he decided to retire in 1988, there was a promotion from within the department, Lewinski said.
That meant there was an opening.
Lewinski was hired for the position.
Growing up in Waupaca, Lewinski was familiar with Rasmussen.
“He was a community guy. Everybody knew Fred,” he said.
Lewinski said, “When Fred talked, everyone listened.”
He said Rasmussen was not one to hide in his squad car.
Bob Whitman remembered that as well.
“I knew him back when he was police chief. He used to walk up and down the streets – the old way,” Whitman said. “People liked that. And, of course, Fred loved to visit.”
He said Rasmussen stopped in the businesses on Main Street.
“People got used to Fred walking down the street,” Whitman said.
Hoelzel said Rasmussen did community policing long before it was something in which officers were trained.
“Being chief now, I know what the citizens of Waupaca want,” he said. “Fred had been doing that from the very beginning. He’s left his footprint with the department. Fred just did such an outstanding job.”
On a recent July 4, Hoelzel happened to see Rasmussen at the parade.
As they chatted, Rasmussen told Hoelzel he had items related to the department that he had collected through the years.
Rasmussen told Hoelzel that someday he would stop by the department and give it all to him.
Now Rasmussen’s family will be donating all the memorabilia to the department.
“Fred’s collection is coming here to the police department, and that’s all going to be displayed in the department,” Hoelzel said. “I have no idea what I’m getting.”
He knows there will be old badges, photos and a key to the jail that was once downtown.
During Rasmussen’s tenure, the police department moved from the north end of Main Street to its present location on Washington Street, the mayor said.
“Even after he retired, he remained active in groups,” Smith said.
Rasmussen served on the Waupaca County Board for 22 years – from 1984 to 2006.
“I served on the board quite a while with Fred,” Whitman said. “He was strong headed. He had his views. He was a dedicated servant to Waupaca County. He was a good person on the board.”
The two of them served on a number of the same committees and often rode together to meetings outside the city.
”He was a good person on the board,” Whitman said. “He was a good person. He served the city and the county as well.”
County Board Chairman Dick Koeppen said Rasmussen was one of a kind.
“Fred Rasmussen was simply an icon of anything he belonged to, whether it be a police chief of Waupaca or a county board supervisor,” he said. “He was highly respected, and when he talked, you listened.”
Koeppen said when he first got on the county board in 1998, “I was really afraid of him, actually. (He) had kind of a deep voice, was kind of outspoken.”
As Koeppen got to know him, he got to know his depth, and respected him.
Rasmussen will always be missed by the county board, Koeppen said.
“We all knew where Fred stood. There was no in-between with Fred,” he said. “And that was a good thing.”
Ramussen also served on the Waupaca Common Council.
According to city records, he was an alderman from 1988 to 1990, and was then appointed to a council seat on Dec. 21, 1993, serving until 1995.
Smith did not serve on the council with Rasmussen, but described him as “a no-nonsense police chief and the same on city council.”
He said, “When he talked, you listened, whether it was a story or something having to do with the city.”
In the summer of 1997, Rasmussen attended the city’s Judiciary Committee meeting and asked it to review Waupaca’s housing and property maintenance code.
“Through my travels every day on my bike, I look to the left and to the right and see a lot of hideous places,” he said during that meeting. “Mill Street is enough to make you throw up, and we’re getting the same situation on Berlin Street.”
Rasmussen noted some residents were not painting their houses, mowing their lawns or picking up their garbage.
He told the committee that was not “selling” Waupaca when those situations were allowed to exist.
A month later, a clean up Waupaca campaign began.
Smith said the community will miss him.
“He was one of our characters,” he said.