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New asst. property manager at Roush doing what he loves, close to home

Nate Schmalzried (left) is the new assistant property manager at Roush Fish and Wildlife Area. He’ll be working with Property Manager Jeff Reed (right).
Nate Schmalzried (left) is the new assistant property manager at Roush Fish and Wildlife Area. He’ll be working with Property Manager Jeff Reed (right). Photo by Cindy Klepper.

Nate Schmalzried showed up at Roush Fish and Wildlife Area about the same time as the rains.

“Now that the water has started going down, I’m going out and learning the property,” says Schamlzried, who became the new assistant property manager at Roush in June.

Schmalzried already had some familiarity with the property, having grown up near Bippus, where he nurtured an interest in the outdoors. He graduated from Huntington North High School in 2008 and went on to Purdue University to earn a bachelor’s degree in wildlife science in 2012.

His choice of major, he says, was dictated by his interests.

“I’ve grown up hunting and fishing and being in the outdoors,” he says. “I really have a love for that.”

Several months out of college, he landed a job as assistant property manager at the Kankakee Fish and Wildlife Area near North Judson, a couple of hours northwest of Huntington. Kankakee is a big duck hunting area, he says, and most of his responsibilities there focused on waterfowl management.

At Roush, he’ll be more focused on management of upland game including deer, turkey and rabbit, says Jeff Reed, property manager at Roush.
Kankakee is about half the size of Roush, Reed adds, and has only rivers and ditches running through it — not the reservoir that periodically puts acres of Roush under water.

“The big draw is, it’s home,” Schmalzried says of the move back to Huntington. “I wanted to get back to the Huntington community.”

His friends and family are here, he says, and both Jeff Reed, who’s in his 37th year at Roush, and Reed’s wife Barb Reed, a retired HNHS teacher, were also draws.

“Jeff’s been somewhat a mentor to me, getting into this field,” Schmalzried says. “And Barb was my mentor teacher back in high school.”

“I’m happy for him to be here,” Reed says.

Schmalzried and Reed spent the flood weeks upgrading the Roush shooting range — which was not under water, but the roads leading to it were — and are now concentrating on getting the campground ready to re-open.

Schmalzried brings with him his wife, Jacquelynn, whose hometown is Flora. The couple met at Purdue, and Jacquelynn Schmalzried is currently working at a northern Indiana zoo. She hopes to find a similar position close to Huntington.

Schmalzried succeeds Jeremy Sobecki in the assistant manager’s position. Sobecki, a LaPorte native, left Roush to become superintendent of the LaPorte County Parks Department.