Be True to Your “School”: Retired  fisheries technician Tim Kroeff gives back to UWSP in honor of those who helped shape him

By Jeanne Nagle | January 2025

Alumnus Tim Kroeff ’75 was already in discussions with College of Natural Resources Dean Brian Sloss about funding a refresh of the Trainor Natural Resources building décor when flooding this past summer damaged a large swath of the structure’s first floor. Out of sheer necessity, the dean’s suite, which was hardest hit and rendered uninhabitable, overtook student-forward space within the building as the top renovation priority.

Kroeff hardly batted an eye when told of the change in plans. He was not dissuaded from pledging his support; in fact, he proceeded to make a generous gift toward getting a revamped version of the administrative space up and running again. For his efforts, the college plans to name the dean’s suite conference room in Kroeff’s honor.

“His is the lead gift in the effort to renovate the CNR,” an appreciative Sloss declares.

“It’s very gratifying for me to do this,” Kroeff says when asked about the gift. “It’s a high.”

More than just a way to feel satisfied about performing good works, however, he contributed with an additional, heartfelt purpose in mind. “I’m honoring my fellow wing classmates on First East Pray,” he says.

As a Point undergraduate, Kroeff had formed strong bonds with other College of Natural Resources students, particularly those from his residence hall, now known as Pray-Sims. Like a school of the fish he was studying, he and his dorm-mates stuck close, gathering in a mutually beneficial, sometimes even protective manner.

“We all had one another’s backs,” he says.

The tight-knit nature of their friendship is not surprising, given the alignment of their interests in the natural world and similar prospective career trajectories. In addition to several successful game wardens, the group has since spawned, among others, an interim director of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as a regional director for the same federal agency out of Minneapolis. Still another friend made quite a name for himself through ongoing research into timber wolves, which he began as a first-year at UWSP. “Now he’s one of the leading authorities on timber wolves in the country, if not the world,” Kroeff notes proudly.

Then there is Kroeff himself. In 2018, he retired from a 40-year career with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources as a fisheries technician. He started right out of college as limited-term employee with the state DNR out of Sturgeon Bay, riding commercial fishing tugs on Lake Michigan and observing their catch, as well as checking the bycatch.

“I tell people once I got my job, I was living the dream,” he says.

From there he worked his way up to his position as a fisheries technician. Additionally, he was one of the original members of the agency’s formalized dive team, engaging in activities such as setting up nets and other assessment equipment.

“It was always an adventure,” he adds.

In many ways, his job seems predestined. Kroeff grew up in Sheboygan on a dairy farm that had easy access to Lake Michigan, and a creek that ran through the property as well. “I was down there all the time,” he says. “The first day that suckers and smelt would be spawning up in the crick and also, in the fall, the opening day of pheasant season were the two biggest days of my life when I was a kid.”

He and his friends would make a day of hanging around the creek and netting smelt. He remembers one such adventure vividly. “My buddies and I, we must have had 200 pounds of them,” he says. “And then we said, ‘Well, what are we going to do with them?’” One of his pals came up with the idea to sell their catch to a local fish market, priced per pound, and split the proceeds. “They didn’t go to waste,” he says of the fish.

Other times Kroeff went off on his own to catch and observe denizens of the creek, to admire and identify them. In a time before the internet, he was reduced to consulting a set of encyclopedias and making educated guesses. The more he worked at it, however, the better he got at recognizing different species.

His interest in aquatic life caught the attention of his high school guidance counselor, who suggested he pursue a field of study in college that played into his passion. He enthusiastically agreed. “At that point, I thought that was a no brainer,” he says.

That led him to UWSP, where he majored in fisheries management. Among the professors who made a lasting impression on him was Dr. George Becker, who taught ichthyology. “He was the type of professor that you just … you really respected him,” says Kroeff. “And he respected you.”

Once he presented the professor with a substantial haul of minnows from the creek. Learning where the catch had originated was apparently a boon to Becker, who at the time was researching a book cataloging all the fish of Wisconsin.

“I can still hear him saying, ‘These are worth their weight in gold,’” Kroeff recalls.

Another influential professor, Jack Heaton, helped Kroeff secure a summer internship performing field work at a fisheries management area in northern Wisconsin. The job proved to be a definitive turning point for the young man.

“That is where I realized, hey, I want to do stuff in the field,” Kroeff says. “That was such a cool part, because it was all hands-on.”

Field work is a crucial component of the scholarships Kroeff has endowed at UWSP, as well as through the Wisconsin chapter of the American Fisheries Society. Those are augmented with additional gifts toward scholarships as time and resources allow. He also has had a hand in procuring two boats for CNR use—a small stream shocker 15 or so years ago and a larger electroshocker in the fall of 2023. (Credit for majority funding toward the latter goes to another alumnus, Alan Buchanan ’76, he says.)

Kroeff finds great joy in making such gifts, which are largely made possible due to planning and modest living.

“I’ve been lucky,” he says. “I’ve invested the right way, and I don’t splurge on things. I mean, I don’t go on an African safari. I could, but I’d rather leave a legacy this way, definitely. I’d rather do it that way because it goes on and on, rather than short-term gratification.”

 And let’s not forget the other impetus behind his most recent contribution toward TNR renovations—his dorm-mates and friends.

“That’s what I’m making this big contribution for,” he reiterates, “not so much the books part about it, the teaching, the learning thing. It was the social upbringing in my dorm. The years that I spent in the dorm were such a huge part of my education. It was learning how to get along with people. It was learning how to respect people.

“I am dedicating this contribution to those people, the guys that I was on my wing with, because when I look back on those years, that was so important.”