ABOUT ME
Hi, I'm Kristopher Ulrich
Family History
Roots are important. I understand the history of our city because it’s in my blood. Members of my family have lived here for six generations, and remnants of one of our old family farms is still operated by distant cousins as the Matulle Farm south of town off old Knapp Rd. today. My mother worked for Winnebago County for 30 years, most of that time as the secretary to the director of Winnebago Airport. My father made a living on the shop floor of Square-D and Oshkosh Corp. I had grandmothers who worked at Prange Way in the old Park Plaza, and at Morgan Door. One of my grandfathers worked for the City running snow plows and working part-time as a church custodian until his mid-80s. Another grandfather owned and operated Norm’s Barber Shop until he retired. And if you ever called the County Courthouse up until the mid-1990s and had a charming woman with a thick German accent pick up and say "switchboard, this is Charlotte" - well she was my dear grandma, too. Before them my forefathers were mill laborers and farmers stretching back to the German migrations in the mid-1800s as they made their way here like so many other Southsiders and Northsiders from northern Ohio to Milwaukee and eventually Oshkosh.
Personal History
I was born at Mercy Hospital on Hazel St. on July 11th, 1988. The recent development of Mercy Medical Center ceasing their labor and delivery services in October of 2023 is still flabbergasting to me. For three years I lived on the corner of 19th and Knapp St. I went to Jack & Jill Preschool, a long-raised building on the present-day site of Quarry Park. From there we moved to Westbreeze Dr. and then Sheppard Dr. in the Town of Algoma where I attended Oakwood Elementary for grades K-5. In 1999 my mother and I moved to Westhaven Dr. where she lived for another 20 years. As a kid growing up in Westhaven, I naturally went to Carl Traeger Middle School and Oshkosh West High School. Those were the days before open enrollment was as relaxed as it is today. In September of 2006 I began my undergraduate freshman year at Luther College in Decorah, IA, where I graduated with high honors in 2010. In 2013 my wife and I bought our home on Irving Ave by Menominee Park, and we’ve lived there ever since. I graduated from UW Oshkosh in 2018 with my MBA. My official address has always been an Oshkosh one, and that’s the way it will stay. I am a product of our community, our schools, and our shared history.
Why the summary of dates and places lived, you ask? It’s to give you an understanding that I can relate to what it’s like to have lived pretty much everywhere in town. As a city we are divided culturally, socially, and economically into four major geographic groups. Northsiders live north of the river and east of HWY 41. There’s a mix of everything from affluent historic houses to mismanaged rental properties. The poorest and the richest Oshkoshian is a Northsider. Southsiders live south of the river and east of HWY 41, and are historically working-class. Many are descendants of the Volga Germans who worked in our mills and factories up and down the river. Westsiders live west of HWY 41 from 20th Ave. up to HWY 21 and share a confusing border with the Town of Algoma. The houses are newer, the reported jobs are more white-collar, and the economic status is generally more middle class. And then there’s the Town of Algoma, which isn’t a part of Oshkosh at all from a taxing perspective, but if you asked them to point to a map and tell a stranger where they live, they’d say Oshkosh. Let’s be honest, at one time or another we’ve all complained about one another. We’ve made comparisons about our schools, housing, neighbors etc. At the end of the day though, we all make up the fabric of Oshkosh, and everyone’s perspective on our City is valid through their own lived experiences. A councilman needs to understand these differences and acknowledge that they exist in order to relate to his constituents.
Work History
My very first paid job was at Dollar Village on Witzel Ave. The business no longer exists, and there’s an NDC Natural Market there now. Before college I also worked at Gamestop selling video games and Mr. Cinder’s deep frying everything. Like so many Oshkosh youth I too worked the wild ride of Airventure for a few summers. My job was fun: fueling airplanes as both a Basler and an Orion fuel truck boy. I met so many amazing pilots from all over the world working those jobs. In college I worked for our food services and admissions department as a tour guide.
Tell me if you’ve heard this line before: my professional life is not what I had planned…
I went to study medicine but fainted during my junior internship. I completed my biology/chemistry degree and returned home. That first summer I worked as a lineman at Basler’s and then took a job in cardiac telemetry at Mercy Medical Center, although I nearly accepted a job offer from Ron Montgomery with the Highway Department. I worked in telemetry reading ECGs while being mentored by Bill Calhoun who was the hospital president at the time. He encouraged me to get my MBA, so in the Fall of 2012 I started graduate classes at UW Oshkosh. That coincided with a promotion to Project Coordinator for Primary Care with Affinity Medical Group. Those among you who recognize the name “Affinity” can guess correctly that this job was short-lived; it didn’t last the merger to “Ministry” and then “Ascension”, and the position was eliminated.
For 90 glorious days I worked in marketing sales for Candeo Creative until Zack Pawlosky graciously helped me realize that I was garbage at selling an ad agency. It stung at the time, but we’re still friends to this day. I regret that Candeo is no longer in business. For nearly the next three years I was the Executive Director of newVoices Choir up in Appleton. My wife and I had sung with the group for a few years at that point, and working as Executive Director was a wonderful intersection of professional expertise and personal hobby. My work in the nonprofit world turned into a position with the Oshkosh Area Community Foundation for just under a year. In 2018 I left the Foundation and have since been the at-home parent in our family. My wife loves her job - it’s truly a vocation. She is in her 15th year of teaching, with two at Lourdes and 13 at Oshkosh North High School as the director of choirs. In addition to caring for our children and our home, I have pursued service as a career.
Volunteerism
Like many young students in high school I was a member of the O’Neil Honor Society. Time spent with that group provided service opportunities in school and around town. When I was 15 I started volunteering at Mercy Medical Center in a variety of capacities from transportation to greeting at the front desk. It’s funny - I vividly remember that the first place I drove to alone after earning my drivers license was to Mercy for a volunteer shift! College offered its own hodgepodge of service opportunities, though they were mostly centered on group activities for a class or campus organization.
Upon graduating college I entered into my early professional development phase, so to speak. I served on a variety of boards like the Oshkosh Symphony Orchestra, my neighborhood association, newVoices Choir, and the Rotary Club of Neenah. This was a whirlwind of learning. Each group provided new challenges to learn from, and I particularly enjoyed finance reviews and governance work. The first few years in Rotary I truly learned how adults serve their community. We raised and awarded tens of thousands of dollars for student scholarships and nonprofit grants. Moreover, and to my specific liking, we physically put work into important projects. I loved the “mundane” but vital projects like serving meals and building things. One build at the Valley VNA sticks out when we rebuilt the roof of the gazebo so that the residents could enjoy some shade outside again. Those folks were so appreciative!
In late 2017 I could tell that I was moving on to a more refined set of skills. I was beginning to focus my lens of service and define where I wanted to grow more and what I wanted to spend my time working on. This was the year that I went through Leadership Oshkosh and was the recipient of a New North B2B Magazine 3 under 30 award. That award led to conversations among my Rotary club that I might make a good president, and so I served not one but two consecutive terms from July 2019 - June 2021 right through COVID. My favorite day of Leadership Oshkosh was by far the local government day, and at that moment I was determined to one day serve on Council. I found that the best Councilors had served on commissions before running to acquaint themselves with how the City government actually functions, so in 2020 I joined the Landmarks Commission where I still serve today. I was also a member of the City Storm Water Board for two years until it was one of the commissions eliminated in May of 2023. In December of 2023 Mayor Mugerauer appointed me to the Plan Commission. Being on Plan Commission marks a professional milestone in my mind. This group literally makes decisions that decide the fate of the map of Oshkosh. Everything that I'm learning here will make me a higher functioning Councilman.
As you can tell, I set goals and work toward them methodically. Now I’m working toward the next stage in my journey to serve our community: to be elected to Council in 2024. I already describe myself as a Professional Volunteer when people ask me what I do for a living. As your Councilman I will treat the role like a full-time job. For the rest of this decade if I am elected, my service will be defined by Council, Rotary, and our church.
Passion for Local History
The two genres of books I most commonly read are A) epic high-fantasy like Lord of the Rings, and B) local history. From a very young age I vividly recall listening to Clarence (Inky) Jungwirth speak about the history of Oshkosh. He was a captivating storyteller, and my earliest exposure to history as a passion and artform. Fast Forward thirty years and I became obsessed with the works of Randy Domer. The four books that he published since 2012 have made our City’s history come to life in intimate tangible ways. And the writings of Lee Reiherzer in his blog (Oshkosh Beer) and his 2019 book Winnebago County Beer are equally fascinating as they are fun. I could further elaborate on the collective works of local authors, but suffice it to say that if you want to read more about the history of Oshkosh, I would be happy to recommend some good starting points.
I am a fan of the Winnebago County Historical and Archaeological Society, but I am not a member of that board. Instead, my service to our history has been through the Oshkosh Landmarks Commission. We work to educate community members on ways to care for their historic properties, identify architecture that can be landmarked locally or by the state, and advocate for historic preservation. The most sustainable and inspiring building is one that isn’t demolished. Our community has had wins and losses. Recently there have been great adaptive reuse projects for buildings like the Gibson, the Smith School Lofts, and the Cabrini School Lofts. Our community is able to cherish the memories that those structures hold, while their thick walls, superior brick facades, and old-growth timbers are reorganized to give the building new life for another generation. I am appalled by the impending loss of historic Merrill School, and I fear for the future of Roosevelt Elementary School. We’re in the middle of a housing crisis in Oshkosh. We’ve seen groups transform former manufacturing buildings like the Waite Rug Place on Custer Ave. and a few old schools in particular into new housing in just the last decade. Why not Merrill and Roosevelt and other inspirational historical buildings, too?
Recognition
Rotarian of the Year - Oshkosh Southwest June 2023
Jack Grist Rotary Club Service Award June 2022
Leadership Oshkosh Graduate May 2018
New North B2B Magazine “3 Under 30” for 2017 August 2017
Fox Cities Nonprofit Leadership Initiative Graduate May 2017
Rotary International “4 Under 40” for Zones 28 & 29 September 2016
What is Rotary?
I have been a Rotarian for almost a decade! In 2014 I joined Oshkosh Southwest Rotary for a brief six weeks. It didn’t last long because I took a job in Appleton as the Executive Director for newVoices choir. Since our board was saturated in that market, the suggestion was for me to join the Neenah club. I came as a guest for a few months, and then in January of 2015 I officially joined that group and stayed there until mid 2022. I was on the board for seven years, served two years as president, logged hundreds of hours of service, and even traveled the country (and world) for conventions. It was a transformative experience.
I made the hard decision in early 2021 that I would be transferring to Oshkosh. Planning ahead, my family knew that we might like to host inbound exchange students, and we couldn’t do that living outside of the Neenah Joint School District. I also hadn’t been working in Appleton for nearly four years at that point, and I was ready to spend my Rotary energies at home. At the turn of 2022 I started visiting the two in-person Oshkosh Rotary clubs, and ultimately ended back at Oshkosh Southwest! The nice thing about being a seasoned Rotarian, is that although I was a new member to this club I was by no means new to Rotary. They were so welcoming, I jumped right in to any service activity that I could, and they honored me as the 2023 Rotarian of the Year.
Rotary is an international service group. There are over 35,000 clubs totalling over 1.4 million Rotarians worldwide. We are a collective of community leaders from all walks of life who unite in a motto of service above self. If you want to learn more, ask me! My club meets Wednesdays at 12:00 noon, and the Downtown Oshkosh club meets Mondays at 12:00 noon. Both groups currently call the Best Western home.
My Family
My wife makes me a better person. If she were running for Council (which she never will), you should vote for her. Bridget is also a townie, and she has been teaching for 15 years - two at Lourdes and 13 at Oshkosh North High School. She is the director of choirs at North, the head of the music department for the school district, part-time choir director and organist at our church (First Congregational Church), and she also directs the girl choir Bel Canto at Lawrence University. She is the epitome of dedication. She loves teaching. Thanks to her, I’ve had the privilege of being “Choir Dad” to thousands of students of the years, and have made many enduring friendships.
I have two daughters: Charlotte (5) and Louisa (2.5). My wife has given me the greatest gift of these two girls. Not only am I father to two smart, kind, funny kids, but I get to spend my days being the “at-home parent.” This is something that just frankly didn’t exist when we were growing up, or at least it was not as talked about as it is now. I am so grateful to be a homemaker. I know that it’s just temporary, and I’ll likely re-enter the workforce when our last child is in kindergarten, but for now it’s absolutely beautiful. To any voters who have been or have had an at-home parent in their household: cheers to you! I get it.
Our folks are wonderful, and they all live in town*. My mom, Diana Ulrich, worked for 30 years with Winnebago County, for the most of her career as the secretary to the director of Wittmann Airport. She’s now retired, and she’s just the best grandma. I am so proud of her for finding a new calling in retirement, spending time with friends, developing her crafting skills, and spending so much time with our girls. My in-laws, Mike and Darcy Duffy, live in the Town of Algoma, hence the * on the first line. Mike was an internal medicine physician with Aurora for nearly 40 years. In fact, he was one of the founding physicians that brought Aurora to Oshkosh. Darcy was the at-home parent for my my wife and her sisters when they were growing up, but she was also a licensed speech pathologist and frequent substitute teacher. These two are pillars of our community, with ties to so many organizations during their working days in particular. Now they spend their days traveling, exercising, reading, and being amazing grandparents.
My wife has two sisters, Briar and Kathleen Duffy. They grew up here, but Briar lives in Minneapolis MN where she is the director of the internal medicine residency program at UW Minnesota. She, like dad, is also an internal medicine doc. Kathleen lives in the greater Detroit metro, and is a principal planner at SmithGroup - the designers of the Lakeshore Park plans. I am an only child, but my closest friend, Sean Lynch, is spiritually my brother. My girls call him “Uncle Sean”. You know and love him as that handsome hunk who owns Winnebago Bicycle on Main St.