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Effective April 12th, after an amazing 36 years as the Historic Site Manager of Minnesota’s Split Rock Lighthouse, Lee Radzak is retiring.
In 1982, Lee Radzak and his wife Jane moved into the Split Rock Light Station when he was 30, just a few months after the couple was married. They raised two children at the lighthouse, and it was the only home, until adulthood, which their children, John and Anna, ever knew.
Lee’s job was to administer the 25-acre lighthouse site, which includes eleven buildings, all of which are surrounded by the 2,260-acre Split Rock Lighthouse State Park. He was responsible for research, preservation, maintenance, interpretative planning, and security for the historic site. He also supervised a small staff of a year-round employees, as well as 35 seasonal support personnel.
Under his leadership, he also oversaw a number of major projects, which included the following: the building in 1986 and then the doubling in size of the Visitor’s Center in 2003; seeing the lighthouse nominated in 2011 as a National Historic Landmark; the 2008 restoration of the lighthouse; and in 2010, the Centennial Celebration of the lighthouse that was attended by about 5,000 people.
Lee Radzak had a number of years to go before his retirement from Split Rock Lighthouse when, in 2014, he witnessed the visitor number go over the 4 million mark. At that time, John Crippen, Director of Historic Sites and Museums for the Minnesota Historical Society, said of Lee Radzak, “He leads an energetic staff through the ups and downs of the seasons and helps keep a high level of integrity with the story told there, ensures the preservation of the many buildings on site and is a great ambassador to our community – both locally and to the broader lighthouse community around the world.”
In 2016, Lee Radzak was a recipient of the prestigious F. Ross Holland, Jr. Distinguished Service Award from the U.S. Lighthouse Society, an honor that was well earned.
In his retirement notification, Lee Radzak wrote, “I have met so many dedicated and wonderful people from all over the country and the world. It’s certainly not easy leaving a career and this work that has been so rewarding, interesting, challenging – and fun. I consider myself extraordinarily lucky to have done it for so many years, and with such great people. For most people, when people retire, they just leave a job. Jane and I will be leaving our home and a way of life that we will truly miss. That being said, I am really looking forward to having a summer off to travel, read, write, and just paddle a canoe if I want to.” Lee also stated that he was honored to have been able to work with so many lighthouse preservationists from around the nation and to meet many of them over the years.
We thank Lee Radzak for his many years of dedication to the preservation and historical interpretation projects that he accomplished at such a magnificent lighthouse. He can leave with the knowledge of a job well done and he is to be congratulated. We know that he will be greatly missed by the lighthouse community and all those who worked with him on a regular basis at the lighthouse. We wish him and Jane the very best in their retirement years.
This story appeared in the
Mar/Apr 2019 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.
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