IN MEMORIAM

This page is for all past employees of Cleveland Lakefront State Park who has worked here since 1978.

In memory of the dedicated men and women of the Division of Parks and Recreation who were devoted, loyal and caring public servants. They were good friends and co-workers and will be missed by all who knew them. May their memories live on forever in our hearts.
 

1978

1980

1988

1991

Sidor, Michael

Account Clerk 2                                               Cleveland Lakefront State Park          10/27/1991

1998

McBride, Leroy D.    

Carpenter                                                            Cleveland Lakefront State Park    12/30/1998

2003

Cadiou Jr., Gerald

Cleveland Lakefront State Park

09/12/2003

Jerry Cadiou, Assistant Park Manager

ODNR career 1978 - 1997

Jerry Cadiou, retired September 1, 1997, he began his career as a conservation crew leader in 1978.  He was promoted to maintenance repair worker 3 the following year.  He was reclassified to park maintenance supervisor2, and was again  1993 reclassified to assistant park manager.  Jerry made a difference in a many addicts lives by serving as an alcohol and drug addiction counselor.

Pacholski, Ray  Park Officer

Cleveland Lakefront State Park

09/11/2003

On September 11, 2003 retired Park Officer Specialist Ray Pacholski from Cleveland Lakefront passed away.  In speaking with his wife Ellen, he was returning home and had a heart attack and hit a utility vehicle.  Ray had a long enforcement career that extend to three law enforcement agencies here in the Cleveland area. The Cuyahoga County Sheriff Department, Olmstead Township Police Department, and Ohio State Parks.  Unfortunately he had to retire early because of his health.  Upon retiring he taught for a while and also coached baseball in the summer months.  Ray was a true sports fan and depending on the time of year his family told us that he would decorate his space in the home with both his favorite teams the Indians and Browns depending on the season.  Ray also liked to just sit and talk with the other men in the neighborhood and was known as the Mayor of the street. Ray was the type of person that would like to play the practical joke on you and you never knew if you were going to be the target of that joke until it happened.  He loved Law Enforcement so much that he recently took a job as a Security Officer so he could stay near what he loved so much.  He was never the person to turn you way and if you needed help he was always there.

2006

Jim Fischbach Park Officer

ODNR career 1979 - 2005

Retired Park Officer Jim Fischbach suffered a heart attack and passed away at his home at the age of 49.  Jim served as an officer at Cleveland Lakefront and just retired February 2005 after 25 years of service. Jim served the Division well and helped to keep Cleveland Lakefront a safe and enjoyable place to visit.

Cleveland Magazine Article Passionate About the Parks  July, 2004 issue

The Park Officer
Jim Fischbach,
Cleveland Lakefront State Park

When Jim Fischbach was growing up in rural Geauga County, two things helped determine his future profession: the great expanse of nature outside his house and the police radio inside it.

Fischbach was raised in a law-enforcement family. His father was the local part-time police chief and his mother was the dispatcher. When an uncle, a park ranger at Punderson Lake, told Fischbach about a similar position opening at Cleveland Lakefront State Park, Fischbach thought the job would be "pitching tents and chopping firewood," a perfect niche for a country boy like himself.

But he soon realized that wasn't the case. "I was pulling people out of cars," he says — making arrests.

That was the reality of patrolling an urban park in 1979 -- and so it remains in 2004. Fischbach, 47, wears an earthy-green uniform, but he also carries a gun. His dirt-stained hands have made scores of arrests for speeding, indecency, drugs and other criminal offenses.

While state park officers in more remote areas direct campers, Fischbach's job is less about helping visitors enjoy the natural world than keeping them from ruining it.

Ultimately, though, the diversity of the urban park officer's activities distinguishes him from the city patrolman. In 25 years, Fischbach has rescued deer from Lake Erie, found children who wandered away from family picnics, helped contain marsh fires in Mentor and participated in the cleanup of the lakefront.

"When I started here, Edgewater had gray sand because it was so polluted," he recalls. "Whiskey Island was a garbage dump. … Euclid Creek used to run red."

Fischbach helped clean up some of those areas. Now, he can see the results.

"It made a difference," he says.

— JM