Ask him anything...

Ron Voigt remembers Ozaukee County being well equipped when he started working in the Register of Deeds office.

“I had a Bic pen, a straight edge and a white piece of paper,” he joked.

Voigt began drawing maps professionally in 1978, “which this office still does,” he said.

He was elected as the county’s Register of Deeds in 1984 and plans to retire at the end of this year.

While the core function of his office remained the same, Voigt has overseen countless changes, many he implemented himself.

When the state Legislature passed a land information program in 1990, Voigt led the effort to create the county’s geographic information system (GIS) that allows people to find parcel information online.

Voigt, who’s as down to earth and humorous as he is thorough, started the “overwhelming” task of converting 45,000 parcels by hand to the digital system.

First, he used AutoCAD.

“That was the only real drawing package back then,” he said. “AutoCAD worked real well until more layers were added.”

He loved the work.

“That’s what I liked. That’s what kept me here,” he said.

The county later switched to using the Environmental Systems Research Institute, a prominent player in GIS systems. Voigt was only about 60% finished with his conversion project, but fortunately he could import the lump data instead of having to re-enter everything.

“I was doing it completely until about 1993,” he said.

Then the county decided to let Voigt hire someone to handle land information.

He is proud of the county’s GIS site and its ease of use.

“We think it’s one of the best in the state,” he said.

Voigt is responsible for another resource that even more people use. In 1995, the County Board chairman invited him to a committee meeting and asked him to start a county website.

“I got ‘HTML for Dummies’ and started writing code,” Voigt said. He also set up the towns’ websites before they took them over.

The county’s first computer was a Kaypro 4 that had a four-inch screen and ran at eight bits per second. It was connected to the internet via a phone line making that iconic crackling sound.

Now, it has a Dell workstation that “has to be rather robust” with 185 layers on the documents, including parcel lines, street and center lines, school districts and voting districts, plat maps and soil information.

Dealing with the 911 system of where calls go is a popular issue. Rural areas used to have locations but not addresses.

“There’s a lot of people on Route 1,” Voigt said.

Despite the changes, Voigt never left his passion.

“I’m very hands-on. I still do all the parcel mapping,” he said.

That’s something he has been doing long before he was a pro.

As a child, Voigt made up his own maps, drawing all the cities and streets.

“I always liked mapping,” he said.

Voigt was born in Kankakee, Ill. His family moved to Fort Wayne when he was 9 months old, and to Fredonia in 1969.

Voigt was a member of Ozaukee High School’s seventh graduating class, then attended the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He majored in physical geography and minored in cartography — the art of making maps.

Of the six graduates in his area of study in 1978, three went to work for the CIA. Voigt wasn’t interested in that.

He was soon hired by Ozaukee County as a cartographer, continuing a legacy of county employment. His father Elwood “Woody” was the county parks director for years.

Voigt worked for Register of Deeds Anita Becker and liked his job despite it not paying very well. But after four years Voigt began to get bored and considered looking for something more challenging. Becker told him to hang on since she was retiring in a couple of years.

In 1984, Voigt, 29, ran as a candidate for register of deeds. He first beat Fred Bates in the Republican primary, then Alan Skubal, who he said was the last Democrat to run for a county office, 24,618 votes to 7,223.

“My mom was worried I wasn’t going to get elected because I was so young,” he said.

Voigt never lost an election. First his term was every two years, now it’s every four.

He moved to Port and used to live behind the old Port Savings and Loan half a block from the Courthouse. Once, he said, he overslept and in five minutes showered and sprinted to get to the office on time.

While the register of deeds doesn’t make public policy, the state constitution makes it an elected office. Voight said that dates to a time  when land was still being settled and the register of deeds and sheriff were considered two of the most important positions in county government.

“It’s a different world now,” Voigt said.

The first records are from Port Washington and Waubeka in 1835, 13 years before Wisconsin became a state.

Deeds are by definition a public statement of what land people own. The office also handles birth, death and marriage certificates.

Given the depth of the office’s records, every historical society in the county has used its services, he said.

Months from retirement, Voigt has developed definitive plans for his post-career life.

“I think the first three months I’m going to do nothing,” he said.

Voigt is a member of the Ozaukee Chorus, and he manages its website and that of the Wisconsin Register of Deeds Association. He enjoys golf and plans to spend more time with his four grandchildren.

In the meantime, he will prepare Jen Laurin, one of the employees in the six-member office he would like to see be elected and take over for him.

“I’m training her. She’s going to be awesome,” he said.

Ozaukee County Administrator Jason Dzwinel said Voigt has been just that the past four decades.

“Ron’s legacy cannot simply be measured in the years he spent as the register of deeds since 1978. His work in Ozaukee County is part of the fabric of the county’s progress,” Dzwinel said.

“Ron is a pioneer in the embracing technology and innovation. His dedication to modernizing real estate and vital records, alongside the creation of our digital footprint through the proliferation of municipal websites for the county and every town, village and city within our county borders, is not simply a chapter in our history; it’s a testament to a man who has done things right for many years.”