Fond Du Lac Tribal & Community College Hosts Law Enforcement Career Expo

DULUTH, MINN. — The need for employees is a common theme among businesses throughout the Northland and across the country. But for law enforcement agencies, the need for police recruits is particularly high.  And that was made very clear at a law enforcement career expo held Wednesday in Cloquet.

How significant is the shortage of law enforcement personnel in the state?

Consider that more than 40 agencies from as far away as northwestern North Dakota were on hand for the Fond Du Lac Tribal & Community College Law Enforcement Career Expo.  All of them were on hand to recruit new officers to their force.

Recently retired Duluth police chief Mike Tusken, who is now the college’s Law Enforcement Coordinator, talked about the difference in the number of recruits over his career.

“When I was looking for my first police job in the early 90s, we would see 300 to 400 applicants for five or 10 jobs,” said Tusken. “Conversely, you look at what we are experiencing today. We’re going to graduate 26 applicants, and every one of these agencies are multiple people short.”

The shortage is at agencies both big and small, rural and metro, and at organizations you may have never heard of.  For example, the 1854 Treaty Authority was one of the groups on hand recruiting.

“We’re charged with implementing and protecting off-reservation treaty harvest with the 54 ceded territory, the lands that were ceded to the United States government in 1854, all of northeastern Minnesota presently,” said Marne Kaenke from the 1854 Treaty Authority.

Agencies taking part in the career expo included local ones that you might expect such as both the Duluth and Superior police departments and St. Louis and Carlton County sheriff’s offices. But also on hand were the Minneapolis, St Paul, and Metro Transit police, The FBI, the IRS, the Minneapolis Feds, and the Border Patrol are also recruiting.  And that’s good news for students who will be graduating at the end of June.

Khloey Malkovich, a graduating student said, “I think there’s a lot of good candidates for sure. There are a lot of people here, a lot of people are very informative and just want us to be very knowledgeable about what we’re getting ourselves into and different benefits they might offer and things their department might offer specifically so it’s a great outcome, honestly.”

The school is hoping that the large turnout of agencies looking for recruits will lead to more students wanting to attend Fond du Lac College for its law enforcement career program.