During a special meeting on Friday, the Monroe County Board appointed two people to fill two of the three positions held by Mike Fausz. 

The county commissioners appointed Chris Voelker as Monroe County Zoning Administrator and Laura Henry as Monroe County Mapping and Platting Director. 

Fausz’s other position as 911 Coordinator has not yet been filled. Fausz retired Friday. 

A Valmeyer High School graduate, Voelker worked for over 20 years as a carpenter before joining the county as building inspector about six years ago. 

When he interviewed for that job, Voelker knew there was a chance he would one day take over for Fausz if he learned enough, and he did. 

“It just seemed like the next step,” the Maeystown resident said. 

Voelker said he aims to make the zoning department more user-friendly by allowing people to do more on the website and pay for services with a debit or credit card. 

“With Mike, I’ve got big shoes to fill so I just want to make sure there isn’t a bad transition,” he said. “It was a pleasure working with Mike. He taught me a lot, and I hope I can do as good a job as he has.” 

A Fults native who now lives in Waterloo, Henry has been working for the county for 18 years, most recently as its Geographic Information Systems Coordinator.

In that role, which Henry learned on the job after getting a bachelor’s in business administration, she was in charge of integrating hardware, software and data for capturing, managing, analyzing and displaying all forms of geographically referenced information. 

The GIS coordinator works within the mapping and platting department, so this new role is not too foreign for Henry. 

“With the GIS, we’re mapping the county,” she explained. “So to be doing the director’s position, it’s just taking on the added responsibility of making sure property splits happen appropriately and that we continue mapping the county.” 

As she learns the position, Henry said she plans to do cross-training to get mapping and platting to work with the same computer system the GIS team uses. 

“(I will) hopefully keep the office running as smooth as its been running,” Henry said. “Hopefully people don’t see much of a difference between Mike leaving and me taking over.”