Peggy Revell
There were plenty of salutes as Fort Frances native Marin Kaczmar was appointed to lead the U.S. Coast Guard’s LORAN Station in Baudette earlier this month.
“It’s not very often in the coast guard that you are able to be so close to home,” remarked Kaczmar, who along with his wife Julie, originally of Charlevoix, Mich., and their two children, Mikayla, seven, and Keegan, four, relocated back to the area three years ago so he could serve as the executive petty officer at the Baudette station, which oversees the part of the coast guard’s LORAN navigation system.
And while he’s looking forward to spending more time in Baudette and leading his crew with the new position, Kaczmar, the son of Linda Kaczmar and the late Marian Kaczmar, said most of all he’s excited to be in the area for two more years so he’s able to spend more time with his mother, and to have his children spend more time with their grandma.
“I am very fortunate to only be an hour from where I grew up,” he remarked.
While he’s happy to be in the area, Kaczmar said that since first enlisting in the coast guard on Oct. 24, 1994, part of what he enjoys the most about the career is having a new job and moving every three or four years.
“It’s fun to meet new people, live in different areas of the country, and learn new things,” he noted. “My family and I really enjoy exploring our new surroundings.
“We have made some great friends and love being in the coast guard,” he enthused.
Growing up, it was his time spent being a Royal Canadian Sea Cadet that first inspired Kaczmar to join the military, he explained.
“Originally, I wanted to join the U.S. Navy so I could travel the world,” he recalled. “Then I saw the coast guard on TV one day while visiting my grandparents in International Falls and thought that looked more exciting.
“I wanted to save lives, bust drug smugglers, and make a difference in the world on a daily basis.”
His basic training was in Cape May, N.J. and from there he went on to the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Hudson—a 160-foot construction tender—in Miami Beach, Fla.
“One of the coolest places I have been while in the coast guard was the Dry Tortugas Islands, west of Key West, Fla.
“That is where Fort Jefferson is located,” he noted.
After 11 months, Kaczmar then transferred to Petaluma, Calif. for Electronics Technician A School. Following graduation, he was assigned for a three-year tour to the Electronics Support Detachment in Grand Haven, Mich., where he provided mission support for the lifeboat stations on the state’s west coast.
From there he went on to work on the Acacia in Charlevoix.
“Breaking ice during the winter months on the Acacia was always exciting,” Kaczmar recalled about working on the 180-foot ice-breaking buoy tender.
While in Michigan, Kaczmar also was part of the team installing differential global positioning sites throughout the Great Lakes region.
When the Acacia was decommissioned in June, 2006, Kaczmar then was transferred to the LORAN station in Baudette, where he served as the executive petty officer for three years until taking on this new role.
As Officer-in-Charge, he will be overseeing three other Coast Guardsmen at the LORAN station, which includes ensuring his crew is properly-trained.
“We are required by the coast guard to complete a lot of mandatory annual training, as well as our own training to keep us prepared to react to any casualties that the station might suffer on a daily basis,” Kaczmar explained.
“Together, we are charged with the responsibility of maintaining the 27-year-old solid state LORAN transmitter and the 30-year-old station building and maintaining 100 of the 270 acres of property,” he added.
He noted his role includes overseeing the annual budget, the government-owned houses that they live in in Baudette, the generator plant that “must be ready 24/7 in case we lose commercial power,” as well as overseeing his operation officer, who is responsible for maintaining their transmitter properly “so we continue to retain our mandated annual 99.9 percent signal availability.”
Originally developed during World War II for the Army Air Corps Navigators crossing the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, LORAN (which stands for Long Range Navigation) is the predecessor to Global Positioning System (GPS), Kaczmar explained.
Before GPS was developed, LORAN was used for latitude and longitude positioning—and now remains as a back-up to GPS.
Operating at 100KHz in a band reserved for marine radio navigation, Kaczmar said LORAN-C—the present day version of LORAN developed by the mid-1950s—is a transmission of “precisely-spaced pulses for which users can derive information of position, velocity, time, and/or data.”
“A minimal LORAN-C system includes three stations that transmit pulses at precisely-timed intervals,” he explained. “These stations are typically located hundreds of miles apart.
“One station is the master and the others are secondaries.
“Using a LORAN-C receiver, a user gets location information by measuring the very small difference in arrival times of the pulses for each Master-Secondary pair.
“Because LORAN-C signals are stable and calibrated, a two Master-Secondary pair fix, accurate to a quarter nautical mile or better, may be obtained throughout the designated coverage area,” he added.
Alongside his work in the coast guard, there’s plenty of activities that keep Kaczmar and his family busy as they love travelling, downhill skiing, hockey, and “spending as much time as we can on the water.”
Kaczmar also volunteers his time coaching Mite hockey during the winter in Baudette and coaches youth soccer in Rainy River in the spring.
As well, he’s a “Big Brother” with the Lake of the Woods Little Brother/Little Sister Program, and is a member of the Lake of the Woods Early Childhood Initiative.
He will be stationed in Baudette for two more years before being transferred to another unit, Kaczmar said, adding he’ll be eligible to retire in five years.
Retiring with a government pension, Kaczmar said the family will be making another move—this time back to Michigan, where he plans to open up his own marine electronics repair business.
“When I was stationed in Sault Ste. Marie [Mich.], that is when I fell in love with the Great Lakes and knew I wanted to retire in that area,” he remarked.
