Brookfield’s part-time jack-of-all-trades has officially left the building.
Roger Nothnagel first joined the village in April 1975 as an auxiliary police officer. In 1980, he was hired as an electrical inspector for Brookfield, a role he maintained for decades until his retirement this year.
“Back then, the building department was run by the fire department, so, essentially, I was a paid-on-call firefighter,” he told the Landmark. “It wasn’t too much longer after that, the building department got transferred back to a separate department in the village. I stayed with that, and I stayed on the paid-on-call fire department, too.”
In fact, he became the village’s fire photographer, taking pictures of the blazes that occurred in town while the rest of the department worked to put them out.
Nothnagel said he worked in both roles part-time until Brookfield disbanded its paid on-call firefighter program around 2008 and replaced it with full-time employees. From then on, he worked solely as an electrical inspector, eventually falling under the community development department, where he took a close look at electrical systems across the village to ensure code compliance.
“Between the three departments, I think I’ve probably been in every house in town,” he joked.
Nothnagel said he never considered leaving the village through his five decades of service. Despite his commitment to helping Brookfield part-time, he also worked a full-time job as a construction electrician for about 45 years, though he retired from that role more than a decade ago.
“I got my electrician apprenticeship six months after I got out of high school,” he said.
He said his dedication to Brookfield came in part from his memories of growing up in town. His service to the village started when a friend made a similar decision.
“One of my best friends got on the fire department, and I thought that would be nice to do, but at that time, they weren’t taking paid on-call firemen. They were taking auxiliary policemen, so I thought, ‘Well, maybe this will be something better,’” he said. “As time went on, they needed more paid on-call firefighters. Then, I got hired as the electrical inspector … One thing led to another, and I just stayed with it. I stayed with that, I stayed with the police department, I stayed with the fire department, and time goes by fast sometimes.”
Nothnagel said Brookfield’s community is what made the village stand out to him over the years.
“The people in town, most of the people I worked with, were real good,” he said. “It’s hard to pick any one [favorite] thing [about Brookfield], that’s for sure.”
He said working for the village has changed over the years as different administrators have come and gone, each putting “their own twist on things.” Other big changes in town have been more physical in nature.
“The six-story building, that was a big change, over there on Brookfield Avenue,” he said. “That bridge they built a few years back, that certainly was something else, the way it took so long.”
When asked to recall memories of working for the village, Nothnagel said the incidents that stuck out the most to him were big fires.
“Those stand out, especially when Hollywood Motors burned down back in the ‘80s,” he said. “There was one, over on Arthur [Avenue] in 2018. There was a bad house fire.”
He said his longest job with the village, as an electrical inspector, was the one that called to him the most.
“It all fit in with my regular profession, and I just wanted to make sure that the people that were doing work or having work done in town were doing it the right way,” he said.
He said volunteering with Brookfield became a good way to pass time after his retirement from full-time work but that he knew it would end eventually.
“It’s nice to have something to do. You get bored when there’s nothing to do, but other than that, it was about time” to retire, he said. “I met a lot of people, that’s for sure. Everybody stands out in Brookfield.”
