Newest officer’s journey began a world away

Jan Ilgen can’t locate a specific waypoint in his life that led him to become Huntingburg’s newest police officer earlier this week.

With his U.S. citizenship barely a year old, he couldn’t help but recognize the surreality of the moment as he raised his hand to swear to serve and protect Huntingburg.

For the past seven years, Huntingburg has been the Netherland native’s home. He and his wife, Melissa, and their three children — Annabelle, Christian, and Daniel — are here to stay. And Ilgen is ready to invest his life and experience into helping Huntingburg thrive.

The question remains, how does a Dutchman end up in the middle of America? Ilgen grew up in Alphen aan den Rijn — a city he usually describes by its location between Amsterdam and Rotterdam rather than its tongue-twisting name.

His native language is Dutch, but at an early age, he learned English due to its prevalence in video games.

After secondary school, he did a short stint in the Netherland military. Unlike the United States, military service contracts in the Netherlands allow soldiers the choice to continue serving or to leave after an initial six-month period.

When Ilgen’s six-month time was approaching, he had an opportunity to go to university to pursue a journalism degree, so he decided to take it.

In his final year of school, he started freelancing for local papers. He was covering government meetings when he noticed something during the long-drawn-out discussions on municipal and public affairs.

“You sit there for hours, and then the photographer comes in, takes a picture, and leaves,” he laughed. “And they make the same amount of money.”

He decided to change his route and took up photojournalism. However, the economic downturn of 2008 had begun to take its toll on the Netherlands.

“As I finished school, suddenly there were no journalism jobs,” Ilgen said.

He saw that cruise lines were doing well, so he applied for a photography job with Holland American. That led to a stint in the Caribbean, then a transfer to a ship in the Mediterranean. There he met Melissa Pleiss from Indiana.

While he photographed guests, Melissa, a seamstress, fixed costumes for the rotating slate of performances on the ship.

The couple fell in love and continued working on cruise ships for several years until Melissa decided to return to Indiana. Through her own series of serendipitous events, she and Jan moved to Huntingburg where Melissa opened a yarn shop on Fourth Street in 2014.

While Melissa went the route of an entrepreneur and new business owner, Jan took on various jobs before ending up at Jasper Engines.

“I was perfectly content at my job at Jasper Engines and Transmissions. Id’ already made up my mind that I was going to retire there,” the 31-year-old admitted. “I’m still young, but I could totally see that happening.”

But then he saw that Huntingburg was adding officers to the department. While law enforcement wasn’t necessarily something he had pursued, it was a career that had always been in the back of his mind.

“I think it fits my personality,” he can also see the similarity between his original career path of journalism and police work.

After talking with Melissa, the couple decided it would be good to apply for the position.

With the extra pounds packed on during the pandemic and the physical test only a couple of weeks away, he hit the street for a run to see if he could even pass. Although he had been working on getting back in shape since about July, he realized one thing at the end of the run.

“I had exactly two weeks to get twice as fast,” he laughed.

He passed the test relying on the remnant of his athletic skills and boot camp experience.

As he continued through the process, the surreal nature of getting to this point in his life became more apparent. From his hometown in the Netherlands to Southern Indiana, a journey of decisions and whims nudged by serendipity and love.

Then, he received the offer. Suddenly he was raising his hand and getting sized for a uniform that fits his six -foot-five-inch frame. He can’t really pinpoint a single moment that led him here.

“Sometimes you look back and ask yourself, ‘should I have done that?’ My journey has been so weird. I can’t think that way,” Ilgen said. “Because everything kind of pieced together.”

He’s zig-zagged across the world and through several jobs to come to this point, but he knows it is where he wants to be. Ilgen is ready to strengthen and protect the community he’s grown to love.