Kurt Strasler graduated from Escanaba Senior High School in 1991. That spring, he got a job at Ernie’s Party Store; a few months later, he started taking classes at Bay College during the Fall 1991 semester.
According to Kurt, taking affordable college classes, finding a job, and staying in his hometown all helped him save money on his education.
“I worked about 30 hours a week, and I also lived with my parents. That allowed me to pay my books and tuition, and I graduated with no debt,” he said.
As a Bay student, Kurt pursued a major in business administration.
“In high school, I had two hours of vocational education at the Delta-Schoolcraft Intermediate School District in accounting. I started out thinking I was going to be an accountant, but I realized I wasn’t made for sitting in an office and crunching numbers all day,” he said.
After getting an associate degree in business administration at Bay, Kurt continued his education at Western Michigan University. He was able to transfer credits from Bay thanks to the school’s involvement with the Michigan Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (MACRAO) Transfer Agreement.
“You didn’t have to retake any of your first-year or second-year classes when you transferred, and that was key,” he said.
While the MACRAO Transfer Agreement was discontinued in the Fall of 2019, Bay College still participates with its replacement, the Michigan Transfer Agreement.
According to Kurt, he was concerned about the possibility of falling behind his peers at WMU. However, he had no trouble keeping up thanks to the high-quality education he got at Bay.
“I was really on course with where I needed to be and what I needed to know,” he said.
As a WMU student, Kurt switched his major to marketing. He then went on to graduate in 1995 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration in marketing.
“Even when I graduated from WMU, I didn’t know I wanted to be in the grocery business,” he said.
However, he did know he wanted to return to the Upper Peninsula—and he was able to do that when he found a summer job at Nabisco’s Escanaba office. At the end of the summer, he put his resume in WMU’s resume bank, where it was found by Conagra Brands.
Conagra hired Kurt for a sales representative position in Lansing, and he worked there for about a year. At that point, the Escanaba Nabisco office reached out to him about a retail representative position. Kurt took that job and came back to the area, and he remained in this position after Kraft Foods bought Nabisco.
In 2010, Kurt started working at grocery wholesaler SuperValu, where he helped stores identify problems and look for opportunities. In this role (and many of his previous jobs), he worked closely with Elmer’s County Market.
“Throughout almost all of them, Elmer’s was one of my biggest customers,” he said.
Because of that connection, he was a prime candidate when the store needed to fill an impending vacancy.
“When the previous store director wanted to retire, Elmer’s contacted me to find out my interest level in running Elmer’s,” Kurt said.
Kurt accepted the position there; as of spring 2025, he has been working at Elmer’s for four years. He said he enjoys his current role since it combines desk work with hands-on duties.
“It’s a great mix of white- and blue-collar,” he said.
According to Kurt, the large amount of adult learners at Bay taught him the importance of working with other people.
“It takes a lot of different types of people to make the world go round,” he said.
Other members of Kurt’s family have also been involved with Bay—including his wife, who earned a four-year degree from Lake Superior State University through the LSSU Regional Center. Meanwhile, his daughter took Bay classes during high school by participating in the Dual Enrollment program (which helped her finish a bachelor’s degree in three years), and his son took math classes there to meet requirements for the Milwaukee School of Engineering.
“Obviously, I wouldn’t have encouraged them to utilize Bay if my wife and I hadn’t had a good experience there,” he said.
Because of the wide variety of career pathways available to Bay students, Kurt encouraged recent high school graduates to think about starting a college education there.
“If someone doesn’t think college is for them, I would encourage them to talk to someone at Bay. You might find they have a program for you,” he said.