The passion for helping people has guided one local man’s life down every path he has taken. Samuel Rogowski is currently the human resource generalist at Northwest Health - La Porte. Rogowski said that this might not be ideal for some, but it’s perfect for him. He loves his current job, but his long list of helping others started years before.
Rogowski was born and raised in Hobart, and then about halfway through his life he moved to Valparaiso. He attended Wheeler High School and went to Purdue University Northwest where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in human resources. Rogowski then went to Western Governors University to obtain a master’s degree in management and leadership.
“I’ve always wanted to just try to be a really good human resources person and that may sound off to some, but that was just what I had set my mind to,” Rogowski said. “I wanted to be the guy behind the desk helping people the way I know how, whether it was helping them find employment, process their documents or other things to start them working. I think it’s great.”
Long before his time working at the hospital, Rogowski was a combat engineer in the Army starting in 1998. He would take out or place landmines as well as perform other minor construction work. In 2002, he retired from the Army as a sergeant. From then to 2013, Rogowski became a member of the National Guard where he served his second and final term in Iraq.
Just like many, the war affected Rogowski, but not in the way many expected. Before deployment he was in school for nursing, but that all changed when he went to war.
“I just felt like the things that I had experienced and witnessed took me away from healthcare,” Rogowski said. “At the end of my service period around 2012 was the time the economy was bad and it was hard to find work, so a lot was changing for me.”
With the troubling economy, Rogowski found himself going from place to place trying to land on his feet. One of his good friends – Richard Knaus, the Disabled Veteran Outreach Program Specialist at Work One with the Department of Workforce Development – helped him get back on his feet. Rogowski was hired at Work One where he started out as a career advisor. After working for over a decade helping veterans such as himself, he found himself in his current career at Northwest Health - La Porte in December of 2023.
“One really important part of my job at Work One was to help veterans get their disability, and I connected them to the people who I knew would get the help that they need,” Rogowski said. “As veterans, all we want in general is to have a job. We all want to make a difference, and so I'm connecting people with opportunities to do that.”
Rogowski’s life has been full of helping people, from serving his country to sitting behind his desk filing paperwork. He loves what he can do. Rogowski believes every job helps someone in some way or another. Everything matters, and he’s glad he can help anyone wherever he may be in life.
When Rogowski isn’t helping others, he loves playing Dungeon and Dragons (DnD). He claims that this is where his love of paperwork, resume making, and all his job duties came from. Rogowski has been playing DnD since the early ‘90s and doesn’t plan to give it up anytime soon.