Postmaster set for overseas career change

TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
Postmaster Paul Eschbacher, shown here in his Maryville office, is resigning at the end of this month to accept a chief of operations position with Affidia Systems, a European software company whose president and CEO, Ron Freson, attended high school with Eschbacher in Evansville, Indiana.

After five years on the job in Nodaway County, and 21 years with the U.S. Postal Service, Maryville Postmaster Paul Eschbacher is leaving both his current job and two-decade career behind for a new life in Amsterdam, capital and largest city of the Netherlands.

Eschbacher, 48, told the Daily Forum on Friday that he is leaving the Postal Service at the end of the month to accept a chief of operations position with Affidia Systems, a European software company whose president and CEO, Ron Freson, was a schoolmate of Eschbacher’s in Evansville Indiana.

The two men reconnected recently when Eschbacher vacationed in Europe, a reunion that soon turned into a job offer.

“We’ve been friends since we were high school sophomores,” said Eschbacher, who added that the invitation to go to work for Freson nevertheless came as a surprise.

“He was just talking about how he’d been trying for about a year to fill this position,” Eschbacher recalled, “and then he just said, ‘You know, you’re the person I think could fill this role. You’ve known me all my life.’”

At first, Eschbacher said he didn’t know what to think, but after some consideration he decided the offer was too good to turn down.

“I just told him, ‘That sounds intriguing. Let’s do it,’” he said.

As operations chief, Eschbacher will assume responsibility for running Freson’s household, planning corporate and social events and managing a domestic staff.

To acquire the requisite skills — like pairing congenial tablemates for black-tie dinners and putting together four-star wine lists, Eschbacher will attend “butler school” in London for three weeks beginning on July 9. His last day on the job at the Maryville Post Office is June 30.

“I’m moving in a suitcase,” he said.

Once in Amsterdam, Eschbacher said he will also be required to oversee various special projects and investments and, in essence, act “as a kind of chief of staff” with regard to Freson’s corporate and personal affairs.

This is not the first time Eschbacher and Freson have worked together. In the 1990s both men held management positions with a company that operated a chain of truck stops.

In 1993, Eschbacher said, both he and Freson were laid off, with Freson heading for California and a fresh start as a software designer.

“He asked me to go with him, but I said, ‘No, I’m going with the post office. Computers are just a fad,’” Eschbacher said. “One of us was wrong.”

Still, the veteran postal manager, whose father retired as postmaster in St. Joseph after more than 40 years of service, and whose stepmother still works as the postmaster in Platte City, said leaving the U.S. mail behind is bittersweet.

“I love Maryville, and I enjoy this organization (the U.S. Postal Service),” Eschbacher said, “Also, I’ve got the best staff in the world. I came here thinking we could do some good things in this post office, and we have done some good things.”

Of his accomplishments as Maryville’s chief postman, Eschbacher said he is proud of his work in making carrier routes more efficient while establishing the local office as the key installation in the 644 area code region, which includes all or parts of Nodaway, Andrew, Gentry and Atchison counties.

Though the U.S. Postal Service runs an annual deficit totaling billions of dollars, Eschbacher notes that revenues from the Maryville operation have increased each year since he took over the postmaster’s spot in 2010.

“We’re the biggest office in northwest Missouri north of St. Joseph,” he said, “and we pretty much keep everything going in this area.”

For the time being, at any rate, Eschbacher said he plans to rent out his house in Maryville, and also wants to return here when he turns 59 and becomes eligible to claim deferred Postal Service retirement.

“Maryville has been very good to me,” he said.