Biography
Mark Engholm has more than 30 years of experience in public safety at the local, state, and federal levels and was appointed as the 27th State Fire Marshal of Kansas by Governor Laura Kelly in October of 2023.
Mark served as a Firefighter and Emergency Medical Technician on the West Peoria (IL) Fire Protection District, Geary County Fire Department, and Osage City Fire Department. He completed Firefighter II, Fire Instructor, Fire Inspector, and Hazardous Materials Technician courses. He later served as a Training Officer, Squad Leader, and Division Chief with the Shawnee Heights Fire District near Topeka.
Mark simultaneously served in law enforcement, starting as a Deputy Sheriff/Firefighter with the Geary County Sheriff’s Office and joining the Kansas Highway Patrol shortly after earning his Bachelor of Science degree at Kansas State University. Later in his career, Mark served as the Deputy Director of the Kansas Intelligence Fusion Center and then transferred to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in Topeka. His duties with the JTTF included conducting counter-terrorism investigations while also serving as a certified Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Coordinator and as a member of the FBI Hazardous Evidence Response Team (HERT).
Mark is a Kansas Certified Emergency Manager, served 10 years on the Kansas All-Hazards Incident Management Team, instructed Public Information Officers around the state of Kansas, and has deployed to coordinate the response and recovery at nationally declared disasters in Kansas, Alabama, and Louisiana.
As the State Fire Marshal, Mark is responsible for fire prevention, elevator safety, boiler safety, regulation of industrial hemp processing, regulation of explosives and fireworks, the investigation of fires and explosions, and providing both hazardous materials and search and rescue emergency response throughout Kansas.