Al Durtka is the former President and CEO of International Institute of Wisconsin. 

He oversaw the organization last year when tens of thousands of Afghan refugees arrived at Fort McCoy. 

Not all of those refugees ended up staying in Wisconsin, but Durtka and his colleagues helped those that ended up staying in the Milwaukee area get settled. 

"In the Milwaukee area, probably about 450 Afghan refugees have claimed this as their residence," Durtka said. 

"The Afghan refugees were a very special population in terms of how they came here to be resettled in the United States," Durtka added. 

Durtka said one of the biggest challenges was finding housing. 

"We got all these individuals within this short period of time, so housing was crucial," Durtka said. "With many of them, we had to put them in temporary housing placements. We used a number of different resources, even hotels, for housing these individuals until we could find a more permanent kind of settlement for them." 

"That's a process we're still going through," he added.