A nod to those who retired from St. Paul, Ramsey County in 2022

Frederick Melo, Pioneer Press
·8 min read

It was mid-2015, and then-St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman had no public comment to make about the prospects of convincing a new Major League Soccer team to move to the capital city rather than across the river.

“The mayor is not interested in interfering with conversations currently underway in Minneapolis,” said a spokesperson at the time.

Behind the scenes, however, St. Paul Director of Economic Development Martin Schieckel was hard at work drawing up a list of ways the city could help accommodate a professional sports team off Snelling and University avenues in the St. Paul Midway, from rezoning land to coordinating parking. By the end of that October, Minnesota United owner Dr. Bill McGuire had publicly committed to building St. Paul’s future Allianz Field, a 19,400-seat, $200 million stadium that would open four years later.

Schieckel, one of the under-sung actors in some of the city’s most visible and controversial real estate development dramas, retired from the trenches of public service last April after 23 years in city employ.

Beyond Allianz Field, projects he was roped into ran from a short-lived plan two decades ago to lure the Minnesota Twins to St. Paul under Mayor Randy Kelly, longstanding efforts to redevelop Cleveland Circle, the opening of Lowertown’s CHS Field, the ongoing redevelopment of the old Hamm’s Brewery and the revival of the downtown Palace Theatre into a concert hall.

Others retiring from public service

Schieckel isn’t the only behind-the-scenes notable to retire from St. Paul or Ramsey County after decades on the front lines. Among the recent departures were Michele Swanson, who retired in December after managing St. Paul’s Neighborhood STAR grant and loan program for more than 25 years, and city engineer Paul Kurtz, who had previously served as interim Public Works director. Kurtz had worked for the city for 35 years.

Longstanding elected officials leaving office tend to draw more headlines, such as Ramsey County Commissioners Jim McDonough and Toni Carter, who both stepped down at the end of December after 41 years of service in elected office between them. In all, four of seven St. Paul council members have chosen not to run for re-election in November, including council President Amy Brendmoen.

Also among them is council member Jane Prince, herself a former legislative aide to former Ward 4 city council member Jay Benanav. Prince took her first job with the city in the Planning and Economic Development Department 39 years ago.

Public health nurses retire

There were no front-page news stories when Kathleen Hofmeister ended her tenure as a visiting nurse with St. Paul-Ramsey County Public Health after 39 years. The position put her inside the homes of many of the county’s poorest families, those with access to the fewest resources, including first-time pregnant mothers and children with special needs.

She began the role in 1983, when a fresh wave of Hmong immigrants faced steep challenges and new opportunities, including linguistic barriers that needed to be overcome.

“In the last year, many of us made an exit — the older nurses,” said Hofmeister on Wednesday. “There’s a lot of new nurses who have to make these visits to families. You really hope it keeps going.”

Sharon Cross, a Ramsey County public health nursing supervisor, joined the county 16 years ago to supervise public health nurses mentoring pregnant and parenting teens. Writing grant applications and juggling workloads, she worked closely with the county’s community and financial services divisions to monitor school participation and attendance for teen parents on public assistance, a program that has continued with funding from Workforce Solutions.

“That was an unusual and difficult role for public health nurses,” said Cross, noting high school graduation rates among participants have since soared from 33 percent to as high as 78 percent. “It put the nurses in a position of mandatory school attendance monitoring, but it also put them in a position to support them with … home visiting services.”

Kathy Gilmore retired last year after some two decades with Ramsey County serving as a program evaluator for major human services projects such as the county’s “Winter Safe Space” emergency overnight shelter on Kellogg Boulevard.

President Bill Clinton was still in office in the White House when Tim Hammond joined the county in 1994. Fast-forward nearly 29 years, and Hammond retired last year as a human services administrator, managing contracts and purchasing public services for individuals in need.

In 2001, Don Habisch walked into a room of some 80 applicants at Kellogg Boulevard and Robert Street and took an accounting and financial analyst test with Ramsey County, only to leave the room 30 or 40 minutes after the next-to-last test taker. “After two hours, about three-quarters of the people were gone,” said Habisch on Monday. “I thought, how could you finish that fast?”

Habisch, a former grocery dairy manager from Rice Street turned accountant, scored third and seventh on his two exams. So began his 20-year stint as a financial reporter with Ramsey County Human Services, cut short only by a bout with cancer.

“Ramsey County for me was the most fulfilling job that I ever had in my life,” said Habisch, who retired in late 2021 and is undergoing chemotherapy for lung cancer. “There were many different people from different countries, different religions, different races, and they were all wonderful, and very dedicated. I made very good friends, and it really was a lesson in life in terms of how to cooperate and work with people. I’ll be 68 coming up, and I’m doing OK.”

County employees on the upcoming retirement list include Karen Saltis, an administrative director who has spent nearly 34 years working for Ramsey County, including a recent stint as the interim director of the suburban library system.

Roy Magnuson, a retired St. Paul Public Schools teacher and labor advocate who joined Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher’s office as a spokesperson in 2019, has retired (again), leaving the sheriff’s office last August. He suggested this week that he may fail out of retirement (again). He said Tuesday that he continues to coach high school football and wrestling while looking for new ways to be active in the community.

St. Paul police, Safety and Inspections, Parks and Rec, library directors step down

St. Paul last year gave the retirement salute to longstanding Parks and Recreation Director Mike Hahm, who had worked his way up in the department since signing up during high school in 1986, and Department of Safety and Inspections Director Ricardo Cervantes, a lifelong West Sider who came to work for City Hall in 2010.

After 14 years with the city, including several years as the city’s Right Track youth internship coordinator, Catherine Penkert stepped down as library director in September.

Darcy Rivers, a community recreation director, signed up with the city in July 1977 and retired last year, capping a 45-year journey with St. Paul Parks and Rec.

Also retiring were Eugene Broos after 35 years with Parks and Rec, and Ginger Palmer, an attorney in the city attorney’s office who spent 34 years with the city.

A number of longstanding public servants retired from the St. Paul Police Department last year, not the least among them being former Police Chief Todd Axtell, who joined the department as a 21-year-old rookie patrol officer in 1989. He was appointed chief by Coleman in the summer of 2016.

Axtell didn’t serve alone. Over the course of nearly 36 years, Angie Steenberg was executive assistant to St. Paul Police Chiefs John Harrington, Thomas Smith, Kathy Wuorinen and ultimately Axtell before stepping down herself last year. She joined the department nine months before Axtell and retired two months before him.

In 2019, the police department named her top civilian employee of the year.

Other notable departures in the department included Deputy Chief Don Benner, a second-generation St. Paul police officer whose final shift last May after 33 years on the force included a ride-along with his son, incoming patrol officer Donovan Benner. He had been the highest-ranking Black officer in the police department.

Deputy Chief Matt Toupal’s many hats over his 32 years with the St. Paul Police Department included serving as senior commander of the police department’s East District and later assistant police chief for major crimes, including investigations.

Also retiring last year was Assistant Police Chief Rob Thomasser, who joined the department in 1995.

The St. Paul Fire Department said goodbye to at least 20 firefighters who had served more than 15 years in the capital city, including Deputy Chief Kenneth Adams, who first suited up in the summer of 1997. Assistant Fire Chief Matt Simpson, who served as interim chief in 2017, is scheduled to retire at the end of March after more than 29 years with the department.

Other departures last year included Fire Capt. Derek Peterson after 18 years, Capt. Ryan Lyons after 16 years, Capt. Lance Werth after nearly 22 years, Capt. Sean Lofgren after nearly 22 years, Capt. Larry Goodman after 28 years and Capt. Michael O’Keefe after 28 years.

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