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THE LAST ONE

Tim Hagemeier, MRWA Pond Optimization Specialist

When I started working for MRWA 31 years ago, I did not know how long I would be there. Because of
how the program is funded, I was told when I was hired it could end any year. Well… 81 articles later I
am writing my LAST ONE. I am going into the next chapter in life with my wife Barb called RETIREMENT
on May 1st!!
As I was thinking back on my years with MRWA, some interesting thoughts came to mind. I thought I
would share some of those with you.

S 1
There were only 7 staff when I started. We now have 23.

S 2 We have moved the office 3 times over the years.

I was the only Wastewater Technician for a while and I had
S 3 to cover the whole state.
a. I calculated that I have driven nearly 1 million miles!
b. I stayed in over 2000 motel rooms- and boy… I could
write a book about some of those!
We didn’t have cell phones back in 1990, so a couple times a day I had to find a phone booth
S 4 to call the office with a phone card to get my messages.
a.Then we progressed to a portable phone, or bag phone, as I called it, which I plugged into
the cigarette lighter. It was big but worked great.
b. Now we have cell phones that are actually a mini computer.
S All my reports were done by hand on paper until one day they gave me this thing called a
5

COMPUTER! It was tough at first to learn how to run that darn thing… now we can’t live
without one.
S
6 Remember in 2000 we had the Y2K scare,

and all the computers were going to
crash???
S 7 Our annual Water & Wastewater Technical

Conference was called the “Water Follies”
in the early years. We only used the rooms
across from the pool (wow - how we have
grown!). During the banquet everyone
wore suits and dresses. One year a snake
dance started after the banquet and a few
If you have a water
ended up in the pool in their suits!! If you have a water
system break, don't
system break, don't
I have been to many National Rural Water
guess where to dig
Conferences all over the country and met many guess where to dig
great people over the years. They even gave me Call us!
Call us!
a Wastewater Technician of the Year award one
We’ll show you where to to
year! Over the years I have made friends with many We’ll show you where
operations specialists and clerks and I will miss all dig the first time!
dig the first time!
of you. I could not have asked to work for a better
Board of Directors than the ones at MRWA. I am Emergency Water
really going to miss all of the staff - what a great Leak Locating
group of fun people to work with! It has truly been We can find your cities
a great, challenging, and rewarding career! unaccounted for water Call Tony
this summer. Email or Schrantz
Now… where’s my fishing rod?? call for your Water Leak 612-600-8716
Survey Proposal. waterleaklocator.com
14 MRWA TODAY S SPRING 2021