Jim Checkel’s stop at Mayo HR led to 40-year career

Jim Checkel is a 1978 Kasson-Mantorville graduate. As a student he wanted to be involved with the FFA program but his dad didn’t think it was a good idea and it was that fact that motivated Jim even more to be a member. When K-M vo-ag instructor Dean Hanson made a farm visit to their place he convinced Jim’s dad there were a lot of positive things about the FFA program.
The ag teacher brought Jim along to the annual National Barrow Show in Austin and there was a swine judging contest. Jim said he asked what to look for when judging hogs. It must have helped as he placed 13th out of 360 contestants in the contest and after that he was on the K-M FFA general livestock judging team.
Jim said one vivid school memory was when they were in the 6th grade at the Mantorville school and their teacher, Mrs. Reynolds, collapsed and died while sitting at her desk during their class. He said Terry Vatland quickly came into their classroom and told the students they all needed to “leave the room now.”
After graduation Jim enrolled at the Rochester Vo-Tech in the chemical lab tech program but they needed 15 students to have the program and they only had six enrolled so it was canceled. He had already paid his tuition fees so he signed up for their auto mechanics course instead.
After finishing the program he started a job at Patterson Motors in Kasson but this was also the time when an economic slowdown occurred so machine parts were in short supply and he was laid off after six weeks. 
He worked at some odd jobs for a few weeks  and then during a rainy day in September of 1980, he went over to the Mayo Clinic to look for a job. He thought they certainly must have many cars for their large employee staff that would need maintenance work. At the job interview the HR person said “Mayo doesn’t own cars so you don’t have any skills that would fit and there is no way you will ever get a job here.”
A couple of days later, Jim got a call from Mayo and asking him that since he had lived on a farm had he ever worked with animals. Jim said of course he did and also thought, “well, I have also worked with some “party animals” at some of the jobs I have been at.”
Mayo was looking for someone to take care of a 3,500 mice colony to feed, clean and fix any cages in the setup so Jim was hired. After a while he would go to other areas in the nearby lab and ask the supervisors if he could watch some of the procedures they were doing. He asked if he could try some of those procedures and proceeded to do them.
When Mayo closed the lab section where he worked, he found they needed people to work at an allergy lab. There they would extract the proteins to find out what was causing health issues that people were allergic to. He was also involved with raising cell cultures for use in these labs and one of the things they worked on was peanut allergies.    
Airlines gave peanuts as a snack for their passengers for many years. On one flight the person sitting next to Jim mentioned that he was really disgusted that the airlines quit serving peanuts and he would like to find the person that was responsible for the change. Jim said “well you are sitting next to him as I worked on that issue and the man said “well, I didn’t really mean it personally.”
One time, Jim brought a visiting Japanese scientist to his farm to show plants he would raise for their lab and while there the visitor had the opportunity to shoot Jim’s shotgun which he really enjoyed.           
When other foreign visitors heard about this, they asked “can we come out and shoot the gun too?” Jim hosted many groups at his farm ranging from two up to 85 people for  a tour.
Once again the job at the lab where Jim worked was ending so he went to a lab director and asked if there was a possibility of a new job somewhere. Some of the other labs said since Jim didn’t have a four year degree there wouldn’t be a position but the lab director was persistent so a new position was created calling him a special cell technician.
When he leaves Mayo no one else will be able to take over this job position title again. The lab works on various neurological testing looking for markers in the blood for such things as ALS, forms of MS and various cancer types.
Jim has co-authored 36 research publications and is acknowledged on over 300 other papers from around the world for technical assistance plus he has been included in 1,400 papers which have referenced his work.
The lab has been running over one million tests each year and they are extremely busy. When the virus issue arose this year some people were being furloughed but they were told “your work is essential and will be busier than ever.” To allow for social distancing in the lab, he volunteered to start work at 4 a.m. and others come in at different times throughout the day.
They have been running into some shortages of lab supplies so that has caused some new issues too. This spring they received 50,000 blood samples testing for antibodies. He said he didn’t know how to use an electronic microscope but he learned how and thinks it is really cool looking at various molds and viruses through the scope.
Jim also worked part time at Barlow's, Ashley Furniture and Northern Tool in Rochester for several years during his “free time” and people have asked him when do you sleep? He said he might get a little rest driving to work in the morning.
Jim has been very involved with community groups including the Ashland Township board. He is board chair this year and also board chair for the Dodge County Association of Townships. He feels the local township government is really important to him as he is dealing with neighbors and helping solve issues that are close to home. He has been a member of the county Farm Bureau and served 17 years as chair position.

He also is a member of the Dodge County Historical Society and the Dodge County Planning and Zoning Committee.
Jim has been a member of MARL (MN Ag Rural Leadership), helping build leadership programs for agriculture programs in the state. He has been on the School of Agriculture Advisory Board of SMSU (SW Minnesota State University at Marshall) for several years and the chair for more years than he had planned. He encouraged getting more diversity including Latinos, Hmong and Black students to get them involved with the ag programs.
He joined the Mayo Family Health board in Kasson a few years ago to bring ideas to them from a local rural resident perspective.
He also gives some time to the Knights of Columbus when he has some “free” time available for an activity.          
He said he really enjoys traveling to other countries whenever he has a chance. He said when he was at K-M his Spanish class was taking a trip to Spain. When he told his parents he didn’t want to go as he wanted to buy a car, they told him no, he was going to Spain so he used the car money to pay for the trip instead.
Since 2005 Jim has traveled to 25 countries and 32 different countries overall.
He enjoys traveling, especially with different ag tours, so he will check in with a tour agency and ask what is available and he will join them when it fits in with his work schedule.
Jim lives on the farm his parents bought in 1947 and even though he rented it out this year, he did get in some hours working up the fields doing some tillage work before spring planting. He has an interest in old tractors and has bought and sold several through the years and said it is easier to find parts with E Bay and the internet than it used to be.
One of the tractors his dad had growing up was a Minneapolis Moline which was later sold. His dad had kept part of a serial number on a sheet of paper and when Jim saw one for sale he purchased it. He is not quite sure it is the same one he drove years earlier but the serial number is within 10 tractors of those manufactured by the company in that same model line!
Jim has worked on restoring several pieces of machinery and even though he enjoys working on cleaning them up and getting them back to their former

former life sometimes he says it is just as economical to purchase a machine that already has the restoration work done than doing all the work and buying the parts himself.
Several years ago Jim started looking at all the old items he had in the farm buildings and decided it would be a good time to sell all but 100 so he contacted an
auctioneer. They said he could put it together with another person, but turned out there was almost 2,500 antique items sold so his auction took most of one day. Jim then took down some of the old buildings on the farm and with the money received from the auction built a new machine shed. Jim said it seems he has been picking up items once again such as various old mechanical machinery jacks, but he said he helped clean out three houses just full of trash and I don’t want people to say the same thing about my
place!
The community project “Christmas Alive” was held at his farm site, including using the barn built in 1913, for several years but a bad hail storm and also the heavy snow damaged some of the buildings used for the project so it was moved to another location last year.  
Jim said he has hosted many groups and organizations at his farm and through the years has likely has had over 12,000 visitors.
One of the things he did two years ago was searching a website about unusual things to experience and one was “driving a tank” which he took part in and smashed cars and other objects while driving different tank models. He has lined up going to a location to work on steam locomotives this year.
For a person told at the first interview there were no jobs available that would ever fit his work skills, Jim will experience spending 40 years of employment at Mayo this fall!