Tim Tjosaas follows father’s lead in serving community

Tim Tjosaas is the youngest in his family with four boys and three girls. The four boys live in Kasson while his sisters are in Owatonna, Roseville, and Annandale.
The family lived on a dairy farm between Kasson and Byron so Tim went to school and graduated from Byron. He was active in FFA, student council, drama and had the lead role in a couple of musical plays even though he was not in the choir.
Tim recalled listening to long-time WCCO radio broadcasts of Boone and Erickson during their early morning show while working in the barn and Steve Cannon in the afternoon doing chores. Tim said he has always been a Gopher fan and one thing he remembered was when they were working in the field hauling corn, his dad had the game on the radio in his tractor. It seemed every time they would meet to switch wagons in the field, dad would say Nebraska scored again with the final result 84 – 13 in the 1983 Nebraska blowout win!
Tim is not fond of heights, especially when he would have to climb up the ladder on the silo and one of them did not have a chute around it. Tim said he hated electric fences as he seemed to get zapped when he would handle it every single time so doesn’t like to work around electric wiring today either.  Turning off the fencer was always an option as long as he remembered to turn it back on! 
Growing up on a dairy farm allowed for many great life lessons while feeding calves, baling hay, hauling manure, and unplugging silo unloaders!
Tim really enjoyed showing cattle at the Dodge County Fair for 4-H and FFA and earned several trips to the Minnesota State Fair. His last year of showing dairy he brought 13 head to the county fair so he really spent a lot of time there taking care of them. He enjoys attending the fair each year and missed the chance when they could not be held in 2020.  Cheese curds and Dairy Stand malts are good reasons to go every day!
Tim attended one year of college at Augustana in Sioux Falls thinking he would study religion and psychology.  The call to agriculture was strong though and he then transferred to the U of Minnesota St Paul and majored Animal and Plant Systems. After he graduated he talked with his dad if it might be possible to come back to the farm but his dad said “perhaps you should go out and get a ‘real job’ in agriculture for now.”
Tim worked for a couple of years with AgriLand Elevator in Byron selling feed and then started with Farm Credit working with agriculture finance.
In 2000, Tim was accepted in the two year Minnesota Ag and Rural Leadership program through U of M Extension and Southwest State University in Marshall. He said t really gave him a chance to see what he might focus on in the future and they traveled to Washington DC plus they were able to spend two weeks in Argentina and Chile to visit all manners of farm operations there - from cattle and dairy to grains, etc. and even vineyards.  They had meetings with government officials of all types as well.  Seeing and experiencing the culture of the two countries is an opportunity not easily forgotten, he said.  
Since his father, Lyle, was very involved with many boards such as local and regional dairy boards, the National Dairy Board, church, township, etc., Tim began to consider how he could serve others too. He joined the Kasson Park and Rec board and in 2002 ran for the Kasson City Council for the four-year term. He was also the St. John’s Lutheran Church Ppesident for two years during that time.
Tim then put his hat in the ring for the Kasson mayor position and was elected to four (two year) terms. He is proud of some of the things they got accomplished during his time such as setting up the work around a new city library, the park and aquatic center, and setting up the "stabilization” fund for the city so they did not have to depend on the whims of what the state would do for funding each year. 
Leading through the financial crash of 2008 and the subsequent recession was not easy but with a great team of council members and city staff, they found ways to work through the issues at hand, he said.  He felt he really got to know what went on in the community and what the city needed to do to meet the needs of the residents and that no matter what the issue or topic at hand is, there are always people on the "other side" who think that there is a different way to address it.  Trying to find the middle ground was never easy, he said.
His dad asked him what were his long-term goals as far as serving in government positions. When Lyle retired from farming he went on to do several things of which one was being elected as a Dodge County commissioner. Lyle thought he would not run again in the fall of 2014 and perhaps Tim might consider running for the county job.
When Tim asked his dad about some of the things they would do as a commissioner, meetings, etc. his dad said there are a few meetings each month that he would attend. Lyle had been in good health, he would go on long walks around Kasson, each day and took good care of himself. He suffered a stroke in 2013 and passed a few months later.
A special election was held in February 2014 and Tim was elected to fill the position and he has been re-elected twice. He represents about ¾ of Kasson for his commissioner district. Tim said he is on 5 five different boards, plus there are other meetings, so it was more than Dad had mentioned.  Seems like a little truth-stretching was going on. 
 Since the commissioners rotate the chair position each year he would be in line to do this again next year.
When I asked Tim if he gets many phone calls from residents, he said he really doesn’t.  Given that most of what happens in Kasson is driven by the city government it is not always easy for residents to know what exactly the county does that may impact them. 
Next summer will be an “interesting” experience when the Mantorville Avenue road construction project will take place, Tim said.   He said he said his family will also experience their share of the inconvenience as they live along this avenue too.
In 2001 Tim moved into the position of underwriting home mortgages and today leads a team of 13 individuals who underwrite and service home loans for Compeer Financial in Minnesota, Illinois, and Wisconsin with his office in Rochester and their locations spread throughout the three states.
He will drive on occasion to his team member locations in the other states but they needed to do many more things virtually this past year. They handle a portfolio of $2 billion in loans across the country and last year reviewed almost $1 billion in new loan volume. Tim was selected as the Minnesota Mortgage Association "Underwriter of the Year" for 2020 but says it is really not about him but the team he works with that is important.
Like a football team, the quarterback is a very important position but he needs 10 other players to do their best if the team is going to play well.
Tim said he really never knew Christina until she started going to the St. John’s Lutheran youth groups as she attended a Lutheran school in Rochester until junior high. Tim said he knew her grandparents and her aunts as they used to babysit them at times.
They were high school sweethearts and were married in 1994. (On a personal note, St. Johns was having a fundraiser that summer and were looking for different ways to raise money. They asked if I would agree to videotape something for someone that put in the highest bid. I said I would but said I wasn’t interested in filming a wedding. A few days later Tim’s mom, Carol, told me, she won the bid and said you are going to film Tim and Christina’s upcoming wedding! OK, I did what she asked me to do.)
Their children Abigail and Brayden are both Kasson-Mantorville grads and Abbie has been teaching special ed at KM and was recently married. Brayden is a student at North Dakota State University. Christina has worked at Redeemer Lutheran Church, in Rochester, as an administrative secretary for many years.
Tim does some hunting but really loves to fish and for the last 15 years, the family has gone up north to a lake in the Deer River area plus have stayed at various resorts and on other lakes when they can. Brayden really enjoys going along with Tim fishing and trolling in the boat while Chris is content to do more bobber fishing along with Abbie.
They have gone along with Chris’s folks to a resort up north for perhaps the last 25 years. Tim and Chris put up with some suffering at times since they are Twins fans. Tim said he likes to read and especially enjoys presidential history along with personal development. Tim said he loves to put up Christmas lights and continues to look at how high his house is and contemplates just how long of a ladder he would to get them on at the very top.  The heights are still not his friend so that might be why the lights just have not gotten onto that roofline.   Tim is also a member of the KM Lions.
They have done some traveling, and one trip that stands out was a trip to Norway with some of their family members to see some of the tourist sites, and also where their ancestors had lived.
Tim really enjoys visiting, but no interest in living there, in Washington DC. He said he has been there at least six times, starting when he was in high school, to see the many buildings.  One of his best memories is visiting Washington DC through a 4-H leadership program and being out there over Independence Day.  Getting the opportunity to watch fireworks exploding over the Washington Monument is a lifelong memory.  
Tim said his passion is really to serve others whether it is at church, a committee, or his present role as a commissioner. He has had a lot of positions at St. John’s Lutheran such as the Pre-school board, the church council and president, the stewardship committee, and the church foundation board.
Tim said he doesn’t have all the answers but he really wants to help others as he saw his parents do for years when he was growing up.
 
 
Photo:Tim Tjossas served as a Kasson City Council member and mayor before being elected a Dodge County Commissioner.