Lisa Kerr took a short break from her work last week to answer some questions about her new position as Cook County Land Commissioner/Parks & Trails Director.
Cook County commissioners recently green-lighted the hiring of a Land Commissioner/Parks & Trails Director, and Lisa Kerr was picked to lead the new program. The Cook County News-Herald caught up with the very busy new director who agreed to answer a few questions about her job and explain a little bit about her life.
I am from Grand Marais originally. I was born and raised here, graduating from Cook County High School in the 1990s.
After graduation, my parents moved my siblings and me to Kalispell, Montana. I spent the next decade working and moving around the country doing everything from housekeeping in the Grand Canyon to live-in nanny in Greenwich, Connecticut, about an hour outside New York City.
I came back to Minnesota in 2000 to the Pine City area and decided to finally go to college. I graduated in 2005 from the University of Minnesota Crookston with a Bachelor of Science degree in Natural Resources Wildlife Management. My first job out of college was contracting with National Marine Fisheries Service, a division of NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) as a fisheries biologist collecting data and monitoring onboard commercial fishing boats in Alaska, mainly based out of Dutch Harbor, Alaska, and the Bering Sea. If you ever watched the show The Deadliest Catch, you have an idea of the conditions I was working in.
I ended up back in Minnesota again in 2007, to return to Grand Portage National Monument as a seasonal park guide, where I had worked during two summer breaks from college, as well as a summer as the naturalist for Grand Portage Lodge/ Reservation.
I worked at the national monument seasonally until 2013 when I took a permanent position as an assessment assistant in the Assessor’s Office of Chisago County, Minnesota.
In 2014 I was encouraged to apply and was promoted to deputy assessor and became a CMA (Certified Minnesota Assessor) with Chisago County. I was then encouraged in 2015 to apply for the staff appraiser position with Cook County Assessor’s Office and subsequently was hired in August 2015. Being in the assessor world was not truly my calling so when the opportunity came up with the brand new Land Commissioner/Parks & Trails director position for Cook County I was hoping to renew my work in the Natural Resources field. I was thankfully offered the position and now will get the chance to build and refine a brand new position created in large part by the actions of both government and community endeavors.”
Can you describe your job? Cook County has never had a Land Commissioner/ Parks & Trails Director before.
The Land Commissioner/Parks & Trails Director is a brand new position with Cook County. It is two part-time jobs put together to make one full-time position. The Land Commissioner side had been linked with the County Assessor position previously. In the past, duties and responsibilities could be accomplished, even though Cook County was the only county in the state that had a combined County Assessor and Land Commissioner. As those duties and responsibilities as Land Commissioner increased tremendously in recent years, it was evident the position needed to be given a higher priority. The primary responsibilities include:
The Land Commissioner is responsible for managing tax-forfeited land in Cook County. Department activities include wildlife management; agriculture and gravel leases and easements under a comprehensive forest management plan and coordinates management with state and federal resources management agencies. The Land Commissioner also oversees all county tax-forfeit land sales and the land exchanges, direct sales, and easements.
The Parks & Trails Director position was created through the needs and wants of the community, user groups, and government agencies as they worked together forming a Parks & Trails Committee. This committee, starting back in 2014, composed a variety of local and outside groups and organizations wanting to develop a plan that would improve the current outdoor recreational outlets and create others along with collaborative efforts of those local user groups and government agencies. Doing this all while encouraging healthier lifestyles and enticing more people to visit this great area of MN.
One of the first action items of this plan was to establish a Parks & Trails Department, which was fulfilled with the creating of the Parks & Trails Director under the Land Services Department. The main duties include: . Coordinating the implementation and ongoing monitoring of the Cook County Trails plan to ensure: . Trails re-connect to each other and commercial centers, campgrounds, trail hubs, parking, communities and other destinations. . Trail administrators work together to ensure quality experiences for users and to create economic efficiencies and sustainability. . Trail use is maximized in all seasons by allowing compatible uses to exist whenever possible. . Trail hubs with parking, safety features, information, amenities and connections to multiple trails have been identified and improved, or created, at key locations. . Safety concerns are examined and improvements are implemented when and where appropriate . Trails and recreation properties in Cook County are sustainable both economically and environmentally and trails have a viable administrative and maintenance strategy. . Trails and recreation properties in Cook County positively impact the area’s tourism economy while still providing quality recreation experiences and health benefits to residents.
Who will you work with in your new position?
I will be working with all the agencies and groups you listed in the question— federal, state, county, city, tribal, private, and public—for both sides of my position.
Who will be responsible for maintaining the parks and trails? Volunteer groups?
The parks and trails already established will continue to be the responsibility of the agency or group that they are connected with, but the big goal of this new Comprehensive Trails Plan is to find ways to work together, collaborate and collectively improve what is currently there while finding new and better opportunities and strategies for the benefit of all.
What date did you start and what have you found to be the most enjoyable part of your position so far?
My official start date was October 3, 2016, but it wasn’t until November 14, 2016, that I was officially full-time in the new position. As I had stated earlier I was currently working in the Assessor’s Office of Cook County, and since the office was short staffed I worked with both supervisors to be able to divide my time as needed between the two departments. I stayed on primarily with the Assessor’s Office, helping to finish up projects and once a new staff member was hired and trained, I was able to make the transition.
The most enjoyable part of my job so far is connecting with people to make new relationships and renewing old ones.”
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