A longtime visitor to Cook County, Jay Kieft is the new—and first— county administrator. Kieft is currently learning how the county and its departments operate and will implement changes to strengthen programs as the need arises. Jay said he and his wife Carla are small town people and happy to call Cook County their new home.
A minute after meeting new County Administrator Jay Kieft he asked, “Would you like a cup of coffee?“
When Kieft left the office I noticed a plaque on the windowsill. I was writing down the homily when he came back in with two cups of coffee, and said, “If you look around my office you will see lots of little plaques and cards with sayings like that one.”
Kieft was brought up in Northwest Iowa in “various small towns,” he said. His parents were Dutch immigrants who came to the states after World War ll. “They didn’t know each other. They met over here,” he said, adding, “Dutch was the first language I heard when I was growing up.
“My father was a bit of an entrepreneur. When he first came to America all he had was the change in his pockets. He worked in carpentry doing flooring, cabinets, tiling, countertops, etc. My mother worked in a factory and then opened up dress shops. So, I guess you could say she was an entrepreneur, too.”
After high school Kieft attended Central University of Iowa in Pella, Iowa where he majored in political science and sociology, then went on to earn a master’s degree in public administration from Hamline University.
Following college Kieft served 3 years in the Peace Corps working as a livestock extensionist in Guatemala. “I worked with local groups and families to produce more protein for their families,” said Kieft.
Professionally, Kieft has served in a variety of capacities and duties in several counties. He’s been a drug and alcohol counselor and before moving to Cook County he served for about two years as the Wright County Human Services director. Prior to that he worked as the director of family services in Kandiyohi County and before that he was the executive director of Heartland Community Action Agency, which encompassed four counties.
As for as moving to Cook County, Kieft said, “My wife Carla and I love this place. We have visited here and vacationed here frequently. We are both small town people. There are challenges and advantages to living in a small town, but we’re familiar with them.”
The Kiefts have two children, Jay, 23, who lives and works in Duluth, and Lydia, 18, who is now attending St. Catherine’s College in St. Paul.
“I love the people, the environment, the culture of individuality that exists here,” Kieft said.
According to Kieft, his new position offers a lot of potential rewards and challenges. “Right now I am trying to get an understanding about the various departments, their history, habits and ways that they work. When I get a better sense for what is going on I will work with the various staff on setting strategies to improve efficiencies in the work place. Right now I can see that we have some strong departments and some departments that aren’t so strong. In either case, there is always room for improvement, and we will work for continuous improvement at all times.”
When asked to describe himself he smiled broadly, “I am an organizational nerd. I like studying how groups work together.”
An outdoorsman, Kieft likes to kayak, hike and mountain bike. In his 40s he ran ultra marathons. “Not race them, mind you. I would just try to complete them. I even ran the Superior Hiking Trail 50-mile race once. I never ran a race on the road. I like trails,” he said.
In high school Jay said he was part of the 49ers. “That’s a name we gave to our mile relay team. Everyone on it (the team) ran the 440-yard dash somewhere around 49 seconds.” Which is fast enough to compete well in college, but Kieft said he didn’t pursue running at that time.
Bad knees have mostly led him to trade in running shoes for a bike. “I’m looking forward to trying out the single track trails on Pincushion,” he said.
Because his job is new and there is no template for his position, Kieft and the Cook County Board of Commissioners, the department heads and the county staff will work to come to some kind of understanding about each other’s roles, duties and responsibilities. He looks forward to those challenges.
“Here, in Cook County, I am learning that our strength is in our differences and not in our sameness and that’s part of the fun,” he said.
With that the interview ended. As I left his office I looked at what I had copied from the plaque on the windowsill, “Real leaders are ordinary people with extra ordinary determination.”
It was one of many sayings that could be found in his new compact space, but I had to admit, it seemed like the one that would fit him the best and I was glad to have written it down.
Leave a Reply