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Mower County’s first county administrator taking the city administrator position in Crosby, Minnesota

 

Mower County Administrator Trish Harren Gjersvik has announced that she will be stepping down from her position later this month to take a position with the City of Crosby, Minnesota.

The board accepted Harren Gjersvik’s resignation during Tuesday morning’s meeting.

“We will miss you,” Board Chair Polly Glynn said after the vote. “We have appreciated the work you’ve done in the last six and half years. We’ve come a long way in the county and created a culture I think will stay in place.”

Harren Gjersvik was hired as city administrator for the city of 2,500 just northwest of Mille Lacs Lake in north central Minnesota. Her final day with Mower County will be April 25 and she starts her new position on April 28.

“The most important thing is I’m closer to my family and it’s a four hour drive rather than an eight hour drive,” Harren Gjersvik said prior to Tuesday’s meeting. “I think this will be my last gig leading up to my retirement.”

While Crosby is a much smaller town compared to the footprint of Mower County, it is in the midst of Minnesota’s lake country and can swell to 12,500 in the summer when tourism is factored in.

Harren Gjersvik said the hiring was a quick development she wasn’t actually looking for. Three weeks ago, her and her husband Neal were returning from Warroad and drove through Crosby where they stopped briefly.

Harren Gjersvik said they both noted that it was a vibrant community with bike shops everywhere, something that appealed to the couple as they are both avid cyclists.

When they returned home it was noted that Crosby was looking for a city administrator and so Harren Gjersvik jumped at the opportunity.

“It moved very fast,” she said, adding that she wasn’t looking for another job.

Harren Gjersvik was Mower County’s first administrator after it had made the change from county coordinator. She said that she has tried to use her economic development background to help not only with Mower County’s own development, but also with the effort to keep taxes low for the county.

She’s also been an integral part of developing in-house leadership.

“I wanted to grow leaders and grow our values,” Harren Gjersvik said. “Help keep our taxes as low as possible.”

This is the second time Harren Gjersvik has announced she would be stepping down. In June of 2023, she announced she would be taking a position as county administrator for Kittson County, but in July of that year she rescinded her resignation.

“Since my resignation, it has become overtly clear to me that I have a family in Austin,” Harren Gjersvik said at the time. “There is still work to do.”

Even though this time Harren Gjersvik said the resignation will stick, she still will hold her time in Mower County as dear.

“This has been truly the best six years of my life,” she said. “I felt embraced by the community. I feel like I’ve been able to make a difference here in Mower County.”

“I’m just so grateful for the opportunity. So grateful for the support and relationships I built,” she continued. “And of course I met my husband here … I found the love of my life.”

The county will now turn to the hiring process.

Internal applications were being sought through Friday, however, commissioners on Tuesday opted to extend the application process to April 18 in order to receive external applications for the position.

Commissioners also agreed that Human Resources and the Personnel Committee would meet with candidates and whittle it down to the top three, who would then be interviewed by the Board.