Local Republican Dennis Schminke is seeking his first term as a state representative. He filed for District 27B Thursday at the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office in St. Paul as part of a large GOP publicity event featuring state conservative candidates.

Schminke, a former Hormel Foods Corp. employee, Schminke grew up in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and has lived in Austin for many years. He has a background in accounting and finance. He retired in 2012 after working for Hormel Foods Corp. for 38 years. He also work in IT and later operations research at Hormel.

Schminke has been involved with the Mower GOP for more than five years. He considered a senate run two years ago, but he was still working at the time.

Schminke has not previously ran for a state seat, but he unsuccessfully ran for a school board seat. If elected, he plans to focus on providing more job opportunities for Minnesotans.

“I think that, I believe, I know, that not a job, but work, is the answer for almost every problem I think that we have as a state,” he said. “Work, and production for everybody who’s able to do it and contribute at a personal level and from the state standpoint.”

He also called out his opponent, Rep. Jeanne Poppe, DFL-Austin, as well as the Democratic party, for what he said is a record of decisions that focus more on the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area than Greater Minnesota.

“They are the leadership of both houses right now. They’re doing a lot of things in greater Minnesota that aren’t good for the people,” he said.

Schminke also said he would be willing to consider more funding for transportation issues, something Democrats have recently said they hope to tackle next year. Yet Schminke also said he wouldn’t want to give money to the Minnesota Department of Transportation without assurances that it would be properly used.

“Let’s see to it that our taxpayers are getting our money’s worth on it and we’re not just supporting constituencies,” he said.

Thus far, Schminke is Poppe’s only opponent for the state representative seat up for election this November.