Shining a light on bright, brilliant women of the Perham area
LUMINOUS A special publication of the Perham Focus
Abby Wallin From Manitoba to Minnesota, she’s followed her heart to become an agent of change in Lakes Country Cassie Hahn Unabashed foodie and creator of Brew’s specialty cocktails
Brooke Hamann Devoted dentist and emergency response volunteer
Cyndy Huber Financial guru and influential community leader
Wadena Pioneer Journal Luminous Magazine Oct 2018.pdf
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LUMINOUS 2018 | PAGE 3
CONTENTS
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CASSIE HAHN
ABBY WALLIN
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QUEEN OF THE COCKTAIL
Cassie Hahn: The ‘mother hen’ of the Brew brood — and the brains behind those awesome mixed drinks BY MARIE JOHNSON For Luminous
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Cassandra Hahn has been with Brew Ales and Eats since it opened on Main Street in Perham 5½ years ago. She’s worked her way up from bartender to General Manager, and is increasingly taking on a regional role as the business expands its reach. Marie Johnson / Luminous
ers is one of the most familiar faces in town. Recognizable to anyone who’s ever swung by Brew to belly up for a drink, Cassandra Hahn is widely known for her skills behind the bar. Customers of the popular Perham bar and restaurant remember Cassie for her approachable personality, hospitable service and nice, wide smile. But while most people know Cassie’s face and friendly demeanor, they don’t really know much else about her. They don’t know, for example, that Cassie is the brains behind all those inventive and delicious specialty cocktails at Brew, or that she’s studying to become a true-blue beer expert, a certified Cicerone. They don’t know that her staff refers to her as their “mother hen” because of how she treats them all like family. They don’t know how influential Cassie’s been in creating and preserving the culture of Brew, playing a key role in its success and continued growth. And they don’t know much about Cassie’s life outside of work. “Cassie’s driven,” says Britt Belquist, an owner of Brew who has become
a close friend of Cassie’s. “She’s an awesome person. She is constantly wanting to learn more about things in all different areas — not only just to learn about them, but to be handson and do her own things. From holding ‘kegs and cocktails’ parties to screenprinting her own shirts and building and fixing things, she’s a hands-on go-getter.” Britt and her husband, Alex, started Brew Ales and Eats seven years ago, operating out of a small back room of the former Station House in Perham before renovating an old building on Main Street and moving their business there. They, along with Alex’s sister, Shelby Terstriep, now also own a second location that opened in Wahpeton, N.D. in 2017, as well as an upcoming third location in downtown Fargo, set to open sometime in 2019. Cassie has been with the business since Day 1, first as a customer and shortly after that as an employee. She was there when the Belquists opened their Main Street location in Perham, and in the past 5½ years has worked her way up from bartender to
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Nothing’s better for me than when somebody loves a cocktail I just made them, or when I smile at them and they smile back at me… It makes me feel like I’m doing something good with my life. —CASSIE HAHN General Manager. She helps out at the Wahpeton location now, too, and after the Fargo location opens she expects to become more mobile between the three sites, serving as a Regional General Manager. “She was someone who would come in and would always want to talk about food and drinks,” says Britt of how she got to know Cassie. “She was so passionate about it, so we wanted to figure out how to work with her. And since she’s been with us, she has just done so many awesome things.”
An unabashed foodie and selftaught mixologist, Cassie has a say in both the restaurant and bar menus at Brew. She concocts those unique cocktails that Brew fans have come to expect and love: from the popular Rhubarb Spritzer to the current fall specialty, the Jack and Jill, all the mixed drinks listed on the big chalkboard behind the bar are her original recipes. She also provides input into the bar’s wide selection of seasonal craft beers. “I really like the mixology part of it,” she says of her work. “It’s all original — I never want to steal any ideas from anybody.” She keeps up on what’s happening in the industry and brings some out-of-the-box ideas to Brew, like
Mojitos, made and photographed by Cassie. (Submitted Photo)
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adding seasonal craft sodas to the menu and putting cold-brewed coffee and house-made sodas on tap (such as Rhubarb Pop — a spinoff of the spritzer). She says she loves these creative aspects of her job, as well as the mentorship role she gets to play as a manager. “I like the ‘momming’ part of it,” she says. “It’s fun. It’s fulfilling. Being able to create a family environment and a culture here that they can be a part of — it’s awesome.” It’s a career that she didn’t foresee when she first joined the food service industry about 15 years ago, but it’s one that she wouldn’t trade for anything else now. She loves that she gets to meet all sorts of new and interesting people, and wear so many different hats. “It’s become a really good career, and one that I enjoy,” she says. “It’s an exciting environment to work in.” She likes to be silly with her customers and brighten their days, she says, and is willing to be “a total dork” until she gets a smile out of them. “Nothing’s better for me than when somebody loves a cocktail I just made them, or when I smile at them and they smile back at me … It makes me feel like I’m doing something good with my life,” she says. “In the service industry, you get the chance to turn somebody’s day around, just by being welcoming and on point with service.”
The specialty cocktails sold at Brew are Cassie’s original concoctions. The self-taught mixologist loves the creativity involved in playing with flavors. Here, she’s mixing up a Jack and Jill, a seasonal fall drink that contains Jack Daniel’s whiskey. Marie Johnson / Luminous
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Cassie’s coworkers consider her the glue that holds everything together. The food, the drinks, the service, the deposits, the staff — Cassie oversees it all. She works behind the bar, at the tablesides, and sometimes even back in the kitchen, doing “a little bit of everything.” Her life prior to working at Brew prepared her well for this sort of do-it-all position. Cassie grew up in the Blaine area and other parts of Minnesota, but always had family around Perham and moved here when she was 18 to work as a machine operator at Barrel O’ Fun. A self-described “super nerd” as a kid, Cassie says she was “such a bookworm … I was that kid in the corner reading a book. Seriously.”
She tried her hand at college after graduating from high school but discovered that it wasn’t for her and then job-hopped around for awhile. She was raised with a good work ethic, she says, and she believes in the benefits of hard work. She’s been a factory worker, a cook, a server and a bartender at various places over the years, including The Otter Supper
Club in Ottertail, where she poured drinks for six years before making the move to Brew. Once she got there, she says, she knew she had found a place to grow a career. Her longtime interests in artisan foods, cocktails and craft beer made her a good fit. She laughs about how she has to pull herself away from Amazon sometimes, or else her
Tap beers line the back of the bar at Brew. Cold-brewed coffee and craft sodas are also on tap, integrated into the mix by Cassie. (Marie Johnson / Luminous)
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excessive collection of cookbooks, flavor books, and beer and mixology books would pile up beyond all reason. She eats up the information in these kinds of books faster than the things she cooks up after reading them. A big inspiration for her is Dave Arnold, an experimental mixologist whose book about flavor and the science behind cocktailmaking, “Liquid Intelligence,” is one of her favorites. Cooking, baking and mixing drinks are Cassie’s main creative outlets today, but she also mixes her own essential oil perfumes, does some screenprinting, paints, and is an amateur photographer. She likes to try out new things but confesses that these interests don’t always stick: “I’m a hobby jumper,” she says. “For example, I bought a sewing machine last fall, used it once and now it sits on a shelf. I’ll probably get rid of it.”
Her fiancé, Cody Jyrkas, works at Maltworks in Detroit Lakes, so the two share a love of craft brews and make a good match that way. They like their quiet time at home together. The two have a country house that Cassie describes as “our dream home,” and on her days off she tends to “hole up” there to read, tinker in the kitchen and hang out with Cody and their cat.
Cassie and her fiancé, Cody Jyrkas. Submitted Photo
They’ll occasionally have friends over for beer and wine pairings. Cassie adores cheese platters and charcuterie boards full of meats, olives, nuts and “pickled things.” Her family, including nieces and nephews who live nearby, are “very important to me,” she says, so she spends as much time with them as she can. She also enjoys the outdoors, especially kayaking and bicycling. When she travels, which she loves to do, she’s always on the lookout for new foods and drinks to try. In the future, Cassie says, she’ll likely be spending more time at Brew’s Wahpeton and Fargo locations, experimenting with some new drink and menu options that fit the different crowds and cultures of those communities. But she’ll still spend a fair amount of her time in Perham, too: the Perham Brew is “my baby,” she says, and this ‘mother hen’ has no intentions of leaving her brood.
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FOLLOWING HER HEART Abby Wallin: Kinship’s new director came to America for love; now, she’s using her project management skills for the greater good BY MARIE JOHNSON For Luminous
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here’s no asterisk behind immigration requirements saying, *except for Canadians or *except for cute young blondes. That’s what Abby Wallin says she found out when she applied to become a U.S. citizen back in 2008. She never expected special treatment, but she admits she was surprised by how lengthy and expensive the immigration process was. A native of Manitoba, Canada, Abby had a good reason to want to become an American — to follow her heart. She had met the love of her life, Mike Wallin,
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while vacationing in Minnesota. The two were both out enjoying a Canada Day celebration, funnily enough, when they first laid eyes on each other, and as Abby recalls, “It was pretty much love at first sight.” The couple met at the end of June 2007, were engaged just after the start of the New Year, and then began planning their new life together — a life they decided to lead in the States. To make that happen, their first order of business was to make Abby a U.S. citizen. They filled out a stack of
Abby met her husband, Mike Wallin, at a Canada Days celebration in Minnesota. Submitted Photo
Abby is a Canadian immigrant who moved to the area to start a life with her then-fiancĂŠ, Mike, a Minnesota native. The two are now married with young twin boys. Marie Johnson / Luminous
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paperwork at least 6 inches high, Abby says, spent upwards of $5,000 (and that was without a lawyer; with one, the cost would have been even higher) and drove 3,500 miles roundtrip for a face-to-face interview with immigration officials in Vancouver. All told, the process took 8 months. “When you follow the rules of immigration, it is not easy, and it’s expensive,” Abby says. Her approval, however, was one thing that did come easily. The couple arrived in Vancouver, sat down for their interview, and within just minutes were told, “Okay, you’re approved.” Simple as that. They felt relieved and grateful. They still had to wait for their paperwork to be processed, but were able to start house hunting.
Mike is a Milaca, Minn., native. He and Abby knew they wanted to live in Minnesota, but they didn’t have any particular town in mind. Mike had just started his own marine business, so he wasn’t tied down to any one place, and the two thought Lakes Country would be a good fit for them. They started looking online at houses for sale, and before long, they found one. It was in a little town called Vergas, which neither of them had ever been to before. But they visited the town, toured the house, and felt an immediate connection. “We just loved it right from the beginning,” says Abby. They bought the house and moved to Vergas in October 2008. One of Abby’s immigration stipulations was that she and Mike had to be married within 90 days of her moving to the
U.S., so they immediately started planning their wedding. It was a busy year for the couple — they got engaged, married, moved, and Abby changed her citizenship, all within 10 months. If anybody could pull all that off successfully, it’s Abby. Abby is an excellent multi-tasker. That’s a big part of what makes her such an effective Project Manager at Compass Consultants, and it’s a big part of why she was hired as the new Executive Director of Kinship of the Perham Area. At Compass, Abby works with large telecommunications companies, managing every aspect of projects big and small, such as the installation of a new tower for a wireless carrier. From the time a project order comes in to the time it’s completed, she
Abby Wallin, the new director of Kinship of the Perham Area, has a background in project management and hopes to use her organizational and relationship-building skills to create new community partnerships for Kinship. She wants to see the program flourish into the future. Marie Johnson / Luminous
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oversees every detail, from construction to engineering and everything in between. She’s talking to workers, organizing schedules, handling contracts and, most importantly, she says, building relationships. She strives to be approachable and nonjudgmental in her dealings with people. “Being a project manager means effectively communicating what needs to be done, but also helping to resolve issues and supporting the actual people doing the work,” she explains. “It’s relationship-building. I have a large workload, but I’m all about organization, communication and building relationships.” Janell Gibble, a friend of Abby’s who has worked with her for the past several years, describes her as the kind of person who is capable of almost anything. Abby’s willing to
With a background in banking, Abby learned the telecommunications business through her work at Arvig, where she landed her first job after moving to the U.S. It was also while at Arvig that she was introduced to the Kinship program, as the company encourages its employees to volunteer for Kinship’s Reading Buddy program, and Abby signed up. Kinship of the Perham Area is a nonprofit organization that serves kids throughout Otter Tail County through individual Abby, Mike and their twin boys, Blake and Kyler. and group mentorships and Submitted Photo planned activities between kids “dive in” to projects, Janell says, “and and caring adults. Abby took a when she does dive in, she keeps it shine to the program as a Reading organized and keeps things moving Buddy volunteer, and then joined ahead. She’s also very dedicated. Kinship’s board of directors in 2016 When she commits to something, to get even more involved. for work or otherwise, she’s very “I truly believe that positive role dedicated to it.” models for kids have the ability to
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effect long-term change and disrupt negative family cycles,” she says. “That’s one of the things I love about Kinship.” When Kinship’s previous director, Jill Shipman, announced that she would be leaving the program at the end of June, Abby was immediately interested in applying for the job. “I just knew,” she says. “My gut said it was just something that I was responsible for doing right now. God laid it on my heart to take on this challenge and this role.” There were other applicants, but Abby’s project management experience impressed the hiring committee, and she got the job. She says that experience prepared her for this role, and is integral to her leadership at Kinship. “It’s a huge asset, to be able to go in and look at the program as a project — to look at events, projects and stakeholders within the program from a project manager perspective,” she says. “It adds a lot of opportunity and depth, to be able to dig in and be able to identify the foundation of the program, and then build on that from a new perspective.”
She has a drive to help people, and it’s just completely unselfish. She’s always wanting to help people and she’ll go out of her way to do it. — JANELL GIBBLE, on Abby There are some defining differences, of course, between her roles at Kinship and Compass. At Compass, she learned to keep her emotions out of her projects. At Kinship, she feels a responsibility to be emotionally attached, or at least to be emotionally aware of the lives the program touches. “I’ve been very emotional as I dive into this,” she says. “You’re responsible for showing up in these kids’ lives over and over and over. If they have someone in their life who has let them down continually, how can I make sure that I am not that person? So it’s a whole new set of relationship-building, with a whole new set of people. It’s much more personal than what I’m used to doing.” That’s been a new challenge for her, but she says she’s had “a lot of support” from Kinship’s board of
Abby at a Kinship fundraiser during Crazy Days in Perham this past summer. Submitted Photo
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directors, and from the community as a whole. Being a part of Kinship has given her opportunities to meet like-minded people in Perham, she says, who enjoy working together to achieve their goals “and to be change agents in the community.” “She has a drive to help people, and it’s just completely unselfish,” Janell says of Abby. “She’s always wanting to help people and she’ll go out of her way to do it.” Abby hasn’t been the head of Kinship for long, and she and the board of directors are still evaluating the program, reviewing its mission and coming up with some strategic goals for the future. They’re actively recruiting Kinship mentors and mentees, and are trying to build new connections within the community to increase people’s awareness and understanding of what Kinship is and does. Her involvements at Kinship, and at Compass, are enough to keep Abby pretty busy, but she finds time to be active at her church, Crosspoint Alliance, and to be with her family. She, Mike, and their boys, Blake and Kyler, spend time out on the lake in the summers, pontooning, skiing, kneeboarding and swimming. In the winters, Abby likes to curl, and she laughs that she “tries” to sew and quilt — admittedly to varying degrees of success. And although she’s officially been a Yankee for some time now, Abby hasn’t totally abandoned her Canadian roots. She, Mike and the boys make it a point to travel to the Great White North a few times a year to visit family.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HEALTH AND VOLUNTEERING Volunteering is often its own reward. Helping others can be just as beneficial to the people doing the helping as it is for the people being helped.
Volunteering and happiness Veteran volunteers may have long suspected they’re happier when they volunteer, and research suggests that’s true. A study from researchers at the London School of Economics that was published in the journal Social Science and Medicine found that the more people volunteered, the happier they were. The researchers compared people who never volunteered to people who did, finding that the odds of being “very happy” rose by 7 percent among those who volunteered monthly. Those odds increased by 12 percent among people who volunteered every two to four weeks. Volunteering and mental health Psychologists have long known that social interaction can improve mental health. Psychology Today notes that interacting with others decreases feelings of depression while increasing feelings of well-being. Volunteering is a great way to meet new people, exposing volunteers to people with shared interests. That can be especially valuable to people who are new to a community, helping them to avoid feelings of loneliness after moving to an area where they have no preexisting social network. Volunteering and long-term health Volunteering that requires social interaction can produce long-term health benefits that can have a profound impact on quality of life as men and women age. A recent study published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease focused on participants without dementia who were involved in a highly interactive discussion group. Researchers compared those participants to others who participated in Tai Chi or walking or were part of a control group that did not receive any interventions. The former group exhibited improved cognitive function, and MRIs indicated they increased their brain volumes after being involved in the discussion group. Larger brain volume has been linked to a lower risk of dementia. Many volunteering opportunities require routine interaction with others, potentially providing significant, long-term health benefits as a result. While volunteering is a selfless act, volunteers may be benefiting in ways that can improve their lives in both the short- and long-term.
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ANSWERING THE CALL
Brooke Hamann: A devoted dentist with a dark but important volunteer gig as a DMORT emergency responder BY MARIE JOHNSON For Luminous
B
rooke Hamann watched Super Bowl LII from the edge of her seat last February — for more reasons than one. Sure, it was an exciting game and she’s a big football fan, but for her, there was another element to it. A more serious one. The Super Bowl was a huge event that was happening close to home, and Brooke is part of a federal emergency response team that was “on alert” during the game. If anything really bad had happened — a natural disaster, terrorist attack or mass shooting, for example — she would have been called to help document the scene and identify people’s remains. It’s a grim job, but somebody’s got to do it. Brooke volunteered to be one of those somebodies. A co-owner of Hamann Dentistry in Perham, she
Dr. Brooke Hamann was practically raised in the dental office she now co-owns with her father, who started Hamann Dentistry in 1974. She’s been a family dentist in Perham for the past 8 years, and is also trained in forensic dentistry. Marie Johnson / Luminous
and about 15 other dentists from across Minnesota are members of a dental Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team, or DMORT. The team trains with an expert forensic odontologist to learn how to identify people by their dental remains in the wake of a mass casualty event. Whenever there’s a hurricane, for example, or an airplane crash, anywhere in the U.S., they could be called on for their expertise. The work they do isn’t easy, but it’s important: they help reunite victims with their surviving friends and family, helping those loved ones and their communities find closure. The Minnesota DMORT members meet a couple of times a year at the Hennepin County Morgue, practicing on actual cadavers. They take intraoral photos, read charts, review case studies, input data into a national records system, and more. They work with the top professionals in the field — Brooke once attended a training with the woman who positively identified the remains of Jacob Wetterling.
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Brooke says she used to want to be a forensic pathologist as a kid, so this “calls on that passion.” Along a similar line, she’s also part of Minnesota Responds, a partnership of volunteer programs centered on health and health care as well as community preparedness, response and recovery efforts in the face of an emergency. She’s never been activated for either group yet, and she says no one who’s in those groups ever wants to receive such a call. But if that call should come one day, they’ll be prepared. Born and raised in Perham, dentistry was an integral part of Brooke’s upbringing. Her father, Michael Hamann, opened Hamann Dentistry in 1974, and Brooke remembers toddling around that dental office — the same one she now runs with her dad today — when she was in diapers. A couple of the employees who worked in the office back then are still working there now. They watched that little girl grow up, and now work for the woman she became. “When Brooke was young, I babysat her,” says Vila Von Ruden, who’s been with Hamann Dentistry since it opened. Over the years, she’s attended birthday parties, sporting events, graduation ceremonies and weddings for Brooke and Brooke’s two sisters, and “I feel like I’m part of the family.” Vila says Brooke “deserves a lot of credit” for her professional accomplishments. She described her as smart, professional, patient and “very thorough,” as well as simply an all-around “good person.” Despite growing up in the world of dentistry, Brooke wasn’t always certain she’d wear the white coat herself.
Brooke, in front of Hamann Dentistry’s new sign outside the office in Perham. Marie Johnson / Luminous
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From a young age, she was really into forensics, and she loved puzzles, Legos, beadwork and other analytical activities. She knew she wanted to do something in a science- or math-related field, but dentistry was just one of many possible careers within that realm. Ultimately, it was seeing her father’s love for his work that made up her mind. She saw the rapport he built with his patients over the years, and how he looked forward to going to work every day, and she knew that was what she wanted for herself. “Dentistry is something I just fell into, and I love it,” she says. “I saw my dad’s passion for his work, and now I feel the same way for mine today. I love what I do.” After graduating from Perham High School, Brooke moved to Minneapolis and earned her bachelor’s degree in chemistry at Augsburg University, Brooke and her husband, Andy Matzke, are big sports fans. Submitted Photo
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I saw my dad’s passion for his work, and now I feel the same way for mine today. I love what I do. — BROOKE HAMANN where she also played college golf (she was an avid golf, basketball and volleyball player in high school). She then attended dental school at the University of Minnesota for four years, joining her father at Hamann Dentistry right after that. “I was lucky to know where I was going and to get started right away,” she says. She enjoyed her time in the Cities, but after eight years, she says, she welcomed her return to Perham: “I wanted to spread my wings and fly
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for awhile, but in the end I was ready to come home.” She didn’t make the move alone. She was married by then, to her former Augsburg biology classmate Andy Matzke, who now manages the lab at Perham Health. The two were married in 2009 and have two daughters, Kadence and Skylar, ages 6 and 4. Brooke believes being a business owner sets a good example for her daughters. It also allows her to be an advocate in the community, and gives her some flexibility with her schedule. She and her sisters were raised “to be very independent women,” she says, and she wants to raise her girls in that same way. She also wants them to learn how to appreciate and care for animals. The family has golden retrievers that they adore, and Brooke has also gotten the girls involved in horseback
riding at a local arena. She’ll sometimes ride with them. “It’s a fun thing I get to do with my daughters,” she says. “Horses are such unique, beautiful, peaceful animals.” She spends as much time as she can with her family. In the summers, they all love to be out on the water. Brooke likes being outdoors in general, hunting and fishing and playing golf. She’s a big sports fan — especially when it comes to football, Gophers teams and the Minnesota Wild, and she’s part of a local book club and active in her church, Calvary Lutheran. “With me, what you see is what you get,” she says of herself. She says she’s reserved but friendly, and admits, “I can be pretty goofy sometimes.” That goofiness comes in handy with nervous clients, as it can help put them at ease.
can’t normally afford to go to the dentist. They’re the only dental office in Otter Tail County to do so. She’s also a delegate for the West Central Dental District, a part of the Minnesota Dental Association. As a district delegate, she helps direct ‘big picture’ conversations about dental care across the state, and determines which issues to present to the governor. For example, Brooke says reimbursements to dentists from state-run insurance programs are “very small, like 30 cents on the dollar,” so most dentists can’t afford to see very many of those patients, and thus a lot of those people go without dental care. In her leadership role with the west central district, she advocates for higher reimbursements, which she believes would open the door to more care for more people.
to children, seniors and low-income, underserved populations. Hamann Dentistry takes part in the annual Give Kids a Smile program, which provides free cleanings, fillings and extractions to kids whose families
“There’s a lot of anxiety and fear in dentistry,” Brooke says. “I like to build people’s confidence and change perceptions about dentistry.” She’s passionate about dental care, but especially when it comes
Brooke, Kadence and Skylar have a shared love of horses and horseback riding. Submitted Photo
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She has some thoughts and concerns about the future of dentistry, and wonders what it might look like for the next generation. “People are retaining their teeth longer, but it gets harder for people to care for their own teeth (as they get older),” she says. “So where are we going to be? Are there going to be dentists at nursing homes, or at assisted living facilities? … And who’s going to pay for that?” As much as dental technologies and avenues of care might change, however, Brooke says the underlying foundations and philosophy of dentistry won’t — at least not at Hamann Dentistry, where the focus will always be on people and quality care. “We’ve been around for 44 years, and I hope we’re around for 44 more,” she says.
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HOW TO UTILIZE SOCIAL MEDIA TO HELP YOUR COMMUNITY Social media changed the world. Despite their relative infancy, platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are now ingrained in the everyday lives of billions of people across the globe. Though it has its critics, social media also has the potential to affect positive change. Grassroots fundraising efforts such as the “Ice Bucket Challenge,” in which participants dumped ice cold water over their heads to raise awareness about Lou Gehrig’s disease, or ALS, might have seemed silly at the time, but that’s just one example of how social media was deployed to support a good cause. In fact, the American ALS Association reported receiving 13 times as much in contributions in 2014 (the year when the challenge was popular on social media) as it did the year prior. Social media makes it possible for ordinary citizens to help their communities in significant ways. Prior to social media, affecting such change might have seemed
nearly impossible. But the following are just a handful of ways to utilize social media to help your community. Stick to what’s important to you. If you want to affect change in your community but the novelty of social media has worn off, you can still use platforms like Facebook and Twitter to raise awareness about causes that are important to you. In fact, limiting your posts to instances where you’re raising awareness about certain issues, highlighting events in your community or urging others to donate to important local causes might help ensure more of those posts are actually read. Friends and followers may be less inclined to read your posts and learn about the issues you care about if such posts are sandwiched between inane posts about everyday life. Start a group. Another way to help your community is to invite other social media users in your community to join a group
focused on addressing a particular cause or issue in your community. For example, a Facebook group can be a great place to organize a park cleanup and help fellow residents recognize the need to remove debris from a nearby park. Organizing such groups won’t require much time, but they can be an effective and convenient way to connect like-minded individuals in your community. Promote and support others’ achievements. Promoting and supporting others’ achievements is another way to use social media to build a sense of community. A simple expression of support for a local athletes, author, teacher, etc., may inspire others to offer their own support, strengthening your community and the connection you and your neighbors feel to it. Social media can be used to strengthen communities and foster a sense of pride among residents.
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MAKING CHANGE Cyndy Huber: Counting coins as a bank CFO, making it count as a community leader BY MARIE JOHNSON For Luminous
C
yndy Huber’s coworkers are always giving her grief about how uberorganized her office is. A self-professed perfectionist who likes to have a place for everything and everything in its place, Cyndy doesn’t leave anything out on her desk at the end of the day, and even the contents of her desk drawers are flawlessly arranged. “I’m anal — very organized,” she admits with a laugh. But it’s what she needs to do “to keep all the balls in the air.” She is quite the juggler. Between her job as the Chief Financial Officer at United Community Bank, her duties as a school board member, her many community involvements, and her home life as a wife, mom, cook, sports and outdoors enthusiast and more, she’s got a very busy schedule — and she doesn’t want any of those balls to drop. She makes it work, she says, through preparation. While she enjoys being spontaneous about some things, like plan-as-you-go vacations, when it comes to anything serious she likes to be good and prepared.
She didn’t run for school board, for example, until her oldest son was a senior in high school. She purposely waited until at least one of her three kids had gone through each of Perham’s three public schools — the elementary, middle and high school — because only then did she feel like she knew the school system well enough to be adequately prepared to help lead it. “I always had an interest in it, but when I do anything, I like to be very prepared,” she says. “I wanted to have gone through all three schools before I joined the board.” That was in the fall of 2008, and she’s now finishing up her 10th year as a board member. With her expertise in finance, and particularly school finance (she used to audit schools in the early years of her career), she felt she had something to offer as a school board member. Sue Von Ruden, who’s also been on the board for the past decade, says Cyndy’s breadth of experience is well appreciated: “It elevates my level of confidence in how we’re able to lead the district,” she says.
Cyndy Huber and her husband, Mark, built this swing in their backyard overlooking Big Pine Lake. Cyndy is the Chief Financial Officer at United Community Bank, and has been an active and influential voice for Perham Public Schools for years, among many other community involvements. Marie Johnson / Luminous PAGE 26 | LUMINOUS 2018
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Cyndy’s very bright, and she’s so organized it’s crazy. — SUE VON RUDEN, friend and fellow school board member
“Cyndy’s very bright, and she’s so organized it’s crazy. She’s a very dedicated advocate as a school board member in wanting to make sure that we’re doing what’s in the best interest of everybody involved — the students, faculty, taxpayers, business community… She’s very, very conscientious about that.” Though Cyndy describes herself as someone who doesn’t like to “make a splash” around town — “a hermit,” even — she does like to get involved in the community in order to make a positive impact. That, coupled with her innate love for education, is why she decided to run for school board. “I just like school,” she explains. “I’ve always liked it. I love learning.” She’s seen a lot of changes in education during her time on the board, including the introduction of new technologies like iPads, new teaching delivery methods, more rigorous academic expectations, and even some differences in curriculum.
Cyndy and her husband, Mark Huber, with their three children (left to right), John, Kaylan and Sam. PAGE 28 | LUMINOUS 2018
By and large, she believes, the changes she’s seen have been exciting, and have contributed to an overall increase in the learning opportunities available to today’s students. “I can’t imagine what it would be like to go to school now, with all the electives and such,” she says. “It’s fun! I love changes, and I love technology.” The construction and opening of the new Perham High School has of course been the biggest change she’s seen in Perham. She not only witnessed that change, but played a direct role in it. As a member of the district’s facilities committee, Cyndy saw with her own eyes how bad the old high school building had gotten and decided to take an active role in getting a bond referendum passed to pay for a new school — an exhausting process that ended up taking multiple attempts. When she was sworn onto the board in 2009, she says, budgets were tight. She and the
other board members had to make difficult decisions about cuts and reductions to school staff and programs, she says, “and it was very stressful and emotional.” “School funding is very restrictive,” she says. “They basically tell you how much money you’re getting and how you have to spend it. So the referendum process, and those failing, and then the relief of getting one passed … When we passed the building referendum, I was elated.” She knew right away that she wanted to be heavily involved in the planning and construction of the new high school, she says: “I wanted to get my hands dirty in this.” So she joined the planning committee, meeting with the group two to three times a month for three years to make “a million little decisions” about the new school’s form and function.
Cyndy and her husband, Mark, met back in college at a bank in Grand Forks, N.D., where Cyndy was working as a teller and Mark was one of her customers.
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Cyndy, at home in her reading chair with her dog, Oakley. Reading is her favorite pastime; she reads about two books a week. Marie Johnson / Luminous
It was a lot of work, she says, but now that it’s done, “it was worth it.” “I think it’s great,” she says of the new school. “I think the students are really excited, which makes them open to learning. I think they respect it.” Cyndy is a Perham High School graduate herself. She got her diploma in 1985, and then went on to attain her bachelor of accountancy degree from the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. She met her husband, Mark
Huber, while in college. She was working as a student teller at a bank there, and he was her customer: “I messed up his transaction and he had to come back,” she laughs. The two were both Perham natives, but had never met until that day. They hit it off right away, got engaged during her senior year at UND and then moved back to their mutual hometown. Mark worked for the family business, Huber Electric (which he now owns), and Cyndy did
I think the students are really excited, which makes them open to learning. I think they respect it. — CYNDY, on the new high school PAGE 30 | LUMINOUS 2018
some work in corporate tax and school auditing, then worked for Kenny’s Candy before joining United Community Bank as a Controller 23 years ago. Today, as CFO, Cyndy works with the bank president to manage the funds of the bank, do budgeting and regulatory reporting, and provide the accounting work for the bank’s holding company. She also oversees the bank’s investment portfolio and 401k, and does the tax reporting for payroll, among other responsibilities. It’s a big job that she admits gets stressful at times, but she says, “I love it. I love what I do.” She also serves as Controller for Huber Electric, though she says that’s more of a service to her family than a
formal title. Her and Mark’s youngest son, John, works as an electrician alongside his dad, making Huber Electric a three-generation family business. Their eldest child, Sam, is a business analyst in Madison, Wis., and their daughter, Kaylan, is in dental school in Glendale, Ariz. Mark and Cyndy make their home on Big Pine Lake, on a piece of property that once belonged to Cyndy’s uncle and is right next door to the property she grew up on. She moved to Perham with her family when she was nine, she says, and she’s been on Big Pine Lake for more than 40 years of her life now. For her, home is a haven. She loves to bake and cook — homemade soups and chocolate chip cookies are her specialties — as well as spend time out in the yard, gardening or just looking out at the lake from her backyard swing, which she and Mark made themselves. They like to do projects like that together, and also
do a fair amount of canning with the things they grow in their gardens. In the summers, they spend most of their free time out on the lake, or on their deck, which Cyndy calls “our sanctuary.” She likes to go for boat rides and go fishing, take walks, and ride bike. A big sports fan, she watches a lot of Vikings and college hockey games. But without a doubt, Cyndy’s favorite hobby is reading. She makes sure to reserve time for that every evening. “After I get home, I clean up after supper, go to my reading chair and read for about an hour,” she says — usually with her little dog, Oakley, curled up in her lap. Cyndy’s a fast reader and finishes two books a week. Finding the time to read so avidly is a testament to her organizational skills. In addition to those work and school board “balls in the air,” she’s also juggling a number of other commitments.
She’s been the treasurer of the Big Pine Lake Association Board for the past 20 years and has been active with her Lake Improvement District; she’s a charter member of the 549 Family Foundation and has served as treasurer; she’s an auditor for the Miss Minnesota pageant (and was for the Miss Perham and Miss Heart of the Lakes pageants for years before that); she’s on various committees at Calvary Lutheran Church, where she also used to teach Sunday School; and she does some clerical work for the Back Court Club. She’s been active with the Women of FOCUS group, formerly serving as the chair of that group’s popular Christmas PLUS Bazaar, and has served on the local Kinship board and Gymnastics Academy board. In the future, Cyndy says she’d like to explore some different pockets of the community, perhaps as a volunteer at the library, or with the Reading Buddies program through Kinship.
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