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Staff Newsletter | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources |
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March 3, 2023
In This Issue
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A busy, snowy week for the DNR
 Photo credit: Pete Boulay
As you might have heard, it snowed last week. Though the storm ended up barely cracking the list of top 25 snowfalls in the Twin Cities (and it would have taken a lot more to unseat the number one snowfall event — the Halloween Blizzard of 1991, of course — as Pete Boulay with the State Climatology Office explained to our social media followers), it did generate a lot of attention for the DNR.
The State Climatology Office was busy fielding calls from reporters throughout the state, as well as updating the list of top snowfalls in the Twin Cities, writing a summary of the storm and updating an article about February becoming snowier. Their top snowfall article on the website normally receives between 20 and 30 views a day around this time but this year, received more than 36,000 views in February.
Meanwhile, Parks and Trails and area staff worked to update visitor alerts, snow depth reports and groomed trail conditions to make sure visitors were informed and safe. Enforcement urged fish house owners to get shelters off the ice ahead of time if they needed to (and take their trash with them).
One of the most reported on aspects of the storm was the EagleCam. The DNR's Nongame Wildlife Program EagleCam went semi-viral after a screenshot circulated of the eagle covered in snow after the storm. Local news outlets to national news outlets like USA Today spoke with Lori Naumann with the Nongame Wildlife Program and shared how the program helps Minnesota species survive and thrive. The EagleCam page had significant traffic bumps on Feb. 23, the day of the heaviest snowfall, with 51,000 views. The YouTube stream received 56,000 views on Feb. 23, 59,000 views on Feb. 24, 85,000 on Feb. 25 and 57,000 on Feb. 28. Clicks to the donate button on the EagleCam page also increased by 140 views on Feb. 23.
DNR videographer Nick Frantzen created a time lapse of the eagle nest in the storm:
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Commissioner's Awards recipients announced, dates set for award ceremonies, listening sessions
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Congratulations to the recipients of the 2022 Commissioner’s Awards, and thank you to the DNR employees who nominated their colleagues. The awards recognize achievements in 2022 that exemplify the DNR’s mission and values. The commissioners selected 16 individuals and 24 teams to receive awards.
The awards will be presented at eight award ceremonies and employee listening sessions that will be held throughout the state in April. The dates, times and locations are listed below.
Regional staff: Be on the lookout for an email invitation from your region to RSVP for a specific session.
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Mark your calendars
April 11, 10 a.m. - 12:15 p.m., Winona City Hall, 207 Lafayette St., Winona
April 13, 10:00 a.m. - 12:15 p.m., Baxter Northland Arboretum, Lower Level, 14250 Conservation Dr., Baxter
April 14, 9 - 11:15 a.m., St. Paul Central Office cafeteria, 500 Lafayette Rd.
April 19, 1 - 3:15 p.m., Finland Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center, Pichotta Science Center Auditorium, 6282 Cranberry Rd., Finland
April 20, 10 a.m. - 12:15 p.m., Grand Rapids (Bovey) Barn in the Woods, 27037 Baich Rd., Bovey
April 21, 10 a.m. - 12:15 p.m., Thief River Falls DNR Area office conference room, 246 125th Ave. NE, Thief River Falls
April 25, 10 a.m. - 12:15 p.m., Willmar Kandiyohi County Health and Human Services, 2200 23rd St. NE, Willmar (Multi-Purpose Room #0030)
April 28, 10:15 a.m. - 12:30 p.m., Windom Windom DNR, 175 County Rd 26, Windom
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Conservation Agenda mid-plan update complete
 The mid-plan update to the 2015-2025 Conservation Agenda has been completed. The Conservation Agenda sets long-term strategic direction for natural resources and measures conservation results. The four goals guide our work in natural resources conservation, outdoor recreation, natural resources economy, and operational excellence to fulfill the DNR's mission.
The Conservation Agenda refresh maintains and reinforces the core goals of the original plan while refocusing strategies and targeted actions for the DNR for the next three years. We have also updated the key trends to address the evolving and current challenges we face and inform our approach to achieving our goals. All DNR staff should be familiar with our goals and the key strategies for accomplishing them.
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Feb. 21, 2023
 Commissioner Sarah Strommen, Deputy Commissioner Barb Naramore, Assistant Commissioner Bob Meier, Assistant Commissioner Shannon Lotthammer and Assistant Commissioner Jess Richards were on the Feb. 21 Wireside Chat to discuss the MMB Employee Engagement Survey, open houses with staff, and other updates from the Commissioner's Office.
To watch previous Wireside Chats, including the Feb. 21 edition, head to the Wireside Chats Intranet page.
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DNR hosts media event to remind anglers to remove fish shelters by upcoming deadlines
 DNR Conservation Officer Garrett Thomas met with Twin Cities TV reporters Thursday at Crystal Lake in Burnsville. He reminded anglers about the upcoming deadlines to remove ice fishing shelters and urged them to not wait until the last minute. He also encouraged anglers to do their part in keeping our lakes clean by picking up trash.
Illegal exhausts, a bobcat report, a guilty conscience and more
With walleye and northern pike seasons over and fish house removal deadlines on the horizon, conservation officers have been working to ensure all shelters (and litter) are removed from the ice. With recent heavy snow, snowmobile activity has increased as well.
The following are several highlights from the weekly Conservation Office reports.
Feb. 21, 2023
CO Bill Landmark (Pelican Rapids) spent the week checking angling and snowmobile activity. He and other officers stopped one group who had been stopped by officers two weeks prior for registration and illegal-exhaust violations. The individuals still had not registered their snowmobiles or fixed their snowmobile exhaust and were subsequently cited again for the same violations.
CO Trent Seamans (Big Lake) focused patrols on ice and open-water river anglers. Seamans investigated a TIP report involving a suspicious picture of a dead bobcat. The investigation revealed the suspect shot the bobcat, took a
picture for social media, and then threw the bobcat in a ditch without
utilizing the fur or meat. The bobcat was also not registered as required by law.
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Feb. 27, 2023
CO Alexander Birdsall (Waconia) enforced snowmobile activity after the recent significant snowfall. He fielded numerous trespassing complaints as snowmobilers encroached farther and farther into private property and even residential spaces.
CO Chris Howe (St. Peter) worked angling and snowmobile activity this week. He assisted St. Peter Police officers and Nicollet County deputies with a snowmobile safety field day where about 30 students were certified.
CO Annette Kyllo (Rochester #1) patrolled area snowmobile trails after the recent winter storm. While patrolling trails, Kyllo encountered a couple of groups of squirrel hunters. One hunter didn’t realize his 2022 small-game license was valid through the end of February and had hunted for five hours with a guilty conscience believing he didn’t have a valid license.
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Tech tip: compress tables with the
click of a button
 If you make tables in your Word documents, the built-in DNR templates in Microsoft Word have a helpful new style for you. Called “Table Text,” the style has three points of spacing before and after text, rather than 10 points. This results in a shorter table when a compressed look is desired.
To use it, highlight your table and select the “Table Text” style in the Word ribbon.
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Reminder: Self-Service changes allow employees to update sex, pronouns, gender identity
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Employees now have the ability to update their sex, pronouns and gender identity in Self-Service. The options can be found under:
Self-Service > About Me > Who Am I > Gender Details (on the left of the screen)
Employees now have the option of "Other" in addition to "Female" and "Male." Additionally, there are two new fields for employees to enter a pronoun and gender identity if they want. If an employee chooses to provide pronoun data, the pronouns will appear in their work-related Microsoft products (email, Teams, SharePoint, etc.).
Employees are not required to provide sex, pronoun or gender identity data in Self-Service and there are no prerequisites or requirements to change this information. Employees can update this information on their own without any documentation or approval process if they want.
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Arrests and Confiscations Supervisor and Turn in Poachers Coordinator Patty Holt
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 Work location: DNR Central Office
Job title: Arrests and confiscations supervisor
Joined DNR: November 1994
Education: One year of college
Hobbies: Quilting, gardening and reading
Something that might surprise your colleagues: “I don’t eat fish.”
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A career spent supporting
conservation officers
By Joe Albert,
Enforcement communications coordinator
Thirty-some years ago, Patty Holt was managing a hair salon, spending her days making small talk with clients and supervising a group of hair stylists.
Not a bad gig, certainly, but it had its drawbacks. Eventually, she decided she wanted something different. So she took a state-required clerical exam and scored well, and thought she was well on her way to getting a job with the state of Minnesota. A protracted hiring freeze scuttled those hopes, and for another six years she managed the salon.
She’d all but forgotten that one-time desire to work for the state. Then one day, a letter showed up in the mail from the state. She had no idea what it contained. When she opened it, she learned the hiring freeze was over. She was invited to interview at a number of state agencies and, for no reason other than luck and what turned out to be fortuitous timing, wound up with a job in the Enforcement Division at the DNR.
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That was more than 28 years ago. Holt has held a number of positions in Enforcement since then, but one thing has always remained the same — she’s never had a desire to leave.
“I believe in what we’re doing,” said Holt, the division’s arrests and confiscations supervisor and Turn in Poachers TIP coordinator. “I really like working with our conservation officers, and working in law enforcement in general. On the whole, we are making a difference. And there’s a sense of camaraderie and family that you don’t get a lot of other places.”
As arrests and confiscations supervisor, which she’s been since 1997, Holt is part data manager, part dispatcher, and part records clerk. She’s involved in all cases where individuals lose their right to hunt and fish, or have their equipment confiscated and sold at auction. And as TIP coordinator, which she’s been for the past 20 years, she’s among those who answers the TIP hotline during business hours (State Patrol dispatch answers it after-hours) and who is responsible for ensuring there’s sufficient coverage during particularly busy times, such as the firearms deer season.
Ask most conservation officers if they could be successful at their jobs without non-licensed support staff like Holt, and the answer is a resounding no.
“I do feel like we make conservation officers’ jobs a little easier,” Holt said. “It’s gratifying because you do feel like you’re making a difference for them.”
And like conservation officers – and pretty much anyone who works in the Enforcement Division – Holt never really has a sense for how a particular day will unfold.
“It’s always a challenge,” she said. “It’s consistently the same, but every day is different. I don’t start my day with a plan for what I’m going to accomplish because if I did, I would be very frustrated at the end of the day.”
In her role, Holt interacts frequently with people outside the DNR – particularly those who’ve done something that resulted in them losing a privilege or piece of equipment. Some reflect on what they’ve done and are sorry for it. Others call and use Holt as their own verbal punching bag. She’s learned to roll with it, though, and she takes pride in the role she plays in helping protect Minnesota’s people and natural resources. For her, there’s a certain sense of satisfaction in being involved on both ends of a serious violation.
Call it coming full circle.
“There was one TIP call I took and dispatched it to the conservation officer, who was able to make a case. The person was convicted and had their gun confiscated, and I sent them a revocation letter,” Holt said. “I wound up talking to them at some point about their revocation as well. At the next confiscated equipment auction, I was standing next to the same conservation officer and someone came up to inquire about a particular gun that was confiscated from them. Turns out it was the violator from that original TIP call.”
Away from the DNR, Holt works a part-time job at a local retailer – “it provides me some balance, since a lot of the people I talk to during the day aren’t happy to be talking to me,” she said – and enjoys spending time with her husband, mother, two children, and three grandchildren.
 Quilting is one of Holt’s hobbies, and she puts it to use in part to make quilts for the families of conservation officers who have died. The quilts include parts of their uniforms. Pictured above is the quilt and family of retired Capt. Alex Gutierrez (his wife and children and retired Lt. Col. Greg Salo).
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Gone fishin'
 Photo credit: Deb Rose
Middle and high school students from Higher Ground Academy in St. Paul spent part of their school day March 1 ice fishing on Lake Como. For many of the 250 students, it was their first ever opportunity to explore one of Minnesota’s favorite activities.
Karl Erickson, a former teacher at the school, used a 2019 No Child Left Inside grant to purchase ice fishing equipment and introduce students to a world below the ice. Members of the Saint Paul Police Department and local partners, Dive Guys, were on hand to help the students drop a line, tell a story, and hopefully reel in the big one.
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Submit to Spotlight
Send Spotlight articles and photos to newsletter.dnr@state.mn.us.
Next Spotlight is scheduled for March 15. Deadline for content is March 17.
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