GaryOsberg.com

On Monday I will reach a milestone.  For the last twenty-five years I have represented Minnesota Public Radio in central Minnesota, western Minnesota and southwestern Minnesota as well as Sioux Falls, South Dakota and Sun Valley, Idaho.  In April we sold the Sun Valley station to Boise State Public Radio, but I picked up the Brainerd territory.

In April of 1999, I was promoted to sales manager of the Xerox agency Albinson in Minneapolis.  I lived in Upsala at the time, so I would leave home at 4am every Monday. I rented a room from my cousin Kevin in Golden Valley.  I would return to Upsala on Thursday evening and work from Albinson’s St. Cloud branch on Fridays.

On July 13, 1999, I had supper with my son at Byerly’s in Golden Valley. I told Erik that I would keep the old parsonage house in Upsala, but I was planning on moving to Minneapolis, since I had my dream job with a great product, and I would be making a very good living.  The very next day I found out that the owners of Albinson didn’t like the new contract that Xerox had presented to them, so they decided that they didn’t want to be the Xerox agency anymore. They would no longer need a sales manager. My boss told me that I should pack my things, and they would pay me thru the end of the month.

I spent the summer of 1999 painting old buildings in the Upsala area. I drove to Randall and went to the back room at Bermel’s Shoes & Boots, the local Red Wing boot dealer. I picked out a good pair of sturdy work boots and started climbing ladders. My first job was painting the Post Office in Upsala and then I painted an outbuilding on my cousin Dave’s farm. Per my brother Bill’s instructions, I used oil-based primer and latex paint. He let me use his power washer. The two buildings that I did the summer of 1999 still look good. The boots are in pretty good shape too.

In August of 1999 I read an ad in the St. Cloud Times for a “Development Officer” for Minnesota Public Radio. I didn’t know what a “Development Officer” was, but it turned out to be sales. A perfect fit. It took two- and one-half months and seven interviews to get this job, but it worked out well. Compared to “slamming boxes for Xerox”, this is more fun than it is work. I have no plans to retire anytime soon.

“It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul” From the poem “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley.