Lots of people go fishing or take a vacation ‘up north,” then head home, dreaming about moving here permanently.
When it happens it’s usually a retiree, someone starting a business, making a midlife career change. It’s rare that a teenager makes that decision and it works out.
But that’s what happened to Hackensack resident Dana Stanko who retires July 31 after a 35-year career with the city, 27 as sewer and water superintendent.
“My first trip to Hack was when I was 14 and took a fishing trip with a neighbor,” Dana reminisced recently. “I met a bunch of guys that I’ve known ever since: Jeff Peterson, Tony Peterson, Dave Hoopman ...”
Back in the Twin Cities, Dana attended Minneapolis Washburn High School, where he played hockey and graduated in 1975, For the next two winters he played Junior A Hockey until he couldn’t keep up the pace.
So in 1977 Dana moved north permanently — to Hackensack. Through 1986 he drove a ready mix truck for Glen Witham, who owned a sand, gravel and ready mix business.
In 1987 he was hired as a full-time city employee, working with Gordy Ford on city projects, until Ford retired in 1995. While city councilor Bill Kramer handled snow plowing, “they needed help painting, raking, caring for the beach,” he recalls.
The council old-timers, Kramer, John Hatheway, Smokey Parrish, Leon LaVallee and others, called Dana “the town boy.”
“They’d say, ‘Get the kid to do it!’” Dana recalls, with a grin.
Hackensack was a lot different back then. In the 1970s, the population hovered in the low 200s. Over the decades, the city inched upwards to 313, according to the latest census.
Dana estimates there’s three times as many responsibilities now for the city maintenance superintendent.
Back then, there was no city park or bike trail. When the railroad tracks were pulled out, the area was turned into a city park with playground, which became the superintendent’s responsibility. He’s in charge of Hillcrest Cemetery. The streets, gravel before, are now almost all blacktop. There have been water and sewer system extensions, including the 1995 sewer and water extension to Mann Lake Ltd.
The city’s original water system had just 10 hydrants, and 40 services to homes or businesses. In fact, the four block system in the downtown area that was replaced in summer 2021 — was the original water system.
When Dana started, Hackensack had a two sewer pond system with spray irrigation. Now it’s three ponds, and the wastewater goes into five rapid infiltration basins.
Dana runs the water plant; mixes chemicals; tests water; flushes fire hydrants; installs water meters; digs in water services; and handles anything to do with the water tower — except climb it, which he refuses to do.
Groundwater seepage into the wastewater system was a major problem in the late 1990s. In 1999, Hackensack replaced all its old clay sewer lines with PVC pipes, which substantially reduced the amount of groundwater flowing to the sewer ponds.
He’s been around long enough to see projects he’s done come around again. The most recent curb and gutter project in summer 2021 was a replacement of the curb and gutter Dana worked on in 1989.
He remembers emergencies involving broken water lines, many in the dead of night and/or dead of winter. One of his first was a water line break early one subzero morning. After fruitless attempts to find the break in the flooded hole, Gordy decided the only thing to do was turn off water to the whole city. With residents sound asleep, the two found and fixed the break; and nobody ever noticed.
Another happened about 3 a.m. the day after Christmas. A Highway Department employee heading for the county garage south of town spotted water bubbling out of the highway. Yet another break a few years ago flooded the liquor store on a cold January day.
In both cases, who ya gonna call? Dana, of course.
Despite this, he remembers telling Gordy Ford early on, ‘I want your job when you’re gone!”
After Gordy retired, Dana worked solo for one or two years, with occasional help from city employee Dave Hoopman, who was bartender at the Muni. Then Dave decided to switch hats, and he and Dana shared duties until Hoopman retired in 2019 and Casey Stanley was hired to assist. In May, Ron Triplett was hired as Dana’s replacement.
In November 1989, Dana got his first wastewater sewer license from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. In June 1992 he got a Class D water license from the Department of Health and now holds a Class C license. Back then, both the city’s water and wastewater systems were Class D, but the water plant went up a notch from D to C, requiring higher licensure.
City sewer and water superintendents need a certain number of hours to keep their licenses valid (renewed every three years), so they attend one or three-day licensure schools held across the state. On May 18, Hackensack hosted a one day Wastewater Operation and Maintenance Training Session, presented by Dana and put on by Minnesota Rural Water.
Dana flips through a notebook filled with consecutively-dated licenses; hard copy proof of his 35-year career. His certificates of commendation from the MPCA are almost as numerous as the licenses.
In January, Dana received an award from the Department of Health, presented by Mike Strodtman, Minnesota Rural Water Association, in charge of wellhead protection.
“The partnerships you have built and the stakeholders you have engaged to secure the long-term protection of the drinking water supply will serve the community for years to come,” said Tom Hogan, Director, Environmental Health Division, in an accompanying letter.
On a personal note, Dan met his wife Ginny some years ago at the Hackensack Legion when she stopped in with her brother, whom Dana knew.
After realizing that this “good looking gal” was the friend’s sister, not girlfriend, Dana asked Ginny if she’d like to ride with him in the town’s fire truck in the Sweetheart Days Parade.
It was a pick-up line Ginny apparently couldn’t resist. Two years later, they were married. Their sons, Preston and Tanner, both graduated from WHA High School and Central Lakes College where they studied computer science. Preston works for Mann Lake Supply and Tanner, for the Moundsview School District.
Outside of work and family, Dana keeps busy tending the town ball diamond in spring and summer, and the skating/hockey rink in winter.
The first thing he’ll do after retirement will be to take an extended hunting and fishing trip to Alaska. After that — “putting up firewood.”
It’s been a good job, a good deal,” he says, with typical understatement. “I’ve been the town’s referee, judge and babysitter.”
“Every year in the fall, I have to shut off water to about 40 services for people who leave for the winter,” he illustrates.
“But every year, I always have to call and remind a few.”
And sometimes it’s the same few!
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