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Luverne’s longtime water and wastewater supervisor Al Lais started his city career in 1972 after losing his AR Wood job when the company closed.
He and AR Wood co-workers Jim Van Maanen and Bruce Kurtz found employment in the city’s water department which had openings at the time.
“Our first job was to climb in a tank and clean out a water filter at the plant,” Lais recalled.
Little did he know that assignment would mark the beginning of a 50-year city career that officially comes to an end on Dec. 31.
After that first brief assignment in 1972, Lais went on to work in several city departments, including managing the landfill back when city and county operated it together.
In his early years at the landfill, Lais helped with city snow removal using the landfill heavy equipment.
“The snow would be so high we’d have to pile it up on the corners with loaders,” he said.
“One winter storm the wind blew so hard, four city snowplows couldn’t even cut into the snowdrifts. So I had to bring in a loader from the landfill and lead the plows down the street just to get it busted up. One storm we moved snow over 24 hours straight.”
Working up from the ‘bottom of the pile’
After seven years at the landfill, Lais started in the city’s “sewer collection and water distribution” department.
Lais took care of meters, cleaned sewers, replaced hydrants and meters, and eventually learned all there was to know about the city’s water and sewer service.
“I basically worked from the bottom of the pile to the top through the years,” Lais said.
He recalls late night calls to the water plant to keep Luverne’s system meeting demand.
“I used to get called out at night, back in the day when IBP was here,” Lais said.
“They used so much water you’d have to go out at 11 p.m. after the shift and backwash the south water plant every night because you couldn’t go two days. That’s how dirty the water was with iron and manganese. The filter can only take out so much.”
Front row seat to growing city
Along the way, Lais found himself in a front row seat for city planning and expansion.
In 1987 Luverne built an addition on the wastewater plant to increase flow from 500,000 gallons per day to 1.5 million gallons per day.
“That’s when we added our first oxidation ditch,” Lais said.
The Juhl Addition development around that time prompted a booster station near the American Reformed Church.
And in 1991 the Minnesota Veterans Home began construction in Luverne, prompting a flurry of development.
“After that, everything north of the Vets Home was built,” he said. “Everything north of the Baptist Church … That’s a lot of growth.”
The Sybesma housing addition on the west side of town followed with Poplar Creek and The Oaks senior living apartments south of Mary Jane Brown.
Then came the new hospital in 2005 north of the Veterans Home and along with it, dozens more homes and other development.
With all that growth, and the addition of new homes and industry, Lais said it kept him and the water and wastewater department busy making sure the city could keep up with all the new connections.
For example, the sewer line was redone when Oakley Street was rebuilt to increase flow from an 8-inch line to a 15-inch line to accommodate growth to the north.
Similarly, underground infrastructure was upgraded on Warren Street and other arteries as their road surfaces were rebuilt.
“We put the new cement ground storage tanks in at the north water plant, because the other ones were rusting away,” Lais said. “They were built in 1963 when IBP came.”
Good leadership
He said being part of a growing, healthy city was what he enjoyed most about his work.
“There’s growth happening here, vs. being stagnant,” Lais said.
“We were ready for an industry if they started asking about coming here. That all relates to growth.”
When Del Domagala retired in 2000, Lais took his place at the helm of the water and wastewater department.
By then, Lais said he knew most of what he needed to know, but he wasn’t afraid to lean on local plumbers if he had to.
“Jerry Buss will call me up, or I’ll call him up. We’re basically the seniors of Luverne,” he said. “If I don’t know it and if he doesn’t know it, nobody knows it. We still do that today.”
Lais said the city has been fortunate to have a progressive council and the leadership of City Administrator John Call (who also retires at the end of December).
“We were lucky to have him for 17 years; most administrators before him were here five years or less,” Lais said.
“He’s always been open to me doing research and asking questions. … I felt like I was part of the solution on projects.”
Call said the city is losing a wealth of information with Lais’s retirement.
“Al is one of those guys that had so much institutional knowledge about the city's water and sewer infrastructure; all stored in his memory banks,” he said.
“He could literally tell you about where the pipes were in every block in town. I guess you could say he knew, ‘where all of the bodies were buried.’ To have worked for the city for 50 years is really quite an amazing feat.”
At 70, ready to retire
Now Lais said the city is poised for future growth, especially with Luverne’s connection to the Lewis and Clark Regional Water System for supplemental water.
And at 70, he said he feels ready to retire.
“I never thought I’d be where I am today,” Lais said.
“My goal was to make 50 years, because I don’t think that’s been done before, but I never minded going to work.”
Lais has been working part time on an hourly rate since this summer until his official retirement Dec. 31.
Longtime city water and wastewater worker Darrel Ykema is filling Lais’ shoes as department head after passing his certification last summer.
“There’s a lot to know about how our system runs,” Lais said. “There’s a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes that most people don’t hear about.”
Lais will continue working with his personal business, Al’s Upholstery, and he said he
looks forward to more time with his family in retirement.
He and his wife, Sharon, have three grown children, Mark (and Kari), Matt (and Amber) and Robyn (and Rick) Wessels.