Steffen retires after 36 years

CRESCO - After 36 years of serving the residents of Howard County, Warren Steffen turned his calculator off for the last time on Dec. 31, 2022.

The decision was not necessarily easy for the Treasurer, but it was the right one for Steffen. “At the age of 71, it was getting harder and harder to remember all the new changes coming in every day.” Besides that, he’s looking forward to doing some traveling . . . on four wheels and two!

Looking back over the past nearly four decades, Steffen explained how he came to be Treasurer of Howard County.

“I was working for the state liquor stores. Back in 1985, Gov. Terry Branstad wanted to balance the budget and decided to sell all the liquor stores.”

He wasn’t excited to buy a liquor store, so he started looking around. At the time, Helen Bateman was planning to retire at the end of 1986. He talked to her, and he filled out the paperwork. “It was the best thing that I ever did.” There were seven people running for Treasurer, and Steffen was elected, starting on Jan. 1, 1987.

Since then, he has enjoyed every aspect of his job. Although he didn’t have any experience, he had good helpers.

“Thank God for good help. The help runs the office. But the Treasurer also has to do a lot of the same work.” The office workers at that time were Evelyn Bruening, Doris Hubka and Norma Albertson. “The current staff is Norma, Christy, Lori and Michelle.”

Back in 1987, the motor vehicle part was done with a typewriter. “We had five-year cards we needed to type in the registration number. Lucky for me, the typewriter had an erase button for mistakes!

“On the tax side, everything was handwritten in books. Later, everything went to computers, which saved a lot of trees because we didn’t have  to do the handwritten bookwork.”

Trying to save money, Governor Terry Branstad wanted to streamline the motor vehicle department. His plan was to create Super Stations for vehicle registration and titling. This would have taken the motor vehicle department out of the local courthouses and move it to a more central location, in Howard County’s example, that would be Waukon.

 

 

“This would mean, you would have to either drive to Waukon or do it through the mail,” Steffen said. That decision would have forced the Treasurer’s office to let some staff go.

He explained, “The Treasurer Association didn’t want this, so we proposed taking on the driver’s license department and keep the vehicle registration and title in the Courthouse.”

In 2000, the driver’s license department was added to the Treasurer’s office, Christy Hron (who was elected treasurer in 2022) was hired full-time the previous July. Both Steffen and Hron attended a nine-week course to learn the process.

“The driver’s license department is an ongoing learning process, with all the changes that take place day-to-day.”

The public is able to renew their driver’s licenses every day of the week, compared with once a week by the DOT.

Steffen said taking over the driver’s license department was the biggest change in the office. 

He was also part of a task force that was created to develop a web-site. “I learned a lot about credit cards and the laws pertaining to credit cards for government entities. This web-site has helped us tremendously. There is so much activity on the web, it really surprises me, and it keeps getting more popular for people to use each year. That web task force was the most interesting committee I was on.”

But now all that work is behind him, as Steffen looks forward to retirement. “There are a lot of things to do around the house that I have been putting off. My old cars need a little attention, also.”

Those cars, especially his Camaro, are part of his list of things to do. He and his wife of 50 years, Karen, plan to take it around this winter and revisit a lot of places that he has seen on his years of motorcycle riding around the country. 

There is also a plan to visit son, Jared (Tina) and their daughter, Emma, in Virginia, where he is in the service. The couple also have a daughter, Sara (Rich) Hollenbeck and two daughters, Olivia and Eva. Sara is a teacher in Riceville.

Steffen loves his old cars, but he loves his motorcycles even more. He purchased his first brand new cycle as a retirement gift to himself. He usually buys them used and trades them off at 100,000 miles. It doesn’t take a long time to get to that milestone, as he rides about 8,000-10,000 miles a year. He usually goes for a ride 3-4 times a week after work. Now without work, more time for riding!

His goal is to hit all contiguous 48 states. He has just five left. One on the east coast, Rhode Island, which he missed when traveling to Maine, as well as California, Washington, Oregon and Idaho on the west coast.

He and two friends usually take time off each summer to travel the United States on two wheels. “I have to thank them for going with me in case of a breakdown. One thing about a motorcycle, if you break down, you have no protection from the elements.” Steffen recalls just one breakdown when he had a flat tire. 

Over the years, Steffen was  involved with Kiwanis, Howard County Sesquicentennial Commission, Kessel Kids Board, St. Jude Bike-a-Thon and E-gov Pioneer Committee. He still participates in the Cruise to Cresco Committee (which he and Dale Turnmire and Scott Fortune established in 1990), Cresco Area Chamber of Commerce, American Legion Post 135, American Legion Riders Post 135 and Knights of Columbus.

“I really enjoyed being your Treasurer for the past 36 years and am grateful to the Howard County residents for allowing me to be your Treasurer. I love dealing with the public.

“I’m going to miss the people the most. My office was a second family. Customers won’t even miss me being gone, because my staff was the reason why the office worked so smoothly!”