MAPE Business Manager Paul Schweizer retires after 10 years of service

When MAPE Business Manager Paul Schweizer leaves MAPE’s office in Shoreview for the last time on Feb. 4, he leaves knowing he has left MAPE in much better shape than when he first arrived nearly 11 years ago. He helped to lead MAPE to a stronger financial position, streamlined operations, improved technology and oversaw building renovations.

Schweizer is rightly proud of the budget work he has helped lead with the union now having strong investments and crisis funds in place. “Paul’s work on a healthy budget has enabled us to weather a COVID-19 storm and the Janus lawsuit,” said MAPE President Megan Dayton.

Schweizer has a strong financial background and before coming to MAPE, he spent 20 years in the Minnesota House of Representatives, 16 as controller, as well as 14 years at other state agencies.

Schweizer comes from a labor family: his mother was a nurse before she moved into management and his favorite uncle worked for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen. But it was a former boss, the powerful Minneapolis Representative Jim Rice, who taught Schweizer the importance of labor.

“Representative Rice was a big labor guy, a blue-collar Minneapolis guy. He listened to MAPE’s lobbyist and I got a bigger appreciation for labor because of that,” Schweizer said.

Schweizer said he’s never had much interest in politics (“still don’t!”) but policy is another story. When he worked at the Dept. of Administration he produced a study on leasing versus buying State office buildings and was asked to testify several times before the Legislature about his research on long-term cost savings. His December 1988 report State Office Space: Options and Costs laid the foundation for and ultimately led to the construction of four new state office buildings in the Capitol Complex area. While at the Public Utilities Commission he developed the Minnesota Rules (Chapter 7835) under which electric utilities buy back power generated by consumers (e. g., solar power) that is still in use today.

Former MAPE Treasurer Todd Maki worked closely with Schweizer for four years before joining MAPE staff. “In my former job as a research analyst I did a lot of  ‘rows and columns’ spreadsheets and, as geeky as it might sound, that’s my biggest area of common ground with Paul. No one I know can document a budget situation like Paul – he is even more thorough than I am. I also appreciate his wry sense of humor,” MAPE Operations Director Maki said.

Schweizer and Marie, his wife of 44 years, enjoy traveling and look forward to doing more of it in retirement. When their four children were younger, they visited nearly every site preserved by the Minnesota Historical Society. They are caregivers for their youngest daughter, who has Down’s Syndrome, and is in excellent health. The couple is now planning trips to visit friends in Arizona and siblings in Chicago, Portland and Duluth. Once it is safe, they plan to resume trips to warm weather locales every winter.

Schweizer said he is also looking forward to spending more time with his six grandchildren and playing hockey again with the JMS Hockey club once he has fully recovered from recent rotator cuff surgery.