DISTRICT 7

Gene Knoll

I have lived and worked my entire life in Central Wisconsin. I am semiretired from banking. My entire career was spent working at banks here in Central Wisconsin. I grew up on a dairy farm in Colby. My banking career began after college at the Security State Bank of Colby. While living in Colby, I served as a city alderman and city mayor. In 1994, I moved my family to Medford and worked at the bank here in Medford. I am still working working parttime for Forward Band serving on their loan committee and working on various projects for the bank. My banking career has spanned over 45 years.

My wife Cheryl and I reside at N3358 Sunset Road. We have a daughter, twin sons and five grandchildren.

I am an avid hunter and have served several years on the Taylor County Sportsman’s Club board of directors, a past president of that organization and served for several years as the Taylor County representative to the Wisconsin Conservation Congress. I have also dedicated over 25 years to being a Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources snowmobile safety instructor.

Why do you want to serve on the County Board? I began my service on the Taylor County Board in April of 2016. During my banking career I worked with several Central Wisconsin counties, cities, villages and towns, assisting them to meet their municipal deposit and lending needs. Being able to share this experience and knowledge with the board of supervisors and the various department heads, has been a plus for our county. I have served on the forestry and recreation committee, Price-Taylor Rail Trail commission, Tourism Committee, IT Committee, Taylor County Housing Authority, and have played a role on the broadband committee of the county.

I am seeking my fourth term on the county board as a supervisor for district 7. I have been working on several initiatives that I would like to see through to completion.

What do you think the biggest challenge facing the county over the next five years is and how would you address it? and How can the county help promote economic development and residential population growth especially in more rural portions of the county?

For 10 years I served as president of the Medford Area Development Foundation. Our main focus during that time was working with our industries and attracting new industries to create good paying, stable jobs. Now our challenge is to retain and recruit employees to fill those companies’ needs. As a rural county we need to do everything we can to provide the needs and services those new workers are looking for. The county needs to work with the city and villages to develop affordable and available housing. The county also needs to work with the school districts in the county and the local technical college to be able to educate and train the graduates of today to meet their needs. I also believe county government should work more closely with the local tech school to offer more retraining for individual employees who would like to enhance their skills to better themselves. Our broadband and cellular enhancement plan, that is now on the road to completion, will also be a big plus to keeping workers and their families in the area and a tool to recruiting new employees to Taylor County. This enhancement will be a real plus in getting new residents to locate in more rural portions of the county.

Would you support a more formalized administrated leadership structure for county employees? Why or why not?

This becomes a real tough question for a rural county that has the budget restraints that Taylor County has. For years our county functioned very well with department heads reporting to the various oversight board committees and the chairman of that committee. However as our county has grown and evolved, that form of oversight management may not be able to take us into the future. We are already starting to see some of the issues that care arising from that style of management. I can’t say today that I know what the answer is. Some type of county administrator position may very well be in Taylor County’s future. The challenge for Taylor County Board will be to make that position cost justifiable. We will need to make that person a working manager, picking up other administrative duties in order to be able to afford that type of management structure. The board’s focus should be on not only meeting the needs of today, but structuring the county to take us successfully into the future.