Lisa Pelzel at her desk in New Ulm’s administrative office. Pelzel has worked at city hall for 30 years and is the first contact for most people calling the city.

NEW ULM – Anyone familiar with the operation of New Ulm’s city government should be familiar with Lisa Pelzel and those who do not know the name likely know her voice.

As the New Ulm’s executive assistant, it is her office phone that rings whenever someone dials City Hall’s main number. If someone calls to the city directory and dial zero, the call goes to Pelzel.

More New Ulm citizens have spoken to Pelzel than likely any other city employee.

Pelzel said she enjoys answering calls from the public because it gives her greater involvement in the community.

“I am helping them solve any issues, answering questions,” she said. “If I can’t get the answers, I’ll take their information and try my best to find an answer or a person they can reach out to.”

Though Pelzel is well-known for her work for New Ulm, she is actually a Springfield native. She was born and raised in Springfield and later moved to Sleepy Eye in 1988.

Before getting involved in administrative work in New Ulm, she worked in the private sector. Her first job was in order entry and quality assurance at Sanborn Manufacturing in Springfield. Later, she took a job at Industrial Air in New Ulm as part of the administrative staff. Then in the summer of 1994, she saw an advertisement for an administrative assistant in the New Ulm City Hall clerk’s office. She applied and was hired in August of 1994. It was the start of a 30-year career working for the City of New Ulm.

For the first 10 years she worked as an administrative assistant in the city clerk’s office. Pelzel described it as a unique position because she did a little bit of everything. One of her main tasks was typing up the meeting minutes from the city council and Public Utilities Commission meeting, but she also helped out wherever she was needed. This including typing up agenda resolutions, helping with record keeping and organizing city election filings. She was also a backup for utility billing if she had extra time.

Pelzel said when she first began working for New Ulm in 1994, she was a little surprised to find there were few computers at City Hall. Her previous jobs in the private sector used computers and word processors. It was a bit difficult to go back to using a typewriter. She asked city clerk Bruce Kessel could purchase a computer and a printer for the office.

Kessel agreed to the request and in a short time, the computer revolution came to city hall. She said after getting that computer and printer, it did not take long for other departments to adopt the new technology.

After working as an administrative assistant in the clerk’s office for a decade, Pelzel said she wanted a change. In 2005, she applied for the internal position of executive secretary and was hired.

Pelzel said at the time she was not sure if she should take on a new position but thought she would try it for a while. Twenty years later, she is still in the position, though her title is now executive assistant.

“It ended up being a good fit,” Pelzel said.

Pelzel’s duties as executive administrative are varied. In general, she supports the city administrative personnel like the City Manager, Mayor and City Councilors. She also provides some assistance to Human Resources.

If there is an open position in city government, she will post it in the newspaper and social media.

Pelzel also helps the Mayor organize the member lists for the city’s different commissions and boards.

She also updates part of the city’s website, including administrative, engineering, housing, community development, finance, building safety, police and street department. New Ulm’s Facebook page is maintained by Pelzel.

Pelzel has set up the agendas for the city council meetings as well as the agenda for the Transportation Advisory Committee, the Charter Commission, and the Sister Cities Commission. With the Sister Cities Commission, she also helps coordinate events including the Han Joohs Cultural Exchange program. Pelzel communicates with Ulm, Germany organizing an intern program.

It is a lot of different tasks, but Pelzel credits her co-worker Lisa Grathwohl for providing support. Grathwohl is an administrative assistant in City Hall. Her desk is right next to Pelzel. The two often answer each other’s phones when the other is away. This sometimes creates confusion with callers since they are both named Lisa.

Pelzel said this has become an inside joke within the city. Anyone who has a question concerning Human Resources is told to “talk to the Lisas.”

In her twenty years working as an executive assistant at city hall, Pelzel said the greatest changes have been improvements in technology and procedures.

“When I first started, we would manually collate the city council agenda,” she said. Every agenda item, along with every report or attachment was printed was physically placed into a paper packet for the five city councilors and mayors.

To assemble the agendas, she needed to use her entire desk surface and if it was a long agenda, it could spill over onto Grathwohl’s desk.

Once the packets were assembled, she would call a police officer to pick up the packets and deliver them to the city councilors and mayor. These packets could be massive with over 100 pages of documents.

“We did go through a lot of toner and paper,” Pelzel said.

Pelzel said in 2007, they contracted to implement a Laserfiche system. This allowed the entire packet to be scanned into a single electronic file, making it easier for the public to view the agenda. By 2010, the paper agendas were discontinued in favor of an electronic version. Laptops were purchased for the council chamber. Today, the council chamber uses iPads.

Thirty years is a long time to work for city government, but Pelzel has enjoyed the work.

“The best part is helping anyone over the phone,” she said. “It is rewarding to provide an answer to them or provide the right information.”

She also enjoys helping her co-workers who need assistance in updating insurance or tax information.

“Just to be a support for anyone who needs it,” she said. “It is a good feeling.”