Director checks out

For more than five years, Jacob Mickelsen led the Carbon County Library System as director. He starts the New Year with a new position, departing his home state of Wyoming for Loveland, Colorado.

The position Mickelsen has accepted in Loveland is Division Manager for Operations and Customer Service at Loveland Public Library. Along with being the "front face" of the Loveland Public Library, he will also oversee the building itself as part of his new responsibilities. 

"I'd been saying to myself for some time that, once the move was done and once I'd finished my term as president of the Wyoming Library Association (WLA), it was time to start looking at least. Here we are moved in and I had finished my term in October, so it was in October that I started to just see what was out there," said Mickelsen. "I knew I wanted to stay in the Mountain West. I'm a Wyoming native and I just love it out here. East of the Mississippi, I get claustrophobic. So I knew I wanted to stay in the region."

The move referenced by Mickselsen is that of the Rawlins Branch Library in the Carbon Building - Courthouse Annex. A project of the Board of Carbon County Commissioners (BOCCC) using funds from the One Percent Specific Purpose Sales and Use Tax (6th penny tax), the remodel of the historic building involved relocating the Rawlins Branch Library from the 2nd floor to the ground floor. The move was completed in August and an open house was held on August 13.

"This one (job) just jumped out. It was taking applications right then and it looked like they wanted to move pretty quickly. I thought 'I'll wing an application at that and we'll see what happens. It sounds intriguing'," Mickelsen said. "I love the Front Range. I have a lot of friends and family in (the) Fort Collins, Loveland area. So I thought 'That seems like a good one and if nothing else, it keeps the resume sharp'. Then they really liked me and when I got down there for my tour and interview, I really liked them, too. It's just a gorgeous facility and there's some room for growth in my career."

While Mickelsen had served as the director of the Carbon County Library System for nearly six years, he believes he still had plenty to learn.

"It's extremely unusual to have a 27-year-old become a library director in Wyoming. Even though I've certainly learned a lot for the last five or six years, I knew there was a lot more to learn. I'm looking forward to working in a bigger system, just kind of looking forward to things being more structured," said Mickelsen. " In rural Wyoming, we make do as best we can with the people we have, which is phenomenal and really did teach me a lot but I'm certainly excited to be part of a larger team."

With this new and different position, and the ability to learn more, Mickelsen believes his experience in the Carbon County Library System can be applied in Loveland as well. Having just helped oversee the relocation of the Rawlins Branch Library, the outgoing director said he believes his experience will be of use to the Loveland Public Library as they look to construct a new branch library in the city.

"Even if I'm not leading the entire library, I'll be leading the largest division within it and there are some major changes happening in Loveland, administratively, that it will just be interesting to be a part of," Mickelsen said.

According to Mickelsen, there will be a few more changes he'll have to get used to other than a new position. With eight branches spread out across the county, the Carbon County Library System has a service population of less than 16,000 people. In Loveland, Mickelsen will have a service population of more than 80,000. Additionally, he will have more people reporting to him in his new position than currently report to him in the library system. He believes, however, leading a library system with more branches than any other in Wyoming-and with a significant distance between them-has helped prepare him.

"The position of director here is really all about getting quality people and then trusting them to do their jobs. I am physically unable to micromanage, even if I wanted to. What am I going to do? Drive to Baggs three times a week to see how Sandy's (Cheatham) doing? No, we hire good people, then we trust them to do the job," said Mickelsen. "I think it's trained me well to do just that in Colorado. To make sure we have a good team and then just trust them to do the job you hired them for, that I don't need to be breathing down the back of their neck 24/7. You just know that they're here, they've probably been here longer than me. I'm just there to make sure they have the tools to do it."

Mickelsen believes he is leaving the Carbon County Library System in a good position and in good hands. As the Carbon County Library Board begins the process of looking for a new director, Rawlins Branch Manager Maria Wenzel has been named the interim library director.

"I have every confidence in Maria that she'll be able to build on the successes that we've had here and see us through the search process for a permanent director, which may well be her. I just really believe in her, she's got a great skill set. She has a project management certification that's going to be huge in finishing up some of the things I started that I just couldn't quite get done before I left," Mickelsen said. "She has a lot of follow through, really professional and is bi- or tri-lingual. So she'll do a great job of keeping the wheels on the thing for the next several months if not the next several years." 

One final parting gift from Mickelsen to the Carbon County Library System is that of a substantial grant from the Wyoming Humanities Association. Using ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) Funds, the association recently granted the library system more than $44,000 to go towards operation of the library system.

"That means people, which it's hard to find grants that pay for people," said Mickelsen. "Most of our book money and our programing money and our technology money for the past several years has been grant funded. There just aren't grants for payroll and all the cool stuff in the world doesn't do a library any good if the doors are locked and nobody's working there."

The grant will allow every branch in the system to be open more hours for the 2022 calendar year, with the exception of Rawlins. According to Mickelsen, rather than create a temporary part-time job using the ARPA funds, Rawlins will have more time for special programming and to allow staff to be out at community events as employees of the library system.

With the Rawlins Branch Library successfully in its new location and a grant in place to improve library services for the next calendar year, Mickelsen feels confident in departing to his new position.

"It should be a positive change for me personally and professionally and I think the library system is in good hands. We have a very good, dedicated, stable board. We've got stable finances," Mickelsen said. "We're in a good place to turn it over to the next generation of leadership, so I'm excited to see what they do with it and I'll be back for the 100th anniversary."