Randy Johnson: A closer look at NACo's new president

in photo at right: Randy Johnson
Photo by David Hathcox.

Many people know NACo's new president, Randy Johnson, as a guy who keeps a tight schedule and likes to talk about technology, sustainable communities and global trade.

But did you know he once spent months doing nothing but bum around Europe?

Before you conjure up images of a globe-trotting beatnik, though, picture this: Johnson used to attend county board meetings for fun when he was a junior and senior in high school.

"I was the only student who ever really did it for fun," Johnson said in a lunchtime interview while eating Kung Pao Pork at his desk between meetings.

"I had a social studies teacher who encouraged that very much. He's still alive today and comes to our county board meetings from time to time. It's interesting. Mr. Davis was a very, very strong, outspoken Democrat and by then, I was a pretty strong Republican."

Political roots: An Eisenhower Republican
Johnson's parents, Ed and Lois, grew up as Democrats, but Johnson's father identified with General Dwight Eisenhower during World War II. "And when Eisenhower decided he was a Republican, my Dad decided he was too," Johnson said.

He grew up in the inner city, in south Minneapolis. His father worked in a bank and his mother worked as an office supervisor, after he and his two younger brothers began school.

His childhood laid a path for where he is today. "We always talked about current events and world affairs at dinner and on trips when we traveled," Johnson said. "And that peaked my interest in politics, although neither of my brothers is particularly involved in politics, other than voting."

After graduating from high school, Johnson studied political science at Macalester College, a private school in St. Paul. He graduated in 1968 with a bachelor of arts degree in Political Science.

He and his wife, Polly, were married in 1970.

Johnson toyed with the idea of continuing his studies in political science. "I thought seriously about getting a Ph. D. in political science, because I like the college atmosphere," he said. Instead, he decided on law school.

"Teachers told me that, going as far back as grade school, that I thought like a lawyer," he said. "Some people would say that's because I'm argumentative."

After graduating cum laude from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1974, he and his wife, Polly, took off for Europe for about 10 months. He had asked for a two-year leave of absence from the law firm he was about to work for (Faegre & Benson, the second-largest firm in the state); they were used to people asking for one month off after passing the bar exam. They granted him 10 months.

A bit of British influence
"We sold everything we owned and borrowed all the money we could. We both got jobs in London. I worked in the legal department for the National Coal Board, which was then their nationalized coal industry. And my wife worked as a transcription typist in a hospital. We did that for the duration of the work permits."

Johnson had spent the prior summer running computers for 3M in London. (He worked nearly full-time during college running computers for Dayton's, the department store chain headquartered in Minneapolis.)

The best part of living in London, he said, was "theater - Polly and I both love theater. And just walking through the city - great history. On weekends, we would take the cheap, day-away train trips to various parts of England. We had very little money, but there were a lot of great things to do that were inexpensive."

Johnson also made time for his love of politics.

"I loved the Question Time [when members of Parliament publicly address questions to the prime minister] that the prime minister had in the House of Commons. One of the people I worked with, their father, worked for the House of Commons, so I was able to get in quite easily. I loved to go over and watch Question Time, watch the - generally high level - of debate. I became intrigued with the parliamentary system of government."

In London, Johnson once again put aside his political leanings to work with someone on the other side of the political spectrum.

"While I was working over there, they had a parliamentary election. And the fellow I shared my office with, at the coal board, was standing for Parliament," he said. "He was a socialist, a very liberal Labor Party member. I went out campaigning door-to-door with him."

"Over there they call it 'knocking up.' And so I wrote back to some of my friends, that I went out knocking up with some liberal Labor Party members," Johnson said. "He was running in a district that was one of the most conservative in the whole British system so I knew he didn't have a chance of winning and so did he. But it was a lot of fun."

Back to Minnesota, by way of Istanbul
After working in London, Johnson and his wife hitchhiked through Europe for four or five months - through France; then six or seven weeks in Spain (Polly speaks Spanish); Morocco, north Mediterranean, France again, Italy, Turkey. "And then we ran out of both time and money," he said.

Johnson and his wife took a Turkish workers' bus from Istanbul to Munich, a non-stop, 48-hour experience he'll never forget.

"We'd stop to eat and we'd stop about every four hours and the men would use the trees on one side of the road and the women on the other," he said. "This was going through Bulgaria and Yugoslavia before there was any liberalization of their politics." Then they hitchhiked back from Munich (where Johnson's German came in handy) to London.

"My plan had been to take off for two years and travel overland between London and Australia, then come back through South America," he said. "But that's really about a four-year plan. So, I'll go back to Turkey some day and finish that trip."

Johnson has kept up his interest in international affairs. In addition to heading up a delegation of county officials to Hong Kong in October (he said he plans more such trips to be taken during his term as NACo president) he's also active in exchange programs. His daughter Keri, 16 (he and his wife also have a daughter Kristin, 14), recently returned from spending a year in Norway.

But in 1975, the law firm he had clerked for during law school beckoned. He and Polly returned to Minnesota, where Johnson practiced corporate law, business litigation, and antitrust defense.

Mr. Johnson goes to Washington In 1977, Johnson was offered an appointment as assistant general counsel at the Federal Election Commission. It was a time when everyone assumed there would be public financing of congressional elections, because of Watergate and because "the votes were there in the Congress," Johnson noted, adding that President Carter had pushed very hard for reform and even the Republicans who opposed it assumed it was going to happen. "So we geared up to be ready to administer public financing and then to everyone's surprise, the bill never got through Congress," he said, "because it was a badly drafted bill, in part, and politically, it was hard to explain to people why politicians should get tax money to buy ads." Johnson then considered working for the Food and Drug Administration or the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). I was very close to going with the FCC, when my predecessor surprisingly announced he wasn't going to run again," he said. A county job was the only elected job he'd ever been particularly interested in, so he flew back to Minnesota and got in the race, after testing the waters for a day or two. "Nobody gave me a chance of winning in November at all, because the district had been represented by a Democrat who had won very strongly, so it was hard to raise money when nobody thinks you're going to win," he said. While he was campaigning, he took a job in the legal department of General Mills. "I went out and knocked on close to 25,000 doors in my district, which was then most of the single family homes," he said. He won almost every precinct in an election that was considered quite an upset.

Snapshot: Favorite president: Abraham Lincoln and Dwight Eisenhower The last book I read was: John Naisbitt's book on Asia and China "Megatrends Asia"; I'm usually reading two or three at a time. If I weren't a county commissioner or a lawyer, I'd like to be a: Journalist/writer The last movie I saw was: "Fargo" His favorite movie: "Dr. Zhivago" Favorite cuisine: Chinese People might be surprised that I: Hitchhiked around Europe What keeps me focused: "I'm a believer in the Franklin Day Planner. I try to keep a lot of irons in the fire."

He credits his victory to his roots in the community. "Part of it was the area where I grew up, and that was the heavily Democratic part of the district, and those folks knew me well ... so I carried the Democratic areas because people knew me from school and growing up. I carried the more Republican areas because I was a Republican. It was a great night."

Daughters Keri and Kristin
Johnson partially credits his daughters, Keri and Kristin, with jump-starting his interest in technology. When his daughters were ages 9 and 7, he showed them a laptop computer he had brought home. "I did something wrong and froze the screen." The two fixed the computer. "To them, it was no big deal. It was no different from pencil and paper. It was a tool for them. So I decided this is really something I'd better get into."

It's sometimes been difficult for his daughters to describe what he does for a living. When Keri started school, "it must have been kindergarten or first grade, one of the teachers asked each of the children what their parents did who worked outside the home. Keri said, 'My Mom teaches fourth grade and my Dad is a Hennepin County commissioner.'"

Her fellow students gave her quizzical looks, Johnson said. "So she said, 'That means he kills mosquitoes, plows snow, burns garbage and gives away money to everybody who asks for it.'"

"It doesn't really work that way, although a lot of people may think so," Johnson said with a laugh.

He's been a county commissioner since 1978.