Otter Tail County human services director retires after 35 years

Deb Sjostrom’s departure from Otter Tail County Human Services is more than a retirement milestone. When she steps into phased retirement and leaves the director’s job on July 6, the county will lose a leader who has spent more than three decades inside one of local government’s most consequential departments.

Sjostrom has served as human services director since April 2015, but her county career stretches back to December 1990, when she started as a foster care licensing social worker. Otter Tail County says she later moved through leadership roles over disabilities and long-term care services, then adult mental health and chemical health services, giving her a view of the department from the front line up through administration.

That experience matters because Human Services is where county government meets daily need. Otter Tail County says the department directly provides more than 27 programs and also contracts with many other agencies throughout the county. Its work includes child protection, adult protection, financial assistance, disability services, senior services, mental health resources, foster care and adult abuse reporting, along with other supports for residents facing crisis.

Sjostrom’s rise to the top of that system was gradual. The county says she was named interim human services director in April 2014 and appointed permanently in April 2015. County Administrator Nicole Hansen praised her as “the definition of dedicated public service,” a description that reflects not just tenure, but the breadth of work that has passed through Sjostrom’s office over the years.

Her influence also reached beyond county lines. Sjostrom served for several years as co-chair of the Minnesota Association of County Social Service Administrators’ Adult Services Committee and later became the group’s president in 2021. In 2022, MACSSA gave her its Human Services Award, recognizing her leadership in county social services across Minnesota.

For Otter Tail County, the practical challenge now is continuity. Human services departments handle some of the most sensitive work in local government, from abuse reporting and protective services to assistance for families, seniors and adults with disabilities. County leaders will need to carry forward the relationships, procedures and institutional memory built over 35 years, while keeping service delivery steady across a network that reaches families and vulnerable residents in communities throughout the county.

That mission also fits the county’s broader strategic plan, which says Otter Tail County seeks to provide access to healthy lifestyles for all residents and sustain a high quality of life. Sjostrom’s retirement closes a long chapter in that effort, but the demands on Human Services remain as immediate as ever.