After a long career in public service which saw him meet with many of the most prominent leaders of his generation, Mikhail Rostislavovich has now devoted himself in “retirement” to giving back as much as possible to his adopted hometown of Waseca.
From President of the Exchange Club to Vice President of the Waseca Area Chamber of Commerce’s Board of Directors to Vice President of the Waseca Art Center, Rostislavovich occupies a variety of highly visible roles in a community he moved to just three years ago.
Rostislavovich says his active community involvement is the fulfillment of a commitment he made years ago during his long career of public service, which saw him work for many of Minnesota’s most prominent political leaders of his era.
“When I was 40 years old, I promised myself that because of all of these opportunities I’ve had, that I would take those opportunities and give that back to my community that I lived in,” Rostislavovich said. “Working 40 hours for the different groups that I work for is a blessing for me.”
Raised on a family farm near St. Peter after being adopted into a large family of Norwegian descent, Rostislavovich attended secondary school at St. James Academy in Faribault, a then military academy that is now part of the Shattuck-St. Mary’s School.
Rostislavovich’s time at St. James made a significant impact on his life, drawing him toward a lifelong relationship with the Episcopal Church, with which Shattuck-St. Mary is affiliated, and piquing for the first time his interest in political matters.
When Rostislavovich was on campus, the Vietnam War was in full swing, though by the time he graduated and turned 18 it had ended. He recalled seeing protests against upperclassmen who had gone to fight in the war, and too often tragically came back in caskets.
“Seeing the protests going on outside of our school, protests against upperclassmen who gave their lives and came back had a major effect on me,” Rostislavovich said. “I looked to see who caused the war, who’s ending up with the problems of the war, what’s causing this upheaval.”
Interests develop
The experience led Rostislavovich to become involved with the local Republican Party. At the age of 19, he volunteered for the 1978 U.S. Senate campaign of Rudy Boschwitz, who won by a large margin as Republicans swept the major statewide races that year.
For the first few years, Rostislavovich’s work in the political arena was strictly as a volunteer and local party officer. Though he might not have been paid for the work, it did open the door for him to meet and befriend a number of influential conservatives.
Among them was future Minnesota Supreme Court Justice G. Barry Anderson, who retired in May after nearly two decades on the Court. An appointee of Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Anderson was at the time of his retirement the last member of the court not appointed by a DFL Governor.
Rostislavovich and Anderson met in the early 1980s as volunteers and activists within the Second Congressional District Republican Party. At the time, the District covered southwestern Minnesota and had just elected an up and coming Republican Congressman named Vin Weber.
At the time, Anderson was practicing law in Fairmont while serving as a local Republican party leader. Later, he would move to the Twin Cities and build an extensive legal resume before Gov. Arne Carlson tapped him to serve on the Minnesota Court of Appeals in 1998.
Anderson said that Rostislavovich was a particularly effective organizer because it was clear that he genuinely cared about the volunteers he worked with, staying in close contact with one passionate volunteer even as her health declined.
“(Political work) sometimes has a bad image in press coverage, but at the end of the day it’s all about interaction with people,” Anderson said. “From my perspective, it illustrates his commitment to individuals over and above and separate and apart from political activity.”
Rostislavovich began his career well away from politics, working as a therapist to adjudicated adolescents for several years at what is now the St. Peter Regional Treatment Center. While he stuck with that job for several years, he said it was extremely taxing.
“That job was really wearing me down,” Rostislavovich said. “I was not good at leaving my work at work.”
Politics
By the late 1980s Rostislavovich was looking to make a career change, and his organizing skills had caught the attention of Congressman Weber, who during the Reagan era became one of the most influential members of the House Republican Caucus.
In 1988, New York Congressman Jack Kemp decided to challenge Vice President George H.W. Bush and Sen. Bob Dole for the Republican Presidential nomination, and looked to Rep. Weber, a strong ally and supporter, for advice on who he might hire to staff his campaign in Minnesota.
Weber recommended Rostislavovich, and after an interview in Washington Kemp was sufficiently sold on the young activist to hire him as his Minnesota Field Director. He was later given regional responsibilities and worked on Kemp’s campaign in the Iowa caucuses.
Though Kemp was a key architect of President Reagan’s signature supply side economics policy, he suffered from a lack of national name recognition and would have been the first member of the House of Representatives to directly ascend to the White House in over a century.
While Kemp’s Presidential campaign struggled to gain traction, Rostislavovich’s political career did not. He would spend the next two decades as a full-time campaign staffer, working for Rep. Weber, Sen. Rod Grams and Govs. Carlson and Pawlenty.
While working for Minnesota’s most prominent Republican politicians, Rostislavovich had the opportunity to travel to many different parts of the world on “junkets,” staying at U.S. embassies throughout the world and enjoying some very unique experiences.
“You got to experience some really wild things that you would never think of having to do, particularly with cuisine,” Rostislavovich said. “Some of the things I was forced to experience really expanded my understanding, and when you understand people’s cuisine you can understand them a little bit better.”
As a liaison for his bosses and as a staffer at the Twin Cities-based conservative think tank Center of the American Experiment, Rostislavovich also met with many different world leaders, including Margaret Thatcher, Mikhail Gorbachev, Lech Wałęsa and Benjamin Netanyahu.
Rostislavovich said he was particularly grateful for the opportunity to meet with such prominent world leaders and get to know a little bit about what they really were like behind the carefully constructed and typically highly polarizing public facade and image.
With the high flying contacts came an incredibly grueling work schedule. In contrast to a typical 9 to 5 job, Rostislavovich said that politicians and their staffers are typically on the go during nearly all waking hours, with only limited opportunities for rest and relaxation.
“People don’t realize how hard their jobs are,” Rostislavovich said. “They go sometimes from 5:30 to 10:30, 11 o’clock at night. When you’re a staffer with them, you’re working those hours too. And it’s not just Monday through Friday, it’s Monday through Sunday.”
Rostislavovich said he never considered running for office himself, citing the intense microscope which a candidate’s every statement and action is placed under along with the vitriol and even security threats which prominent elected officials face on a daily basis.
“I wouldn’t want that for a million dollars,” Rostislavovich said. “You’d have to have a personality and ego as big as this house to put up with that kind of stuff.”
Community involvement
Since stepping down from his position with Gov. Pawlenty, Rostislavovich largely retired from the political scene, though he has come out of retirement a bit this year to help manage the state legislative campaign of Tom Sexton and host a fundraiser for Rep. Brad Finstad.
Instead of politics, Rostislavovich has thrown his heart and soul into community organizations, first in St. Peter and now in Waseca. For several years he worked with the Royal Family Kids Camp, a special camp tailored to the needs of foster kids in southwestern Minnesota.
Rostislavovich also served on the Board of Directors of Reins of Hope, a nonprofit which seeks to help kids with autism and epilepsy by providing “equine assisted” forms of therapy, which many have found to be remarkably effective.
A major history buff, Rostislavovich also served as longtime Vice President of the Nicollet County Historical Society and ran the E. St. Julien Cox House in St. Peter, preserving the carpenter gothic home built for St. Peter’s first mayor for future generations.
Rostislavovich also became increasingly involved with his church, serving as a verger at the Church of the Holy Communion. He was later hired by then-Bishop Brian Prior to serve as a liaison between the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota and churches across the state.
Along with his brother, Dwight Tostenson, Rostislavovich cultivated a passion for buying beautiful homes which had fallen on hard times and restoring them to their former glory. That led the two to Waseca, where they would fix up the historic Moonan house along State Street.
Waseca Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Ann Fitch noted that after moving into town, one of Rostislavovich’s first stops was at the Chamber office to see how he could get involved. She recalled suggesting the Historical Society and the Art Center, among others.
Fitch particularly praised Rostislavovich’s leadership at the Art Center, which she said has been enhanced “tenfold” by his leadership. In addition to his tireless community involvement, she said that Rostislavovich has become a great friend to her and many other community leaders.
“For a newcomer coming into your community he sets the bar pretty high,” Fitch said. “He really does live service above self.”
Gov. Pawlenty said that Rostislavovich's enthusiastic commitment to serving his local community in retirement is a continuation of the approach he took towards public service over his career as a political aide.
"Even back then, he seemed he always seemed like a cause oriented person," Pawlenty said. "He had a real interest and passion for serving, for the betterment of Minnesota."
Even though he’s something of a newbie to town, Rostislavovich said that he’s been embraced more warmly in Waseca than anywhere else he’s ever lived. He said that the warm authenticity of Waseca is a welcome contrast to politics, where friendships can be fickle and short-lived.
“In politics, you get to meet all of these major movers and shakers in the state and they’re your best friend, but the minute the person you’re working for is out of office the friendship ends,” Rostislavovich said. “In a small town like Waseca, when you make your friendships they’ll last a lifetime or as long as you want them to.”
Rostislavovich said that he has every intention of staying in Waseca and remaining as active as possible in community organizations for as long as he can, describing the community as a gem which often goes under appreciated even by its own residents.
“From my perspective, Waseca is southern Minnesota’s Lake Minnetonka,” Rostislavovich said. “We’ve got beautiful lakes, bike paths, parks, the Art Center, the theater; we have everything here that any other really prominent place has. The difference is that people here are warmer and more caring.”
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