When Mark Engebretson is feeling down, he’ll walk across West Bank to his office at Wilson Library and think, “God, I’m pretty lucky to be working here.”

Engebretson, a University of Minnesota alumni and first-generation college student, has worked at the University for the past 26 years, most recently at the Libraries as the Director of Advancement, responsible for communications, development, and the Friends of the Libraries.

Like many staff members, he’s conflicted about his upcoming retirement in February, but as the date approaches he’s become more comfortable with the idea.

“There’s something really appealing to retirement. We only have one life,” he said in his now echoey office, surrounded by small moving boxes. “My team is great. I love the University of Minnesota … The University is so critical to the state of Minnesota. So I’ll miss the people. I’ll miss the University.”

Stories you won’t find anywhere else

At 22 years old, Engebretson worked from 7 a.m. to noon at Acme Foundry Company, an industrial plant in South Minneapolis that made gray iron castings. Then, he’d run over to his afternoon and evening classes at Minneapolis Community College, where he studied journalism, before rounding out the night practicing with his band, the MORs (which later morphed into the Whole Lotta Loves).

He never had enough credits to graduate high school, and since coming into young adulthood, he’d been supporting himself by working odd industrial jobs around Minneapolis. It was dirty, grubby, and dangerous work.

Engebretson wanted to become a journalist. As a preteen, he delivered the afternoon newspaper for the Saint Paul Dispatch (which would later merge with the St. Paul Pioneer Press in 1985) during the week and the morning paper on the weekends.

“I was really interested in sports when I was younger, not as much today, and I wanted to be a sports writer. So I was always interested in journalism,” he said.

Engebretson transferred to the U of M in his mid-20s, but it was difficult to attend school and support himself. He spent the spring and summer working for the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board’s softball program, delivered packages during the semester for Campus Mail, and when he had time, freelanced for the Minnesota Daily.

“I remember spending a lot of time in the Wilson basement on a couple of different projects … looking at old newspaper stories. I did that a lot, I really enjoyed it,” he said.

Engebretson graduated with his bachelor’s in 1989, when he was almost 31 years old, and went to work for Lillie Suburban Newspapers, covering local government in Woodbury, Minnesota, and writing feature stories. He also wrote for his hometown newspaper, the New Brighton-Shoreview-Arden Hills Bulletin, doing much the same.

In the early ‘90s, Engebretson moved to a new apartment in South Minneapolis and connected with the caretakers of his new building, Mark Anderson and Paula Keller, who were the editor and photographer respectively of a new community paper, the Southwest Journal.

He freelanced for them and later became a part-time contract employee. He covered Minneapolis City Council, wrote a story about how the city mishandled assault cases – which won an award from the Minnesota Society of Professional Journalism – and wrote a series of in-depth articles about the Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport and the issues it caused for adjacent neighborhoods.

Engebretson eventually wanted to work for a large daily newspaper, but to move up in the journalism world, he’d need to land a job at a small daily paper, which likely meant moving to another state. But now in his mid-30s and already established in Minnesota with his friends, family, and band, he decided to stay put.

Crafting your own way

Engebretson had already spent his formative years at the University and thought managing its communications would be fulfilling. So in 1999, he joined the Academic Health Center, focusing on internal communications and writing about the innovative research at the U of M’s Medical School, School of Nursing, College of Pharmacy, School of Public Health, and College of Veterinary Medicine.

He was quickly promoted to Electronic Communications Manager, where his team created what he believes was the first content management web system at the U of M.

“Creating that web platform for the Academic Health Center, which still exists – much more sophisticated now – but that was huge,” he said.

In 2006, he became the Director of Digital Media Strategy for the School of Public Health, which gave him an opportunity to work closely with students.

He helped create a student blog to promote the school to prospective students, made video profiles on current students to highlight their lives and research, and started a podcast called Public Health Moment to promote research in the school.

“There’s a lot of energy working with students … That was really one of my favorite parts of my job,” Engebretson said. “Those were all fun and really exciting, rewarding things to do. I really loved my time there.”

As an undergraduate, he wrote an article for the Minnesota Daily about how the Libraries can help students. When the opportunity came to work for the Libraries as the Director of Communications, it was pure symmetry.

When he started in 2012, the Libraries didn’t have any social media, so he developed those channels and launched the Continuum Blog, which has now evolved into libnews. And with his videography background, he filmed promotional videos and programs like Read This Book!, which has been running for around 10 years.

“I’ve liked every job I’ve had at the University, and I’ve been able to craft my own way,” Engebretson said. “Each of the three jobs I’ve had have all been in communications, but they’ve all been a little bit different.”

Whatever’s on the radio

Like in his 20s, Engebretson is a University fixture by day and musician by night. For the past decade, he’s played around the Twin Cities with his band, The Silverteens, where he sings and plays maracas and tambourine.

The other Silverteens are guitarist Terry Isachsen (who’s also playing in the Flamin’ Oh’s and Lolo’s Ghost), bassist and backing vocalist Steve Olson (Laughing Stock, Hot Pastrami!), and drummer and backing vocalist Jerry Johnson (Mezzo Fist, No Apparent Reason, Pushpause, Splat, Helen Killer, and Evaporated Family).

Engebretson traces his interest in music, and especially power pop and ‘60s garage rock, back to “The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show,” which he watched in his family’s living room in Black River Falls, Wisconsin, a few months before his family relocated to the suburbs of St. Paul. By elementary school, he was singing into imaginary microphones.

“There was some desire to be a musician, but unlike my kid who studied music, I didn’t,” he said.

Growing up, Engebretson wasn’t exposed to any alternative music, he just relied on the local radio stations’ charts. For him, that’s all music was: whatever’s on the radio. But in July 1977, shortly after leaving high school, his friends Bill and Ernie Batson took him to Kelly’s Pub to see The Ramones.

“We were in the front row in this bar. I mean, if I stood up and reached, I could touch Joey Ramone,” he said. “I remember, ‘I’ve never seen anything like this before in my life, and I love it.’ Just all of that energy that they had, and the simpleness of the throwback, just keeping things simple with their music, it was life-changing.”

The Batsons had their own band — the Hypstrz — and on Halloween of 1977, they invited Engebretson onstage to sing during a gig. Soon afterwards, Engebretson formed his first band, The MOR’s, a garage rock and power pop four-piece with fellow members Soctt and Bruce Browning and Scott Anderson.

In 1981, Engebretson, the Browning brothers, Roger Seeling (formerly of the Fridleys), and Ernie Batson, gathered in the Vegas Lounge to start a new band: the Whole Lotta Loves.

They opened for some national acts, released the album “Recline and Fall of Rock & Roll Part 2,” and were featured on “Big Hits Of Mid-America, Volume IV.” But college and journalism was still Engebretson’s priority. He just played music because he loved it.

“If somebody wanted to sign us, that would be great, but that wasn’t our goal,” he said.

The Whole Lotta Loves broke up in 1986. A version of the band, with a modified lineup, reformed in 2009 to play a benefit show for Jill Krimmel of the Wahinis. They rehearsed in Engebretson’s basement and after the show, decided to keep playing. These impromptu sessions morphed into The Silverteens.

 

Engebretson is also the director of the feature-length documentary “Jay’s Longhorn: Let’s Make a Scene.” From 1977 until its closure in 1982, Jay’s Longhorn was the hangout venue for the Twin Cities’ alternative scene.

“That was such an influential part of my early life, and I felt like it was for a lot of other people,” he said.

The documentary premiered in 2019 and won the 2021 Minnesota Documentary Award at the Frozen River Film Festival in Winona, and Best Music Feature at the Queen City Film Festival in Cumberland, Maryland.

Engebretson is still covering the local music scene. In 2022 he created “Some Kinda Fun” with Pete Nikolai, Claire Luger, and Paul Engebretson (aka “Front Row Paul”). The show features interviews with current bands and performances around the cities.

“I felt like it would be a good outlet for me to get out and record some current bands, and then we could promote the local scene,” Engebretson said. “Everybody I know through the scene is a really great person and talented. So many of them are in so many different bands, and the scenes are just so much larger than it was when the Longhorn started, or a few years later when the Whole Lotta Loves were playing.”