Minnesota State Patrol chief Col. Matt Langer talks with a reporter in his office at the State Patrol headquarters in downtown St. Paul on Thursday, March 28, 2024. Langer, who previously handled crash reconstructions, keeps a large framed photograph on his office wall showing the tangled wreckage of a crash as a reminder of the importance of the State Patrol’s mission. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

A large framed photograph hangs on Col. Matt Langer’s office wall, showing the tangled wreckage of a crash.

The Minnesota State Patrol chief captured the moment years ago as part of his investigation when he handled crash reconstructions. Two people died in the crash.

“That’s a reminder of the importance of the mission that we do,” Langer said.

As Langer leaves the State Patrol on Friday, the primary mission of the State Patrol remains the same — keeping people safe on the state’s highways — though what goes along with that work has changed during Langer’s long tenure as chief.

Troopers have seen more dangerous driving behavior in recent years, with 2021’s 488 traffic fatalities the most in the state since 2007. Preliminary information shows 414 people died in crashes throughout the state last year.

The State Patrol has also faced scrutiny, from lawsuits that stemmed from the 2020 civil unrest after George Floyd was killed to a state trooper recently criminally charged with fatally shooting Ricky Cobb II during a traffic stop in Minneapolis.

Three weeks after the Hennepin County attorney charged trooper Ryan Londregan in Cobb’s death, Langer announced that he’s leaving the State Patrol to work for the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

He said the Londregan charges were “not at all” related to why he’s departing. In fact, the case “tugged at me to stay,” he said.

“I thought about it for a long time and wondered if it was the right thing to do because I still love this job,” Langer said in an interview. “I’m not running from this job at all — all of the challenges, all of the difficulty, all of the politics — I’m still driven by it, but this new opportunity is one I couldn’t pass up. To do things on a bigger scale beyond Minnesota is intriguing.”

Sgt. Mike LeDoux has known Langer since shortly after Langer became a trooper in 1999.

“I think most people would look back, particularly on the last few years, and agree that they’re without a doubt probably the most challenging of our profession,” said LeDoux, president of the state troopers union.

While there are always times of disagreement between rank-and-file and management, LeDoux said he’s viewed Langer as a pragmatic leader who “surrounded himself with smart people, valued input from the field” and “embraced problem solving.”

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Langer, 46, grew up in Falcon Heights, graduated from Roseville Area High School and, among other degrees, has his master’s in public and nonprofit administration from Metro State University.

Langer is one of the two longest-serving chiefs of the State Patrol, along with Col. Roger Ledding, who was chief from 1979 to 1989. Langer was named acting chief in March 2014 and officially appointed as chief in January 2015. He worked in various roles previously, including as a lieutenant, the State Patrol’s public information officer and assistant chief.

He recently sat down with the Pioneer Press to look back at his 25 years at the State Patrol, which included advocating for the adoption of the state’s cellphone hands-free law, working to address challenges with law enforcement and community relations, and supporting troopers’ well-being by expanding the internal peer support team.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Col. Matt Langer Q&A

Minnesota State Patrol chief Col. Matt Langer with photos of his predecessors that line the walls of the Minnesota State Patrol office in St. Paul. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Q: After becoming a trooper, assigned to the metro area, what was it like to be a crash-reconstruction investigator?

A: I handled a lot of high-profile cases: Shawn Silvera, the Lino Lakes officer who was killed (when a driver fleeing from officers struck him in 2005). Herb Brooks (the Olympic hockey coach who died in a 2003 crash near Forest Lake). I also did hundreds of other crashes that were never in the news but were equally traumatic for families.

Q: You had a tradition of sending cards to families on the anniversaries of their loved one’s death in a crash. Sharon Pearson, whose 14-year-old daughter Hannah died in a 2005 Forest Lake crash, told me you’ve been a “powerful force of support.” How did you get started with sending these cards?

A: I knew a retired trooper wrote cards on the anniversary of a crash that he helped to investigate. Once my career brought me closer to some families who lost loved ones, I decided to further what Sgt. Tom Ludford had started. When he passed away, I began writing cards to the Degnan family (who Ludford had stayed in contact with) so his legacy could continue.

Q: What has it been like to be a chief law enforcement officer during this time, not just since George Floyd but also Philando Castile (who was fatally shot by a St. Anthony police officer in 2016 in Falcon Heights)?

A: It’s exceptionally difficult because beyond wanting to be perfect as the chief, you also have an innate desire for everyone within the organization to always be perfect. It’s a totally unrealistic sort of vision, but it’s what drives us to be as good as we can be. In the moments where perfection isn’t possible, it can be when the greatest public scrutiny comes our way.

Q: Sharon Press (director of the Dispute Resolution Institute at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law) told me she invited you to be an advisory member of the Truth and Action project, which they describe as “addressing systemic racism in the criminal justice system in Minnesota.” She said you never shied away from the work and were committed that anyone who had an interaction with a trooper “walked away from it feeling they were treated with dignity and respect.” What did you talk about at the Truth and Action public panel discussion last year?

A: I talked about trying to be innovative and being realistic. A lot of people talk about how to make accountability go up, but it needs to be rooted in reality. What does it actually mean and what are we actually trying to accomplish sometimes gets lost in that.

Q: What tangible steps have you taken?

A: The body-worn cameras certainly help. (Troopers were equipped with them for the first time beginning in 2021.) At the same time, the only time we ever make body-worn cameras public is when something tragic has happened. So the public doesn’t get to see all the good work that happens on body-worn cameras.

Beyond that, it’s the fundamentals. It’s training, it’s policies, it’s leadership, it’s hiring the right people. It’s the organizational culture that you’re bringing people into. And it’s always pushing to improve, pushing to be better and never settling for, “Well, we’re doing a good job.”

Q: When I talked to Nicole Archbold, the Department of Public Safety’s community affairs director, she said you decided to have community members start taking part in scenario training with incoming troopers going through the State Patrol academy. She said it’s meant the public can also learn what goes into traffic stops from a “non-threatening, controlled environment.” How did you come up with that idea?

A: During a conversation with the African American Leadership Council in St. Paul, the idea of inviting that group and others came to mind. The chance for community leaders to see our training firsthand, participate in our training as role players and then have conversations about perspectives is invaluable.

Q: I’ve written about the increase in assaults on law enforcement in Minnesota in recent years. How have your troopers been affected?

A: One of the things that we’ve witnessed is there seems to be a little bit more roadside disagreement or just sort of defiance in the motoring public.

I think that you see that also in the fatality rate and the driving behavior. You also see that when you talk to people in schools or hospitals, like there’s just a little more edginess in the world. It weighs on my mind because I never want troopers to be in a disagreement or having to use force or having to be dealing with someone who’s defiant, because the risk goes up in those situations.

Q: What days stick out to you in your career?

A: The bad days and the good days, the extremes. I can think of really bad days, like giving flags at funerals for troopers who have died of cancer or being at police funerals. I stood on the interstate while officer Shawn Silvera’s wife, Jennifer, showed up. He was still in the ambulance and the coroner gave her his wedding ring.

Then, there’s a ton of successes that stick out, whether it’s the hands-free bill at the Legislature or the relationships that I’ve been able to maintain over the years with people as a result of tragedies.

Q: Lawmakers recently approved funding for a new helicopter and single-engine plane for the State Patrol. How has your agency’s aviation unit changed?

A: The newest helicopter, our third, is coming this fall. It’s a twin-engine helicopter that allows us to do hoist rescuing and rescue people at night, which we can’t do right now.

The service we provide is both for violent crime and carjacking and pursuits (following the whereabouts of suspects by air and alerting local law enforcement, so they can apprehend them) to try to mitigate risk (of vehicle pursuits by law enforcement), but also for rescuing injured people in the Boundary Waters.

Q: Journalists sued the State Patrol after the George Floyd protests and civil unrest, with a settlement reached in one (for $825,000) and pending in the other (for $1 million for attorneys and $200,000 for two journalists), and a judge banned Minnesota troopers from using force or arresting journalists unless they are suspected of a crime. What lessons have come out of this?

A: It was a horrific time in our state. You have to picture complete and total chaos, in a scale that we’ve never seen before, at least in my generation, and then you’re asking the Minnesota State Patrol to come into a local city to deal with unrest that we’ve never contemplated before, with the expectation that you stop the unrest and everything’s perfect. And perfection is just really hard in this line of work.

One of the most obvious changes we needed was to have stronger identification (so it was easier to read on riot gear) of who were the troopers. There were grainy videos or photos on Twitter from 3:30 in the morning and too many times we’d look at it and we don’t know: “Is it us, is it a different agency?” That’s just a really practical example.

We did it as fast as we could after May of 2020 (after Floyd was killed), so that we can be proud of the conduct that is the State Patrol and then also critical of the conduct that we think sometimes could have been better.

There’s been difficult moments where there’s been portrayals of the State Patrol and it’s not who we are.

Q: If you felt like you couldn’t tell the State Patrol’s side, was it because you couldn’t talk due to the lawsuits?

A: Absolutely. Some of the most frustrating things as a leader is when you want to take the microphone and just tell the truth and be candid. But there’s a difficulty when you’re being sued, no matter what the case is, you just don’t have that ability.

Q: Do your troopers also understand that’s why you haven’t said anything publicly since trooper Londregan was charged?

A: One of the advantages I have is I’ve been with the organization for 25 years, so troopers know who I am. There’s moments when people wish I’d take the microphone, but that wouldn’t be honoring my position. There’s a time and place for it, but it’s not right now.

Q: What will you be doing in your new role as director of global policing for the International Association of Chiefs of Police?

A: I’ll be based in Minnesota, and traveling back and forth. There are three main components. One is the work that IACP does on traffic safety around the world with specific areas like South America. Honestly, they’re working in places where they don’t do traffic safety at all, and trying to help countries establish how to do traffic safety.

Q: You mentioned you think the biggest difference between being chief in 1974 and 2024 is the work now is 24/7. Will leaving that responsibility be a relief to you and your family?

A: If you don’t want to be the person who gets called about protests, critical incidents, troopers hurt, involvement in big crashes, then you probably have no business being the chief. You should be driven to be the person who gets called.

It’s a tremendous responsibility and so you accept that and your family accepts it with you. My wife has a picture of me on every vacation standing somewhere in a swimsuit on my phone for a work call. She jokes about it, she takes a picture.

Q: What advice would you give to the person who comes after you? (Lt. Col. Christina Bogojevic will be serving as interim chief, with the Department of Public Safety commissioner appointing the next chief.)

A: No. 1, you have to be who you are. Show people that you care and really believe in the mission.

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Sara Frasl thinks that one of the coolest part of her job — building fire trucks at Rosenbauer America in Wyoming, Minn. — is seeing her work out in the community.

“We just had one for Forest Lake come through,” said Frasl, 19, of North Branch. “Like, we literally just built one that is going to save our neighborhoods. It feels good.”

Frasl came to work at Rosenbauer America, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of custom fire trucks, after graduating from Forest Lake Area High School in 2022. She applied for the job using a cover letter and résumé she developed in Mike Miron’s Career Launch class.

The class, which provides experiential learning opportunities to better connect students with workforce demands, is funded in part by a Youth Skills Training grant from the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry. The grants are intended to offer meaningful career exposure and paid work experience for students 16 years of age and older.

Grants are given in high-growth and in-demand occupations in the industries of advanced manufacturing, agriculture, automotive, health care and information technology. In addition to paid work experience, students get related classroom instruction, safety training and industry-recognized credentials.

Frasl started at Rosenbauer in pre-electrical, which included wiring the bodies of fire trucks, and was then promoted to pump electrical, where she works on pump appliances and communication boards. On a recent weekday, Frasl programmed an upper rear warning light of a rescue truck to alternate red and blue flashing lights, per the Reno, Nev., Fire Department’s specifications.

“We don’t see these sets of lights too often, so I’m going through the instructions to figure out how to program it,” she said. “We need to sync all the lights to the flash pattern they want.”

Frasl said she didn’t know what she wanted to do after graduating from high school, but she said she knew “that trades make good money, and I knew that I was capable of doing it.”

“I took shop classes, and I really enjoyed them,” she said. “Automotive is what really interested me, and I ended up getting introduced to this place and just kind of went, ‘You know what? If they can do it, I can do it.’ So I just kind of went into it blindly. Honestly, I came here not knowing much of anything and got completely trained on the job.”

Fruitful partnership

Ray Bjork, a senior at Forest Lake Area High School, talks with teacher Mike Miron while working at Rosenbauer America in Wyoming, Minn. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Rosenbauer has been an important partner for Forest Lake Area High School as the company, which has 530 employees, takes a number of student interns each year, Miron said.

Two of those interns are now working for the company, which builds advanced custom and commercial pumpers, heavy and light rescues, tenders, mini pumpers, aerial ladders and platforms, and electric fire trucks.

The internship program is a win-win for the students and for the company, said Don Anderson, a production supervisor.

“It gives the students a chance to work in the field and see if they’re interested before they actually go and spend a lot of money on education that they may not need,” Anderson said.

It also gives Rosenbauer a chance to test out future employees and see if they would be a good fit, he said.

The internship program gives Rosenbauer “another way to access a talent pool for employment in a tight market,” said Leah Schulz, who works in the company’s human-resources department.

“If a student decides they have other plans after graduation, we still have the benefit of exposing them to our company,” she said. “One day in the future, when they are looking for career opportunities, they may remember Rosenbauer and the different opportunities we have. There is so much value to this type of engagement with young people. I wish programs like this were around when I was in school.”

Raymond Bjork, 18, is a senior at Forest Lake Area High School. He started his paid internship at Rosenbauer last fall. He goes to school in the morning, and then spends his afternoons at the plant.

“It’s a good job,” he said. “It pays pretty well for my age. I can learn pretty much anything here. I’m learning a lot of stuff on the job. I’m getting paid to learn, yeah, it’s pretty awesome.”

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The Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry awards grants to local partnerships to create, implement and expand Youth Skills Training programs throughout Minnesota.

Forest Lake is a great example of the types of partnerships that are being created between schools and employers across the state to provide opportunities to students, said Rich Wessels, program manager for Youth Skills Training at the Department of Labor and Industry.

The program was approved by the Minnesota Legislature in 2017, and the first grants given out to support the development and implementation were awarded in 2018. Grant funding totaling $1.5 million is awarded to school-and-employer partnerships around the state each year; the maximum award per partnership is $100,000, and it is spent over a two-year grant performance period, Wessels said.

Schools can participate in the program with or without grant funding. About 60 schools currently have Youth Skills Training programs; 28 of those are receiving grant funding, Wessels said.

The program has been instrumental in terms of addressing workforce challenges by connecting industry with education to provide students with opportunities to learn about and gain hands-on experience in key industries, he said.

‘Ready for a grown-up job’

Forest Lake Area High School has received three Youth Skills Training grants since the program started, said Miron, the school’s career and technical education/work-based learning coordinator.

“We’ve built it over time,” Miron said. “We tried to go slow to go fast. We were deliberate about putting the right foundation in place, to try to make sure that we were putting our students and, quite frankly, our businesses in a good cooperative position to be successful.”

The school has partnered with a number of local businesses, including Rosenbauer, Velocity, South Shore Veterinary Hospital, Midwest Machinery Co., Westfall Technik, Regal Machine, Waterjet and Aggressive Hydraulics.

Students can choose from a number of electives: manufacturing, automotive, agriculture, health care and information technology.

In order for students to be considered for an internship, they have to have taken at least three Pathway courses, he said. Once they decide what field they want to pursue, they take Miron’s Career Launch class, a professional skills class. “It’s about getting them ready for a grown-up type of a job, skilled employment,” he said.

Students learn how to create a résumé, write cover letters and fill out applications. They also earn an OSHA-10 safety certification, which teaches students how to recognize and prevent safety hazards in the workplace.

The class includes attending Career Exploration Day at the high school, where students learn about possible careers by attending sessions hosted by community members representing a variety of fields, Miron said. Students also are able to go on tours of different businesses, he said.

Sara Frasl uses a cordless battery for power as she programs an emergency light for a fire truck at Rosenbauer America. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

“We really do a deep dive in helping them figure out what it is they want to do and give them opportunities to go explore that a little bit more, so that by the time we’re talking about getting an internship, we’ve had an opportunity to get to know each other, and we can vet them a little bit,” Miron said. “So when I reach out to a company like Rosenbauer, I can say, ‘I have a student who is interested in electrical. Is there an opportunity on your electrical team?’ We really try to find the right fit with a company.”

Employers must be approved before student learners are placed.

“We can place 16-, 17- and 18-year-old students, but there’s a lot of prohibited work under child-labor laws — work that they can’t do — so a company like Rosenbauer has to agree to a vetting process from the Department of Labor and Industry,” he said.

Said Molly Bonnett, the school’s career and college coordinator: “We tell students it’s like an opportunity to access a bypass lane because they have been developing skills and because they have the OSHA-10 safety credential, they then have the opportunity to work in a position that they would never have the opportunity if they walked in off the street. That’s the exciting part: to see them develop those skills.”

Academic, technical, employability skills

About half of the Class of 2023 from Forest Lake Area High School went on to a four-year college, and about 20 percent went to a two-year college. The rest of the breakdown was: military, 5 percent; apprenticeship, 5 percent; and going right to work or taking a gap year, 23 percent, she said.

Some high schools have either a college track or a career navigator track, but not Forest Lake, Bonnett said.

“That is not our model at all,” she said. “We are there to serve students, regardless of their plan. We very much hold dear the philosophy that it is a marriage of academic, technical and employability skills that needs to be developed through high school. So it’s not technical skills for kids going to work, and academic skills for kids going to college. No, it’s all three for everybody.”

The more credits a student has, the more time they can spend at work, Miron said. Students also receive credit for taking Miron’s class, “so they’re working, they’re getting paid and they’re receiving credit towards graduation,” he said.

The program isn’t just for students who are planning to go right to work after graduation, Miron said. “We have students who want to be engineers, but they’re getting some practical hands-on experience on a production floor before they go to school,” he said.

Students interested in becoming veterinarians have a chance to be placed at South Shore Veterinary Hospital, Miron said. “I have a student now who wants to go work on a large-animal farm because she knows she’s going to need exposure to working with those types of animals before she becomes a veterinarian,” he said.

‘We built that!’

Frasl said she is not sure how long she will continue working at Rosenbauer. She’s gotten really interested in electrical theory, so she might go back to school to study residential and commercial electrical technology, she said.

Sara Frasl works at Rosenbauer America in Wyoming, Minn. When Forest Lake Area High School holds its next Career Exploration Day, the recent graduate could be among the Rosenbauer contingent. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

“I’ve been training some of the new people who come in,” she said. “Everyone who typically comes in has been put on my team to kind of learn with me. I want them to understand how our trucks get put together and where things go, but I also want them to understand the theory behind it, and why it works, so when something goes wrong, they know what to look for and know how to fix it.”

Frasl has memorized most, if not all, of the colors and numbers of the dozens of wires that go into each fire truck.

“Every wire goes to a different thing,” she said. “We’ve got the right door, the left door, the horn, the dome light, the alarm, the side-warning light. … If somebody says, ‘OK, Sara, we need a dome-light wire,’ I know it’s going to be gray, so I’m like, ‘OK, it’s right here.’ Certain trucks have the same wires in every one: Every truck is going to have a backup light; every truck is going to have turn signals. I got used to seeing those colors so often that I memorized them.”

Frasl’s favorite fire truck to work on to date has been a portable hazardous material truck for Orange County, Calif., that had “slide-outs in it like a camper,” she said. “It was easily one of the most complex wiring jobs I’ve ever had to do. They had tens of hundreds of feet of wire that we had to run on it. I’ve never seen another one like that.”

When the school holds its next Career Exploration Day, Bonnett is hoping that Frasl will be among the Rosenbauer contingent.

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“It’s so much cooler to hear from A) somebody younger and B) an alum,” Bonnett told Frasl during a recent tour of Rosenbauer. “It’s way more interesting for students to have that connection. They would be riveted hearing your story.”

Frasl offered to bring in photos of some of the jobs she has worked on. “Everyone just thinks it’s so cool,” she said. “It’s so colorful and stuff, but in reality, once you get down to it, your brain just, like, simplifies it. It’s like math equations.”

Frasl said she is especially proud that the fire trucks she helps build are being “used for good.” Rosenbauer trucks generally have an “R” on them.

“It’s cool when you’re out, and you see one of our own fire trucks out at a scene,” she said. “I think, ‘Hey, we built that!’ That’s why we are here. That’s our mission.”

Minnesota Youth Skills Training program

To date, 67 grants have been awarded to partnerships throughout the state and provided 92,790 students with the opportunity to participate in programs at 201 businesses and organizations approved by the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry.

About 46,500 students have completed or are taking classes and receiving safety training directly related to the five YST industries. In addition, 3,419 students have received an industry-recognized credential and 1,022 students have participated in paid work experience in one of these industries.

There currently are 60 Youth Skills Training programs across the state, 28 of them funded by the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry:

Forest Lake Area Schools
Roseville Area Schools
Stillwater Area High School
Bemidji Area School District
Mankato Area Public Schools
Chisago Lakes School District
Milaca Public Schools
East Grand Forks Public Schools
Spark-Y Youth Action Labs
Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce
Genesys Works Twin Cities
Otter Tail County (OTC Works)
Alexandria Area High School
Breckenridge High School
Edina Public Schools
Faribault Public Schools
Hibbing School District
ISD #728 (Elk River, Otsego, Rogers, Zimmerman)
Monticello Public Schools
Owatonna Public Schools
Sourcewell
Workforce Development, Inc.
Venture Academy High School
Career Solutions – Stearns and Benton Counties
Minnewaska Area High School
North Branch Area High School
Princeton Public Schools
Windom Area High School

(Source: Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry)