About Me
I have lived in Mendota Heights for more than 60 years. My mother and father moved to the Village of Mendota Heights in late summer of 1960. I was three months old and the village was mostly hay farms and cornfields and Friendly Hills was only a couple of years old. It was a great place to raise children and my mother and father eventually raised 8 children on the property on Wagon Wheel Trail by Rogers Lake. My dad was a hard-working blue collar worker and my mother was a registered nurse at Saint Joseph’s hospital that eventually gave up her career in nursing to focus on the career of running our home with love and raising eight children. My siblings and I were “large garden farmers” and what mom didn’t can we sold at local garden stands and markets to help make ends meet. All of the Maczko kids participated in the Mend-Eagan athletic association activities, I played baseball and hockey and football through high school. My dad found time to coach or assistant coach our teams. Everyone pulling together (and Pulling weeds) made growing up in a large family a joy. My roots are truly deep in Mendota Heights.
As we were growing, Mendota Heights was growing, and change was happening fast. The population was growing so fast that school boundaries were changing yearly. As a result, we attended multiple schools. I attended Mendota (K-2, 6), Garlough (3) and Pilot Knob (4,5) Elementary schools, Grass Junior High (7-9) and Henry Sibley High school (Two Rivers) (10-12) graduating in 1978. Homes began popping up and they Industrial/business park began to take shape.
Both mom and dad felt a need to serve others so at the urging of three close neighbors in 1963 my dad joined the Mendota Heights Fire Department and served 20 years, and my mom became a fire auxiliary member serving 39 years. Because department was a “volunteer fire department” participation became a family affair. The firefighters and their families were close and the work that my mom and dad did was meaningful. Lifelong friendships were formed, and everyone looked out for each other.
For me, January 11, 1974 brought home what it truly means to serve others and the value of a team. On that day a propane tank exploded at the Bellows Court apartments in West Saint Paul and resulted in the deaths of three West Saint Paul firefighters and a civilian. Two of the firefighters had children that I went to school with. Seeing the impact this event had on my father, that was on the first in mutual aid response, my mother and the whole firefighter family as well as my classmates cemented my desire to serve. In March of 1978, 3 months before I graduated from high school, I became a member of the fire department. One of the proudest days of my life.
After graduation, I continued with the Fire department and the University of Minnesota, Institute of Technology (go Gophers) and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering in 1982. I worked my way through college for a plumbing company digging ditches and learning the plumbing trade and worked on many of the homes constructed south of 110 around Mendota school. This experience later lead to me also becoming a licensed Journeyman plumber.
Mendota Heights was continuing to grow and one of my first engineering positions after graduation was inspecting a site in Eagan (South of 494 between Dodd Road and 35E) that was being filled with dirt being moved to build the extensions of 494 and 35E through Mendota Heights and Eagan.
1982 was also the year I married Lynne’. We started our married life living in West Saint Paul in an apartment on Charlton. We couldn’t find a home we could afford in Mendota Heights, so we stayed close. We both had a strong desire to get back into Mendota Heights, so we kept looking. We eventually found a home in Friendly Hills and moved back in August 1983. While there have been some modifications, we still live in that home today. It is the home we raised our three beautiful and talented daughters - Cassandra, Tiffany and Kimberlee.