Lifelong Carroll County resident, Neil Bock has spent just short of 30 years serving as a supervisor, and is now officially retired from the position. Bock grew up on a farm south of Glidden and highlights a pivotal point in his life in the early 1990s. At that time, he left his long-term position with the ASCS Office and opened his own business, a snare shop. This was also when the idea of becoming a supervisor was brought to him.
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With just one more year until that 30-year milestone, Bock says he would have liked to have been able to celebrate it, but he is also a staunch believer that elected officials should complete their full term. He says now was just the right time to focus on other things.
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The two most common destinations, he says, will be to see children and grandchildren in Webster City and Fort Collins, Colo. As Bock looks back over his tenure, he says one of the biggest changes he has seen is in technology, from a bag phone to cell phones and the adoption of email and text as standard communication forms. The other biggest area of change is in the people.
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Bock says his fiscally conservative position has been the basis for some of the things he is most proud of during his time on the board.
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He says this conservative position has helped the board through the refinancing of the radio communication project and the building of the jail. The one thing that Bock points to as a potential negative has come about this year with the COVID-19 pandemic. He says it is a good thing that we have the technological capabilities to continue doing business while keeping people safe, but it has also cut down on in-person interaction. There is no replacement, according to Bock, for face-to-face communication to help build and shore up personal relationships. Bock’s successor, Scott Johnson, was sworn in earlier this week. In addition to taking some suggestions from the newest supervisors and creating binders as background for the committees and issues he will be involved in, Bock’s advice to Johnson is that he should remember at all times he is working for the people of Carroll County and that is where his focus should be. Bock also wants to again thank those same people for their support over the years.
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Bock adds he thinks Carroll County is on sound ground with great leaders and has a bright future ahead.