When I first came to Wisconsin in January 1980, one of the first road trips I took was to Whitehall, the Trempealeau County seat. There was a mild snowstorm (6-9 inches), and my new boss, Art Krival, insisted that I needed to go meet some folks who had built a cable television cooperative there and help plan its local access channel structure. The snowstorm would help Art decide whether I had the right stuff to stick at the UW-Extension, and the meeting would give me a sense of what I was getting into. We stayed mostly on the road, and the folks I met included the coop's manager, Rod Moen, later State Senator Rod Moen, and a father and son who had helped to organize the coop, Gerhard and Rod Nilsestuen.
I don't remember adding much to the discussion, but I must have said something useful, because the Trempealeau Cable Coop folks kept asking me for advice and assistance. I wound up working with Rod Moen on any number of issues over the years, and as Rod Nilsestuen rose to head the Wisconsin Federation of Cooperatives and later the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, we periodically connected on telecommunications consumer topics and more recently on farmers' market development. The last three years I worked often with Rod's son Joel, a key aide to Senator Kathleen Vinehout, on cable and telecom legislation. Working with three generations of the same family over 30 years is a privilege one doesn't get too often in a lifetime.
Jane Burns in the Wisconsin State Journal has a good summary story on Rod's tragic accidental death here. Some good tributes to Rod are here, here and here. Update: Bill Berry's Cap Times tribute.
Condolences to his family. May his memory be for a blessing.
- Barry Orton
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