It’s all about “lasts” this week for Bruce Henricks.

Last Mower County Board meeting, last coffee with county engineer Mike Hanson, last time parking the PT Cruiser in the “executive parking lot” outside the Mower County Department of Human Services, last opportunity to thank administrative assistant Diana Moon and other DHS personnel, last bit of advice to share with his successor DHS director Julie Stevermer.

Wednesday, the last day of the year, will be Henricks last day of work for Mower County after 29 years.

“It’s time,” he said simply.

That his retirement comes during a week when time is, depending upon how one looks at it, mourned or celebrated on New Year’s Eve, Henricks’ farewell, like the man, has been low-key.

His mother was a homemaker and his father was the custodian at the old First National Bank.

He grew up in a family of two sons and three daughters in his hometown Austin.

After graduating Austin High School, Henricks earned an associate’s degree from then-Austin Junior College and a bachelor’s degree from Mankato (now Minnesota) State University.

He worked 6 1/2 years as an accountant for Wilson Foods in Albert Lea before being hired by Mower County DHS director Bob Schulz.

“I was an accountant and we worked with ledgers in those days,” he said.

When Henricks began work Mower County DHS almost three decades ago, there were 32 employees.

Today, there are more than 56.

He worked as an accountant from 1979 to 1985, when he became administrative assistant to Schulz. When the DHS director retired in 1993, Henricks replaced him.

He was there when the DHS moved from its North Main Street strip mall location to its current location at OakPark Mall in the former J.C. Penney Store in November 2004.

Henricks’ replacement, Stevermer, came on board Dec. 1 to allow her the time to learn about the DHS director’s job and responsibilities.

DHS administers and implements federal, state, and county public policies and mandates involving the protection, support, and rehabilitation of families and individuals. The department is responsible for administration of all forms of public assistance, child support collection enforcement, employment and training initiatives, child and adult protection, and community social services for the developmentally disabled, elderly, mentally ill, and chemically dependent.

In recalling near three decades of public service, Henricks said 1981 was a watershed year, because it ushered in the era of home and community-based waivers.

Minnesotans with disabilities or chronic illnesses who need certain levels of care may qualify for the state’s home and community–based waiver programs.

Medicaid home and community-based service (HCBS) waivers afford states the flexibility to develop and implement creative alternatives to placing Medicaid-eligible persons in hospitals, nursing facilities or Intermediate Care Facilities for Persons with Mental Retardation or Related Condition (ICF/MR). HCBS waivers allow states to put together various service options that are not available under regular Medical Assistance. These service options are available to persons in addition to services covered by MA. Generally, these services are targeted to people with specific needs or diagnosis.

Great strides would also be made in the area of elderly waivers.

In fact, distributing public assistance and Food Stamps would become only two of a myriad of services and programs provided by DHS.

Fully, 5,500 clients receive some sort of aid from Mower County DHS throughout the year.

But change would come fast and furious to Henricks’ chosen career path.

Adult protection, basic health care coverage, long term care, child support … the life lines extended by DHS are many.

All came with a price-tag that has created a growing demand on government’s limited resources.

The questions, Henricks and others like him faced, when the 1990s became a millennium were: Can DHS be all things to all people? Does it have enough resources to deliver the needed programs and services?

Last question answered first.

“No, we don’t,” Henricks said. The County Board has done what they could to help us.”

Still the cost-shifts from the state, mandated programs without funding, push a greater responsibility upon county governments to provide human services.

That situation has caused DHS to “do away with almost all optional services,” Henricks said as the financial times worsened.

There were cuts and more cuts.

Out of home placements was such an area. Costs skyrocketed as at-risk children were taken from their homes and placed in shelters or treatment center.

No longer is that the rule.

“Now, we generally prefer that parents take advantage of in-home services,” he said.

In an effort to reduce spending further, Henricks and others slashed their own travel and training budget.

As Henricks pushed through tough financial times at the end of his career, he said it made him more aware of what people need to survive.

“I’ve had to learn to work with and appreciate what people go through in life,” he said.

Henricks said he learned something from everyone he encountered in life, in the DHS and out.

Schulz, the DHS director, who hired him, was his mentor, but he learned from Huber, the social services supervisor, too.

Working as an accountant and then the DHS department head was a good match for Henricks, who said, “I only wanted to be an accountant.”

The human misery toll was immense. One can’t help but work in human services without being impacted by it.

Henricks said, yes, there were the frustrations of mending holes in the human safety net to protect the needy … just as there were success stories, too.

Twenty-nine years doing a job he said he “loved” doing and doing it with people he admired and appreciated leaves him satisfied.

“It’s the right time for me to leave,” he said of his decision to retire now. “I’m tired of it.”

He and his wife, Chris, plan to travel, first to the East Coast to see children and when they return to Austin to delve more into their number one hobby: woodworking.

There’s been a public open house in his honor and last Friday night at the Windrift Lounge, he was serenaded — karaoke style — to the tune of his favorite “El Paso.”

Today (Tuesday), the commissioners will honor him at their meeting and Wednesday (New Year’s Eve Day), he will leave the DHS building one last time never to return.

It’s a series of “lasts” wherever he goes and whatever he does this week.

“I’m just very grateful to have been able to work with some very nice and competent people for so long,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed it.”

It’s comments like that that make people sing “Auld Lang Syne” at the stroke of midnight each Dec. 31.