Donna Welsh fits in quite nicely. Thank you for asking.

After all, Austin is almost home for the Stacyville, Iowa, native.

And finance is what she does best in life. She has honed the education and the experience needed to survive and succeed in the field.

"There's always a challenge in life and I want to prove I can make the best of it," she said of her career ambitions.

Welsh is Mower County's first-ever finance director, just like she was in Dodge

County.

The Mower County position was created last summer after the county commissioners retained a Lawco accountant, Darwin Viker, to study the county's steadily increasing fund balances, or reserves.

One of the recommendations Viker made was to hire a finance director to manage the county's finances.

Welsh describes herself as a person who sets priorities, a list-maker and a detail person.

Now, she has literally almost come full-circle from a farm in northern Iowa to southern Minnesota and now a job less than a half-hour away from where she grew up.

"I enjoy my new work. It's like coming home," she said.

Welsh works under the supervision of Craig Oscarson, county coordinator. Her wealth of experience will be crucial in lending both expertise and advice to county officials as the worsening state budget crisis looms ahead.

She has Val Kruger, who is the county payroll and benefits coordinator, in a two-person department in the courthouse basement where the emergency management director's offices were formerly located.

In her leisure time, she enjoys fishing -- particularly with husband and other family in Grand Rapids -- and cooking.

Self-starter from beginning

Welsh is the fifth of seven children born to a farm family, who lived in the countryside midway between Stacyville and St. Ansgar in Mitchell County, Iowa.

She graduated from Marian High School at Stacyville and went to work at the Mayo Clinic at Rochester. There she met her husband, Russ, an X-ray technician. He was the youngest of nine children.

After marriage and the birth of the couple's first child, Welsh decided to be a "stay-at-home-mom." The Welshes have a son, Patrick, who works at Heat and Glow at Lake City and a daughter, Carrie, who is a nursing program student.

Staying at home lasted only six months before she was off to college and working part-time at a bank. She was a "natural" for the work and advanced through the ranks to become an operations manager in her employer's banking trust department.

Welsh also finished classes at Rochester Community Technical College after two years of study and then earned a bachelor's degree from Winona State University.

After a stint as a trust and investment manager, as well as compliance auditor for a bank, she took a job with a Wichita, Kan., bank as an investment manager.

After 10 months and a nine hour weekend drive -- one-way -- back to Minnesota to see her husband and children, she returned to southeastern Minnesota to take a position as a medical clinic manager.

When the Dodge County Board of Commissioners in Mantorville decided to create a new finance director's position, Welsh applied.

She was the Dodge County board's choice and began her duties.

"My First Bank experiences in fund accounts, payroll, general ledger and other areas all seemed geared toward what the Dodge County finance director's position called for," she said. "Even my experience in taxes, measurement and audit contacts were valuable to me."

"I had learned the best possible way to manage funds," she said.

That was then and serving as Mower County's finance director is now.

Welsh has never forgotten growing up on a farm in Mitchell County, Iowa.

"Growing up on a farm taught me to be self-sufficient," she said. "I think that's what is great about farm life. You learn independence and self-sufficiency and the work ethic, too."

For more information, call 437-9537.

Lee Bonorden can be contacted at 434-2232 or by e-mail at :mailto:lee.bonorden@austindailyherald.com