Wilder Research head Paul Mattessich announces retirement

Mattessich will retire in 2022 after four decades with the St. Paul nonprofit.

July 27, 2021 at 4:49PM
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Amherst H. Wilder Foundation’s headquarters is located in St. Paul off University Avenue. (The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Paul Mattessich, the longtime executive director of Wilder Research, will retire next year, the St. Paul-based Wilder Foundation announced Tuesday.

Mattessich, who started at Wilder Research in 1978, has led the research organization for nearly four decades. The nonprofit plans to have a new director in place by next spring.

"His legacy will live on through the partnerships he has forged and the standard he has set for research practices everywhere," Wilder Foundation CEO Armando Camacho said in a statement.

Wilder Research, the research arm of the Wilder Foundation, has 92 employees and leads Minnesota Compass, which provides demographic data used by state and local planners. It also heads up the statewide homeless study, which takes place every three years. The study found that homelessness in Minnesota had reached a record high in 2018.

The next study was supposed to be completed in October and released in early 2022, but it will be delayed until October 2022 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The organization didn't want to expose staff or volunteer interviewers to the virus this fall or burden housing providers, who are already strained in the pandemic.

Kelly Smith

573510693
(The Minnesota Star Tribune)
573510692
(The Minnesota Star Tribune)
573510693
(The Minnesota Star Tribune)
573510692
(The Minnesota Star Tribune)
573510693
(The Minnesota Star Tribune)
573510692
Amherst H. Wilder Foundation’s headquarters is located in St. Paul off University Avenue. (The Minnesota Star Tribune)
573510693
Mattessich (The Minnesota Star Tribune)
about the writer

about the writer

Kelly Smith

Reporter

Kelly Smith covers nonprofits/philanthropy for the Star Tribune and is based in Minneapolis. Since 2010, she’s covered Greater Minnesota on the state/region team, Hennepin County government, west metro suburban government and west metro K-12 education.

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