Paul Mattessich, the longtime executive director of Wilder Research, will retire next year, the St. Paul-based Wilder Foundation announced Tuesday.
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
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
The governor said it may be 2027 or 2028 by the time the market catches up to demand.
