---

The retirement reception for the outgoing Veterans Services Officer Bryan Brown was taking place the day before his final ever “Coffee Talk”  session,  and even though most of the veterans enjoying sheet cake and coffee at the North Branch Legion would be seeing Brown at coffee talk the very next morning,  they still showed up to extend well wishes and gratitude for eight-plus years.

As for the morning get-togethers, Brown introduced to the veterans’ community, he will insist  he got just as much out of the coffee talk topics as audiences did.  

Watch for a new schedule in the Press and/or at the county website as the incoming VSO Ryan Skog says he plans to continue the outreach and maybe mix things up and hold some at night.

Brown could never take for granted the trust veterans placed in him as he aided them through some of life’s major moments, helping them navigate the bureaucracy of  benefits due. Brown will admit, though, that sometimes he was ad-libbing.  In telling  the saga of coffee talk speakers and presenters he chuckles about a “yoga guy” he hadn’t met but had heard about, who was willing to share some fitness skills with the coffee talk crowd.  The guest showed up, not exactly sporting a yoga dude physique and he might have been older than the audience.  Still everybody was riveted as the instructor led them through a routine in his actual expertise—Tai Chi.

For his final morning coffee talk last Brown says he went “full circle’ and brought back his first presenter, an expert in hospice programming.

He and in-coming VSO Ryan Skog shared the limelight last week at the Legion Post party in North Branch.  Leaders from the community  found out Skog’s military service background was in the Marines.  He comes from Washington County where he was a VSO assistant. He is versed on all the responsibilities the position entails and grateful Wendy Kowalke is staying on as benefits specialist and the gear that keeps the office humming.

The concept of a veterans services office came out of World War II and in 1945 the state legislature passed enabling legislation for counties to appoint a VSO.  The MN Office of Legislative Auditor did a review in 2008 that had the net result of formalizing county VSO programs, as some Minnesota counties had none and others offered partial veterans assistance.  The counties now monitor data that also go into the MN Department of Veterans Affairs and is used to determine what percentage of veterans are using benefits, their ages, level and types of disability, past military branches, and to track outcomes from assistance provided and review VSO performance.

Skog looks forward to meeting and assisting every single one of Chisago County’s estimated 4,000 veterans.  He also welcomes volunteers and some additional van drivers would be great.  Call for details on the vets’ van transportation routes to the VA in Minneapolis, St Cloud and Maplewood at 651-213-5605, or for whatever issue you may be having.

---