Lenzen's Background

Growing Industry

When Lenzen first began at Dauwalter Motors in Carver, he swept floors and cleaned the shop. Eventually, he began working in the body shop, then sales. Lenzen credits car salesman Charlie Borak for showing him the ropes.

Lenzen continued working in the sales department while attending the Minnesota School of Business. When he graduated, he took a job with First National Bank of Minneapolis. After four days at his new job, his former employer called back.

"They said I was selling as many cars as their full-time people or more and they wanted to offer me a job," Lenzen said. "So they offered me the same pay I'd be getting down in Minneapolis, plus a new 1964 Skylark convertible. They gave me free gas and free insurance," Lenzen said. Throughout Lenzen's tenure with the dealership, the car business was changing drastically. In 1958, Dauwalter Buick in Carver bought out Williams Chevrolet in Chaska, becoming Chevrolet-Buick. About a decade later, the dealership opened a new 16,000 square foot facility along Highway 212. While Lenzen was an employee, the dealership went through seven different owners. In 1978, Bob Fleck gave Lenzen the opportunity to buy out his share of the business and become partners with Ed Nelson. Lenzen became the sole owner after purchasing Nelson's share in 1984. After buying out Nelson, Lenzen went to a General Motors auction and ended up purchasing 21 vehicles. "On the way back, I'm paging through the sales slips, and look at what I bought and started to add up the money. It was $178,000 dollars, and the hair stood up on my arms, because I thought about my dad working for $25 a week," Lenzen said. What would his father's reaction have been? "It would have been in German, I know that," Lenzen said.

Goulash

His parents spoke German at home, and Lenzen still speaks and understands German. "The English came through schooling, but German between Mom and Dad was pretty common," he said."I don't know how they did it," Lenzen said, when reflecting back on his parents raising 10 children. "One of the things I remember clearly is that we had a big garden out back and my mother did a lot of canning," Lenzen said. "What she fed us was good food. We didn't have anything like steaks and (food) to that effect. We had a lot of goulash and potatoes and things like that," Lenzen recalled.

The Lenzens were also early risers, and the children were expected to get up at 5 a.m. to begin washing clothes. "By the time we left for school, the clothes were hanging outside whether it was 100 above or 50 below. They were stiff out there in the wintertime," he said. His parents were religious people, and attended Carver Trinity Lutheran Church every Sunday. "First we went to Sunday school, then we went to the German service, and then we had to sit through the English service, so we had three hours every Sunday," Lenzen said.

Rock Salt

One of Lenzen's Carver friends is Morrie Anderson, who went on to serve as a Carver County commissioner, Chancellor of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities; and Chief of Staff under Governor Arne Carlson.

"We had a lot of fun," Anderson chuckled. "I can't probably talk about all the fun we had. It's fair to say we did some things we shouldn't have done, but that was Carver."

When pressed, Anderson recounted a couple tales. "There used to be a police officer in Carver who liked to go in for coffee about 9 or 10 o'clock at night, and there were times when he found his car on cement blocks, incapable of getting anywhere," Anderson said. Then the two boys would create a disturbance at the other end of town, while the squad car's wheels would spin helplessly. Then there were the watermelon field raids, where the boys would end up with rock salt in their rear ends, Anderson recounted.

Besides rock salt, Lenzen's mischief also risked parental punishment. "My dad was a very gentle man, and he did not believe (in retribution) unless you really abused the system. But when you did it, he knew how to pass out the punishment and at that time they had razor straps and they worked very well," Lenzen recalled.

The gregarious Lenzen was once a shy kid, Anderson said. "Early on he was a little bit bashful or unsure, and I expected that's the product of being the youngest of 10 children. And it probably took him a little longer to find his own stride, but once he did, he never looked back," Anderson said. "Now, the word bashful, is not something you attribute to John Lenzen," he said.

Anderson has lost count of the vehicles he's purchased from Lenzen. The first one was a 1960 or 1961 Volkswagen he purchased for $350. The last vehicle was a 2004 Buick Rainier. Anderson credits some of Lenzen's success to instinct. "Part of it is in his own intuitive nature about what's right and what feels good," he said.

Community Involvement

"He represents, in the best sense of, what Carver is about," Anderson said of Lenzen. Lenzen has been actively involved in the Carver and Chaska communities, serving as Carver mayor for two terms, beginning in 1969. "He had a lot of vision for the city and was very proud of his heritage," said Barb Swanson, of Barbara Swanson Realty, who served as Carver city clerk when Lenzen was in office. "He's very dynamic and all-inclusive. He has a way about him that people buy into. They want to help. He's a good team player," Swanson said.

He's also active with his wife Ruthie and their girls Natalie, 7, and Nicole 3. "They keep me young and they give me a lot of attention I need," he said. Lenzen also has two grown children, Jeff Lenzen and Jill McGlothin, through his first marriage. Jeff Lenzen is in charge of the Lenzen service, parts and body shop, and McGlothin serves as the dealership's vice president and office manager. He was a member of the Carver Fire Department for 21 years, a duty that started when Lenzen was a boy. "When there was a fire, they called our house and we ran across the street and put the whistle on and rang the siren," Lenzen recalled.

He is a charter member of the Carver Lions, where he served as president three times. He also is active in the Chaska Chamber of Commerce, and has received the chamber's "Spirit of Chaska" award. In 2001, he organized the Chaska's Sesquicentennial parade. "There are too many businesses and people who take things for granted and take it out of the community instead of putting it back in. I believe if I earn my living here and if my people earn their living here, we should be putting something back into the community," he said. "What is the community? Businesses, churches, schools, and, of course, the people themselves. If you got all that and put it all together, you have a nice town like you do in Chaska."

Written by Mark W. Olson of the Chaska Herald