‘Like a Good Neighbor’ Jana Nawrocki serves local residents

Jana Nawrocki grew up on a hobby farm near Fairmont. She took part in band, choir and track while at Fairmont High School and was active in 4-H and the church youth group. In 4-H she did sewing projects, foods projects, home improvements and showed her horse at the Martin County Fair.
Jana said she really got her start in business while in a high school model office class where they would run a mock business. Students managed inventory, had employees and supervisors, just like a real business would operate.
As part of this class as a senior, she went to three job interviews at local businesses. One of them was at the State Farm manager’s office in Fairmont. She got hired at that office and was able to leave school at 1p.m. for on-the-job training.
She had planned to attend a vocational school for a secretarial program but her boss told her she really should set her sights higher and learn some managing skills. She then decided to attend Worthington Community College to get her AA degree in Business Management.
When she moved to Worthington, her boss in Fairmont at the State Farm office helped her get a job with an agent’s office in Worthington. It was after her very first week on the job there that she had an emergency appendicitis operation and was out of work for a couple of weeks.
Her boss was very helpful and she was able to return back to the job. She would do the filing, take photos , run errands and any other jobs that needed to be done. Three months later, there was an opening for a full time person so she was hired for that job. She would attend classes from 8 – 10 a.m., work at the office from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., and then attend school from 5 – 10 p.m. 
After graduation from WCC, Jana moved back to Fairmont and was hired to work at the State Farm office there which was also her own personal agent’s office. The Worthington office was much larger, but the smaller Fairmont agent was a very detailed person so she gained great experiences while at both places, she said.
Jana said she met her future husband at a Halloween Party when her friend asked her if she wanted to come along to “Shorty's” party. She was hesitant as she really didn’t want to get dressed up for the event and Dennis (Shorty) lived in nearby East Chain. After they had been dating for several years, and she graduated with her AA degree, they married in 1984.
When State Farm made changes in their business plans for agencies and would only hire from within the company, her agent encouraged her to get her four year degree. By now she was married and had two children, but was able to take a few classes in Fairmont through Mankato State for a few years before she had to commute to Mankato and finish her bachelors’ degree as a nontraditional student. It took her five years working full time, raising two children and attending night school to get that completed. 
Jana said Dennis was a huge help with the parenting plus the work around the home to make things much easier for Jana to finish school.
The agent opening with State Farm in Kasson came after long time agent Daryl Graves passed away from a short bout with cancer.  Jana and Dennis were asked to go to Kasson and check out the town. They decided to check out Kasson on a Labor Day weekend as they didn’t know anything about the community. When they drove around the town it was very quiet. They saw very few people on the streets and they started thinking does anything ever happen in Kasson? (If they would have come the next weekend it would have been during a busy Marigold weekend.) They were encouraged to return a few weeks later and it was the K-M homecoming week. They saw the parade, people at the football game so it was much busier and they felt much more positive about moving to a smaller town.
Her parents were not excited about their moving to a smaller town in rural Minnesota. Her agent in Fairmont said if they decided to come back to Fairmont again, a position would be open for her. The family, with their three and seven year old daughters, made the move on New Year’s Eve, 1994. They rented a place at the Byron Roller Rink Apartments since their home was not yet sold. When their home was sold they moved to Kasson. She officially opened her agency on Feb 1. 1995 and stayed in Daryl Graves’ location for 1-½ years until she was able to find another location. She then moved across the street to the former Peoples Natural Gas office (next to the Dibble Funeral Home) for the next five years.
When they moved to Kasson, she got a call from the Kasson Fire Department as they had heard the new State Farm agent might be interested in joining the department. Jana said “Well, my husband has been on the Fairmont Fire Department for 8eight years, so he is probably the one you want to talk to.”
Dennis served 20 years on the Kasson Fire Department. She said being married to a firemen she would sometimes get left behind when he would have to respond to a call. In Fairmont, her brother-in-law was also a firemen, so at least there she had her sister to either rescue her or she would have to go to rescue her sister.
In Kasson it took a while to get to know enough people to be able to call to come get her if she got left behind somewhere like church or the grocery store.
The current building the business is now located in, was the former Patterson car sales and service for many years and then Kasson Motors. It was standing empty in 2003 when Dick Palmer, from the Kasson State Bank, showed Jana the building. It was going to be a major project to convert the old vehicle garage into a professional office space. 
Jana’s husband has always been a car guy and actually had graduated from Jackson AVTI with an auto body degree. Dennis figured out pretty quickly that the office could be in half of the building and he would have room in the back part for his own “toys.” State Farm Insurance actually had a department at that time that helped them design and convert the building into what it is today. She officially opened in the present building on Mantorville Avenue in the summer of 2004.
When she started in the business, most of the agents were men. Her manager told her if you take care of people’s needs they won’t care if you are a man or woman when doing business with them. Since she was in a rural community, she would also make sure she met with local farmers first to review their needs and let them know that she was a farm kid and sort of understood the farming basics and agriculture terms.
When asked why Jana decided to become an agent, she told a story about her parents having a total loss house fire. There were two insurance companies involved because of her grandparents owning the house as a life estate and her parents basically being renters in the house, although her Dad had lived in the home his whole life. 
The differences between the two companies was huge. It was at this point that she felt so confident in State Farm and the way that they handled her parents situation, that she felt comfortable being able to sell a product that you really don’t know how good it is until you need it, she said.
The huge hailstorm in the Kasson area in June 2019 has been a very memorable event in her insurance career, and she certainly doesn’t wish to go through something like that again. People were calling and stopping in her office nonstop. They had lines outside the building for people to bring their cars for hail damage evaluation by adjusters. Just her office alone handled over 1,400 hail damage claims.
Claims are still being finalized as policy holders have two years from the time of the damage to settle their claim with State Farm. One of the issues they are seeing now is the cost of building and repairs are going up a lot and hence the replacement cost of all homes in the area will be seeing some adjustments due to the increase in the cost of the repairs.
Living in this community, she said people will sometimes catch her at the grocery store, church and even their house at times to drop off payments or paperwork. Living in rural Minnesota has lots of advantages and she really likes feeling a part of Dodge County. Jana said she feels very blessed to be a part of the Kasson Community.
Her husband Dennis is a maintenance mechanic for Dodge County in Mantorville. Her two daughters both still live in the community. Jaime works at the State Farm office and Jalissa works at Mayo Clinic.  Her youngest daughter, Jalissa was recently married and her other daughter Jaime is engaged to be married. She does not have any grandchildren but several grand puppies.
In her free time Jana has started to do some quilting again and has recently purchased a long arm machine which is computerized and allows her to be able to start and finish the whole project. She also likes to read and go on car trips with her husband.  She considers herself as a problem solver and really enjoys helping people solve their problems.
Jana is on the Mayo Clinic Advisory Board, a member of the Kasson Chamber of Commerce, a member of the TZD (Towards Zero Deaths) board. She teaches the insurance part of drivers education here in Kasson. 
She enjoys get together with her P31 (Proverbs 31) State Farm Christian Women a couple of times each year. She and her husband are also part of the Southeast Minnesota Super Cars club.  During the 26 years she has worked with State Farm, she has been blessed to qualify for many company sponsored trips.
I commented to her if those two “very well paid NFL Quarterbacks” really need to worry about getting the special rate on their insurance in the TV commercial. Perhaps they can find a Viking or a Twins player in the future for our Minnesota region?
Jana has a staff of four in her office; they are all licensed agents and they work as a team. The mission statement on her office wall is: To help people manage the risks of everyday life. Recover from the unexpected, and Realize their dreams. Jana really fits the role of being a good neighbor, and she is certainly glad they made the move to the community.