“My glass is always half full.”
Every politician needs a desire to shape things and powers of persuasion. But how many setbacks can a recently elected official take without losing optimism and courage? According to Olaf Meinen, chief administrator of Aurich district, there are no limits. Every crisis can make us stronger than ever, he says.
After the first few years in office as chief administrator of Aurich district, there’s one thing that Olaf Meinen can claim for himself with a good conscience: “I know how to do crisis management!”. There’s actually no doubt about it. On 1 November 2019, he moved into his office in the district administration centre. Just one week later, while on an official trip to Feuchtwangen in Bavaria, he heard about the massive redundancies being planned by wind turbine manufacturer Enercon . 1,500 jobs would be lost in Aurich alone. Meinen spent the rest of his trip in Southern Germany constantly on his phone.
Then came Covid-19. The war in Ukraine. Energy crisis and inflation. Bird flu and a big fire at Norden hospital. Definitely not a good start. But Olaf Meinen isn’t one to be easily thwarted, he doesn’t let things get him down. “If we get new problems we have to find new solutions”; says the 55-year-old. He’s even prepared to take unpopular measures if they serve the purpose. Covid-19 was a case in point. Not everybody likes it? They don’t have to.
Not an easy youngster
Olaf Meinen is basically an optimist. “My glass is always half full”, he says firmly. In every crisis there is also a chance. You just have to see it and then grasp it with both hands. People in Ostfriesland can do that, he adds, even if others often think they’re stubborn and reserved. By contrast, he sees the locals more as being liberal-minded and interested in anything that’s new. “That’s partly due to the proximity of the coast and the maritime setting.”
Meinen himself is a real local boy. He grew up in Strackholt, part of Großefehn. His parents were in the hospitality trade, but he knew from early on that he didn’t want to take over the family business. “I’m sure I was not an easy youngster”, he admits today. Olaf needed his liberties and freedom. Often enough, his parents wouldn’t know for days at a time exactly what he was up to. Meanwhile he’d be just ten kilometres away in nearby Wiesmoor with the handball team, turning up again at home three days later.
Life journeys rarely go in a straight line; they are often full of turn-offs, highways and dead ends. Even so, looking back it seems quite amazing that Meinen opted to train as an administration clerk with the local council. “Well actually”, he admits, “it was more or less by chance”. He heard about the vacancy from friends, sent off an application (“my only one!”) and got the job immediately. He knew at once that he’d “give it a try”.
He did more than just try. After completing his training and taking a degree at the Academy of Administration and Business in Leer, he became head of the immigration authority for Leer rural district. At the turn of the millennium he returned to Großefehn to take up the position as head of the department for public order and social affairs. “All in all, this involved interesting tasks that were fun as well.” Above all, being constantly in close contact with people and helping them mattered to him and it was a role that shaped his personality. The only thing he couldn’t really get on with was the strictly regulated working hours from 8 am to 4 pm.
Chance to try something new
In 2006, Großefehn needed a new mayor. Olaf Meinen was asked whether that might be something for him. “I wasn’t interested at first.” But then he talked with his wife about giving it a try, because he gradually realised he’d like to try something new again. In the end, he found himself running as an individual candidate against four other contestants, one of whom was a clear favourite. Meinen benefited from his good contacts in all the villages belonging to Großefehn, with a reliable group of active supporters. In the end, this swayed the election in his favour.
On his first day in the town hall, he introduced himself to the staff with a cheerful “Morning, I’m the new mayor”. “The early months were hard work. First of all I had to clarify the situation and set some boundaries”, he says looking back on the initial period. But soon people realised “we can get along with him, he’s a sincere guy”. He was re-elected in 2014. No other contestants this time, with a possibly record-breaking election turnout of 91.3 percent.
Altogether, Olaf Meinen was mayor of Großefehn for 13 years. Two years before the scheduled end of his term in 2021, he decided it was time to do something else again. “I’d been feeling the need for a change for a while, as I thought I’d already achieved quite a lot for Großefehn .” Above all, he had understood how to get the various political groupings to work together. Most pioneering decisions taken by the council were unanimous.
A little bit crazy
Still without any party allegiance, the family man with two children decided to go for the office of chief administrator in Aurich district – again following an external push. He won the election with an absolute majority already in the first round.
What was the biggest change for him with his new position? Meinen laughs: “It was no longer possible just to pop home for lunchw.” And what do the two jobs have in common? Here the man born in 1967 needs to give a bit more detail: “You have to be able to communicate, to reach out to people. But it’s also clear you’ll never be able to please everybody all the time, so you need to be thick-skinned.” Nor is there really any such thing as regulated working hours and processes. When he starts work in the morning, he often doesn’t know what the day will bring. All in all, “you probably need to be a little bit crazy for both jobs.”
A strategic mindset doesn’t hurt either. While the village mayor sometimes even has to deal with things like wobbly manhole covers on the pavement, the agenda of the chief district administrator is more likely to focus on the medium- to long-term improvement of the whole traffic infrastructure. “That’s a challenge that you have to face”, says Meinen.
It’s a challenge he gladly accepts. After all, there’s a lot at stake. Not just the future of Aurich district but of the whole of Ostfriesland. Olaf Meinen sees outstanding prospects for further development. Energy transition, climate protection and sustainability are right at the top of his agenda. “These are things where our region can act as a blueprint for the whole country. After all, we offer the best prerequisites as home of the renewables.”
Getting rid of the parochial mindset
As the motto for his future reflections, Meinen has appropriated a sentence spoken by Olaf Lies, Lower Saxony’s Minister of Economic Affairs: “Industry follows energy”. When the conditions are right, economic success will follow. Every village and every town therefore has to work on their own particular strengths. To make sure the strategy works, what matters is to get rid of the parochial mindset. “No big player will declare that they’re coming to Strackholt or Marienhafe. They’ll say: We’re coming to Ostfriesland.“ That’s why the tasks are being tackled together in the “Alliance for Ostfriesland”.
In autumn 2022, when Lower Saxony’s Ministry for European Affairs and Regional Development included the alliance in its “Future Regions in Lower Saxony” programme, Meinen saw this as confirmation of all the work put in by his colleagues in Wittmund and Leer districts together with the town of Emden and by himself in recent years. “Combining innovative ideas with existing structures while taking our shared cultural heritage into the future: this is our great chance”, he declared on receiving a grant approval amounting to roughly five million Euros from EU funds.
Seeing opportunities and grasping them with both hands: here again is the motto with which Aurich’s chief district administrator masters his tasks.
