Conservation groups and legislators alike mourn John Helland, driver of environment policy
John Helland, who died June 27 at age 76, and others like him in government, are the dutiful and smart ones who write the laws and policies that legislators oftentimes can only imagine.
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Dennis Anderson / Star Tribune | 5:00 pm, Jul. 24, 2021 ×
A view of the Minnesota State Capitol on Thursday, May 16, 2019. Glen Stubbe / Minneapolis Star Tribune / TNS
(Tribune News Service) It s unclear whether John Helland knew who Max Weber was or that Weber, a German sociologist who died in 1920, developed the first modern theory of bureaucracies.
Weber argued that bureaucracies are the most efficient way to organize human activity, and Helland, who spent nearly four decades laboring in Minnesota s Capitol, likely would concede if asked that his career had been that of a bureaucrat, and proudly so.