After 27 years with Cook County, Land Services Director Tim Nelson retires

Tim Nelson took an unconventional route to becoming the Cook County Land Services Director. He is retiring this month, and he told WTIP that he began his career as a military pilot.

Before spending three decades working in environmental and land services in several counties across the state, Nelson spent eight years as a pilot. When he left the military, he was looking to stay in Minnesota, and leaned on a different set of skills he picked up during his time as a pilot.

He explained that, at that time, pilots not only trained to fly aircraft, but also had to serve in other capacities when they weren’t flying. For Nelson, that meant training as an environmental officer, supervising the handling and disposal of chemicals and fluids for the airbase. As he moved from the military back to civilian life, he took a job with Clearwater County in their Environmental Services department, and the rest of his career track was set.

The Cook County Land Services department oversees a broad range of statutes and services relating to land use, and environmental protection and management. The department includes planning and zoning services, including supervising vacation rental permitting, wetland management, solid waste management, and, most recently, parks and trails.

Since it was founded in the 1970s, there have only been two directors of Land Services. Nelson said that over his 27 years in the role he has seen a lot of changes in the county. The greatest change he has seen is in the approach to land use, and how people think of the small percentage of private land in the county.

“Nobody really thinks about land use other than the fact that, yes, we do want to preserve our resources, our land and surface water resources,” Nelson said. “But in terms of private property development, nobody really pays much attention to that until they’re trying to do something on their property themselves, or their neighbor is doing something that they don’t particularly care for. Then they get really interested.”

Nelson’s decades with the county have included a variety of challenges and accomplishments. He said that there has never been a shortage of challenges, ranging from regulating sled dog kennel zoning, to navigating the increase in vacation rental properties, to figuring out categorization for unique projects, like the Pleiadian retreat center.

“We had some, you know, kind of interesting twists,” Nelson said.

Nelson said an accomplishment for the department during his tenure has been a systematic overhaul of many parts of the land use ordinance. When he initially took on the job he said he planned to make sweeping changes to the entire ordinance. After six years working with a committee to make the changes, he said he realized that instead, each topic within the ordinance would best be addressed individually.

He said that big wins included, “Getting consensus on the documents that we have been able to adopt. You know, so we’ve taken a lot of the issues that have been wrapped up originally within the zoning ordinance, and then have created different ordinances to deal specifically with them.”

As Nelson prepares to leave his role, current Zoning Administrator Neva Maxwell is preparing to take on the job. The Cook County Board of Commissioners confirmed her promotion earlier this year, and Nelson said that he and Maxwell have been working on this transition for some time.

Maxwell will step into the director position with several major projects currently underway for the department. The county has been working in collaboration with North Shore Waste to update solid waste management, and will continue working alongside the City of Grand Marais to decide on the future of the Sawtooth Bluff project.

Nelson will officially retire on April 3. He said that he has plans already for his retirement. “I do already have plans all laid out. There’s travel plans, there’s activity plans,” he said. He added, “I do expect to spend at least the first month or two doing absolutely nothing but relaxing. But outside of that, yes, it’ll be a pretty active retirement.”

WTIP’s Kirsten Wisniewski spoke with Tim Nelson about his upcoming retirement and his 27 years with the county. Audio of that interview is below.

Kirsten Wisniewski March 13, 2026