Growing up in Wilmar, Tim Jacobsen was the oldest of five brothers. His dad ran a gas pump repair business, putting in as many as 14 hours a day. And after graduating high school, he joined the U.S. Army where he spent more than a decade repairing tanks and other vehicles. 

So after returning from active duty and applying for a job at the Metropolitan Transit Commission, he had both the work ethic and the skills he needed to build a successful career in bus maintenance. And that’s what he did, dedicating 35 years of service as a skilled helper and mechanic technician. “The maintenance has never been a surprise or even difficult for me,” he said shortly after retiring. “It’s always been something I’ve done really around the clock.”

Jacobsen’s first stop was at the old Nicollet Garage, but he spent his first 12 years on the job largely at South. Later, he worked at the Heywood and old Snelling garages before spending the final 20 years of his career at East Metro. In those early years, he recalls the working conditions and the fleet leaving a lot to be desired; exhaust made it hard to see his own feet, and on many of the buses, duct tape covered holes in the body. Conditions steadily improved, however, and Jacobsen enjoyed both the people he worked with and the ability to work independently. The pace, too, was also a welcome change. “In the military, we were working 14, 16, 20 hours a day, so when I got here it was almost like a breath of fresh air because we only ever worked 8 hours a day,” he said. Toward the end of his career, Jacobsen mentored students learning to becoming technicians through an apprenticeship program.

Jacobsen’s retirement was short-lived – just 12 hours after punching out for the final time he started learning and practicing a whole new trade as a manual machinist. Outside the shop, Jacobsen planned to spend his time motorcycling and with his two sons.