Mike Brubaker, Board Member

Mike Brubaker, Director of the Sherburne History Center, came to the state in 2010. A native of Salt Lake City, Utah, Mike came to Minnesota after 20 years in Atlanta, Georgia.

Although Mike is a (relative) newcomer to Minnesota, he is no stranger to the history field. Mike began working in museums immediately following graduating from Utah State University with a Master's and has covered just about every aspect of public history since that time, including Executive Director,  curator, archivist and customer service manager.

While pursuing his Master's, his specialty was labor history with a thesis on coal mining towns in Eastern Utah and the conflicts of the 1920s leading to the dominance of the United Mine Workers. A love for family history and genealogy led him to the local history field, and Mike continues to explore those topics  by presenting a variety of public programs on family history and local history. 

In addition, he has done contract work in Historic Preservation with Certified Local Government (CLG) programs and worked for 15 years as an adjunct professor for several colleges in Atlanta, Georgia.

Mike will "try anything once to promote history and grass roots fundraising," he said. "As a result, two years ago my head was shaved after donations to the Sherburne History Center exceeded $3000 for the month of May." In 2016, Mike raised the bar to $3200 with the promise to get a Toni Curl style perm if the fundraising goal was met. "This is not simply foolish behavior disguised as fundraising," Mike said. "There are tangential connections between local history and the event: the first popular home permanent kit, the Toni brand, was manufactured in Forest Lake, Minnesota."

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