Dan Marti

SLEEPY EYE — Sleepy Eye native Dan Marti filed for election to a School District 84 seat Aug. 7.

He joins school board incumbents Joleen Dittbenner and Darla Remus who filed for election to three school board seats in the Nov. 5 State General Election. School board member Sandra Gonzalez did not file for re-election.

Marti said decided to run for school board now that he and his wife Tina have children in school.

“My oldest son is in kindergarten. We have three children. I want to make sure students and staff are being supported in the best way possible, that we wisely spend our budget and have a respectful school environment,” he said.

Marti helps his dad Jim farm on the side and works as a senior economist for Columbus, OH-based Prevedere Inc., a software platform that combined global market data with AI (artificial intelligence)-powered econometric models to improve forecasting and analysis.

“We use AI (artificial intelligence) to help understand what economic factors influence a business and help them understand what their future outlook is, according to forecasted economic factors,” he said.

“Agriculture is my specialty. I’ve worked with Hormel, Cargill, General Mills and other companies, often based in Minnesota,” Marti said.

He formerly worked as a financial analyst for nine years at Christensen Farms of Sleepy Eye and was a USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) economist in Washington, D.C. for more than three years.

Marti also worked for nearly two years as an economics graduate teaching assistant at Kansas State University, where he earned a masters degree in economics. He received a bachelor’s degree in economics at Gustavus Adolphus College.

Marti’s wife Tina operates Yellow Door Music Studio in downtown Sleepy Eye. She was recently hired to teach music, develop curriculum and as a high school musical music director at Sleepy Eye Public School. Over the past six years, she taught in the Sleepy Eye, New Ulm, St. Peter and Janesville-Waldorf-Pemberton school districts in addition to teaching private voice and piano lessons on the side.

Dittbenner has served on the school board for multiple terms. She has worked for 20 years as an account executive at BIC Graphic USA in Sleepy Eye, which became Koozie Group Jan. 1, 2021.

Remus has been on the Dist. 84 board for 20 years. She owns and operates a childcare business in Sleepy Eye.

“I like being involved with kids’ education in Sleepy Eye. I want to make sure every kid gets a good education,” she said.