Rossiter: Bemidji is cold-weather testing capital

I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.

June 6, 1996

By Devlyn Brooks

Staff Writer

Bemidji is the cold-weather testing capital of the world, says Henry Rossiter, a former Bemidji City Council member and vice chairman of the International Falls-based Minnesota Cold Weather Resource Center board.

"Bemidji is by far the community that has the most testing in the state," he said. "Fifty percent of the cold-weather testing done in Minnesota is done in Bemidji. That is quite a track record."

Rossiter said even before the Cold Weather Resource Center was established by the state Legislature in 1989, Bemidji had a reputation as a good place to conduct cold-weather testing. Now, with the assistance of the center, Bemidji's market has expanded.

The Cold Weather Resource Center is a non-profit corporation that assists private companies in planning and coordinating research testing in Minnesota.

According to a news release from the center, 40 different test groups conducted programs in nine different Minnesota communities during the 1995-96 winter season.

These groups spent more than $5.7 million in Minnesota and created 217 seasonal jobs, it said.

And, according to Bob Danielson, director of engineering for Bosch Automotive Proving Grounds, Minnesota is about as good of place as any to conduct cold-weather testing.

He said a few years ago Bosch did some research and when considering average temperature per day, Bemidji was as cold as anywhere short of the Arctic Circle.

This is why Bosch recently purchased the Cold Weather Testing Facility at Lake Puposky, he said.

"It really amazes me the amount of testing that is done here of which the public isn't aware," Rossiter said.