Document text
HAZE Temp: 48 °F Wind: CLM at 0 mph Thursday, November 21, 2002 SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map EXTRA HomeLife Magazine W3 Magazine Jobs @ Mail Tribune Tempo A & E Oregon CarZone Wellness Connection Real Estate Newspaper in Education Prime Times Outdoor Journal Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People CLASSIFIEDS Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Find Everything E SOUTHERN OREGON Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar ABOUT US FAQ What's New Advertise Home Delivery Classified Ad Contact Us Media Kit Email Story to a Friend October 13, 2002 Winters: Aims to give ‘good service’ By SARAH LEMON Mail Tribune Mike Winters wants to head up the sheriff’s department, but the citizens of Jackson County will be the CEO. Related stories: � There'll be a new sheriff in town � Mayer: Career is 'far more than a job' � Some call Winters' endorsement list misleading Winters proposed the partnership at his campaign kick-off event last year. In November, he’s hoping to sell his small-business skills coupled with law enforcement experience to Jackson County voters. "I’ve owned my own business for 15 years. I’ve been the finance director, human resource director. I’m the risk management guy. I have to make payroll every Friday," he said. "The end result is we want to provide good service to the people." But while the election is looming, Winters still spends four hours a day overseeing Winters Excavation Service Co. (WESCO) and lends a hand on his family’s Ashland cattle ranch, which he calls home. A brown and white cat the size of a small dog lounges next to a woodpile on the front steps. Fat Boy has been a fixture since Winters brought him home more than 10 years ago in his Oregon State Police patrol car. Inside, Winters, 44, kicks back on an overstuffed maroon and green couch facing a 60-inch television tuned to "Dr. Phil." "A guy’s gotta have a big TV, doggone it," he said. With space for little else in the living room, a coffee table, 6-foot-high gun safe, and wood stove make up the rest of the decor. A small desk is squeezed in between the stove and a bench lined with Winters’ work books and tennis shoes. Remodeling the house, a former dairy, was a joint venture between Winters and his wife, Toni, whom he married in 1991. They are now separated and in the process of divorcing but remain friends, Mike Winters said. Toni Winters, a 39-year-old patrol sergeant with Central Point police, still does the bookkeeping for WESCO. The couple have no children. Toni Winters has four grown children from a previous marriage. Mike Winters, who had been married twice before, has a grown son with whom he said he has no relationship. He didn’t know that he was the father of a former girlfriend’s child until the boy was 15 years old, he added. Yet staying close to his family always has been important to Winters, who commuted home to the ranch for three years while he was stationed at the OSP office in Roseburg. He quit his 14-year career as a state trooper in 1998 partly to spend more time with his mother, Barbara, who had suffered a stroke several years previously. She died about a month after her son left law enforcement. Winters threw himself into building up his excavation business, started 10 years earlier with a backhoe he operated on four or five hours of sleep while working graveyard for OSP. Today, the business is worth more than $1 million. Winters spends about four hours each day overseeing WESCO’s operations. A superintendent and job foremen are ready to step in if Winters is elected. "You can’t just sell out and then not be elected and be without a job," he said. But Winters will never be idle, with 165 head of Angus and Angus-cross beef cattle to tend on the family’s 350 acres. Winters’ father, Lorin, still manages the operation at age 76 with the help of two hired hands. Winters’ father and sister, 54-year-old Candy, both live on the farm. "This has been a great life growing up on a ranch," Winters said. The family moved from Long Beach, Calif. — where Barbara Winters’ father was the chief of police — when Mike Winters was 7 years old. He remembers how his mom burst into tears at the sight of their new home with its windows busted out and the driveway littered with cow manure. But largely because of Barbara Winters’ dedication to ranch life, the family expanded and paid off the property, still operating the farm themselves after nearly 40 years. "We’ve put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into the operation," Winters said. "When you put that much time into something, you don’t let go of it easily. ... Your heart’s in it." Reach reporter Sarah Lemon at 776-4487, or e-mail [email protected] Printer Friendly Version Email Story to a Friend Subscribe Archive: Click to Search Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright 1997-2002 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy webmaster feedback A D V E R T I S E R S