Photo by Deb Gau Bill Mulso, vice president for Government Relations, Communications and Marketing at SMSU, greeted community members including Chet Lockwood at a retirement reception Thursday. afternoon. Mulso will be retiring from his university position, to pursue a new job opportunity at Hoffman & Brobst in Marshall.

MARSHALL — This week, Bill Mulso was down to his last few days working at Southwest Minnesota State University. After 31 years with the university, he said it felt a little surreal.

“It’s a lot of conversations, reminiscing, and thank-yous,” Mulso said of his last week at SMSU. “There’s a lot of thank-yous, because you don’t do anything here by yourself. It takes a lot of teamwork.”

“Over the years, we’ve been fortunate to have great teams, and so I’ve been spending a little bit of time just thanking people, making sure that they know I appreciated the opportunity to work with them,” he said.

Mulso said building relationships has been a big part of his work for the university.

Mulso, the vice president for Government Relations, Communications and Marketing at SMSU, is retiring from his university position to pursue a new job opportunity with the Hoffman & Brobst public accounting firm in Marshall. On Thursday, area community members gathered at a reception for Mulso on the university campus.

Mulso has a long history with SMSU, going back to when he was a student in the 1990s. An internship with the admissions office turned into an opportunity to become an admissions counselor.

“I started out in admissions,” Mulso said. “I have to give Deb Mitlyng credit because I was working in admissions as a student, and I had actually done a summer internship there. Deb was going out on maternity leave in the spring of 1993. I had the opportunity to graduate early — we were still on a quarter system — so I graduated early, and filled in for her that spring.”

Mulso said he moved from university admissions to positions working with university development, fundraising and communications starting around 1999. Over the course of his career, he has served as SMSU Foundation executive director, vice president for Advancement, and vice president for Government Relations, Communications and Marketing.

SMSU has gone through a lot of changes during Mulso’s time there.

“The obvious things are the buildings and all the different things we’ve done,” he said. “When we look at the residence halls, the Foundation Apartments, the Regional Events Center, all of those things have really transformed the university.”

The 2002 fire that destroyed SMSU’s old student center made big changes to both the physical layout of the university, and its connection with the Marshall area community, he said.

“I think that was one of the biggest things that came out of that fire, is just the different partnerships that were, I would say, emboldened a little bit and became much stronger after that, because so many people stepped forward to help out,” he said.

The news that Mulso was pursuing a new job opportunity broke earlier this month, when he resigned from the Marshall School Board. Mulso said he had accepted a position as COO at Hoffman & Brobst, and wanted to avoid potential conflicts of interest as a school board member. Hoffman & Brobst conduct the school district’s annual audits.

While it will be different not working at the SMSU campus, Mulso said he’s looking forward to the next chapter in his career.

“This is an opportunity to do something new, and build off the relationships that I already have, and see where it takes the next organization,” he said.

Mulso said a lot of people had reached out to him since the notice went out about his retirement reception. It meant a lot to hear from them.

“That’s what means the most, to know that you maybe impacted somebody’s life somewhere along the line,” he said.