“I grew up here in the town of Marshall.”

My ears immediately perked up at that moment while sitting inside the Marshall-Lyon County Library for the public meeting on the 2018 Farm Bill hosted by U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar.

The senator actually wasn’t in attendance, but she sent three staff members to Marshall to answer questions from area farmers and others with agriculture interests.

Brian Werner mentioned his Marshall roots while introducing himself as a staffer. After Klobuchar’s video introduction, it was Werner who described the nuts and bolts of Klobuchar’s mission with the Farm Bill. As people in attendance fired off their questions and concerns, it was Werner who provided the details.

After the meeting was over, I walked over to talk to the “Mr. Werner goes to Washington.”

“It seems like forever,” Werner told me of his time growing up in Marshall. “I graduated in 2003 from Marshall (high school). It seems like a lifetime ago. I had a great experience here in Marshall.”

To understand why Werner is such a guru on agriculture issues, you need to go back to his Marshall roots. He explained that his father worked out of the Marshall office at the mall for the University of Minnesota Extension. Both sets of grandparents lived on farms in the area. Most of his uncles and aunts farmed. While he didn’t grew up on a farm, he was no stranger to agriculture.

But politics — that appears to have been a gradual transition.

“I was always interested in social studies and civics. And there was always history. Those were my favorite classes in high school. But I really didn’t get interested in government or politics until I was in college,” Werner said. “The thing I was most interested in was agriculture. But that’s when I started to get interested in politics.”

He attended Augustana University in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, so he could be close to home. When it came time to think about internships, he talked with some staff members working for Rep. Colin Peterson.

“One day I decided I’m going to move to Washington, D.C.,” he said. “My first job was with Colin Peterson at his front desk answering telephones and that sort of thing. And sort of worked my way up the ladder from there and now I’ve spent the past four years with Sen. Klobuchar.”

I asked him how long did it take to understand all the inner workings of Washington, D.C.?

“I still don’t know how it all works, necessarily,” he said while laughing. “It’s quite a change of pace from college and also right here in Marshall. The fast-paced — there is just a lot that happens. It all happens pretty quickly. I had the distinct pleasure of working for a couple of great bosses, whether it’s Colin Peterson or Amy Klobuchar. They really helped. Their offices really helped me sort of learn the ropes out there and it worked pretty well.”

“Is working in politics everything you thought it would be before moving to Washington, D.C.?” I then asked.

“It’s much more,” he said. “The things that stood out to me, especially growing up, you only hear about the stuff that is on the front page of the newspaper. The big headlines, the big fights that are going on. One of the things I learned being in Washington, D.C., is that there is a lot more camaraderie. I have a lot of friends I met out of D.C. that work for Republican members and they are some of my best friends.

“There is a lot more work out there that happens sort of across the aisle that you wouldn’t necessarily know just by reading the national news.”

I then asked him to name drop. “What are some of the famous people you have seen?”

“Actually, the other day we were in a meeting that I was in the Capital with the senator and out of nowhere, Ivanka Trump walks by,” Werner said. “It was sort of a star-struck moment. Like whoa, Ivanka Trump. That was one of the biggest ones recently. I get a little bit awestruck by seeing when it’s like cabinet members. People you see on CNN all the time. It’s kind of cool to see them in person.”

Right now, Washington, D.C. seems to suit Werner well.

“I really like what I’m doing,” he said. “It’s such an honor to get to work on policy making for a member that represents the state — my home state.

“To me, that’s really neat.”

And that sentence says it all.

You can follow Mike Lamb at Twitter@indymlamb