From southwest Minnesota to Greater Mankato Growth, Elsa-Marie Haley has built an early career around curiosity, relationships and a willingness to learn from the people around her.
Photography by Molly Byron
Elsa-Marie Haley likes having a plan.
“I’m a very big planner,” she says. “I always wanted to know, ‘Okay, what am I doing next?’”
At the moment, Haley has plenty to plan.
She is five months into her role as events and volunteer engagement manager at Greater Mankato Growth. When she sat down with Connect, she was also only days removed from her wedding to Matt, whom she met when they were 14.
Still in her early twenties, Haley is at the beginning of both a marriage and a career. Professionally, she seems to have found her groove quickly.
“Every day is different,” she says. “That’s what I love about my job.”
There is planning and organizing, but also movement, conversation and constant interaction with people — the things Haley learned during college that she needed from her work.
Getting here, however, required something the self-described planner has gradually learned to embrace: not everything worth pursuing appears on the plan.
Growing Up in Southwest Minnesota
Before her recent marriage made her Elsa-Marie Haley, she was Elsa-Marie Landherr.
She grew up on a farm outside Walnut Grove, the second of four children, before her family moved to Tracy and later Jackson.
Her childhood also included profound loss. Haley’s father, Peter Landherr, died in a plane crash when she was eight years old. Her mother was left raising four children, an experience that influenced how Haley approached her education.
When she had the opportunity to earn college credit through PSEO, Haley took advantage of it. She knew paying for college would ultimately be her responsibility.
That preparation helped her finish college in three years. A Presidential Scholarship helped make the rest possible.
Finding Mankato
Haley already had an affection for Mankato.
Both of her parents attended Minnesota State University, Mankato, and childhood trips through the area carried good memories.
“This area was a very happy place for me,” Haley says.
The university felt like the right size and kept her close enough to attend her younger brothers’ activities.
She chose sport management, a field she discovered almost accidentally during orientation. Once she found it, the fit became clear. Classes emphasized hands-on experiences, from planning events to marketing projects for real organizations.
Haley also ran track during her freshman year.
Eventually, another opportunity forced her to choose where she wanted to spend her time.
A Different View of the Ice
Haley’s Presidential Scholarship connected her with donor Tim Huebsch, who became an important mentor during college.
At a Presidential Scholars event, Haley also found herself seated near Kent Stanley, then vice president for university advancement. The two struck up a conversation.
Months later, she happened to run into Stanley at a chiropractor appointment.
“He was like, ‘Hi Elsa, how are you?’” she recalls. “I just couldn’t believe that he remembered me.”
Stanley mentioned an opportunity connected to the university’s Presidential Hockey Suite and gave her his card. Haley followed up.
She eventually became a Presidential Hockey Suite ambassador, a role she held from October 2024 through February 2026.
It meant giving up track. She could not spend weekends traveling to meets and working hockey games, so she chose the suite.
At first, the guest lists intimidated her. They could include business leaders, university officials, elected leaders and donors. Then Haley relied on something familiar: her experience waitressing in high school.
Welcome people. Make them comfortable. Ask what they need.
Eventually, she started asking questions.
“I would just sit and almost interview them, but in a conversational manner,” she says.
Conversations moved beyond careers into families and life. Guests became familiar faces.
“It was a very rare opportunity,” Haley says. “It’s not a normal thing to be able to talk to all these different people with all these different backgrounds.”
Learning by Doing
Haley’s first internship brought her to the organization she would eventually join full time.
As a freshman, she volunteered at the Mankato Marathon and noticed the person directing her volunteer group was an intern studying sport management. Haley started asking questions and requested contact information so she could pursue the same opportunity.
In August 2024, she became Greater Mankato Growth’s special events intern.
Her next stop was the Greater Mankato Area United Way, where she served as an executive assistant intern from January through April 2025. The experience exposed her to nonprofit work, site visits and the process behind allocating community dollars.
Another internship taught a different lesson.
Haley asked Connect not to name the organization. She initially enjoyed the intensity and independence, but grew uncomfortable with some of its practices.
Leaving bothered her.
“I don’t like not finishing things,” she says.
Unsure what to do, Haley called Brian Zins, Minnesota State Mankato’s director of alumni relations, whom she had gotten to know through the Presidential Hockey Suite.
Zins did not tell her whether to stay or leave. Instead, he reframed the decision.
“Don’t think of it as quitting,” Haley remembers him telling her. “Think of it as redirecting your time.”
The advice stuck. Her time mattered, and so did where she chose to invest it.
Coming Back to Greater Mankato Growth
By graduation, Haley was deep into another plan: finding a job.
For roughly two months, interviews seemed nearly constant. She advanced through several hiring processes and received multiple offers, but hoped to stay in Mankato.
Meanwhile, an email from Greater Mankato Growth CEO Della Schmidt was sitting in Haley’s junk folder.
She never saw it.
Eventually, someone from the organization asked whether she had received Schmidt’s email. Matt suggested checking her junk folder.
There it was, roughly a month old.
The timing was complicated. Haley already had offers, but Greater Mankato Growth was where she had completed her first internship and a place she knew she enjoyed.
In May 2026, she returned as events and volunteer engagement manager.
Her responsibilities stretch across the organization, from chamber programming to Visit Mankato events and Downtown Partnership activities. She works on events including Business After Hours, Coffee and Connections, the Mankato Marathon and RibFest while helping recruit and coordinate volunteers.
It is a role built around what she discovered she wanted during college: variety, movement and people.
It has also brought her professional journey full circle. Huebsch, once the scholarship donor who regularly met her for lunch and offered advice, is now someone Haley encounters through her work at Greater Mankato Growth.
Becoming the Mentor
Ask Haley about her career and she quickly begins naming people.
Huebsch. Zins. Stanley. Schmidt. Cooney. Sargent. Sharp.
Some offered advice. Others created opportunities or simply provided someone she could trust while navigating something unfamiliar.
Sheri Sargent, chief of staff and vice president of administrative services at Minnesota State Mankato, was among those mentors. Haley continued meeting with her even after the university’s scholarship program assigned her a new mentor.
Now Haley is beginning to think about the other side of those relationships.
Another student who received a scholarship connected to Huebsch came along a year behind her. Haley got to know her and began meeting with her periodically, this time finding herself in the mentor’s seat.
“I really hope I can be someone else’s mentor that I had so many of,” she says.
For now, Haley sees plenty of opportunity to grow at Greater Mankato Growth. She hopes to continue learning from Liz Sharp, whose work overseeing many of the organization’s major events gives Haley a picture of where her own experience could eventually lead.
Longer term, she hopes to become one of those experienced people herself — the person a young professional feels comfortable calling when they do not know what to do next.
For someone who likes having the next step mapped out, Haley’s early career has offered a useful contradiction.
A volunteer shift at the marathon led to an internship. A chance encounter at the chiropractor led to the Presidential Hockey Suite. A phone call helped her walk away from something that did not feel right. An email buried in a junk folder helped bring her back to the organization where her professional journey began.
Haley may always prefer having a plan. But some of the best opportunities so far have come from being curious enough to notice what wasn’t on it.