Yorkton's MLA is now a member of the Saskatchewan Government cabinet.
In a ceremony at the Legislature September 24, Premier Brad Wall installed Greg Ottenbreit as minister of rural and remote health.
Ottenbreit said the resignation of the former minister Tim McMillan had made him aware of the possibility.
"You never know who is going to be called, we have a lot of capable people in our caucus, but I happened to be doing some search and rescue training, flying out at the airport, and my phone rang and it was the premier calling, so I kind of had an idea what it might be."
He did not have to be asked twice.
"He let me know last Saturday that he was offering me the position and I said as long as everything worked out fine on his end, I was more than willing to accept it."
Now begins the arduous process of learning the ropes.
"I'm very excited, maybe a little afraid," Ottenbreit said. "Any time there's a change and you have to get used to a new job, it can be quite daunting. Even when I took on the whip duties, it's a lot of background work, a lot of house leadership, but it's learning a new job, it's finding the new normal, which is how I like to refer to [it]."
He has all the confidence that he is up to the task.
"It gets a little overwhelming, you feel like you're drinking water out of a fire house, then in short order as long as you apply yourself, you get used to the file and the portfolio and just keep working hard."
The voters of Yorkton first elected Ottenbreit in 2007. A well-known and liked business person and long-serving community volunteer, Ottenbreit handily defeated his NDP and Liberal opponents with almost 60 per cent of the ballots cast. In 2011, he increased the margin of victory with more than 72 per cent of the vote.
While in government, Ottenbreit has steadily progressed in the Saskatchewan Party's ranks serving as legislative secretary to the ministers of Social Services and Environment, and to the premier on the vulnerable youth file. He has served as chair of the caucus' standing policy committee on human services and chair of the legislature's Standing Committee on Human Services. Before being named government whip in May 2012, he held the deputy whip position.
Ottenbreit and his wife Leone are also very well known for their long-running annual cancer fundraiser, Brayden Ottenbreit Close Cuts for Cancer, named in honour of their son who lost his battle with cancer in 2000 at the age of five. As of the 2014 edition held in May, the charity is closing in on a million dollars raised over its 17-year history.
In 2012, the Kinsmen-one of close to a dozen community organizations Ottenbreit has been involved with-awarded him the club's highest national honour, the Hal Rogers Fellow Award.
After the ministerial swearing in ceremony, Ottenbreit hinted to reporters in Regina that there would be changes coming to rural and remote health, but he is not ready to name any specific initiatives.
"As the premier said, the first thing we have to do is listen to the people," he said. "That's the big mandate, to listen, and going through the 'patients first' review again, to revisit it and see where we might have to do some things a bit differently, learn from our successes, learn from some of the failures that are still out there and try to improve health care a little bit more than we have to this point."
Once the papers were signed, it was straight to work as Ottenbreit not only inherited the title, but also the minister's schedule.
"The last couple of days has been pretty exciting," he said Friday. "For example, talking about successes, we really celebrated today because I had to go to Saskatoon for the sod-turning of the Children's Hospital. That will be exciting to see that state of the art facility built in Saskatoon, which is Saskatoon-based, but really serves the whole province."
He also attended the unveiling of a new long-range helicopter for the STARS air ambulance service, which will specifically serve rural and remote areas.
Ottenbreit realizes, though, that the majority of the job will be rolling up his sleeves and getting into the nitty gritty of the file.
"That's some of the fun stuff and some of the exciting things we get to look at, but then day-to-day I have some of the challenges with case work and people maybe falling through the cracks. We have to start looking into some of these smaller areas, because there are some people that are having successes, and see how we can implement that province-wide."
As MLA, Ottenbreit has always had a highly visible presence around Yorkton. That will change now that he has been promoted. He has already had to cancel a couple of appearances that he has always made.
"I'm anticipating it's going to be a very busy schedule," he said. "People like seeing you around, but then I think they also want to see you in cabinet so they sort of expect when you get more duties that you're not around as much.
"I think people understand that, for the most part, and I'm really blessed to have capable office staff here that can carry a heavy load so there won't be any struggles keeping up with the MLA-type duties in the city.
'The good thing about this constituency is proximity to Regina. As long as I'm not somewhere outside the province or the farther reaches of the province, I'm just two hours away, so it's not that long of a vehicle ride if you really have to get back for something."
