“The inmates respect him,” Tim Kinniry says.

A veteran of the department for 16 years, Ryan Kinniry was 22 years old when he joined the Waseca County Sheriff’s office.

He grew up in Kilkenny. Then he attended Rochester Community College and Mankato State University, where he studied to be a probation officer. He learned he didn’t care for the probation field.

Encouraged by his brother, he applied for the correctional officer job he still holds.

“I didn’t think I’d stay this long,” says Ryan Kinniry, who now lives in Montgomery.

Today Ryan Kinniry is the go-to guy at the jail. Brother Tim Kinniry says that if the corrections staff can’t reach him, they call Ryan Kinniry.