Charlotte Johnson, one of three trustees at the helm of the Otto Bremer Trust, has stepped down after roughly 30 years co-leading one of the region’s oldest philanthropies.

She selected her daughter, Caroline S. Johnson, a Bremer Bank branch manager, to replace her as trustee.

The St. Paul-based philanthropy announced Charlotte Johnson’s retirement and Caroline Johnson’s appointment as co-trustee on Friday. Caroline Johnson will lead the charity alongside longstanding trustee Daniel Reardon and former Cretin-Derham Hall president Francis Miley, who was appointed an Otto Bremer trustee in early 2023.

Caroline Johnson steps into her new role at a tumultuous time for the philanthropy, with a series of lawsuits between the bank, the charity and a cadre of East Coast hedge funds only recently having been settled after five years. Terms of the settlement have not been publicly disclosed, and it’s unclear if the charity — which owns Bremer Bank, one of the state’s oldest farm lenders — will sell controlling stakes in the financial institution to outside interests intent on selling the bank to new owners, as long planned.

“OBT is not at liberty to discuss those issues at this time, due to the confidentiality terms of the settlement agreement,” said a spokesperson for the trust, in a recent email.

The philanthropy, which was founded by German-American immigrant and banking impresario Otto Bremer in 1944, has granted more than $1 billion in charitable funding across the Midwest since its inception. Bremer hand-picked his top advisers to lead the charity and oversee Bremer Bank, writing into the trust’s founding documents that they, in turn, would each choose their own successors, and so forth.

Caroline Johnson has spent the last eight years working for Bremer Bank “in various roles in community banking,” including managing a Bremer Bank branch in New Richmond, Wis., according to a written announcement from the philanthropy.

“Caroline has nearly 20 years of leadership and financial management experience in banking and other industries,” reads the written statement, which did not list specific past employers or job titles. “She brings with her a wealth of knowledge about Otto Bremer and his legacy and has demonstrated her ability to work collaboratively and respectfully with peers and the public OBT serves.”

In 2023, the Otto Bremer Trust awarded upwards of $105 million in charitable funds through more than 1,100 grants and loans to 1,035 organizations in Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota and Wisconsin. More than $61 million of that total was spent in Minnesota.

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