He lifts a fifty pound bag of dog food from one wooden pallet and slides it over to another. He wears a flannel shirt and jeans, and his blond hair is slightly tousled. Here at Equity Supply in Mankato he seems just like any other worker as he unloads semis, helps customers and fills orders. But like so many other influential people here in southern MN, appearances can be deceiving.
Every Spring, Southern Minnesota Construction’s massive equipment snorts out of hibernation, eager to rearrange earth, rock and asphalt into long ribbons of roads. It’s happened every Spring since 1914. But that’s no longer the beginning of SMC’s year, and when freezing temperatures force the graders and pavers back into storage, that no longer signals the close of a year’s business.
Starr Kirklin’s Mankato roots run deep. His sphere of influence spread through his seventeen years as First Bank president in Mankato and touched such local institutions as Mankato Civic Center, Mankato State University, Immanuel St. Joseph’s Hospital, Valley Industrial Development Corp. and Hickory Tech Corp. His resume’ in Mankato community involvement is very impressive.
If you think the Internet is a passing electronic fad, pay attention to the experience of Joe Farnham. Farnham, president of Emerald Travel Management (ETM) in Mankato, put ETM on the Internet last December. (That’s the modern equivalent of putting it “on the map.”) Within a month, new customers from as far away as Georgia and Connecticut began booking flights through ETM. It’s opened corporate doors where he’d never thought of knocking, and it’s put ETM where he wants it to be: “Staying ahead of the curve in this industry.”
Step into Glen Taylor’s corporate world and it’s nothing quite like you’d expect. Taylor Corporation is a huge, multi-national business and yet noticeably absent from its main lobby are what you’d expect from huge, multi-national corporations: trappings like fine Italian sculpture, rich oak furniture, luxurious leather chairs that swallow you when you sit in them  and armed guards. None of that here. Instead, this lobby has simple accoutrements. Taylor Corp’s building is just two stories high. There’s only one receptionist. No valet parking. Instead of a multi-national corporation, this headquarters building has the down-to-earth feel of a downtown Mankato real estate office.
