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Java Lava

Owner Kay Prescher said in a telephone interview, “I was always the person that wanted to be around everyone and make them feel happy.” The 38-year-old Wells native’s business, Lava Java, opened within the last year in the downtown Mankato Mall.

Insights, Off-The-Cuff, Opinion

Off-The-Cuff

Before starting my editorial yarn, I first have to thank our panel of Minnesota State College of Business professors for choosing our 2012 Business Person of the Year, an honor shared this year by North Mankato kettle corn moguls Dan and Angie Bastian.

Feature Story, Features, News, Profiles

Brian Maciej

Brian Maciej and his business, Lime Valley Advertising, are a study in contrasts. The company 47-year-old Maciej owns is located in a two-story French Second Empire home in Mankato. The 3,700 square feet of space provide an elegant setting for the 16 offices from which a staff of eleven provides integrated marketing for clients.

Cover Story, Covers, News, Profiles

Dan & Angie Bastian

Dan and Angie Bastian of Angie’s Artisan Treats—the parent company of Angie’s Kettle Corn—are pop artists. They have turned ordinary, slightly sweet and salty kettle corn into an artistic subject, a 180-employee North Mankato manufacturing facility into a painter’s palette, and grocery store shelves into a consumer canvas. And a ravenous public devours this pop art.

Feature Story, Features, News, Profiles

Bill Eckles

In 2003, Bill Eckles felt undeserving and unworthy after his father named him chief executive officer of Blue Earth-based BEVCOMM. In 2012, he feels undeserving and unworthy after being named a Connect Business Magazine Business Person of the Year finalist. In both cases, the evaluators—the first, his father, and the second, our panel of Minnesota State College of Business judges—saw something in Eckles he didn’t.

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