Lori Wightman had no intention of staying in New Ulm.
When she accepted an assignment from Allina Health Systems in July 2002 to serve as interim president of New Ulm Medical Center, she intended to keep it exactly that. “I figured I’d be here six months, that I’d just keep things held together until a new president could be found,” Wightman says. “I didn’t necessarily want to stay in New Ulm.”
Pull up your chair. It’s just you and Milt.
Only reluctantly does he tell of An Khe Pass.
It was the firefight of his life. Hold tight.
Pat Johnson and Peggy Grey, two vivacious sisters who own a pair of southern Minnesota’s oldest family businesses, are day-brighteners.
If your mood’s been slightly skewed by corporate and stock market scandals, a snail’s pace economic recovery, pink slips, job outsourcing, bickering politicians, a couple of nasty wars and color-coded terrorism alerts, an hour with Johnson and Grey is an upbeat, uplifting 60 minutes. Two hours is even better.
Fred C. Krahmer wins the award for “most diverse background,” which he has earned in life by experiencing a hodge-podge and mishmash of this and that, an imbroglio that became the solid foundation for an equally diverse business career.
His well-rounded resume includes teenage summers working at an amusement park and befriending a band of Gypsies, feeling the sting of military discipline at Faribault’s Shattuck School, socializing there alongside students from all over America, and learning how to “think” from his University of Minnesota Law School professors. In addition, don’t forget the political smarts he has acquired working alongside son and business partner Fred W. Krahmer, a.k.a. Martin County DFL chair.
Executive Director Jane Sletta chooses to use her own money to buy snickerdoodles and chocolate chip cookies for Mankato Symphony musicians during dress rehearsal breaks. She does it because the Symphony doesn’t budget for it and the four-decade-long tradition of serving cookies to the Symphony’s 70-some musicians weighs on her.
Gene Miller now thanks his lucky stars that Waseca County’s welfare director retired a year early, meaning Miller and his unfinished MSU master’s degree in 1976 weren’t quite ready to interview for that position he had dearly wanted.
Huffing and puffing up endless white steps while carrying camera equipment under the Capitol dome shadow in St. Paul, higher and onward, Kris and I finally enter through double doors and hang a left toward the Governor’s Office. His receptionist tells us to relax, but can we? We’re nervously waiting for this person with the power to make or break Minnesota’s business climate, to make or break your business perhaps.
So this is the Governor’s Office.
Pat Beemer drilled his first well 40 years ago, boring 217 feet through glacial drift to strike water for a farmer southwest of Lakota, Iowa.
Beemer drilled that well in the summer of 1965, when he was 12, and his face shines with delight at the memory. “My dad helped me set up the drilling rig but it was great, running it all by myself.”
Columnist George Will turns to Wade Hensel and asks about Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s recent job performance and Wade is so nervous his knees start knocking Morse code. Wade offers his opinion. He is front and center in bright-lights Nashville readying to address 6,000 peers in 2003 as Chairman of $20 billion in assets Cooperative Finance Corporation (CFC), a private organization owned by 800 rural electric cooperatives. George Will, Wade’s keynote speaker, is nervous too yet later coolly delivers his spiel on world events, politics and those lovable Addison Street losers, the Chicago Cubs.
North Mankatoan Wade Hensel is acting precocious, again.
