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.
If tomorrow is likely to look like yesterday, Cyndi Zarbano will do something to change that today. She sits forward on a chair in her St. Peter home and says, “This life is not a dress rehearsal. I believe life’s a journey, and I don’t want to keep doing the same thing.”
Perched on a New Ulm hillside overlooking the Cottonwood River, Schell’s Brewing Company produced 115,000 barrels of beer last year. Each barrel filled 14 cases. That’s a lot of suds.
The three-year-old boy recovering from surgery watched Nancy Dobson demonstrate a sequence of activities for him—walking on a balance beam, stepping on and off a stool and crawling through a barrel. Then he said, “You got through there with your big butt, didn’t you, Nance?”
“Aw, you’re a girl.” The chagrin was evident in the coach’s words when 10-year-old Sarah Richards was drafted to play baseball the first year Little League went co-ed. She didn’t let the coach’s response to her gender deter her. Her parents’ advice—now that she took seriously.
Despite declaring himself “shade blind,” Mike Mason, the 71-year-old founder and owner of Sleepy Eye Stained Glass, has spent the last 30 years working with architects, interior designers and individual customers on churches, commercial buildings and private homes.
Business Person of the Year 2011 – Runner-Up
Imagine creating an official account of Trimont, Minn. movers and shakers. Darwin Anthony’s name will be on the first page. There will be mention of his long career in banking and insurance, his agricultural pursuits, his hands-on leadership…
Around 10 a.m. on the first Tuesday in September, Mitch Lewis settled back in the chair behind his desk and said he had most of the day for a Connect Business Magazine interview, at least until 3:00 p.m. At that time, he had to be home because his children, Carson and Brooklyn, would be out of school, and wife, Maria, was traveling on business.
What if employees looked forward more enthusiastically to the start of the workweek than to weekends? What if “TGI Monday” became a national slogan? What if all workers looked forward to working 80,000 hours during their lifetime? If so, Sara Christiansen, founder and vice president of New Ulm-based Ideation Consulting, might have to develop a new career.
