For the owners of Friesen’s Family Bakery and Bistro in Old Town Mankato, their business model is not just a part of their business strategy, it is the very heart of it. A business model based not on how money will be made, but how it will be spent.
Locally.
Headquartered in New Ulm with additional locations in Grand Rapids and Bloomington, Thriveon is a family-owned IT managed services company that provides businesses technology leadership and proactive IT strategies for growth. With a roster of 20 full-time employees, up from 14 in January of 2015, Thriveon helps companies with 15 to 500 computers improve how they leverage information and technology to achieve business success.
Plot: A young man born in New Hampshire and working in the film industry in New York City, follows the love of his life to a small city in southern Minnesota.
Scene: Mankato, Minn.
Cue: Ryan Sturgis.
It’s been eroding for years now. A “normal” work day is certainly not what it used to be. The decline of the “9-to-5” job that has historically defined our country’s workforce, is evident. Some working well before 9am and well beyond 5pm. Others, though, taking more control of their time, working when they want, and on projects that they deem valuable. Some experts say the freelance movement is the industrial revolution of our time.
Davy Kreider is a long way from the Pennsylvania farm he grew up on. But what he learned there in the middle of Amish country, has traveled with him throughout his life; starting as a worker in his parents’ retail greenhouse business, to teaching at a Mennonite Parochial school in Pennsylvania
Spinner’s Bar and Grill on Belgrade Avenue in lower North Mankato has new ownership after almost 13 years, but new owners Clay and Sandra Oachs say Spinners will remain the same beloved neighborhood bar it’s always been.
When Janesville resident Gina Peterson started planning her wedding just more than six years ago, she kept running into a problem. Peterson says, “I just couldn’t find what I was looking for with my wedding invitations. Everything seemed very traditional or not in line with my style.”
As Steve Kibble looks back over the last 27 years, he’s still not sure just exactly what happened. When he graduated with a business marketing and management degree from MSU Mankato he had no intention of getting involved in the family business, Mankato Implement. His dad had owned the local John Deere dealership since 1973, so Steve grew up watching his father navigate the highs and lows of the business.
There is a new farming tool buzzing around the skies of southern Minnesota. A tool that gives farmers a whole new perspective on the growing season. A tool that can help farmers protect crops on the ground from up above.
