From brides to businesses, Taylor Corporation has been providing communication products, technologies and services to customers over the last 33 years. Important to Taylor Corporation’s business portfolio is National Recognition Products, a company known for its state-of-the-art class ring designs, industry-leading graduation announcement designs and a selection of those tassels that adorn graduation caps.
Apparently, wealthy banker Williams Watkins Smith of Sleepy Eye had an unquenchable thirst for beveled leaded glass, meticulous red oak woodwork, exquisite stained glass, and serpentine wrap-around porches. He must have, because he swaddled himself in the Queen Anne-style finery.
They finish each other’s sentences. They answer personal questions the same way, even when one hasn’t heard the other’s answers. They’ve been making music together since they were 11 and 13—for 46 years now. They farm together and operate a tour business together. They’re Peter and Paul Wendinger, founders of the Wendinger Band and Wendinger Travel.
Listening to CEO Brad Mitteness explain what Le Center-based Camas Inc. produces can be a little like reading the mathematical equations underpinning Einstein’s theory of relativity. Tired eyes gloss over as with shellac; confused, the mind shifts from neutral to park.
The company also mirrors Einstein’s theory of relativity in a more energizing, robust fashion: the possibilities seem almost endless.
A long-shot gamble paid off, and nursing home Lake Shore Inn of Waseca remained a viable enterprise because of it.
In 1987, recent Minnesota State University MBA graduate Pete Madel III gambled when accepting a position at the nonprofit Cystic Fibrosis Foundation—Minnesota chapter. Starting at the Foundation just didn’t have the panache of being a junior executive for, say, Cargill, General Mills or 3M.
It’s that corner office with a view everyone purportedly wants. Linda Hachfeld has it. She’s convinced having a daily dose of natural sunshine and being able to gaze out onto trees and blue sky when looking up from her computer screen is good for her.
“This is such a nurturing, healthy environment,” says Hachfeld, a business owner, author and publisher. “I see birds, squirrels, deer and an occasional turkey. I’m a country girl at heart and nature is one of my powerful motivators.”
Wayne Kahler, founder of Kahler Automation in Fairmont, credits his father with his success. His father, Roy, taught him to “take care of the customer and everything else will be taken care of.”
“I claim my father’s statement,” Kahler says. “If I don’t think a customer is getting what they want, I’m asking questions. A business consultant said I’ve given out too many resources in satisfying customers and have not made as much profit as I could have made. We didn’t retain his services—and we’ve grown and grown.” That growth resulted in a February 2007 move to a 21,000-square foot building in Fairmont’s industrial park.
Fresh from verdant Hawaii, blue crab Baltimore, oil-rich Oklahoma City, and with the possibility of visiting other potential construction projects in Denmark, 34-year-old Clint Brown of Industrial Construction Services (ICS) of St. James barely has time to change his socks before leaving home for yet another construction job elsewhere on the planet. He has become quite the frequent flyer the last thirteen years. Though able to spend only 100 days a year at home and having to work literally every Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, July Fourth, Labor Day and Memorial Day ad infinitum, Brown nonetheless enjoys his frenetic life and lifestyle.
In just the last few years, the pace has quickened considerably, in great measure because of anthrax and avian flu fears.
Jody Linder thought for sure it would take off. He’d designed his full-sized helicopter from a magazine picture of one whizzing and whirring—mind-boggling, considering he was but a 15-year-old farm boy dreamer with his head lost in the clouds.
