It’s not that there’s anything particularly unusual about Brad Hermel. It’s just a lot of little things. For instance, there’s the tan 1973 VW Beetle he drives up and down the two-and-a-half-mile hill between his home and business, Hermie’s Bait, Bar & Grill.
Overlooking Loon Lake from the three-season sun porch of her rural Lake Crystal home, Dr. Linda Nussbaumer gestures toward the dock and points out that the lawn leading down to it is not weed free. It’s obvious the grass has been mowed, making the weeds less noticeable, but Nussbaumer says there’s a good reason for their presence.
Some people say Juba’s Super Valu is the last of a dying breed, like a Triceratops or a Tyrannosaurus rex before their untimely demise. Juba’s is a fiercely independent, friendly small-town grocery outlet, now butting heads against a gargantuan new Wal-Mart and several aggressive grocery chains.
Five years after founding Professional Cleaning Services, president Sherry Johnson still works from an office in her Le Sueur home. She not only appreciated being able to start up in February 2002 without going into debt, she also likes having less overhead cost than a storefront would require. Her real payoff, though, is, “being able to do invoices and paychecks in my jammies,” she says.
Many business executives dream of retiring early at fifty-five, perhaps of tapping Titleist balls over neatly trimmed Bermuda grass in south Florida, paddling the soothing surf and tickling toes in warm white sand near Naples, or bouncing happy grandchildren on their knees.
Undercurrents of emotion bubbled up from within 52-year-old Glenn Miller (photo left), as he tried explaining the unyielding pressure he and his partners had felt over the course of Dayport’s chaotic history, of their Herculean efforts trying to stay afloat, of contrite promises to investors, of risking their personal fortunes.
Surrounded by a Dr. Pepper memorabilia collection on the shelves and walls of her office in Fairmont, Lisa Dahl explains how she had her ducks in a row that day in September 1983 when she approached her local banker for a loan to start up a business.
Bill Soderlund was sitting with more than 120 other pharmacy students in a lecture hall at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, when the professor posed a question: How many of you, he asked, are planning to own and operate your own pharmacies when you finish your degree.
Soderlund’s hand shot up.
The New York Times was on line one.
Mankato’s Dr. Gary Jernberg pressed the beige telephone receiver against his chin and simultaneously punched the flashing button. Nursing a sore throat all morning long with Hall’s Mentholyptus, he felt out of sorts, perhaps the result of his body rebelling against having to return from a splashy Virgin Islands vacation. So much for flying under the radar, he thought. The media waited.
