Wes Schuck scratched his plan to become a lawyer. Kristi Schuck, his wife, put aside her majors in health fitness and health education.
Instead, they decided to “live a dream” and start Two Fish Recording Studios in Mankato in 1997.
Artie Ayers hunted geese and duck in the swamps of Maryland’s Eastern Shore with Curty Gowdy, was a “wudderman” who owned seven crab and oyster boats on the Chesapeake Bay, ran fishing expeditions out of Ocean City, had his own national TV show called Sportsman’s Showcase, but none of it prepared him for Minnesota’s harsh winters – only the people of Minnesota did, who warmed his heart so much he left a Maryland he loved for them.
If you’re reading this after January 1, 2000, by candlelight, shivering next to a dead computer, then Bob Dale was wrong about the impact of Y2K.
As 1999 waned, he believed that 2000 would make a benign arrival, with computer clocks and calendars clicking into the new millennium relatively glitch-free. “There might be some minor inconveniences, but I’m not moving to northern Minnesota and digging my own well,” he said, defining a minor inconvenience as finding your supermarket short on some items because less confident individuals stocked up on canned goods or their favorite cereal.
When a General Mills or Pillsbury president stumbles onto what seems like a fantastic idea for a new product, they have the wherewithal to bring in an army of Ph.D.s, M.B.A marketing gurus and ivy league patent attorneys in order to carry that idea to market. In a large corporation, the idea-to-market process may take years and tens of millions to play out. With General Mills, in ready-to-eat cereals, for example, long-term successes are rare, even after pumping over $30 million in advertising alone into each new product introduction.
If you’d asked Mueller and Prevot in 1990, Will you ever see the day when you’ll have to turn away business because of a labor shortage? they would have answered, Never.
Yet today 550-employee strong LeSueur Incorporated sits with land in Le Sueur ready for expansion, cash waiting, booming sales, so many potential customers you couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting one, yet it can’t expand because workers are in such short supply.
It doesn’t take much channel surfing these days to get your TV set vibrating with the metallic symphony of powerful engines. Auto racing is a growth sport as fans fade from traditional diversions like baseball and gravitate toward the vicarious thrill of seeing helmeted warriors chase each other around oval tracks.
After years of knocking around the Midwest as a laborer, Bill Thomas found a better niche in New Ulm.
With native artistic talent, a dash of casual entrepreneurship, a skilled crew to help and some solid sales connections, his two-year-old company now supplies screen-printed T-shirts and sweatshirts to a national market. Thomas is responsible for the graphics, which range from his original designs to illustrations furnished by customers.
Please forgive Dr. Wynn Kearney, Jr., senior partner and president at Orthopaedic & Fracture Clinic P.A. (OFC), if he seems preoccupied with the future.
For thirty years his specialty has been in a state of constant flux, and the next thirty won’t be any different. He doesn’t know yet whether OFC’s Mankato office will expand on-site, out to land on the outskirts of Mankato, or over to Immanuel St. Joseph’s Mayo Hospital. And there’s more: demand for OFC’s services has increased so much it recently had to thoroughly and tirelessly search for a new physician with the “right stuff.” Other exhaustive recruitment forays are on the horizon.
W. Kirk Hankins likes to say Winland Electronics, Inc. had three beginnings, one in 1972, another in 1984 and a third in 1995.
Today the Mankato company is recognized as one of Minnesota’s fastest growing electronics manufacturers, guided by a master plan that many of its 125 employees had a hand in crafting. It’s set impressive sales and profit records for three consecutive years, streaking ahead at 40 percent annually, and netting $856,000 on revenues of $18 million in 1998. Earnings per share tripled in that period and more money than ever is being spent on research and development, according to Hankins, who is chief executive officer and chairman of Winland’s board.
