General Growth Properties began building River Hills Mall more than 20 years ago. Today, the retail behemoth annually receives 8.5 million visitors, who often want more and so spill over into Greater Mankato’s many retail nooks and crannies. About 75 percent of Mall visits each year come from people that live more than 30 miles away, and that includes 850,000 visits from consumer-hungry northern Iowans seeking tax-free clothing.
In the main hallway at no-nonsense Kahler Automation, the 53-employee business 67-year-old Wayne Kahler founded in 1989, employees over the years have thumbed in hundreds of color-coded stickpins to mark customer sites. If the company had an international map, additional stickpins would grace South Africa, Argentina, Ukraine, and Canada.
Said 35-year-old Heather Hacker Hammer in a telephone interview, “My parents own Hacker’s Tree Farm Nursery and Greenhouse. I began working at the business at 12, and grew up in a family of entrepreneurs. My brothers own Hacker Construction. In the spring, at age 12, I would be planting, watering, and weeding. In the summer, we had a landscape business.
Brothers Josh and Kyle Blackman virtually grew up on the fairways and greens of Mankato Golf Club. In August 2012, they purchased Tee 2 Green, and renamed the full-service golf store “Fore Seasons Golf.”
Mike and Cathy are partners in every sense. They co-own Brennan Companies, which includes Brennan Construction and Brennan Properties, with the former completing such high-profile projects over the years as AgStar headquarters, The Marigold, USBank (2012), Landkamer Building, and Bolton & Menk headquarters. Besides the Landkamer Building, Brennan Properties owns and manages Old Town Center and two other commercial buildings, and has been developing the former Ember’s site that could become home for the Children’s Museum of Southern Minnesota.
Certified life coach business owner, House of Hope development director, North Mankato city council member, landlord, and community leader goes full throttle to help others improve.
From day one in 1989 through today, the reputation, future, and survival—literally everything, involving printing presses to profits to people—of 285-employee Corporate Graphics Commercial of North Mankato has rested solely on its being able to adapt to and fulfill rapidly changing customer needs.
This community-owned, nonprofit business opened in January 2012 as a significant expansion to Mapleton Community Home. “(Heritage Place) is a combination of independent living and assisted living services in one building,” said 50-year-old administrator RoxAnne Gosson.
After discovering a need in the real estate market after moving from Ohio to St. Peter in 2009, Jordan Powers began his niche real estate photography business in St. Peter just within the last year.
