Connect Business Magazine

Dean Karau is a man of the land. He lives in the farmhouse where he grew up and he cash crops the family’s rural St. James acreage. That, in itself, doesn’t set him apart from other Minnesota farm kids who grow up to take over the family farm. It’s what he does when he’s away from home that gives the story a twist. For three months each summer, he cuts a swath across parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota, harvesting grain from about 7,000 acres.

Although an electrician by trade, Brian Grey is a storyteller by temperament. Seated in a St. Peter restaurant to avoid interruption by employees, he fueled himself with more than a pot of decaf coffee as he related anecdotes about his life and his business.

Business Person of the Year 2010 – Runner-Up

Jerry Dulas is much more comfortable moving dirt from the seat of an excavator cab than sitting at an office table answering a magazine writer’s questions. That’s why his daughter, Tanya Pierce, offered to buffer the experience by joining in the interview. It was Tanya who nominated her father for Connect Business Magazine Business Person of the Year 2010, somewhat to his dismay.

“Many businesses manufacture hardware, many produce software; we do both,” said Mark Gaalswyk, owner and CEO of Easy Automation, Inc. “Our business hits dead center on the line where those two meet.”

Since the early 1700s, when John Peter Zenger was tried for seditious libel (and exonerated), American journalists have been willing to go to jail to uphold the principles of a free press. Jerry Groebner, the editor and publisher of the Lake Region Times, has taken the journalistic tradition to a new level.

Although not knowing it, movie producer George Lucas is responsible for the creation and growth of a video production company in Mankato. Rob Petersen, co-owner of All Pro Media LLC, saw his first Star Wars movie in 1977 and said, “I want to do that.