It looked like Chris Vorwerk was reeling from a Caribbean voodoo curse in 2000-01. She had started United Commercial Upholstery in her New Ulm garage at 409 North Broadway on a shoestring budget. During her first year in business, an ex-convict crow-barred his brawn inside to sneakily steal her expensive sewing machines and colorful upholstery fabric.
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.
Business Person of the Year 2010 – Runner-Up
In roundabout fashion, sour has become deliciously sweet for Bryan Sweet. To begin, when he was only age four, his father and mother’s marriage soured down in Blue Earth. Then Dad decided to live much closer to Mankato and would not utter another word to Bryan the rest of his life. It was painful.
If not for being shaped and sharpened by challenge after challenge, Brett and Dynette Niebuhr almost certainly wouldn’t have had the background or passion to start Wells-based B&D Metal Works—let alone grow and adapt it so well—to serve the metal working needs of Upper Midwest customers.
“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.”
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