Many people reading this now have let more than their fair share of incredible career opportunities slip right through their fingers. Mike Foty of Fairmont-based Foty Lock & Safe would openly admit being part of that crowd. Yet rather than resign himself to an existence of continual, lifelong regret—as perhaps most people would if having lived his lot—feisty Foty flailed away and eventually late in life carved out a successful business niche.
The three-year-old boy recovering from surgery watched Nancy Dobson demonstrate a sequence of activities for him—walking on a balance beam, stepping on and off a stool and crawling through a barrel. Then he said, “You got through there with your big butt, didn’t you, Nance?”
“Aw, you’re a girl.” The chagrin was evident in the coach’s words when 10-year-old Sarah Richards was drafted to play baseball the first year Little League went co-ed. She didn’t let the coach’s response to her gender deter her. Her parents’ advice—now that she took seriously.
Most young Minnesotans simply don’t aspire to having a career caring for dairy animals 7-days-a-week, 365-days-a-year for years. Jerry Van Oort lived that hard life early on. It would teach him nearly everything necessary for later business success, including the art of surviving change and adversity, of which he would have plenty.
Despite declaring himself “shade blind,” Mike Mason, the 71-year-old founder and owner of Sleepy Eye Stained Glass, has spent the last 30 years working with architects, interior designers and individual customers on churches, commercial buildings and private homes.
The 1982-93 feel-good sitcom Cheers with know-it-all Cliff, athlete Sam, psychiatrist Frasier and perfectionist Diane was set in a Boston neighborhood bar “where everybody knows your name.” The bar patrons gathered as family.
MN Business News