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.
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Southern Minnesota Skydiving opened for business at Le Sueur Municipal Airport on May 15, 2010.
Dr. William Lee of Blue Earth began seeing potential in developing a niche market in southern Minnesota: Lap-Band surgery for weight loss.
The Picker-Uppers owner, Justin Keech, learned a lot from his mother, Sue Rothmeier, a New Ulm RE/MAX real estate broker.
Fairmont: Renew Skin & Laser Center – “I’m from Michigan, and we moved here in 1990, when (my husband) Cory and I moved here for his orthopedic practice,” said 49-year-old Rene Welchlin in a telephone interview.
Mankato: Jessica Barnett Chiropractic & Acupuncture Clinic – “I was born and raised in Mankato, and went to Loyola High School,” said 29-year-old Jessica Barnett in a Connect Business Magazine telephone interview.
Le Sueur: The Friendly Confines Cheese Shoppe – Kirk Litynski grew up in St. Peter as a classmate of Jon Davis, part of the Davis family owning Davisco Foods International. This last August, Davis hired his long-time friend to launch and manage The Friendly Confines Cheese Shoppe at 719 North Main
Read MoreLe Sueur: KOSA, Inc. – Sandra and Jorge Brenes have turned love into a full-time business teaching Spanish.
Mankato: Office Space Design – “I found there wasn’t really anyone competing here in office furniture and design, so I developed my own business plan.”
St. Peter: Pheasant’s Ridge Memory Care Center – “We realized there was a need for assisted living for seniors in St. Peter. From there, we opened a building with 16 assisted-living units three years ago.”
Read MoreHe was a natural-born, one-in-a-million businessman, and nearly everything he touched turned from thin air to glittering gold. The company Wagner had co-founded, Inspired Technologies—and for that matter, most of the other companies he had co-founded over the years, including Lake Prairie Egg, Pharmacist’s Ultimate Health, and Geo Mask—had been or were widely acclaimed business success stories.
Read MoreFive years after founding Professional Cleaning Services, president Sherry Johnson still works from an office in her Le Sueur home. She not only appreciated being able to start up in February 2002 without going into debt, she also likes having less overhead cost than a storefront would require. Her real payoff, though, is, “being able to do invoices and paychecks in my jammies,” she says.
Read MoreA young girl’s thoughts on paper.
That’s what started it, really, little poems and journal entries written by Kimberly Rinehart as a teenager in her Mankato home. As kids do with their creative output, she gave hers as gifts to her mom and dad, Forrest and Georgia Rettmer.
Read MoreCows are boring, really.
They eat grass, mull around, and moo.
Milk is white, also boring. If it weren’t for the containers that hold it, milk would be a series of boring white puddles. It can’t even moo or chew cud. It’s Plain Jane, ho-hum, blah, vanilla, and boring, boring, boring.
Read MoreThey say God works in mysterious ways.
Le Sueur’s United Spray Systems owes much of its current good fortune to one tough-as-nails kid, Blake Plonske, 11, who beat long odds in surviving 13 major surgeries after being born prematurely in 1990.
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