Author: Daniel Vance

Cover Story

Jeff Thom – 2008 Business Person Of The Year

The post-game television interview we all have witnessed: Famous football quarterback after tossing a key touchdown strike giving credit to his teammates for an emotional victory in The Big Game. Yet that made-for-TV, locker-room speech sometimes seems canned, even obligatory, as if spreading the love around had more to do with the player maintaining an image than a true appreciation of his teammates’ contributions.

With genuineness pressing around every syllable, Jeff Thom, founder and co-owner of $20 million-plus and 55-employee All American Foods, gave due credit in this Business Person of the Year 2008 interview to a number of people for his success.

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Cover Story

Sarah Person

Faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Also able to cut to the chase faster than a diamond through frosted glass.

No she isn’t Superman, or even Superwoman, but Sarah Person (say Peer-son) does have a superabundance of supernatural energy. Owner of 13-employee Exclusively Diamonds, 45-year-old Person has methodically transformed her swank retail business—founded by her mother in 1979—from Mankato’s best-kept secret into a roaring retail machine.

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Cover Story

Mike Drummer

One day, Minnesota author Garrison Keillor might write St. Clair native Mike Drummer into one of his folksy, best-selling novels. Baseball cap covering his head, summer open-toe sandals and winter flannel, a love affair with growling earth-moving equipment, one of ten children, his dad serenading the milk cows with polka music – 45-year-old Drummer at times seems more from Lake Wobegon than a Greater Mankato land developer and small business owner.

It took him every bit of six years to finish a teaching degree because he had to pay his own bill. By his own admission, he grew up “damn poor.” While attending Minnesota State University, he milked the family cows, cared for the neighbors’ hogs, coached high school basketball, and in the spring worked for landscaping and garden center businesses. After beginning a small business with wife Julie in 1991, Drummer earned extra money as a substitute teacher, basketball coach, and Tires Plus employee.

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Cover Story

Flip Schulke

Photojournalist Flip Schulke caught the eye of America more than any person ever calling southern Minnesota home. Through his curious camera, he captured the drum beat of a generation by bringing to life legends like Muhammad Ali, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Jacques Cousteau, Fidel Castro, and eight U.S. presidents, scores of astronauts, sports heroes, and politicians. He photographed the Berlin Wall over a thirty-five year period and for better than a decade was the world’s leading expert on underwater photography. He was one of the first photographers inside the Texas School Book Depository after President Kennedy’s assassination.

Working as a self-employed, freelance magazine photojournalist, his work included choice assignments from the mid-1950s to 1980s for Life, Ebony, Sports Illustrated, Newsweek, Time, National Geographic, and Look. His University of Texas archives contain more than 600,000 negatives, slides and prints.

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Feature Story

Bolton & Menk

Many business executives dream of retiring early at fifty-five, perhaps of tapping Titleist balls over neatly trimmed Bermuda grass in south Florida, paddling the soothing surf and tickling toes in warm white sand near Naples, or bouncing happy grandchildren on their knees.

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Feature Story

Dayport

Undercurrents of emotion bubbled up from within 52-year-old Glenn Miller (photo left), as he tried explaining the unyielding pressure he and his partners had felt over the course of Dayport’s chaotic history, of their Herculean efforts trying to stay afloat, of contrite promises to investors, of risking their personal fortunes.

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Cover Story

Art Olsen

Consider: Art Olsen was the fifth child of the county courthouse custodian in Estherville, Iowa.

He was the president of Advertising Unlimited in Sleepy Eye, an R.L. Polk division in Detroit, R.L. Polk itself in Detroit, and Norwood Promotional Products in Austin, Texas. These businesses ranged in size from $60 million to $450 million in revenue. Since 2003, he has been president and co-founder of New Ulm-based start-up Beacon Promotions Inc. His most recent company custom prints and supplies promotional products to 4,500 distributors—and is growing rapidly.

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