Author: Daniel Vance

Cover Story
Daniel Vance

Jerry Bambery

Jerry wore a happy face. But inside he was crying.

Through his company BAMCO, Inc., he owned and operated McDonald’s franchises in Northfield, Faribault, and three in Mankato. He had every reason to be hilariously happy, including his selling of Happy Meals, and having been with McDonald’s since 1958—billions and billions of sandwiches before Ray Kroc dreamed up two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun. Having been in on the ground floor of the greatest restaurant success story of all time, Jerry was so steeped in the happy ways of McDonald’s that he and it were as one.

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Feature Story
Daniel Vance

Dr. Gary Jernberg

The New York Times was on line one.

Mankato’s Dr. Gary Jernberg pressed the beige telephone receiver against his chin and simultaneously punched the flashing button. Nursing a sore throat all morning long with Hall’s Mentholyptus, he felt out of sorts, perhaps the result of his body rebelling against having to return from a splashy Virgin Islands vacation. So much for flying under the radar, he thought. The media waited.

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Feature Story
Daniel Vance

Jake’s Stadium Pizza

Sarge ordered them to march.

He was a rough-and-tumble five-foot-five, joined the Army in ’49, and fought communists in Korea from Pusan to the China border. Think Popeye after spinach. As an Army master sergeant, Vernon “Sarge” Carstensen faced the Red Menace again during two tours of duty in South Vietnam, earning the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and Silver Star. He was rough, he was real, he was old-school.

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Feature Story
Daniel Vance

Itron

Examples of how to run a highly successful $260 million corporate division roll off Bob Whitney’s pursed lips like 60 mph change-ups off Johan Santana’s spindly fingers—it’s a thing of beauty to watch, because few are better at it.

The 47-year-old Whitney is vice president of manufacturing for the Waseca division of Washington state-based, NASDAQ-traded Itron, which also has facilities in Raleigh, Oakland, Spokane, rural South Carolina, and four foreign countries.

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