Cover Story

If a draw on his slow-burning Macanudo and a sip of his Beaujolais Nouveau doesn’t get your blood moving, his in-your-face pragmatism towards politics definitely will. Rick McCluhan, 42, born of a full-blooded Sicilian mother and Scotch-Irish father, carries a zest for life, business and politics that few southern Minnesotans can match.
From his Sicilian mother’s genes he seems to have inherited a blunt pragmatism and a fondness for pasta, cigars, and wine. It was the Sicilians’ neighbors, the Romans, after all, who coined the phrase II vino veritas: In wine there is truth.
On his Dad’s side, his heritage extends back to the feisty Protestants of Northern Ireland, who bred such Revolutionary War patriots as Patrick Henry of “Give me Liberty or give me death!” fame. All three U.S. Presidents with a Scotch-Irish past began or greatly inflamed wars: Polk (Mexican), McKinley (Spanish-American), and Johnson (Vietnam).

With his sinewy hands touching together at the fingertips, Dr. Doug Wood, president at Immanuel St. Joseph’s- Mayo Health System, and cardiologist, tried clearing up some of the confusion about recent changes in healthcare. But it seemed, to this writer at least, a futile task. A state-of-the-art knowledge of healthcare, like that of computer technology, often lasts only a few months before becoming outdated.

Maureen Gustafson may be playing out her starring role as president of the Mankato Area Chamber & Convention Bureau (MACCB), but she’s really more the Muse that Pope described back in the 18th Century.

A graduate of Minnesota State University, Mankato, with a degree in theater, Maureen was trained as a Muse, or actress, to “wake the soul,” “raise the genius,” “mend the heart,” and “make mankind, in conscious virtue bold.” Now, as MACCB president, she’s doing the very same things.

How many Blue Earth Countians regularly drive a jet boat to work?

How many peddle a bike ten miles to work through ten-below weather? How many own a 1902 steam fire engine and a 1921 International truck? How many downright dominate commercial real estate sales, property management, and commercial development in Mankato? Only one character could fit the bill on all four questions: Curt Fisher.

Remember that curious boy in high school whose shirt pockets were always stuffed with sharpened #2 pencils, who actually enjoyed algebra and physics, and who tore down his mother’s car piece-by-piece just to see how it ran? If you went to Mankato’s Loyola High School in the late ’50s, that kid was Jerry Dotson.

Up until he opted for early retirement in mid-May of this year, Jerry was Director of Technical Education for Seattle-based AT&T Wireless Services. And while he was with AT&T Wireless Services he helped lay the groundwork that could make Mankato the international mecca for wireless education.

CONNECT: What personal traits do you have that helped you grow Carlson Craft?

CARLSON: Being optimistic, which I think is related closely to having a Christian faith. I see the positive things of life. I have patience too, which is also related to my faith in God. I was blessed with good health, and again, I give credit for that to a Higher Power. I know of many friends who haven’t been blessed with good health and they had to retire very young.

While looking out his office window for a memory that isn’t that far distant, Jerry Johnson, founder and chairman of Mankato-based Clear With Computers (CWC), seems to feel a great deal of pride in helping move CWC from a $99-computer beginning to an industry giant. “We started with no money in the bank,” he says.