You wouldn’t expect a guy who co-owns two companies that together grossed $60 million last year to draw a rather modest salary and live in a rather modest home. Nor would you expect him to ride a Harley to work. But that’s Jerry Schugel.
Read MoreTo better understand JO Guck Bailey (Guck rhymes with book) just take a day trip north on U.S. 10 to her hometown, Royalton, Minnesota, population 802, a bedroom community halfway between St. Cloud and Little Falls. The town boasts both a tourist trap called “Treasure City” and the local greasy spoon, B’s Cafe, but little else.
Read More“‘You know, people look at you, and they say ‘oh man, they got bucks.’ But they don’t realize how much you’re working at it,” says Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise owner Gary Hopfenspirger as he stretches his legs and joins his hands behind his head. He’s seated now in his North Mankato home and he squints out his back picture window for his next sentence. After a pause, he taps his chest and says, “And all of these KFC franchisees are just like me. They work hard.”
Read MoreRobert Walton Wettergren, a.k.a. “Mister St. Peter,” reminds you of the man that drives his Model T down the road doing 45, and while you’re passing him he’s glancing over and smiling like he’s the one passing you.
Rock-solid. Traditional. Bob Wettergren does things the old-fashioned way. When he recently celebrated fifty years of marriage with wife, Renee, he was asked their secret for staying together (this, during an age when half of marriages end in divorce). Bob said, “We work at [marriage]. And we pray together. When you pray together, you stay together.”
Read MoreHe lifts a fifty pound bag of dog food from one wooden pallet and slides it over to another. He wears a flannel shirt and jeans, and his blond hair is slightly tousled. Here at Equity Supply in Mankato he seems just like any other worker as he unloads semis, helps customers and fills orders. But like so many other influential people here in southern MN, appearances can be deceiving.
Read MoreStarr Kirklin’s Mankato roots run deep. His sphere of influence spread through his seventeen years as First Bank president in Mankato and touched such local institutions as Mankato Civic Center, Mankato State University, Immanuel St. Joseph’s Hospital, Valley Industrial Development Corp. and Hickory Tech Corp. His resume’ in Mankato community involvement is very impressive.
Read MoreStep into Glen Taylor’s corporate world and it’s nothing quite like you’d expect. Taylor Corporation is a huge, multi-national business and yet noticeably absent from its main lobby are what you’d expect from huge, multi-national corporations: trappings like fine Italian sculpture, rich oak furniture, luxurious leather chairs that swallow you when you sit in them and armed guards. None of that here. Instead, this lobby has simple accoutrements. Taylor Corp’s building is just two stories high. There’s only one receptionist. No valet parking. Instead of a multi-national corporation, this headquarters building has the down-to-earth feel of a downtown Mankato real estate office.
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