Feature Story

When Kathie Davis left her job with the Region 9 Development Commission in 1996, co-workers said “bon voyage” with a gold watch and an office chair.

Those were useful and appreciated gifts, but Davis left with something of far greater value: Her thick Rolodex, brimming with the names and telephone numbers of people she knows can make things happen in southern Minnesota and beyond. It’s the chief asset of “Resource Connections,” the company she formed after serving Region 9 from 1973-79 and 1985-96 as public information coordinator and marketing director.

A simple sandwich launched Najwa Massad’s career.

She operates Najwa’s Catering in Mankato, providing everything from box lunches to sit-down dinners, serving as few as five and as many as 2,500. She caters weddings, funerals, anniversaries and company events ranging from in-office lunches to picnics and parties. Massad has been the exclusive caterer for all events at the Midwest Wireless Civic Center since it opened in 1995.

Capstone Press keeps exploding, Mankato may someday be known as the “Book Publishing” Capital of the Upper Midwest.”

You’re excused if you’ve never heard of Capstone Press. New owners coaxed it out of financially troubled obscurity in 1990, re-starting it with two employees and a vision.

HELP WANTED: Immediate opening for marketing professional to spread word about neat stuff made by inventor/artisan/craftsman. Must make up for 30 years of lost sales. Call 507-278-4302.

Arnie Lillo never placed that ad. He’s more interested in conceptualizing and creating than in selling his creations. He holds three patents and passed up several others. But not one of his ideas put him on a road to fame and fortune, for a variety of reasons.

Bob Freyberg comes from a long, strong line of petroleum salesmen.

He doesn’t touch the stuff himself anymore, except when fueling his auto, but he leans on his ancestral experience, traditions and values nonetheless.