Feature Story - Connect Business Magazine

January 1, 1999 Roger Matz

Robert W. Fitzsimmons & Sons

I like my bacon as well as the next guy, maybe better, and inch-thick porkchops simmer on my gas grill every week or so. Pork’s leaner these days, a big improvement, but pigs still smell. Years ago, I knew some pretty sharp hog farmers, nice guys, but even in their good clothes, they brought a certain odor to church. They might sit two pews behind me, but I knew they were there. Although I’d seen their hogs rolling around in the mud, it didn’t diminish my appetite for thin strips of crisp bacon.

Feature Story

January 1, 1999 Roger Matz

Cuddy Energy Systems

Ever try to sell an idea before its time? Neil Lillo did, enduring a six-month drought without a drop of revenue. “My wife was getting nervous,” Lillo said, recalling the period in 1980 when he came home night after night without ever having made a sale. It was an uncomfortable time for Lillo as well as his wife because in his previous business, he’d been accustomed to “selling something every day.”

Feature Story

November 1, 1998 Roger Matz

Lindsay Window & Door Company

John Roise avoids credit for the rapid growth and financial success of Lindsay Window and Door Co., which manufactures vinyl and wooden windows in North Mankato.

Despite his lack of experience in the industry, Roise introduced new products that more than tripled sales. Employment escalated from 14 to 65. He’s paid back all the long-term money he borrowed to buy the company in 1989.

Feature Story

November 1, 1998 Roger Matz

Forstner Fire Apparatus

With computers elbowing workers aside and manual labor often reduced to nothing more than pushing buttons, automated production dominates many manufacturing processes today.

But Floyd Forstner and a handful of employees still fashion fire trucks by hand, one at a time, every one different, in an 81 year-old shop on the edge of downtown Madelia. They start with a cab and chassis purchased from a major automotive manufacturer and custom-build the rest. The first truck born in that shop in 1940 still sees limited service with the Madelia Fire Dept.

Feature Story

September 1, 1998 Roger Matz

Hybrid Microcircuits

Tim Mullen dreamed of starting his own business for years, but never once fantasized about building the world’s smallest hearing-aid amplifier. Now he’s done both.

In December of 1991, Mullen and three like-minded partners put their new company together on paper, incorporating as Hybrid MicroCircuits, Inc.. In February of 1992, they opened their doors in Belle Plaine, long on experience but a tad short on capital and pinched for space. In 1993, they alleviated their capital and space situations by moving 110 miles south on Hwy. 169 to Blue Earth.

Feature Story

September 1, 1998 Roger Matz

Haala Industries

Eight magic words give job applicants an edge anywhere in Brown County. All they need to say is “I grew up on a farm near Leavenworth.” To prospective employers, that short sentence means an applicant understands order, discipline and hard work.

Leavenworth is a tiny settlement southwest of Sleepy Eye with a few houses and a large Catholic church, the Church of the Japanese Martyrs. Big families from small farms make up most of the congregation.

Feature Story

July 1, 1998 Roger Matz

Thin Film Technology Corporation

True or false: Only in America do brainstorms strike adventuresome folks, who quit their jobs, convert their garages to makeshift factories and grow multimillion dollar companies. False.

It also happens in Japan. Despite that country’s industrial reputation for patient teamwork and polite consensus, entrepreneurial adrenaline and rugged individualism flow just as strongly and swiftly through Japanese veins.

Feature Story

May 1, 1998 Roger Matz

Davisco Foods International

It sounds like a fairy tale, but once upon a time creameries discarded whey and buttermilk, giving it to farmers who spread it on fields or fed it to calves.

Now an entire industry exists to capture the nutritious ingredients locked in these once-snubbed fluids. One of the leaders in that industry is Davisco Foods International, Inc., based in Le Sueur, where veteran employees still remember the days of whey-splattered fields and calves suckled on buttermilk.

Feature Story

May 1, 1998 Roger Matz

Rainbow Woods

Lessons learned the hard way tend to be lessons remembered. Richard and Debbie Halvorson, who are tantalizingly close to profitability at Rainbow Woods, Inc. in Le Center, digested their share along a red-ink road since 1990. After nurturing two radically different product lines in three different communities for eight years, the Halvorsons now realize: Marketing means making more than one sales call.