Building on industry trends Best Construction Company – Deichman Construction Mark Deichman of Deichman Construction has earned a reputation for being on the cutting edge of custom home building. Here are the two big trends he sees in new homes: - Efficient use of space The average square footage of custom homes has declined in Pictured is a submitted photo of a home built by Deichman Construction. the last five years, while overall efficiency and amenities have increased, explained Deichman: “People are much more Remotely or on-site, homeowners can easily control heating, interested in not wasting space.” cooling, lighting, home audio and video, security, even window blinds. - Home automation With advances in technology, homes can be controlled with “As a contractor, we recommend the right lighting, blinds the use of Internet, computers and Apple devices. And it no and security – the infrastructure that can tie it all together,” longer costs a fortune. For instance, Deichman Construction said Deichman. installed an iPad in the wall of a custom home. - Marie Wood
Printing made easy as pie Best Place for Specialty Printing – Insty Prints Insty Prints has been providing specialty printing services for the Mankato area since 1979. Examples of a few of the items created by the company are displayed in their store at 1402 N. Riverfront Drive and include calendars, pens, pencils, coffee mugs, baseball caps, and Frisbees. But those items are just the tip of the printing iceberg. “We like to say that we’ll print on anything from bathrobes to yo-yo’s,” said Ben Frindley, vice president and general manager of the store. Frindley estimates that Insty Prints does thousands of printing jobs a year and added that one of the store’s goals is to serve local businesses at reasonable prices. Owner Bob Shibilski said, “Even though we have state-ofthe-art copiers, customer service is our most important asset.” Included in that customer service is a pie giveaway that Insty Prints sponsors twice a year. Customers who spend more than $150 can have an apple pie hand delivered to their office in July or a pumpkin pie delivered in November. “We bring plates, forks and the pie,” Frindley said. “It’s our way of saying thank you to our customers and it makes for a nice coffee break too.” President Bob Shibilski opened his store in 1979 at 830 N. Broad St. The store moved to its present location in 1989. - Nell Musolf 34 • July 2013 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
Calling up computer expertise Best Computer Repair Store – Q Computers
M
ark Broman and Wendy Greiner of Q Computers sat down to answer questions about their successful computer repair business. Broman and Griener discussed the changing times and constant upkeep of devices. Q: When did Que Computers get it’s start? Any interesting stories with the start up of the business? Broman: Que computers started with Ying Que in Minneapolis 25 years ago. Twenty years ago he got a partner in Mankato and Dave and Ying ran it until 2004. In 2004 Dave gave me the opportunity to buy them both out. We like to call it Q computers now. Que computers was a retail store with very little service. We quickly changed to a service store by hiring Wendy Greiner and starting a website department and also computer training came along. With the help of local community education, we have provided over 1,000 training sessions over the past six to seven years at very affordable costs. Greiner:We help train folks how to work with their computers on their own – but because the computer world keeps changing so fast, we never really quite get there.