May-June 2013

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Alliant Energy

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MAY/JUNE 2013

Contents

THE MAGAZINE FOR GROWING BUSINESSES IN SOUTHERN MINNESOTA

8

COVER STORY

Publisher: Jeffry Irish Editor: Daniel J. Vance Art Director/Staff Photographer: Kris Kathmann

8

Health Hero

After retiring later this year as CEO of 185-employee, St. Peter-headquartered River’s Edge Hospital & Clinic, 62-year-old Colleen Spike most probably will reside in St. Peter and become more active in community life as a volunteer. In part, she will drive elderly residents to physician appointments. Hers will be a humble grand finale to an eventful 16-year work career here.

Interim Advertising Manager: Daniel J. Vance

PROFILES

Circulation: Dave Maakestad

Contributing Photographers: Daniel Dinsmore, Art Sidner Contributing Writers: Carlienne Frisch, Peter Van Doren, Victor Davis Hanson, Jerry Taylor Production: Becky Wagner Kelly Hanson Josh Swanson Printing: Corporate Graphics, N. Mankato Mailing: Midwest Mailing, Mankato

26

Eclectic Electric

Cover Photo: Daniel Dinsmore

Elmer Rolloff wended his way between tables and shelves of boxes containing electrical items most of us have never heard of. He perched on a stool. Toothpick in mouth, he began to tell how the electrical business used to be back when he began seven decades ago. For the record, he celebrates his 82nd birthday on May 10.

Bean There, Done That

6 36

IN EVERY ISSUE

Business Trends Bulletin Board Hot Startz!

Press Releases National Opinion CONNECT Business Magazine

8,700 for May/June 2013 Published bimonthly

CORRESPONDENCE Send press releases and other correspondence: c/o Editor, Connect Business Magazine P.O. Box 452, Nicollet, MN 56074 E-mail: editor@connectbiz.com (please place press releases in email body)

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Web: www.connectbiz.com Phone: 507.232.3463 Fax: 507.232.3373

ADVERTISING Call: (507) 232-3463

ABOUT CONNECT

COLUMNS

Editor’s Letter Off-The-Cuff

CIRCULATION

44

The life of most southern Minnesota farmers involves hard work, long hours, strong family ties, and just plain luck. Scott Singlestad of rural Waseca has experienced all four. Striding up from his machine shed, his receding black hair already clumped with perspiration at 9:30 a.m., he brushes off gray-striped work overalls bearing patches of grease. He introduces himself with a firm farm handshake.

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STAFF & CONTRIBUTORS

23 39 52 56 60 MAY/JUNE 2013

Locally owned Connect Business Magazine has ‘connected’ southern Minnesota businesses since 1994 through features, interviews, news and advertising.

Connect Business Magazine is a publication of Concept & Design Incorporated, a graphic design firm offering print design, web design, illustration and photography. conceptanddesign.com

Copyright 2013. Printed in U.S.A.

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EDITOR’S LETTER

Seasoned Veterans The businesspeople featured this issue each have more than four decades of solid experience in their respective industries.

Our cover story is Colleen Spike of River’s Edge Hospital and Clinic (St. Peter and Le Center), who has 40 diverse years in healthcare, ranging from being a registered nurse and architectural consultant to chief executive officer. She helped the City of St. Peter construct 62,000 sq. ft., 185-employee River’s Edge Hospital on a 26-acre campus in 2004, and later, River’s Edge Clinic.

In our transparent interview, she serves up thoughts for business decision makers to mull over regarding healthcare priorities in our region.

Our first company profile features Scott Singlestad of Singlestad Farms (Waseca), who has plowed through 40 years as a farmer, which includes five years as a national United Soybean Board farmer-director. Lastly, don’t forget to read about gregarious Elmer Rolloff of Rolloff Electric (New Ulm). Let’s just say ol’ Elmer has more experience providing light and electricity than most solar systems.

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CEO of 185-employee hospital and clinic has been unyielding advocate for community and rural healthcare.

By Daniel J. Vance Photo by Daniel Dinsmore

After retiring later this year as CEO of 185-employee, St. Peter-headquartered River’s Edge Hospital & Clinic, 62-year-old Colleen Spike most probably will reside in St. Peter and become more active in community life as a volunteer. In part, she will drive elderly residents to physician appointments. Hers will be a humble grand finale to an eventful 16-year work career here.

Not many business people have helped hometowns more than soft-spoken Spike has St. Peter.

She came on ship late 1997 as interim hospital administrator, just in time for a tempestuous March 1998 tornado that poked her hospital campus between the eyes. You could say she was the right person at the right time. She stayed on post-tornado when the hospital became independent, and helped lead building programs for a new 62,000 sq. ft. hospital (2004), a new St. Peter clinic (2009), and a Le Center clinic (2010). She has chaired St. Peter Area Chamber of Commerce, been president of Kiwanis Club of St. Peter, and helped her hospital win state and national awards too numerous to mention. She and her late husband donated more than $10,000 of their own money toward building River’s Edge Hospital. Personally, in 2010, she received the Minnesota Department of Health’s “Minnesota Rural Health Hero” award.

This feisty yet softhearted Irishwoman has one last business battle brewing. She’s determined David slinging a polished stone at a gargantuan Goliath competitor. The citizens of St. Peter overwhelmingly passed a referendum and St. Peter area businesspeople donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to help build River’s Edge Hospital in 2004. The facility helps the City of St. Peter attract residents—and area businesses attract potential employees. Spike isn’t one to let that substantial community investment go to waste. continued >

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Health Hero

You started at what was then called St. Peter Community Hospital about six months before the 1998 tornado. You have taken this hospital (and now clinic) through some very difficult times.

Yes. I came to St Peter in 1997 to what I thought would be an interim hospital administrator position. At that time, my husband and I lived on a farm in Maple Lake. Six months later the tornado hit St. Peter and the rest is history.

Then one night I was staying at a hotel, couldn’t sleep, and had the news on. Two St. Peter mothers were saying they had lost their daycare centers to the tornado. So we opened a daycare center at the hospital.

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MAY/JUNE 2013

And then you didn’t have a hospital to administer.

(Laughter.) That’s right. At least for a short time I didn’t. At that time, the city owned the hospital and a nursing home. All the windows were gone and the mechanical systems were off the roof. Quickly, we had the windows boarded up and we were taking people in from the community. The ministerial group in St. Peter brought us vulnerable seniors who didn’t have any heat in their homes. With our generator at least we had heat and lights. We started taking people in—not as patients. We just took them in to keep them safe. All our nursing home residents were transferred to available rooms at the regional treatment center and their staff went with them.

Then one night I was staying at a hotel, couldn’t sleep, and had the news on. Two St. Peter mothers were saying they had lost

Colleen Spike | River’s Edge Hospital & Clinic

their daycare centers to the tornado. So we opened a daycare center at the hospital. The nursing staff helped take care of children while their parents safely removed the broken glass from their homes.

After the tornado, I stayed to help get everything back in order. At that point in my career, I already had an extensive healthcare construction background and over the years I have been part of more than 15 healthcare building projects. Getting the hospital and nursing home back up and running was something I knew how to do. After the chaos subsided, the Hospital Commission started talking about the possibility of building a new hospital (which they eventually would finish in 2004) and I decided to stay in St Peter to help the community realize that dream. At the time of the tornado, Allina managed the hospital but then the Hospital Commission and City decided not to renew that agreement.

I left Allina to become the hospital’s CEO.

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Tell me more about you as a person.

I grew up in Little Canada, Minnesota, and graduated from Archbishop Murray Memorial High School, now Hill-Murray High School. I have three brothers and one sister. My father is of Irish ancestry and St. Patrick’s Day was always a very important holiday for our family. My mother was of Polish and Dutch descent and tolerated our St. Patrick’s Day craziness and even prepared all our favorite Irish dishes. My father is almost 90 and still with us and on March 17 this year we celebrated in our usual fashion with him.

I met my husband, Brock, at the wedding of my roommate from nursing school.

We were married 39 years and had three wonderful children, Melinda, Rebecca, and Sean. I have six grandchildren ranging in age from seventeen to four.

Who would you call if you were going through a difficult time right now?

I would probably call my siblings.

(Laughter.) My brother from Florida calls every Saturday. We are all very close. When seeing families with struggling siblings, I feel thankful I have the relationships I have. We enjoy being together. We laugh and have a wonderful time.

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Health Hero

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What sort of difficulties have you gone through outside work?

In 1996, on the day after Christmas, my 22-year-old daughter passed away following a seizure. She was married and had an 18-month-old child, our grandson Garrett. My husband Brock passed away in 2010 from a rare, incurable cancer. Their loss was of course very difficult and yet I consider myself so very blessed to have had both of them in my life. The adversities I’ve faced in life have given me insight into what is really important and what isn’t, and when to hang on and when to let go.

Take me through your career path.

I started my career in healthcare as a Licensed Practical Nurse.

Then I went on to become a Registered Nurse and then graduated from Concordia College in St. Paul. I think I have always wanted to be a nurse. My older brother had polio and I remember therapists coming into our home and working with him. That left an impression on me. When moving years ago, I found some papers from eighth grade in which each student said what she wanted to be when growing up. Mine said I was going to be a nurse.

I spent several years in both hospital and clinic nursing settings, but my passion lies in rural healthcare. In a rural setting, healthcare is part of the fabric of the community. In large hospitals, it’s sometimes hard to identify community. They have a service area. In rural healthcare, the community served by the hospital provides the hospital with a focus and the opportunity to make a visible difference. I love getting to know the people in the community and working with them to address their healthcare needs.

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MAY/JUNE 2013

Building Programs CONNECT: You mentioned earlier you have done 15 building projects. Who did you do those through?

SPIKE: Throughout my career, I have been in the right place at the right time. I have been involved in construction projects while working with Park Nicollet, and Allina, and more recently with a project management group and a group of architects. I have consulted on projects in Mount Ayr (Iowa), Corry (Penn.) and Boone County (West Virginia). I use my vacation time to travel to and work on the project planning phases of these projects. When I resign from River’s Edge I plan to continue to consult on healthcare projects around the United States.

Colleen Spike | River’s Edge Hospital & Clinic

The Accountable Care Organization (ACO) aspect of the Affordable Care Act is a bit like the proverbial unicorn. We all know what it is but no one has truly seen one. Some things look good on paper, but putting that into practice may be more difficult.

How did you end up with Allina?

In the early ‘90’s, I was working for a healthcare consulting group called Professional Consulting Management in several facilities that were part of Abbott Northwestern. That consulting group eventually became part of what became Allina. In essence, our consulting group became the management arm of Allina’s clinic system. I became a district director for the Allina Medical Group and it was through that position I ended up in St. Peter.

Give three ways the Affordable Care Act, also called Obamacare, will challenge your hospital. Also three ways it will benefit.

There are many unknowns with the Affordable Care Act. The Accountable Care Organization (ACO) aspect of the Affordable Care Act is a bit like the proverbial unicorn. We all know what it is but no one has truly seen one. Some things look good on paper,

but putting that into practice may be more difficult.

For example, how ACOs will work for independent hospitals and clinics like ours remains unknown. For all intents and purposes, many healthcare organizations across the country are already ACOs, i.e., they already do top-to-bottom billing for all that happens within their organizations. With the Affordable Care Act, payers will ask for just one bill for an episode of care. The problem is there are a lot of independent practices. A patient may have four or five different independent groups involved in a bill—and the hospital and doctor may not have any financial relationship at all. Much of what happens with the Affordable Care Act remains to be seen. Healthcare reform will have a major impact on the political/policy landscape for many years to come.

How important is it to keep your designation as a critical access hospital?

Very important. About 65 percent of our hospital inpatients use

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CONNECT Business 2/28/13Magazine 4:29 PM

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Health Hero

Medicare. The Medicare reimbursement is greater through the critical access program.

To maintain that status, we must meet Medicare’s criteria and must have fewer than 25 beds in our hospital and our average length of stay must be less than four days. So the program is designed for small hospitals. The original critical access designation required a hospital to be 35 miles from another facility, which we are not. We became critical access in 2002. At that time, the federal government began allowing waivers for other kinds of hospitals, such as ones that are the only hospitals in their county. That’s how we qualified.

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MAY/JUNE 2013

So your presence as the only allowed critical access hospital in Nicollet County would probably insure that no one would ever build another hospital in Nicollet County.

It is difficult in Minnesota to get legislation to build a hospital. So we are pretty safe in assuming another hospital will not be built in Nicollet County.

Our reading area has independent hospitals in Sleepy Eye, Blue Earth, Madelia, and St. Peter. What are the advantages of being independent?

The advantages allow us to maintain a clear, strong relationship with the communities we serve, such as having community members on the hospital board. It allows us to have greater control over operations and management of our facility. And it allows us to direct our focus locally to include providing high-quality, safe healthcare along with appropriate utilization of our resources.

In an interview you gave to The Free Press in January, you made the claim that a Mayo executive years ago tried getting your hospital to become part of what is now called Mayo Clinic Health System. You refused. You then claimed the executive said, “We will take you down.” This really happened?

Yes, of course it did. It was a bold statement for that Mayo administrator to make. He made it, and actually made several others like it. When it happened, I asked him what he meant because I was curious about their plan. He said, “Swing bed is important to you, isn’t it?” I said it was part of the services we provided at the hospital. He said, “We

Colleen Spike | River’s Edge Hospital & Clinic

will tell our patients from ISJ they need to go to Waseca or St. James for their swing bed and that they can’t come here.” I said, “You mean you would tell a patient from St. Peter they have to go to Waseca or St. James for swing bed?” He said, “Yes, patients will do what we tell them is best for them and they will do what we say because we are Mayo.”

It was (a Mayo-Mankato CEO who left in 2007) who made those statements. He made many other statements that were bold. At one point, they wanted to provide radiologyreading services for River’s Edge Hospital. I was really nervous about allowing them to do it—and more so after the same CEO said, “We don’t collaborate. We own everything.”

Explain the Swing Bed Program.

Swing bed is a Medicare term for a rehab bed. After no longer qualifying for an acute hospital stay but continuing to need physical/ occupational therapy on a daily basis, patients may qualify for continued hospitalization under the Swing Bed Program. Not all hospitals qualify to provide Swing Bed services. River’s Edge is a provider for this service. MayoMankato isn’t. Many swing bed patients have had their surgery or hospitalization at another hospital, either locally or in the Twin Cities, and then come to River’s Edge for Swing Bed to be closer to home.

But that former CEO left in 2007. Hasn’t Mayo-Mankato changed its tune?

I had hoped it would, but it really hasn’t.

There is a group of doctors representing River’s Edge Hospital & Clinic, Mankato Clinic, and Mayo Clinic Health SystemMankato that will be meeting to address patient care concerns and attempting to build a good working relationship. I do believe they will be successful in their ability to work together but I am concerned this will still not address the bigger Mayo-Mankato business strategy for this area of the market.

Can you give examples of how that relationship hasn’t changed?

The current CEO was here in this very room for a meeting in which I showed him how all our services were declining because patients were being routed to Mayo-Mankato for services that could be performed at River’s Edge. He turned to me MAY/JUNE 2013

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and said, “I told you this would happen if you didn’t join us.”

It was at that point—and I even wrote down exactly what he said—that I knew our decline in business was a calculated business strategy on their part. It wasn’t happenstance they were sending their St. Peter Clinic patients to Mankato for services that could have been done in St. Peter.

To me, what he said was a confirmation of what the former CEO had said—that they would take us down.

Or at least that is what you thought. In their defense, perhaps you misunderstood what he was trying to say.

No. (Laughter.) I have not misunderstood them. I have been in healthcare more than 40 years. The business side of healthcare can, at times, be predatory. The desire to control market share can sometimes override the needs of patients. If this was just a problem for St. Peter that would be one thing but a person doesn’t have to look far to see what has happened in other communities in southern Minnesota, such as in Fairmont, Springfield and Madelia, to know there is a common concern with the Mayo-Mankato business strategy.

According to the St. Peter Herald, in October, you and two former Mayo physicians (from Springfield and Fairmont) asked Minnesota’s attorney general to investigate Mayo Clinic Health System, saying, in part, it was misinforming patients in order to siphon those patients off to Mayo-affiliated facilities.

As for your hospital, besides what you have inferred from MayoMankato administrators, what other hard proof do you have of their siphoning off patients?

We have letters and statements from patients. As a matter of fact, one patient wrote a seven-page letter in which she states that twice in one weekend, when wanting to have her husband brought to River’s Edge, she was told by Mayo-Mankato that River’s Edge Hospital was full and her husband could not be sent here. Later she found out we were not full. She sent a copy of that letter to the Mayo-Mankato hospital

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Colleen Spike | River’s Edge Hospital & Clinic

THE ESSENTIALS

River’s Edge Hospital & Clinic Address: 1900 North Sunrise Drive St. Peter, MN 56082 Phone: 507-931-2200 Web: riversedgehealth.org

CEO. That letter provided proof of what we were saying. Patients were being told River’s Edge was “full” and they were being diverted to other facilities. She also sent a copy of her letter to the attorney general asking for an investigation.

But let’s say Mayo-Mankato made an honest mistake about your hospital being full. Is this one letter all you have?

We have others. Some letters or patient statements are from patients saying they were told our hospital was full when it wasn’t.

Other letters or statements mention services River’s Edge provides that Mayo claims we do not provide. Interestingly, once this information hit the press last November, no more patients have come forward with claims they were told River’s Edge was full. We continue to have concerns. Patients state they still feel pressured to have their services done in Mankato rather than River’s Edge. The fact you have to realize is this has been going on for some time and I haven’t brought it to the press until now. I really felt we had no other choice but to make this information public.

Mayo-Mankato has asked me several times to name the names of people coming forward, but I refuse to do it. Patients feel caught in their relationship with their doctor and their desire to have their healthcare services performed at River’s Edge.

And legally you can’t name names because of patient confidentiality.

That’s exactly right and Mayo should know that. Most seniors needing swing beds to recover are reticent to talk to the press and don’t want anything upsetting their relationship with their doctor. I had one patient say, “I might have to go to Rochester for something and I don’t want (making this information public) to come in the way of my care.” I respect that decision. Mayo has really come down hard on me. They have said what I’m

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MAY/JUNE 2013

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Health Hero

saying isn’t truthful because I will not name names. But I know what I am saying is the truth and those that know me, know that I would not make false claims. As you have indicated, the letter to the attorney general was signed by two doctors with first-hand knowledge of similar situations in their communities.

You say your hospital lost $1.2 million last year. How much of that loss do you attribute to what you claim has been happening?

That’s impossible to say. We know it has had an impact but we also know there are many other contributing factors affecting healthcare reimbursement here in Minnesota and the U.S. Aren’t these allegations you make similar to what Madelia Community Hospital made when ending their affiliation with Mayo in 2011—that Madelia patients were being directed outside Madelia for procedures that could have been done there?

Yes, exactly. Ours isn’t the only hospital that has made these claims.

Physicians in Springfield and Fairmont, as stated in the letter to the attorney general, share this concern.

In your letter to the attorney general (according to the St. Peter Herald), you said Mayo had used its reputation to “become very silently and swiftly a dangerous monopoly in southern Minnesota.” Explain what you meant by “dangerous.”

When the healthcare market over a large area of the state is dominated by one provider it limits: 1) choice for patients; 2) physician practice and specialty referral patterns; 3) the community’s voice in the determination of healthcare services provided in the community; and 4) competition in terms of pricing. All of this can create a “dangerous” situation.

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The Other Side Colleen Spike’s allegations about Mayo Health Care System aren’t new. In a January 18 Mankato Free Press article, Mayo Clinic Health System-Mankato CEO Greg Kutcher said Spike’s charges of unfair business practices were “baseless and hurtful to the people who work at Mayo’s St. Peter Clinic.” Kutcher also said Spike’s claims “lack substance” and that Mayo-Mankato wasn’t obligated to send any patients to River’s Edge.

Colleen Spike | River’s Edge Hospital & Clinic

What sort of things would you say Mayo has improved?

Mayo-Mankato would have to say what those things are. All I know is patients have to travel further for services that could be performed at River’s Edge. Mayo-Mankato has made the claim that if the services aren’t performed in Mankato, they cannot get the reports into the patient’s electronic medical record. If that claim were true, Mayo would not be able to incorporate into their electronic medical record prior medical records from patients coming to Rochester from all over the world. Records from outside facilities can be scanned into the electronic medical record for future reference. The same is true of records/reports coming from River’s Edge.

If what you say is true, what I don’t understand would be Mayo’s motive. In your opinion, what would they gain?

I can only speculate on a motive. I really don’t believe MayoMankato views River’s Edge as a competitive threat. But we do pose a gap in their control of the local healthcare market. If that gap is not filled by Mayo-Mankato—and if River’s Edge in the future has a need to affiliate with another healthcare system—River’s Edge could possibly affiliate with a larger competing healthcare system. That competitor would then be in Mayo-Mankato’s backyard. Our need to affiliate with another healthcare system would likely be driven by poor financial performance. While River’s Edge is city-owned, it isn’t tax supported. River’s Edge operates off the revenue it generates.

About a year ago, you offered your resignation effective at the end of 2013. Did all that has happened affect this decision?

In part it has. Maybe I’m disillusioned with the business aspects of the healthcare system. I will still be actively involved in healthcare in other ways. It just seemed the right time to allow someone else to take the reins.

First and foremost, healthcare needs to be about patient needs

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Colleen Spike Born: January 20, 1951, in St. Paul, Minnesota.

College: North Hennepin Community College, AS, nursing; and Concordia College (St. Paul), BS, management and communication. Spike is a registered nurse.

Organization memberships: Kiwanis Club of St. Peter; and Minnesota Hospital Association.

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and organizational needs should come second. For example, a friend of mine, who had seen a St. Peter-Mayo Clinic Health System doctor, was told she needed a test done. River’s Edge was more than capable of doing that test. She is 88 years old, doesn’t drive in Mankato, and wanted the test done at River’s Edge. A scheduler told her that River’s Edge would not be able to perform the test for over a month so she would have to go to Mayo-Mankato for the test. That wasn’t true. We could have gotten her in that day. As it turned out, when she made me aware of what she had been told, we were able to get her in the next day for the test.

The citizens of St. Peter passed a referendum in the early 2000s by more than 80 percent to build this hospital and they want to support it.

What happened to my friend was my wake-up call to make this public. I am ashamed it took me so long to realize what Mayo-Mankato was doing to River’s Edge Hospital & Clinic was secondary to what they were doing to patients that want to come to River’s Edge Hospital for care. I realized this had to stop. We have a large senior population that wants to have their care here. The citizens of St. Peter passed a referendum in the early 2000s by more than 80 percent to build this hospital and they want to support it.

It’s hard to take on a system like Mayo.

They are powerful and strong. This isn’t how I planned on ending my career. It would have been so much easier to resign and be done. But that wouldn’t have been the right thing to do. I have an obligation to our patients and River’s Edge to speak out.

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Colleen Spike | River’s Edge Hospital & Clinic

You opened a clinic in St. Peter in 2009 and a satellite clinic in Le Center in 2010.

As for Le Center, the City of Le Center approached us. They asked if we would be interested in providing physicians there.

They had an empty clinic building. They really wanted those services back in their community. We built River’s Edge Clinic in St. Peter in 2009. Mayo-St. Peter had a clinic on Sunrise Drive and they also built a

new clinic in 2009. It’s connected to River’s Edge Hospital & Clinic. Mayo owns their building and the city retains ownership of the land beneath their building.

If River’s Edge were to affiliate with another healthcare organization, which organization would be the most likely candidate?

It’s hard to say. I wouldn’t want to presume anything. An affiliation, if it occurs, will

be with whoever makes the best partner and will stem from mutual respect. That’s the key. At some time an affiliation may be needed because of healthcare reform.

Will the future of healthcare be better by just growing bigger? I don’t think so.

Healthcare systems need to demonstrate their mission is not based only on their need to control, own, and profit from healthcare territories and markets. They need to demonstrate their primary mission

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Health Hero

We also received a Minnesota Hospital Association award for patient safety. In the past, we were designated a “Mentor Hospital” by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. I feel we have done a lot of work enhancing quality and safety in our delivery of patient care but there is always more work to be done. Personally, in 2010 I was a recipient of the Minnesota “Rural Health Care Hero” award through the Minnesota Office of Rural Health and Primary Care. I was honored to be recognized for my work in rural healthcare.

is in meeting the healthcare needs of the communities they serve.

They need to walk the talk.

For such a small hospital and clinic, River’s Edge has won many awards and honors since you’ve been here. Name three that make you most proud.

We recently won an award for patient satisfaction through WomenCertified as a Top 100 U.S. hospital for our size category.

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You’re past president of the Kiwanis Club of St. Peter, and past chair of St. Peter Area Chamber of Commerce.

You’re embedded in the community. Of all things you do outside the hospital, what will you miss most when you retire should you leave the community?

I plan to continue living in St. Peter and maintaining my involvement in the community. The people and all the amenities offered in St. Peter make it a wonderful place to live and I am looking forward to the next phase in my life and career.

Editor Daniel J. Vance writes from Vernon Center.

Comment on this story at connectbiz.com

BUSINESS TRENDS

HEALTHCARE COSTS

The Society of Actuaries estimates that insurance companies under Obamacare will pay out 32 percent more on average for individual health policy claims. Consumers most certainly will absorb the costs. The Society did not make estimates for employer plans.

According to the Society of Actuaries (SOA) website, the group is “the largest professional organization dedicated to serving 22,000 actuarial members and the public in the United States, Canada and worldwide.” In summary, actuaries measure and manage risk.

SOA believes some states will fare better than others. By 2017, Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana, and California could see claims increases of 81, 80, 67, and 62 percent, respectively. In part, Obamacare will

add sicker people to the rolls, which will raise costs. A handful of states, including New York and Massachusetts, could experience decreases. SOA projects an 18.9 percent increase for Minnesota and 9.7 percent for Iowa.

There was good news: The SOA report predicted Obamacare after three years could reduce the percentage of Americans without healthcare coverage from 16.6 to 6.6 percent.

The Obama Administration immediately cast doubts on the report’s validity. President Obama has promised his healthcare legislation will bring costs down. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has suggested comparing current health insurance to what we will have is like comparing apples to oranges. To USnews.com, she said, “Some of these folks have very high catastrophic plans that don’t pay for anything unless you get hit by a bus. They’re really mortgage protection, not health insurance.”

If accurate, the SOA-projected claims increase of 32 percent overall over the next four years stands in stark contrast to the four-year October 2008-October 2012 healthcare inflation rate of 14.38 percent.

To hold to his promise of bringing costs down, President Obama and Democrats may have to propose and pass a new round of cost-cutting.

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BUSINESS TRENDS

HEALTH INSURANCE

WashingtonPost.com has published a draft of the 21page form some self-employed Americans will use to apply for subsidized healthcare coverage. In order to get healthcare coverage, some self-employed business owners will have to deduct from their gross income the following expenses in order to arrive at their net self-employment income: car and truck expenses for work-related travel; depreciation; employee wages and fringe benefits; property liability or business interruption insurance; interest including mortgage interest paid to banks; legal and professional services; rent or lease of building property and utilities; commissions, taxes, licenses and fees; advertising; contract labor; repairs and maintenance; and certain business travel and meals.

Due to the complexity of this document and others, and the fact 30 million uninsured Americans will be seeking coverage potentially all at

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once, Obamacare has created a new class of workers called “navigators” just to help people fill out the forms. The State of California alone soon will have to certify about 21,000 navigators, and their total pay and benefits in California alone could easily be more than $500 million.

Eventually, insurers (and ultimately, the consumer) will bear most of the cost through paying a fee. Using the same ratio of population to navigators as California, Minnesota could require 2,000 navigators.

In the near term, federal grants may fund many of these navigators.

The Washington Post reported, “Groups such as unions, chambers of commerce, health clinics, immigrant-service organizations, and community- or consumer-focused nonprofits can use the grants to train and employ staff members or volunteers to provide in-person guidance—especially to hard-to-reach populations—and to provide space for them to work.”

Insurance brokers have been concerned about the navigators.

They could lose business to them, and the navigators could give advice that could cause consumers financial harm. As quoted in The Washington Post, Ryan Young, head of government relations with the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America, said, “What you don’t want is for our agents to be cut out and to have this force of untrained, unlicensed individuals giving advice with no financial responsibility. Consumers are going to get hammered.”

Compounding the issue is that many uninsured people can’t speak or read English, and have no understanding of basic insurance concepts such as deductibles.

UNEMPLOYMENT

From the Brookings Institute: Long-term unemployment of more than six months for workers aged 20-24 remains at record-high levels.

In February 2013, 44 months into the current recovery, the Brookings Institute reported, “persistent unemployment amongst 20 to 24 year old jobseekers was 237 percent of historic rates.” It said about 650,000 younger workers have been experiencing long-term unemployment.

The Institute added, “While extended unemployment remains a significant problem for the labor market as a whole, the depth of the problem for younger workers is particularly troubling due to the slow pace of improvement for this group.”

This age group is especially vulnerable to future consequences

of long-term unemployment because of the loss of work experience and its magnified effect on future earnings. Younger long-term unemployed workers also are held back in mastering the crucial developmental tasks of discovering their work preferences in a chosen industry, of becoming aware of personal strengths and weaknesses, and of building the social networks necessary for providing future career mobility.

Some business leaders would point to the 41 percent rise in the federal minimum wage rate since 2007 as one reason for high young worker unemployment. They argue businesses had to balance out these rising minimum wage costs somewhere, and the simplest solution was to cut out many lower skilled, entry-level jobs.

To solve the unemployment problem, the Brookings Institute suggested an expansion of the AmeriCorps program in order to help younger workers stay employed and develop crucial work skills.

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By Carlienne A. Frisch Photos by Kris Kathmann

82-year-old electrical supply veteran has become a profitable anachronism.

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Elmer Rolloff wended his way between tables and shelves of boxes containing electrical items most of us have never heard of. He perched on a stool. Toothpick in mouth, he began to tell how the electrical business used to be back when he began seven decades ago. (For the record, he celebrates his 82nd birthday on May 10.)

Rolloff and son-in-law Vern Kitzberger are partners in Rolloff Electric, a company begun by Elmer Rolloff Sr. in 1945. It’s located a few miles south of New Ulm at the corner of State Highways 68/15. The company no longer does electrical contracting, but has evolved into an electrical and light bulb supply house boasting 23,000 sq. ft. of sales and warehouse area.

“When customers need something, I’ve got it here, new, or used for less,” Rolloff said. “We make 120 to 140 sales a month to electrical contractors, private individuals, and industries. I haven’t missed an electrical auction in 15 years. I recently bought hundreds of fairly expensive switches for 20 cents apiece. I buy so much surplus inventory, it’s sometimes hard to price it to the customer.”

He paused for breath before continuing on. “We’re the light bulb super store. We carry obsolete bulbs. We’re not computerized here, so every sales receipt is written by hand. I have a computer at home for doing research, so if people describe what they’re looking for, even without a part number, I can find it. I also can look something up in over 100 three-ring binders here, all on different subjects.”

The binders cover the variety of electrical products Rolloff can supply to a customer, such as fuses, circuit breakers, power cords, and motor controls. Many items have a story, which Rolloff is pleased to share.

“I have a circuit breaker box that was obsolete, but still in good shape, from an old convent in Sleepy Eye,” he said. “A man pulled up and gave it to me, so I paid him $10 for gas. I’ve got a lot of old stuff, and if I were to live long enough, someday I’d start an old electrical museum.” continued >

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Financial Planning | Estate Planning Investment Management Family Office Services

Eclectic Electric

The binders cover the variety of electrical products Rolloff can supply to a customer, such as fuses, circuit breakers, power cords, and motor controls. Many items have a story, which Rolloff is pleased to share.

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No one would argue the electrical industry has remained the same over the last seven decades, but that doesn’t mean the parts Rolloff stocks or tracks down for today’s customers are obsolete. He explained, “The basics of electricity are still the same.

The methods of generating, controlling, and using it have progressed, so it seems there’s no limit. But Ohm’s Law is still in effect.” (See sidebar #1.)

“I got a call from Mankato last night for a special type of fuse,” Rolloff said, “a European style fuse for a denture manufacturer. They didn’t want to wait until their shipment came. I gave directions to come here using Highway 68, which is what I do so people don’t have to backtrack from New Ulm. I sent some fuses along and said, ‘This’ll get you going again.’ That kind of thing happens a couple of times a day.”

Rolloff launched into an explanation of family history. His parents, both from the New Ulm area, were married in Chicago, which was where they worked and where Rolloff Sr. attended Coyne Electrical

School. After becoming a journeyman electrician, he installed burglar alarms.

The couple returned to Minnesota in 1929, where Rolloff Sr. worked in government programs, first for the WPA (Works Progress Administration), and then the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corp), wiring military barracks. Rolloff Jr., born in 1931, remembers living on the family’s mink ranch near Essig until he was four, then moving to New Ulm. “In 1940, my father got a job with Minnesota Valley Canning (now Green Giant) in Le Sueur,” Rolloff said. “When the war came, he was too old for the draft. He spent a year working on ocean-going tankers for Cargill in Savage, then at a local electrical shop and then at a power plant. He occasionally worked with farmers evenings and weekends. I helped on the farm jobs at a young age.”

Rolloff Sr. founded the business in 1945 in a chicken barn on the family property at 315 North Franklin Street in New Ulm.

Eclectic Electric

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Ohm’s Law Ohm’s Law (I=E/R) is the principle announced by German physicist Georg Simon Ohm in 1827 that establishes, for an electrical conductor, the relationship between the current flow I in amperes, the potential difference or electromotive force E in volts, and the resistance R in ohms. (An ohm is the unit of resistance to the flow of electricity through a conductor.) The formula applies to a conductor subject to both constant current flow and electromotive force. (Description from Encyclopedia Americana.)

Rolloff Electric | New Ulm

(The family later moved to 5th North Street and built a shop there.)

“In September 1945, the war was winding down,” Rolloff said, “and the War Department was releasing copper and steel for civilian use. The REA (Rural Electric Association) was preparing to extend the power lines to many farmers that had endured the war years without electricity. We installed the electrical system on many of the area farms. For a few years, supplies were still scarce, and long-time customers got priority. My father was new in the business, so we had to scrounge to get enough supplies.”

The only son of four children, the 14-yearold high school student was involved in the business from the first day.

“After the war, the City of New Ulm expanded the natural gas network and sold conversion burners,” Rolloff said. “My father and I got connected with some of the installers. They would install during the day, and we could usually hook up the controls for two of them in the evening.

“In the wiring of farm houses, I was the

little guy, so I got to go up and crawl in the attics,” Rolloff said. “I loved the meals the farm wives served to workers, and a lot of the old farmers smiled when I spoke a little German to them. My grandparents spoke New Ulm German dialect, and I’d had German class a couple times a week in my Lutheran grade school.”

In addition to working evenings, Saturdays, and during school vacations, Rolloff was allowed to skip afternoon classes occasionally. “I would jump into my 1935 Terraplane and head to a farm to help install one of the new systems,” he said. (Terraplanes were cars and trucks built by the Hudson Motor Car Co. from 1932-38.) “A 60 amp main service on the yard pole was the norm.

Mother could get an electric range and refrigerator. Dad and the boys could get a half-horse power surge milk machine in the barn. The little power left over was used for the windmill or the pump jack and lights.”

Sometimes the father-and-son team worked ahead of the REA, which built electrical lines by hand. “We would some-

THE ESSENTIALS

Rolloff Electric Founded: 1945 Address: Junction Highway 68 and 15S New Ulm, MN 56073 Phone: 507-354-4860

times wire a farm when the REA was still a mile away,” Rolloff recalled. “Dad bought a Katolight generator, and we got electrical tools that gave us light when we worked winter nights. After we finished wiring a farm, we connected our generator to test the system, so when the REA got there, they were ready to go.

“I remember what one older farmer said when I asked him ‘how many lights do you want, and where?’ He said, ‘See those two hooks? That’s where we hang our kerosene lanterns, so that’s where we need bulbs.’ He wanted 25-watt bulbs, just two of them in the barn. When his son

He served with the 7th Infantry Division, seeing combat action in Korea, and earned the Bronze Star for valor before finishing his tour of duty in Japan as a Master Sergeant.

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Eclectic Electric

took over, things changed. I also wired a lot of houses for $350 after WWII. Now you can’t even buy the main disconnect switch for that amount of money.”

When Rolloff Electric moved to its present location, the family was quite familiar with the building. Rolloff explained, “It was built in 1950 as a roller rink, 150 feet by 50 feet, with an addition.

My dad and I wired it, and I’m still working with some of the things I touched back then. It was an implement shop after the roller rink closed.”

Shortly after graduating from New Ulm High in 1949, Rolloff got his journeyman’s license. (He had officially begun his apprenticeship at age 16.) He also joined the Minnesota National Guard, which was federalized into the U.S. Army during the Korean War. He served with the 7th Infantry Division, seeing combat action in Korea, and earned the Bronze Star for valor before finishing his tour of duty in Japan as a Master Sergeant. Back in New Ulm, he served two more years with the local National Guard.

“When I got back from Korea in 1953, my dad put me to work the next day,” Rolloff said. “I also took some classes paid for by the GI

Eclectic Electric

Wired In Family: Wife Marlene and four adult children: Julie, Pamela (married to Vern Kitzberger), Paul (an electrical engineer), and Scott (a tool and die maker). “When I took over the business in 1968, the two boys helped me with it.”

Favorite school subjects: “History, because I learned what people tried and how they did it, and mathematics, because I like challenges.”

Accomplishment of which most proud: “I’ve always been proud of my work. Whenever I wired a house, I’d put a sticker with my name, the date, and something that happened that day, like a rainstorm.”

Words that describe you: “Optimist, because there are so many opportunities. My wife would say I’m a workaholic.”

If you could change one thing about life: (Rolloff just shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.)

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Rolloff Electric | New Ulm

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“We compete with the big box stores because of our rural location,” Rolloff said. “Vern and I incorporated 10 to 12 years ago, around the turn of the century.”

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Eclectic Electric

Bill. I attended the winter months and learned a lot of technical basics.”

His first night home from Korea, Rolloff met his future wife, Marlene, on a blind date at the Kaiserhoff restaurant. They married in 1954, which led him to take a full-time job with Kraft.

“Kraft came to town in 1954 and built a cheese processing plant,” Rolloff said. “I was hired in 1955 to do electrical maintenance on the night shift.

I worked with higher voltages and more modern equipment. While working nights there, I did trenching (putting wires underground) for my dad. I learned a lot in 13 years at Kraft, had a regular paycheck, and got experience working with commercial voltage and equipment like that used on farms now. (I consider today’s farms industrial complexes.)

When the New Ulm brewery (Schell’s) began making 1919 Root Beer, they carbonized it by hand. Then they got a carbonizing machine from out of state and called me as to how to use it. My experience at Kraft gave me the know-how.”

Rolloff uses surplus filing cabinets to organize stock.

When his father retired in 1968, Rolloff left Kraft and took over the business, moving it to his country acreage before relocating to its present spot.

“We compete with the big box stores because of our rural location,” he said. “Vern and I incorporated 10 to 12 years ago, around the turn of the century. Being partners eliminated dealing with a lot of government regulations. We sold a lot of do-it-yourself materials to homeowners. Over the past 15 years, we began to specialize in materials for commercial and

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Rolloff Electric | New Ulm

industrial fields. I salvage electrical controls and wire from torn-down buildings. I quit contracting around 2008 and gave up my contractor license two or three years ago. I still maintain my master electrician license, which I got in 1958.”

Rolloff admits to slowing down a bit— “I don’t hunt anymore, and I never was much of a fisherman”—but added, “I’ve got projects, such as forestry, working on equipment, and I play with the greatgrandchildren. In 1968, I bought a 1916 Model T Ford pickup truck and put it on blocks in the machine shed. I told my sons, who were young, that we’d restore it together when they got older. It’s still setting there. Now it’s the great-grandchildren who are too young.”

He continued, “I grow walnut, ash, and conifers on 80 acres I bought in 1960. I don’t do it for economic reasons. I just like trees.

I have donated Christmas trees to schools.

After WWII, while still in high school, I bought up about 200 acres of abandoned and tax-forfeited woodland and donated to the State of Minnesota 23 acres adjacent to the Millford Wildlife Management Area, which they now are part of.”

Rolloff ’s interest in all things old led him to purchase kiddy rides that he hauled to community celebrations and company events, along with a kiddy train. “We went to Kraft plants, 3M plants, etc., for over 30 years, with my kids helping,” he said. “Now the rides and train are in storage.”

Rolloff recently became involved in a weekly Bible study group. He said, “I wish I had studied the Bible more, and now I’m in a men’s Bible study that meets Fridays at 6 a.m. I’m learning things I didn’t learn earlier, and I can’t wait until next Friday, because I’m going to learn something new.

I’m inquisitive.”

Does Rolloff plan to retire or is he too busy to think about it? He looked straight at the reporter and answered, “You gotta have something to keep you going. I enjoy the business and enjoy meeting people.

It’s not the economics. I’ve never had the motive to get rich.“ Carlienne A. Frisch writes from Mankato.

Comment on this story at connectbiz.com

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It’s time once again for all Minnesotans to shake off cold weather blues and embrace spring warmth. I’m ready.

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Buckle your seat belts and away we go.

Spring in Minnesota usually translates to higher taxes in some form or another because of politicians of both parties doing their part to nurture and grow state government anew. It’s an annual rite. Our legislator/gardeners really do seem to enjoy watering and fertilizing and planting.

Out of curiosity right before the April 15 tax deadline this year, I read over Minnesota Revenue’s website to get a handle on the kinds of taxes and fees and surcharges many businesses have to pay to state government—in addition to individual taxes a business owner or employee must pay. Of course, these taxes and fees and surcharges in some way get passed on down to consumers, the real payers.

Minnesota Revenue’s website had a long list of business-related taxes that began

with the fermented malt beverage tax, and also included the wine tax, distilled spirits tax, cigarette tax, tobacco tax, controlled substance tax, corporate franchise tax, dry cleaner fees, e-waste registration fee, metropolitan landfill fee, solid waste management tax, estate tax, fiduciary income tax, auto theft prevention surcharge, fire safety surcharge, firefighter relief surcharge, insurance premium tax, HMO premium tax, non-admitted Daniel J. Vance Editor insurance premium tax for direct procured insurance, non-admitted insurance premium tax for surplus lines brokers, lawful gambling tax, mineral taxes, MinnesotaCare taxes, deed tax, mortgage registry tax, partnership tax, petroleum tax, airflight property tax, contamination tax, property tax, railroad property tax, REA membership tax, S Corporation tax, sales and use tax, severed minerals tax, sports bookmaking tax, unrelated business income tax, untaxed gambling product, wind energy production tax, and withholding tax.

The most bizarre tax our state has is the controlled substances tax. I telephoned Minnesota Department of Revenue Special Taxes Division to learn more. An employee said the tax on 42.5 grams of marijuana— the minimum amount taxed—was $3.50 a gram. Very few people pay it, he said. No surprise there.

After reading the business taxes above, I was taken aback eyeing on Minnesota.gov

all the state agencies, boards, departments, councils, and commissions these business taxes and others fund.

By listing all the operating units of state government below, I’m not in any fashion implying our state government is bloated or bad. Quite the contrary: I was surprised by the number of vital services our state actually provides for businesses, how those services require some level of revenue in order to operate, and how complex modern life has become.

Also, I’m not a budget expert, so I can’t opine on specific government inefficiencies; but at first read, for example, I did notice our state government has about ten different overlapping departments, councils, and commissions serving various people with disabilities.

So here goes the list. For starters, the State of Minnesota has a number of boards that help protect consumers from harm, such as the boards for Accountancy, Aging, Animal Health, Assessors, Barber Examiners, Behavioral Health and Therapy, Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure, Capitol Area Architectural and Planning, Chiropractic Examiners, Client Security, Cosmetologist Examiners Dietetics and Nutrition Practice, Emergency Medical Services Regulatory, Electricity, Environmental Quality, Examiners for Nursing Home Administrators, Gambling Control, Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation, Judicial Standards, Lawyers Professional Responsibility, Marriage and Family Therapy, Medical Practice, Minnesota Film and TV, Nursing, Pharmacy, Social Work, Teaching, Veterinary Medicine, Optometry, Peace Officer Standards and Training, Physical Therapy, Podiatric Medicine, Private Detective and Protective Agent Services, Psychology, Public Defense, State Designer Selection, Veterinary Medicine, and Water and Soil Resources.

In addition, the State of Minnesota operates the following departments, commissions, and other boards: Administration Department; Administrative Hearings Office; Agriculture Department; Alcohol and Gambling Enforcement; Amateur Sports Commission; Office of the State Archaeologist; Architecture, Engineering, Land Survey, Landscape Architecture, Geoscience and Interior Design Board; Minnesota Arts Board; Perpich Center

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OFF-THE-CUFF

BY DANIEL J. VANCE

for Arts Education; Council on AsianPacific Minnesotans; Assistive Technology; Attorney General; Council on Black Minnesotans; Minnesota State Board of Investment; Bureau of Criminal Apprehension; Chicano Latino Affairs Council; Clerk of Appellate Courts; State Climatology Office; Commerce Department; Corrections Department; Court System (Judicial Branch); Court of Appeals; CriMNet; Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities; Minnesota State Council on Disability; District Courts; Driver and Vehicle Services; Legislative Commission on the Economic Status of Women; Education Department; Electric Energy Task Force; Employment and Economic Development Department; Explore Minnesota; Finance Department; Fire Marshall; Minnesota Forest Resources Council; Governors Council Geographic Information; Minnesota Geological Survey; Geospatial Information Office; Governor & State Officials; Governor’s Cabinet; Governor’s Workforce Development Council; Office of Grants Management; Legislative Commission on Health Care Access; Health Department; Health Professionals Services Program; Health Technology Advisory Committee; Minnesota Office of Higher Education; Homeland Security and Emergency Management; Minnesota Housing Finance Agency; Human Rights

Department; Human Services Department; Minnesota Humanities Commission; Minnesota Statewide Independent Living Council; Minnesota Indian Affairs Council; Department of Commerce/ Insurance; Labor and Industry Department; Legislative Advisory Commission; Office of Legislative Auditor; Legislative Commission on Minnesota Resources; Legislative Commission on Pensions and Retirement; Legislative Commission on Planning and Fiscal Policy; Legislative Coordinating Commission; Legislative Reference Library; Legislature (Legislative Branch); License Minnesota; Minnesota State Lottery; Management Analysis and Development; Bureau of Mediation Services; Ombudsman for Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities; Metropolitan Airports Commission; Metropolitan Council; Metropolitan Mosquito Control; Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission; Minnesota Commission Serving Deaf and Hard of Hearing People; Minnesota Management and Budget; Minnesota Office of Higher Education; Minnesota State Academies; Minnesota State Colleges and Universities; Minnesota State Law Library; Minnesota State Retirement System; Minnesota Sustainable Communities Network; Minnesota Trade Office; Minnesota Zoo; Minnesota’s Bookstore; Department of Natural Resources; Office of Energy Se-

curity; Office of Enterprise Technology; Ombudspersons for Families; Pipeline Safety; Pollution Control Agency; Public Safety Department; Public Employees Retirement Association; Racing Commission; Recovery; Renewable Energy; Revenue Department; Revisor of Statutes; Safety Council; Science Museum of Minnesota; Secretary of State; Sentencing Guidelines Commission; State Patrol; State Rehabilitation Council; State Rehabilitation Council for the Blind; Minnesota State Retirement Commission; Statewide Systems; Supreme Court; Surplus Services; Tax Court; Teachers Retirement Association; Tourism; Trade and Economic Development; Department of Transportation; University of Minnesota; Veterans Affairs Department; Minnesota Veterans Homes; Weights and Measures; and Workers Compensation Court of Appeals.

That’s all for this issue. For better or worse, you now know the state taxes many businesses have to pay and the state government programs these taxes bankroll—an appropriate and timely exercise given the recent April 15 state tax deadline. Thanks for reading southern Minnesota’s first and only locally owned business magazine, the only one reaching 8,700 business decision makers in nine counties. See you next issue!

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BULLETIN BOARD

Local Chamber & Economic Development News

Any chamber of commerce, convention and visitors bureau, or economic development organization in our reading area—large or small, from Amboy to Winnebago—can post on our free bulletin board. For details, email editor@connectbiz.com.

threesomes, including a wine/beer tasting, meal, door prizes, and silent auction at 5 pm. It’s a Giant event! Come join us!

Le Sueur Julie Boyland, Le Sueur Chamber of Commerce

North Mankato

Veterinary pharmaceuticals company Bimeda is finishing up an expansion that is right down the road from another expansion, at Cambria, a pure natural quartz countertop and backsplash manufacturer. Le Sueur Cheese is expanding. A new facing to Davisco Foods International headquarters has changed the look of downtown. We have a new Mexican store opening soon in Valleygreen Square Mall. A biofuel plant being built south of Le Sueur will employ up to 100.

Lynette Peterson, North Mankato Convention & Visitors Bureau

The Belgrade Blues Festival will be held on Belgrade Avenue in lower North Mankato on Saturday July 21. Come relax to the music and support Belgrade Avenue businesses. Finally, the City of North Mankato will host the Men’s Fast Pitch ASA National Championships for Class A, B and C West at Caswell Park August 30 through September 2. We anticipate a great tournament and look forward to some exciting softball.

Madelia Karla Grev, Madelia Chamber of Commerce On July 11-14, Madelia Park Days and Barbeque Contest includes: Thursday night “Picture in the Park” free movie and more; Friday parade begins at 7 p.m. followed by food vendors, live music, and fireworks; Saturday includes all-day tournaments, Madelia River Run/Walk, food vendors, beer wagon, kids carnival, Kansas City Barbeque Society-sanctioned barbeque contest, and music groups like City Mouse, Billy & the Bangers, and Lisa Wenger Band; and Sunday has Fireman’s pancake breakfast and worship.

Blue Earth Cindy Lyon, Blue Earth Chamber Blue Earth Chamber & CVB completed a “Spring City Wide Garage Sale” fundraiser on April 26-27 and then a “City Wide Clean Up” fundraiser on May 4 to recycle appliances, electronics, light bulbs, and batteries. Also, the annual Chamber golf outing is June 18 at Riverside Country Club with a noon shotgun start for

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The annual summertime tradition, Songs on the Lawn, marks its 10th year in 2013. The event, which takes place Thursdays in June from 11 a.m.–1 p.m., gives co-workers, friends and families from all around the region an opportunity to gather in the City Center

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to enjoy live music and food sold by area vendors. There are also opportunities for businesses to sponsor the event and set up informational booths. For more information, visit greatermankato. com/songs-lawn.

Mankato Julie Nelson, South Central Minnesota SBDC Small Business Development Center at Minnesota State received the state and regional 2013 “SBDC Excellence and Innovation Award” from the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). SBA’s Great Lakes Region includes Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin. Todd Loosbrock, president of U.S. Bank Mankato, nominated the SBDC at Minnesota State. Mankato SBDC increased its accomplishments significantly in the last three years.

According to the SBA, the Center enjoys a stellar reputation in the Minnesota SBDC Network.

Mankato Laura Dhuyvetter, RCEF Regional Center for Entrepreneurial Facilitation (RCEF) is a nonprofit entrepreneur and business development organization providing free and confidential, one-on-one business consulting, training, and mentoring for small business owners. Whether you have an idea, a business start-up or an established business with more than 50 employees, we can help you solve your business problems and achieve your goals. We strive to listen to your concerns and problems and help you find a path towards a solution.

Nicollet Alesia Slater, Nicollet Area Chamber Come to Nicollet the weekend of June 21-23 for our annual Friendship Days Celebration! The weekend’s festivities include a carnival, Miss Nicollet competition, kickball tournament, craft fair, demolition derby, tractor pull, kiddie tractor pull, 5k Run/Walk for

the Susan Komen Foundation, parade, entertainment in the park and food. Visit our website at http://nicollet.org/events/ for more information on this Nicollet Chamber sponsored event and more.

North Mankato Michael Fischer, Port Authority On April 1, a groundbreaking was held for Peter Pan Child Care and Preschool located at the intersection of Rolling Green Lane and Timm Road. Scott and Marsha Madigan will own and operate this facility that will accommodate up to 60 children. It’s expected to be completed August 2013.

Region Nine Nicole Griensewic, RNDC Byron Jost rejoined Region Nine Development Commission as senior planner. He previously worked for RNDC (1989-2001) before accepting a private sector position with Pettipiece & Associates.

Byron is an experienced community development professional and program director with a strong background in directing housing programs and managing community infrastructure projects. He has a bachelor’s degree in environmental science/geography, and a master’s degree in urban and regional studies, both from Minnesota State University.

Sleepy Eye Kurk Kramer, Sleepy Eye EDA The EDA finalized plans for phase two of Veteran’s Park. A 10-foot black-granite Veteran’s Memorial Wall will display military names and service information. A KIA Monument will have names of citizens giving the ultimate sacrifice. In addition, the park will have benches, picnic tables, and planters. Also, the recently purchased Snow property has had infrastructure installed and the EDA/city council are working on commercial/industrial site costs. Finally, the EDA has finalized downtown rehabilitation plans.

Local Chamber & Economic Development News

Waseca Kim Foels, Waseca Area Chamber

entrepreneur, make Waseca your next opportunity!

Have questions about marketing, expanding your business, permits or start-ups? A growing need for one-stop business assistance resulted in BusinessConnection, the free electronic business assistance and referral network developed by GrowMinnesota! partner chambers and DEED. Access it a mnbizconnect.com, wasecachamber.com or call 888-MINN-BIZ from 9-5 M-F. Waseca Area Chamber of Commerce welcomes you to grow with us. Whether you are an experienced business owner or a young and ambitious

Waseca Colleen Carlson, Waseca Area Tourism & VB The Waseca Art Center is now located in a newly renovated building in historic downtown at 200 North State. The venue allows for expanded cultural, musical and arts activities along with a wonderful gift shop.

Saturday morning music, opera night, and concerts are scheduled along with art exhibits and art classes. Patricia Beckman, art director, has a full calendar of art gallery events listed at wasecaartscouncil.org.

New Ulm

Sleepy Eye

Terry Sveine, New Ulm CVB

Trista Barka, Sleepy Eye Area Chamber

Four events signifying spring have arrived in New Ulm: Have fun and sample the wine at Mai Fest at Morgan Creek Vineyards on May 4; New Ulm’s own Goosetown Roller Girls have a home roller derby bout on May 11; Hanska celebrates its Norwegian heritage on May 16-18 with an entertaining Syttende Mai; and runners swarm to Schell’s Brewery for the Lager Lauf run/walk event. Welcome the season in New Ulm!

Upcoming events: On June 27, the Chamber Golf Tournament tees off at Sleepy Eye Golf Course. July 4 fireworks are at Sleepy Eye Lake. July 25 is Party in the Park, with a fundraiser, games, activities, and food. August 16-17 marks the 52nd Annual Buttered Corn Days that features on Friday Del Monte sweet corn dipped in AMPI butter and Saturday, a parade. Finally, the Chamber honored volunteers Jim Broich, Patricia Ericksen, and Bev Bartz.

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IN THE SPOTLIGHT

The Story of Dr. Jesse Botker Orthopaedic & Fracture Clinic surgeon Dr. Jesse Botker grew up just miles from Minnesota’s border with South Dakota, on a farm near Clinton, a prairie hamlet of 400 people. His dad was a farmer, and his mom, a nurse. As a teenager, Botker liked shooting basketball in the shed every day. At Ortonville High School, he played on the varsity basketball team.

In an interview, he said:

Jesse Botker, M.D.

“About five games into my junior season, I had the ball on the three point line and was driving toward the lane from the left side. While starting to go up for a layup in traffic, I stepped on an opposing player’s foot and crumpled to the floor. I had rolled the ankle pretty good and was screaming in pain.

People helped me off the court and my family practice doctor was there and took me to the hospital for x-rays.

My ankle was so swollen. It looked like a softball was attached to it.

They learned I had torn multiple ligaments on the outside of my ankle, and the ankle was quite unstable. I had to wear a cast and use crutches for six weeks and was physically unable to put any weight on the ankle because of the pain. I then had to go through an extensive rehab program with the local physical therapist. I missed the rest of that basketball season because of the injury.

That was my first major injury and first exposure to sports medicine.

Now I’m a sports medicine surgeon. I can relate to patients that go through the physical and mental strain of losing out on a year or season of sports in a high school career. I know the hard work and perseverance patients have to go through to get back playing again. And I root for them.”

Dr. Jesse Botker, wife Lindsey, and daughter Sidney began calling Mankato home three years ago. He carries on the Orthopaedic & Fracture Clinic tradition of focusing on the health and well being of his patients.

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By Daniel J. Vance Photo by Kris Kathmann

Waseca row crop farmer is one of 70 farmer/directors on national United Soybean Board.

The life of most southern Minnesota farmers involves hard work, long hours, strong family ties, and just plain luck. Scott Singlestad of rural Waseca has experienced all four.

Striding up from his machine shed, his receding black hair already clumped with perspiration at 9:30 a.m., he brushes off gray-striped work overalls bearing patches of grease. He introduces himself with a firm farm handshake.

As for farm size, Singlestad Farms isn’t the region’s biggest. Scott Singlestad farms 700 acres of corn and soybeans, a spread that won’t get many people excited in terms of size. However, the 54-year-old Wasecan does have a great deal of influence in our region and beyond.

For the last five years, he has been one of 70 farmer-directors overseeing United Soybean Board (USB), the national organization investing soybean checkoff dollars on behalf of U.S. soybean farmers. In part, the money funds research and marketing opportunities to improve and expand soybean production and sales.

Last year, while representing USB, Singlestad toured Chinese facilities with the United States Meat Export Federation.

Surrounded by small mounds of paperwork temporarily scattered about his living room, he reels in any ideas of his being a globetrotter. He said softly, “We lived down the road until I was five before moving here to what had been my grandma and grandpa’s farm. Then in 1979 my wife and I married, and I was ready to buy a trailer house and place it on my parent’s farm. But my dad sold us his house, which had been my grandparents, and built himself a new one next door to here.”

So practically all Singlestad’s life has been spent within a one-mile radius northwest of Waseca. He has never lived more than 75 yards away from his parents. continued > MAY/JUNE 2013

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Bean There, Done That

At age nine, he was out driving tractor and baling and raking hay. By eleven, he was cultivating corn and beans.

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He says, “The earliest memories I have in life are of being out on the farm. My dad farrow-to-finished pigs when he first started. Then when we moved here in 1962, he decided to switch to beef cattle. He bought four- to five-hundred pound feeders and raised them to fat cattle before selling them. Most of the cattle went to South St. Paul.”

At age nine, he was out driving tractor and baling and raking hay.

By eleven, he was cultivating corn and beans. In 1973, the “fat” cattle business wasn’t doing well and Singlestad’s father took an off-farm position selling insurance for Farm Bureau. His father was also farming 320 acres, doing everything humanly possible to survive and perpetuate the farm including raising replacement heifers for a dairy operation four miles west.

In 1975, while in high school, Singlestad used a government loan to construct a building that could hold 150 feeder pigs for finishing.

He rented 30 acres from his father for growing corn as feed. About that same time, he was learning a great deal from Waseca high School agriculture instructors Jurgen Peters and Norm Bohmbach who taught production and record keeping, respectively. (Singlestad also would go on to attend University of Minnesota-Waseca, taking classes in agriculture production, ag mechanics, and animal production.)

Says Singlestad, “Learning the record keeping, especially, helped in my enterprises. They taught me raising hogs was one enterprise, corn another, and soybeans another, and at the end of the year I could see which enterprise was giving me the most profit for my labors.”

That first year, he could sell corn at the elevator for $1.36 a bushel, but by feeding the corn to the hogs, he could make $2.20 a bushel.

It was an extremely valuable lesson to learn.

Singlestad and wife Vicky married in 1979 and built a farrowing barn to start their farrow-to-finish hog operation. They were renting 100 acres and living next door to Singlestad’s parents. Vicky continued to work the next five years in town so the family could have health insurance.

In the ‘80s, farmers did more tillage, applied more fertilizer, and had more erosion than farmers today. They also did less soil testing and manure utilization, and didn’t map their fields. It was a different business altogether.

He narrows his gaze, and adds, “The 1980s were the roughest because of devalued land and crop prices tanking. My dad and I were using the same (farm) equipment. At first, he let me use his equipment for labor returned back to him. Then I started buying

Singlestad Farms | Waseca

in on the equipment, too. When land prices dropped, I had just bought 150 acres from my dad. Times were tight.”

What saved his bacon throughout the 1980s, literally, was his farrow-to-finish hog operation, which balanced out substantial losses from corn and soybeans. He was paying up to 15 percent interest on operating loans. He was also helped by a government program that paid him 26 cents a bushel to store 40,000 bushels of corn over three years, which was almost enough money to completely pay for the building he had constructed to store the corn.

He says, “I had many friends go out of business. There were auctions all over the place. It was pretty sad sometimes. There were a number of people who had just bought something at the wrong time.”

A number of farmers received government loans using corn as collateral, and, unable to pay back the loans, had to forfeit their corn.

The amount the government paid on the loans created artificial floors and ceilings for corn prices, which complicated the market and sometimes hurt the recovery.

Another government program in the late 1980s seeking to clear out an oversupply of corn allowed farmers to earn compensation for corn acres not planted in the form of certificates. The program favored Singlestad because he had corn in a storage unit paid for by a prior government program. He was able to use his certificates to purchase feed for his hog operation.

He says, “Worry in farming is the one thing that will kill you. You have to let it go.

When I make any decision, I will think about it three or four days pretty hard, and then make the decision and feel confident about it.”

He says, “Worry in farming is the one thing that will kill you.

You have to let it go. When I make any decision, I will think about it three or four days pretty hard, and then make the decision and feel confident about it.”

Whether these programs were effective or not, all the excess corn flushed through the system. Singlestad had squeezed through the 1980s by taking advantage of government programs and earning profits off his hogs. In the early 1990s, right around the time his dad began working less, he expanded his hog operation to 130 sows. In 2012, he and his wife decided it was time for a change. Their son, Michael, took over the hog operation by contract finishing hogs.

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By far the biggest reason for soybean pricing being high is China. He says, “About 50 percent of the soybeans grown here in the U.S. end up in China. They use it for livestock feed. They just don’t have the landmass, and their government has made the decision to grow corn and rice, and import soybeans. That’s what’s keeping the price of soybeans way up.”

Singlestad’s interest in soybeans deepened in 1988 after his wife showed him a newspaper article. He had been involved with Farm Bureau Federation, and with the local corn growers board, and so showed up one day at an announced meeting designed to rejuvenate Waseca County Soybean Growers.

He says, “Four guys showed up. A staff member from Mankato said he was out trying to get the Waseca County Soybean Growers going again. It was right next to Blue Earth County, where the state office was located. Another guy said he’d be treasurer. Another said he’d be secretary. The third guy said he didn’t want to be president but would agree to be vice-president. I was just standing there and hadn’t opened my mouth. One of them said, ‘Okay, you’re president.’

I had no idea what we were doing.”

Back then, the state office was pushing for developing soybean markets in the food industry, such as in margarine, cooking oils, and breads, and soybean meal for livestock. The primary purpose of the organization was to promote the research and sale of soybeans and increase its value to growers.

In 1992, Singlestad became the Waseca County representative to the state board. He lobbied at the state capitol for three years, and talked with legislators about soybeans and farming in general, such as farmer concerns about truck weights and farm-to-market roads. In 1992, he was the Minnesota representative of the DuPont/ Minnesota Soybean Growers Young Leaders Program, and through it visited DuPont factories in Delaware and Rep. Tim Penny and others at the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C. Over the years, Singlestad counts out a number of Congressional victories, including: soybeans being added about 12 years ago as a program crop along with corn and wheat; the Renewable Fuel Standard, which Congress enacted in 2005, authorizing a two

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Singlestad Farms | Waseca

percent minimum biofuel THE ESSENTIALS content in diesel fuel (later expanded to five percent in Minnesota); the recent 2012 Phone: 800-989-USB1 $1 per gallon blending credit Address: 16305 Swingley Ridge Rd which helps make biofuel Chesterfield, MO more affordable; and expandWeb: unitedsoybean.org ing markets in China.

Surprisingly, the biodiesel industry hasn’t been sparking much growth. Due to higher soybean oil costs, the biofuel part of biodiesel currently contains about 60 percent soybean oil and the rest comes from waste grease and fats, such as beef tallow.

By far the biggest reason for soybean pricing being high is China.

He says, “About 50 percent of the soybeans grown here in the U.S. end up in China. They use it for livestock feed. They just don’t have the landmass, and their government has made the decision to grow corn and rice, and import soybeans. That’s what’s keeping the price of soybeans way up.”

In 2008, Singlestad was named to the United Soybean Board (USB), the national organization overseeing checkoff dollars used for research and the promotion of soybeans. The largest user of soybean meal in the United States is the poultry industry. In 2012, Singlestad, through USB, visited China with the United States Meat Export Federation.

Singlestad says one goal of United Soybean Board has been to encourage beef and pork production here in the States to build up our economy. He says, “The idea is for someone here to raise the pig using U.S. soybean meal and corn, and then for someone else to be employed processing it, and trucking it, and someone else selling the pork for export.”

Soybean meal going to Canada and Mexico sometimes end up as pork brought back to the States. About 40 percent of U.S. fish consumption has been from aquaculture farms in China, and U.S. soybean meal often ends up as feed for Chinese fish, such as Tilapia and Grouper.

United Soybean Board

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Home now from his big trip to China, and wearing overalls on his way toward the door, Singlestad has day-to-day concerns about just trying to earn a living. He’s more an entrepreneur than anything.

His father got into and out of hogs, then into beef cattle, being an insurance salesman, and finally, raising dairy heifers. Singlestad himself became involved finishing hogs early on, survived the 1980s, and began a farrow-to-finish operation that lasted through 2012 when he and his wife decided to move onto something else. It was an easy decision given historically high corn and soybean prices.

He says, “My son was working a summer job through a grant program. When the grant ended, he moved back home. We offered to him the opportunity to take over the hog operation. We asked if he wanted to farrow-to-finish, and he said he only wanted to finish. I told him he better find a contract then. A guy called last February to ask if we could have two of our barns then filled with pigs emptied. I had all ours cleared out by the first of March and he brought in a thousand head of pigs. My son signed a contract and the pigs were in the next day.”

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Bean There, Done That

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Singlestad likes his lifestyle. He enjoys being his own boss and only 75 yards away from his parents.

But he also loves being involved in the soybean industry and one of the first farmers around to learn about the next big thing coming down the pike. He remembers biodiesel taking off in the early 1990s, when the soybean market had a glut of oil. Companies were building massive tanks to store the oil and depressing the market.

He says, “They then decided they could get rid of it by burning it.

Henry Ford used to burn peanut and soybean oil in his diesel-powered cars back in the day. They said if he can do it, we should be able to. So they started promoting production in the early 2000s, and it took off.”

“With GPS and satellite imagery, you can overlay all this and run your tractor over it without touching the steering wheel. There has been a lot of change the last five years.”

Singlestad’s only son, Michael, besides finishing hogs, works parttime at the University of Minnesota Southern Research and Outreach Center in Waseca. Between his son and the United Soybean Board, Singlestad feels as if he has a handle on the latest industry trends. For example, he says, “Things are changing all the time. There are new ideas on how to do tillage, how to make crop production cheaper and more environmentally friendly, and how to increase production and reducing the carbon footprint. My son recently was explaining to me what they call ‘vertical tillage.’ It’s a new piece of equipment that is set up to till slots into the ground. You are then supposed to come back and plant in the slots. With GPS and satellite imagery, you can overlay all this and run your tractor over it without touching the steering wheel. There has been a lot of change the last five years.”

Spenser Bradley brings a strong credit analysis background to the team and looks forward to helping area businesses succeed.

Contact Spenser at sdbradley@unitedprairiebank.com or 507.386.4834 to learn how we’ll help you get there.

Editor Daniel J. Vance writes from Vernon Center.

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For Scott Singlestad, farming has been generational. He helped his parents, and his grandparents, and his children helped him, and his parents. He used to pay his three children, Michelle, Michael, and Kristy to help with chores after school once they reached age 10. Eventually, they washed barns, fed livestock, and drove tractor.

Of their children, only Michael stayed with farming, but all carried with them a solid work ethic learned at home.

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Read the entire articles at connectbiz.com

1 YEAR AGO

MAY/JUNE 2012 Our cover story on Fairmont native and Kaldun & Bogle co-founder Stevens Vaughn began: “One summer about 30 years ago, he sang Hank Williams and other country artists’ songs and played guitar for polyester-clad Russian tourists in an Adriatic island hotel. In the Peace Corps, he imbedded himself in a sweltering Philippines revolutionary war zone and 25 years later with a group of artists worked there alongside impoverished basket weavers.”

Companies profiled: Elder Care Services (Madison Lake) and Mommysavers.com (North Mankato).

Memorable quote: “Showing up is half the game in China and the other half is knowing when to return home.”—Stevens Vaughn.

5 YEARS AGO

MAY/JUNE 2008 Our cover story: Cindy Rae Pautzke of Participant Centered Results (Mankato).

Companies profiled: Camas (Le Center) and Wendinger Travel (New Ulm).

Memorable quote: “The No. 1 mistake of a person leading any meeting is thinking it’s all about them.”—Cindy Rae Pautzke.

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10 YEARS AGO

MAY/JUNE 2003 Cover interview: Ed Bosanko of Watonwan Farm Service (Truman).

Profiled companies: Wenger Physical Therapy (North Mankato) and European Roasterie (Le Center).

15 YEARS AGO

MAY/JUNE 1998 Cover interview: Jerry Johnson of Clear With Computers (Mankato).

Profiled companies: Rainbow Woods (Le Center) and Davisco Foods (Le Sueur).

MAY/JUNE 2013

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51

Very New or Re-formed Businesses or Professionals New To Our Reading Area

FAIRMONT

Electric, respectively, his interests turned towards aviation. After getting his pilot’s and flight instructor’s licenses, he worked as a private and commercial license flight instructor, mainly teaching new flight instructors how to teach.

“Then this January, my wife and I were talking to my stepfather, who was building a new car,” said Thoreson. “He said there wouldn’t be races in Fairmont this year. Becky said we could (own/operate it) and we looked into it.” After receiving approval from Martin County Fair Board, they took over Fairmont Raceway.

The dirt racetrack features five classifications of IMCA-sanctioned racing Friday nights from May 3-August 30. Winners earn up to $500. About 650 people attending see almost 100 cars total in five races. Admission is $12 for adults, $6 for children. Becky handles community relations and communications.

Said Thoreson, “The (drivers) race just because they enjoy it. It’s in their blood.

They love the thrill of running a car and the potential of winning.”

Fairmont Raceway Al and Becky Thoreson became coowners of Fairmont Raceway this February after making a successful presentation to the Race Committee at Martin County Fairground and later, the Fair Board. The Thoresons lease the raceway.

Al was exposed to racing through his stepfather, Al Thoms, a Fairmont stock car racer. “I remember first going to the races with my mom and stepfather about 1989,” said 31-year-old Thoreson. “I thought it was really neat. The cars were impressive and loud. Fairmont had the old bleachers then. People liked going there.”

From 1998-2007, Thoreson’s stepfather raced at Fairmont Raceway and Thoreson helped in the pit crew. He also helped his uncle farm. After high school, he earned in 2003 an associate’s degree in Internet design and advertising from Minnesota School of Business. After stints working as an information technician, web programmer, and IT systems specialist with Thayer Publishing, James Tower, and Midwest

FAIRMONT RACEWAY Address: 1300 N Bixby Rd Web: fairmontraceway.com

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MANKATO

Life Story

ART SIDNER

As a child growing up in Fairmont, Amanda Dyslin was creative and always searching for fun things to do. However, she didn’t have a career focus until attending Minnesota State and taking English and journalism classes.

A journalism professor there told her, “It’s great to be good at writing, but you have to have some sort of trade to go with it,” said 32-year-old Dyslin. “He suggested journalism was one way to be creative and was an actual marketable skill. Also, I’m most interested in meeting new people and am a people person, and getting to know people and their stories has always interested me.”

While at MSU, she accepted a part-time Free Press job typing obituaries to get her foot in the door. An MSU adjunct professor and Free Press employee, Joe Tougas, had persuaded the newspaper to use her talents. She began full-time working there while finishing up a mass communications degree in 2003, and has been with the newspaper ever since.

“My absolute favorite stories have involved writing about the important events in the lives of everyday people,” she said.

“One story involved a man who called to tell (the newspaper) that his wife was dying of brain cancer. Before she passed away, he wanted to renew their wedding vows. He shared with me their love story and why it was important for him to (renew their wedding vows) as a symbol of his wanting to tell her he

loved her no matter what.”

Within the last year, Dyslin started Life Story part-time to help people preserve memories for their loved ones and friends—memories such as weddings, engagements, graduation, athletic achievements, a childbirth or retirement.

Stories and photos look and read like newspaper stories. Cost begins at $175. One client has hired Dyslin to chronicle all the events of a child growing up. Another surprised her parents with a Life Story anniversary gift.

LIFE STORY Telephone: 507-327-7510 Web: lifestorymankato.com

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HOT STARTZ!

Very New or Re-formed Businesses or Professionals New To Our Reading Area

Amber Pietan Travel Agency Amber Pietan’s Eagle Lake family used to take annual driving trips out West. She said in a Connect Business Magazine telephone interview, “We’d stay at KOA campgrounds and dad would make coffee and toast around the campfire. I have really good memories of traveling. We had lots of family bonding.

And in school, I always loved studying and reading maps.”

On these long trips, Amber and a sister enjoyed picking up information brochures from rest stops and pretending they were a hotel manager and a travel agent. Today, her sister works for Country Inn & Suites in Mankato and Pietan herself owns Amber Pietan Travel Agency, which began in February 2013.

After graduating from Mankato East, she went on to finish the travel industry program at Dakota County Technical College in 1998. Soon after, she vowed to a friend AAA would employ her one day, and a year later

she started with AAA in Mankato. The 38-year-old Pietan said, “I learned a lot there. They were great teachers. It was a very wellrespected business and I am proud to be a former employee.”

She continued, “I love my job because of the people I can help. To the people who can only travel once in life, I like helping them make their dreams come true. Every day here is different, never boring. One person wants to go to Bali and the next, Australia.”

She views herself as a travel interpreter rather than an agent—i.e., she does more than just click buttons. People ask her for practical advice. Over the years, she has traveled to Hawaii, Alaska, Great Britain, Morocco, Greece, Spain, Dominican Republic, Cancun, Acapulco, Gibralter, and all over the U.S. She said, “I am always learning about destinations, why people want to go there, and what makes the destinations special.” In addition to her many years of industry experience, she’s a Certified Travel Associate.

AMBER PIETAN TRAVEL AGENCY Address: 304 Pierce Avenue Telephone: 507-382-0669 Web: amberstravel.com

To be considered for one of three spots in the July Hot Startz!, email the editor at editor@connectbiz.com.

Businesses considered must have started—or changed greatly in form—within one year of our publishing date.

Professionals chosen must be new to our reading area.

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bors was hired for sales and business development, and Gary Jueneman was named senior executive vice president and general manager.

Southern Minnesota Surgical hired nurse practitioner Sara Kelzer, RN, BSN, WHNP.

Fairmont From the Chamber: Ambassador visits included Happy Owl Books (new business), Mega Coin Laundry (new business) Center for Primary Care (new owner, Dr. Corey Welchlin), and Marina Lodge (new business); Schweser’s relocated to 310 South State, and IFC National Marketing to 1307 Albion; and new Chamber members include Touch of County Custom Creations, Secretarial Plus Services, and Fairmont Raceway.

Mayo Clinic Health System-Fairmont offered four scholarships to local high school students pursuing healthcare careers.

Le Sueur From the Chamber: Wise Furniture began selling appliances; and Le Sueur Downtown Motel has new ownership and a new name, Valu Stay Inn & Suites.

Madelia From the Chamber: February/March/ April Businesses of the Month, respectively, were Madelia Ford, Arduser Seeds, and Enterprise Thrift Shoppe; a ribbon cutting for Noble RV was held at its Highway 60 location; and Shellee’s Greenhouse opened at 609 West Main.

Mankato From Heintz Toyota: Laurie Danberry earned the Toyota Motor Sales USA “Silver Level Sales Society Award” for the fifth year in a row, and was recognized as a Top 11 sales consultant in the Chicago region; Sales Manager Kurt Johnson received the 2012 “Sales Excellence Award”; and Marsha Hawker earned the Toyota Motor Sales USA 2012 “Bronze Sales Society Award.”

Glen Taylor of Taylor Corporation delivered the Minnesota State College of Business Annual Morgan Thomas Lecture on March 5.

Minnesota Pollution Control recognized Mankato’s wastewater treatment plant as outstanding in operation, maintenance, and compliance.

Byron Jost joined Region Nine Development Commission as a senior planner.

Small Business Development Center at Minnesota State was named Minnesota and Upper Midwest Region “SBDC Center

of Excellence of the Year” by the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Jennifer Pfeffer of Ecumen Pathstone Living was selected to serve on a National Association of Long Term Care Administrator Boards-affiliated 15-member task force.

Alpha Video & Audio hired Account Executive Jeanie Wohlers to cover southern Minnesota.

CityArt announced that artist Matt Miller donated his sculpture “Chasing My Tail Again” to City Center Partnership; and CityArt has sold at least four sculptures since November.

Ruthann Kragh of Thrivent Financial for Lutherans earned FIC (Fraternal Insurance Counselor) designation from the Fraternal Field Managers’ Association.

For the fifteenth consecutive year, The Best Lawyers in America selected Joseph Bluth of Manahan and Bluth Law Office for inclusion in family law.

From Greater Mankato Growth: GMG named John Considine as business development resource manager; new members include Unimin Corporation, ezIT, Ross Nesbit Agencies, The Boulder Tap House, Goodwill-Mankato, SoMNdeals, Minnesota Valley Action Council, Russell Associates, Amber Pietan Travel Agency, Ameriprise Financial Services-Mankato, Jake Bennett Agency/American Family, Theuninck Construction, and Realife Cooperative of Mankato.

Marco received the “2013 Community Impact Award” from Minnesota Business Magazine.

Ecumen Pathstone Living qualified for Pinnacle Customer Experience awards in ten areas, including overall experience and cleanliness.

From Gislason & Hunter: the 2013 list of Super Lawyers includes Michael Dove (Banking and Finance Super Lawyer, New Ulm and Hutchinson), Justin Weinberg (Banking and Finance Super Lawyer, New Ulm and Hutchinson), and Daniel Gislason (Mediation Super Lawyer, New Ulm and Mankato).

From Mayo Clinic Health SystemMankato: Marathon runners have been receiving training tips from MCHS-M physicians over the Mankato Marathon blog.

From Century 21 Atwood Realty: the company received the Century 21 Real Estate Corporation Gold Medallion award; the office received the Quality Service Pinnacle award; Mary Ann Donahue earned the Centurion award, President’s Producer award, and Quality Service Pinnacle Producer award; Deb Atwood and her Home Selling Team earned the Centurion Team award and Quality Service Team award; Jeff Kaul earned the Masters Diamond award and Quality Service Producer award; Peg Ganey and Dan Thielges received the Multi-Million Dollar Producer award; Ellen Gruhot and Dan Thielges have earned the Quality

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MAY/JUNE 2013

Service Pinnacle Producer award; and Peg Ganey, Linda Roth and Trent VanOrt earned the Quality Service Producer award.

From HickoryTech: the company foundation awarded 35 grants totaling $125,000 to nonprofit organizations in the company service area, including $15,000 to MSU, $10,000 to SCC, and $7,500 to Educare Foundation; the company announced Anne Dickau won its “My Life My Internet” video contest; HickoryTech reported fourth quarter revenue of $46.6 million, an 18 percent increase over 2011; and sales consultant Scott Wojcik earned a Minnesota Telecom Alliance “Excellence in Service Award” for his involvement with Kiwanis Holiday Lights.

Lime Valley Advertising received four Service Industry Advertising Awards, including one Gold, two Silver, and one Merit award.

Jay Thompson joined Wells Fargo as vice president/senior relationship manager.

Minnesota Association of School Administrators named Sheri Allen, superintendent of Mankato Area Public Schools, an “Administrator of Excellence.”

The Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards renewed the Certified Financial Planner Board registered programs at Minnesota State University.

Edward Jones Financial Advisor Sander Ludeman qualified for the firm’s “2013 Financial Advisor Leaders Conference.”

Homestead Realty (Winnebago and Mapleton) opened a 1600 Madison Avenue office.

The Zonta Club of Mankato, Business & Professional Women, and Women Executives in Business held a Women’s Night

Out event to benefit the YWCA Girls on the Run program.

Mankato Elks Lodge #225 donated 48 new state-of-the-art Honda lawnmower engines to Mankato Area Public Schools’ East and West high schools’ industrial technology classrooms.

From Leonard, Street and Deinard: the firm represented Minnesota Elevator in designing and manufacturing a $2 million elevator at the Barclay Center in Brooklyn, New York.

Caroline Wood of Inspired Aging was appointed member at large to Minnesota River Area Agency on Aging board of directors for the Southeast Area.

Greater Mankato Convention & Visitor’s Bureau launched its new “Mankato Now Playing” tourism brand.

Mapleton Pioneer Bank launched Kasasa Giving, which allows consumers to give charitably, and Kasasa Cash Back, a checking account offering cash rewards on debit card purchases.

New Ulm Associated Milk Producers delivered sales of $1.7 billion and earnings of $9.3 million in 2012.

Explore Minnesota Tourism Conference gave a “Marketing Award of Merit” to New Ulm Convention & Visitors Bureau for a social marketing initiative embracing the theme “Germans Have More Fun.” From the Chamber: New members include David Hirth Insurance Agency; Jim Bartels of KNUJ/SAM was inducted into the Minnesota FFA hall of Fame; 3M New Ulm received two corporate awards—the 3M Plantinum Award of energy conservation and the 3M MCE Eagle Award for maintenance-conscious engineering on a redesigned piece of equipment.

Cottonwood Grill hired chef Todd Kreilkamp.

New Ulm Menards opened on March 12.

From August Schell Brewing: the company released #7-American Barleywine, The Star of the North, and Goosetown

beers; and broke ground on a $2 million expansion to increase capacity.

From the Chamber: Gopher State Fire Equipment purchased Clancy’s Fire Extinguishers; Thriveon moved to 210 South 20th; new Chamber members include Sewing Seeds Quilt Company and Clancy’s Fire Extinguishers; New Ulm Journal employees Josh Moniz (New Journalist of the Year) and Steve Muscatello (Sports Photography) earned Minnesota Newspaper Association daily newspaper awards; and Chuck Spaeth Ford donated over $5,000 to Friends of ISD 88.

Nicollet From the Chamber: the Nicollet Chamber of Commerce welcomes Gretchen Alms Photography as a new member.

St. James Plaindealer hired Dawn Eichten as a sales associate.

Pioneer Bank named Dean Olsen as president.

St. James Veterinary Clinic hired veterinarian Dana Cannon.

Tabitha Johnson is the new St. James Chamber executive director.

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Clippertown Auto Repair Clipperton Auto Repair received the American Automobile Association “Top Shop Seal of Approval.”

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Pioneer Bank expanded 3,100 sq. ft., and Wilcon Construction was general contractor and I&S Group, architect.

Amber Pietan began Amber Pietan Travel Agency.

South Central College hosted the State Fire/EMS/Rescue School and Expo, which involved 600 firefighters from 168 fire departments and agencies.

Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation and Capstone joined for the eleventh year running to provide early learning materials to children through the BookStart program.

Greener World Solutions moved to a 37,000 sq. ft. facility at 33908 128th Street.

Kristi Corchran became an independent designer with Origami Owl Custom Jewelry.

From the Chamber: New members include Achieving Dreams for Disabilities of Waseca County, R&T Farms, Singlestad Farms, and Harguth Farms; the Chamber Ambassadors recognized Waseca Art Center for new renovation of a downtown building, Waseca County Historical Society for renovating its museum, and presented a “Roots” award to Melcher Power Vac for 30 years of business; First National Bank hired Connie Miller as vice president of mortgage lending; Brown Printing appointed Mike Amundson as president/CEO and also acquired Nellymoser, a Boston-based mobile marketing and technology company; Patton, Hoversten and Berg added Karie Anderson as associate attorney; Waseca Lakeside Club hired golf pro/manager Matt Hauge; iWealth/Brad Connors was recognized in the Top 10 with Investment Centers of America; and Roundbank will be featured on Discovery Channel’s “InView with Larry King.”

Sherburn From Regional Center for Entrepreneurial Facilitation: The Cup and Saucer and Sweet Shoppe will be given away to a person or family through an essay contest.

St. James Good Samaritan Society earned the St. James Chamber “Business Of The Year” award.

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For all the Obamaera talk of decline, there is at least one reason why America probably won’t, at least not quite yet.

“Peak oil” and our “oil addiction” were supposed to have ensured we ran out of either gas or the money to buy it. Now, suddenly, we have more gas and oil than ever before. But the key question is: Why do we?

The oil-and-gas renaissance was brought on by horizontal drilling and fracking that opened up vast new reserves previously either unknown or considered unrecoverable. Both technological breakthroughs were American discoveries, largely brought on by entrepreneurial mavericks and engineers exploring on mostly private lands. Couldn’t the Saudi, Venezuelan, Victor Davis or Nigerian oil indusHanson try have discovered these new methods of resource recovery, given their nations’ reliance on petroleum exportation?

The world now wakes up to iPhone communication, Amazon online buying, social networking on Facebook, Google Internet searches, and writing and computing with Microsoft software. Why weren’t these innovations first developed in Japan, China, or Germany—all wealthy industrial countries with large, well-educated, and hard-working populations? Because in such nations, young oddballs like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, or Steve Jobs more likely would have needed the proper parentage, age, family connections, or governmentinsider sanction to be given a fair shake.

Even in its third century, America is still the most meritocratic nation in the world.

Unlike under the caste system of India; the class considerations of Europe; the racial

homogeneity of China, Japan, or Korea; the tribalism of Africa; or the religious orthodoxy of the Middle East, in America one can offer a new idea, invention, or protocol and have it judged on its merits, rather than on the background, accent, race, age, gender or religion of the person offering it.

Businesses evaluate proposals on the basis of what makes them lots of money.

Publishers want writing that a lot of people will read. Popular culture is simply a reflection of what the majority seems to want.

In the long run, that bottom line leads to national wealth and power.

If history is a guide, the most savvy Chinese citizen of Japanese descent would not make it as a high official in Beijing’s Communist Party—no more so than a brilliant Japanese citizen of Chinese descent would run Toyota or Honda. A white Croatian of enormous talent could not end up as president of Sudan.

Mexico has a word, Raza, that conflates race and nationality, in the way that the German word Volk used to suggest not just being German, but looking German, as well. I doubt that either country would ever elect a black head of state.

It would be virtually impossible for the most talented Christian or Jew to be allowed to head contemporary Egypt, or for a brilliant four-star Buddhist general to run the Iranian military. For the immediate future, don’t expect a female businessschool valedictorian to manage Saudi Arabia’s national oil company. Note that in all these cases, such exclusions derive from criteria other than innate talent, character, and industriousness, and can result in the lesser qualified being considered the only qualified.

The mixture of consumer capitalism and constitutionally protected free speech— and all sorts of races, religions, and ethnicities—sometimes means that America can be a wild place with a popular culture that appears crass and uncouth to those abroad. Our generation’s $17 trillion national debt, unfunded entitlements, and nearly 50 million people on food stamps might convince the Founding Fathers that they had spawned license rather than guaranteed liberty.

Yet the upside to the wild arena of America is that almost anyone is free to enter it. Oprah Winfrey, an African-American

woman, reinvents the genre of daytime talk shows and builds a media empire. Warren Buffet outpaces New York’s Wall Street— from Nebraska. A one-time five-and-dime owner from Arkansas, Sam Walton, refashions the way an entire planet buys its stuff.

A Russian émigré, Sergey Brin, co-founds Google, perhaps the most indispensable site on the Internet.

Just when we read obituaries about an unruly nation of excess, unlikely nobodies pop up to pioneer fracking, the Napa wine industry, or Silicon Valley. Why? No other nation has a Constitution whose natural evolution would lead to a free, merit-based

society that did not necessarily look like the privileged—and brilliant—landed whitemale aristocracy that invented it.

The end of American exceptionalism will come not when we run out of gas, wheat, or computers, but when we end the freedom of the individual, and, whether for evil or supposedly noble reasons, judge people not on their achievement but on their name, class, race, sex, or religion—in other words, when we become like most places the world over.

Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

His The Savior Generals appeared this spring from Bloomsbury Books. This article first appeared in National Review (Online).

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While Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign fades in the rear-view mirror, the issues he ran on—particularly, his charge that President Obama is engaged in an economically disastrous “war on energy”—continue to inflame many conservatives. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the consternation over the shutdowns of coal-fired power plants across America, shutdowns that many conservatives blame on the Obama administration.

The Right should resist the temptation to score political points, however, and should instead cheer the closing of those plants.

Over the course of President Obama’s first term, 135 coal-fired power generators were shut down, and at least another 175 have announced that they will go dark by 2016. By 2020, about one-sixth of today’s coal-fired generating capacity will likely have disappeared. Why should conservatives applaud this news? There are two very good reasons.

The first reason is that these coal-fired power plants are being replaced by cheaper gas-fired plants. The gas-fired plants come courtesy of the revolution in hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”), which has delivered a vast supply of low-cost natural gas

to an electricity market that has struggled with steadily rising coal prices since 2001.

Smaller coal-fired plants are now more expensive to operate than gas-fired plants, and the price gap is narrowing for large plants as well.

Some have claimed that it’s not cheap gas that’s killing coal; it’s the regulations coming out of President Obama’s EPA, regulations that will cost coal-fired generators an estimated $126-144 billion in compliance expenditures. To be sure, the

Jerry Taylor

Peter Van Doren

EPA regulations are expensive, but fuel costs are a much more important factor in the decline of coal. An analysis from the Brattle Group, a consultancy specializing in economics, concludes that future coalplant closures will be “due mainly to lower expected gas prices.”

Peter Furniss, the CEO of Footprint Power, agrees. Speaking about the Salem (Mass.)

Harbor Power Station, which Footprint bought in August 2012, he explained: “When we were first looking at the overall project, it really was a toss-up as to whether it would be more the environmental rules or the gas

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The Brattle Group analysts concluded that shutdowns will not lead to any regional shortages of power, and while conceding that “it is plausible that there will be at least a transitory increase in wholesale energy prices,” they also said: “We generally expect that the effects on wholesale energy prices will not be very large or long-lasting.” price that was going to drive coal plants to shut down. It now is very clearly the gas price.”

Should we at least decry the economic dislocations that follow from all this? No. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that, in 2020, only 3,100 fewer people will be employed in coal mining than were employed in 2010, while the total output of coal mines will increase from $20.9 billion in 2010 to $27.7 billion in 2020. The job losses will be the result of increased productivity rather than declining coal production.

Complaints about the impact these coalplant shutdowns will have on consumers are equally ill founded. The Brattle Group analysts concluded that shutdowns will not lead to any regional shortages of power, and while conceding that “it is plausible that there will be at least a transitory increase in wholesale energy prices,” they also said: “We

generally expect that the effects on wholesale energy prices will not be very large or longlasting.” One might expect the predicted loss of 49 to 57 gigawatts of coal-fired generating capacity by 2016 to put stress on the generation sector, but the market can replace that much capacity — and more — in relatively short order. For example, 97 gigawatts of new electrical generating capacity came online between 2007 and 2011, a period of relatively slack demand.

The second reason conservatives should cheer the demise of old coal-fired power plants is that the survival of those plants stems from government interference in markets. Their closure will end the state-sponsored transfer of wealth from everyone else in the electricity-generation business to the owners of these old plants.

Almost all of the coal plants being shut-

tered were in operation before the passage of the Clean Air Act of 1970. That’s important, because the Clean Air Act imposed emission limits only on facilities built after its passage.

Plants already in operation when the act was passed were to be regulated by the states.

The EPA could require pre-1970 plants to adopt “best available control technologies” (as determined by the EPA) to limit air pollution — the same standards required of post-1970 power plants — but only if they underwent non-routine modifications that increased emissions.

Environmentalists didn’t mind this provision too much, because they thought the pre-1970 plants could not operate profitably for more than a decade or two. Their confidence was greatly misplaced, for two reasons. First, plant owners were able to modernize their grandfathered facilities

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without restriction until 1994, because the EPA did little to enforce the provisions requiring updated anti-pollution equipment. After 1994, the EPA decided to police modifications on a case-by-case basis. Those efforts have involved frequent trips to the federal courts to adjudicate difficult disputes about what constitutes a non-routine modification, which is legally equivalent to building a new plant. The industry’s legal and administrative resistance to enforcement added almost 20 years to the life of the old power plants, but court rulings against the industry’s position have now ended that tactic.

Second, the law’s exemptions provided a tremendous cost advantage for pre-1970 facilities relative to post-1970 facilities, and, until recently, industrial obsolescence has not increased costs enough to overcome this state-bequeathed advantage. Installation of a full complement of pollution-control devices, as required for new coal-fired power plants under the Clean Air Act, adds about 25 percent to a plant’s construction cost, and retrofitting those devices onto existing plants would certainly cost even more.

New EPA regulations and legal consent decrees have increased the costs of existing plants, but those increases are a minor consideration compared with the doubling of coal prices and the halving of natural-gas prices, which has finally offset the advantage provided by the unfettered right to pollute.

This is a good thing. The proper measure of whether the government is too large is not how much it taxes, spends, or regulates; it’s how much wealth is redistributed as a result. By grandfathering old coal-fired power plants, the government bestowed an artificial economic advantage on them, and, as a consequence, revenue that would otherwise have gone to owners of post-1970 coal-fired plants, gas-fired plants, nuclear power plants, and renewable-energy plants went instead to the owners of pre-1970 coal-fired plants. That this wealth transfer occurred indirectly, via regulatory policy, rather than directly, via fiscal policy, is not particularly important. We would surely object to a proposal to levy a special tax on every post-1970 power plant, with the proceeds going to owners of pre-1970 coalfired plants; yet the exemption for pre-1970 plants brings about exactly the same result.

Some conservatives argue that the Clean Air Act’s pollution-control regulations are indefensible, and that while it’s unfortunate that new plants are forced to comply with them, at least the old plants do not also have to do so. But can we really believe that their emissions impose no significant health harms on anyone? Most of the coalfired plants that have been or will be retired during the Obama administration lack any pollution-control devices. One can question current emissions standards and regulatory approaches without denying that some

regulation to control pollutants is necessary.

Environmentalists’ blanket hostility to fossil fuels has encouraged many who are hostile to environmentalists to defend the use of all such fuels. But that sentiment should not lead us to blindly defend the existence of all coal-fired generation anywhere, under any circumstances. Thanks to the revolution in hydraulic fracturing, the Clean Air Act’s economic favoritism is coming to an end, and low-cost naturalgas-fired power is reducing wholesale electricity prices. Those who believe in free markets should be pleased.

Jerry Taylor is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. Peter Van Doren is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the editor of the journal Regulation. This article appeared in the February 25, 2013 issue of National Review.

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