New Year, new sections

Congratulations on making it to another New Year! As a child, I never quite embraced the significance of celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of another — the 1st of January felt and looked exactly the same as the 31st of December, so what was the big deal? While I still think there’s something to be said for that, as I have grown older I have come to appreciate the reasons people commemorate the annual changing of the calendars — an awful lot can happen over the course of 12 months and the New Year is often the only time we give ourselves to look back at what we’ve achieved and endured, and look forward with an optimistic eye toward learning from the past year’s experiences.

While I’m not a rabid resolution-maker, I do see the New Year as a great opportunity to make changes, and we’ve made a few here at the magazine that I’m happy to introduce to you this month. First, we’ve opened up our column section to include contributions on all topics related to the region’s business community. By inviting businesses, researchers and community leaders to share their insight with us, we hope to better inform our readers on the many areas of interest in the northern Plains — from leadership advice to research breakthroughs, financial wisdom and industry updates.

Second, we’re going to profile an influential business person each month in a section called Business Insider. We kick off this new section with contributing writer Rob Swenson’s profile of McGowen Capital Group founder Gene McGowan — a self-made man by all accounts who turned a love of music into a 20-year career in the military before ultimately diving into the financial industry. He’s highly regarded among the Sioux Falls business community for his financial expertise and business know-how and, as you will quickly see in reading Rob’s piece, for being a really nice guy. Read more in “From music man to financial expert.”

We’re also launching a new section this month called Construction Corner which will highlight a different major construction project under way in our region each month. Construction trades and project developers are well aware of the many projects taking place throughout the northern Plains, but we realize that it’s hard for many others to keep up on the tremendous pace of development occurring throughout the area. This section aims to offer a few details on some of the most unique and largest projects being built.

I encourage readers to contact me with suggested subjects for the Business Insiders and Construction Corner sections. Also, if you are interested in submitting a column for consideration, contact me for details. We love to hear from readers and are happy to consider your suggestions.

Finally, it is with a bit of sadness that we say good-bye to our executive editor, Rona Johnson, who managed to find a place colder than North Dakota to call home. She is moving on to serve as publisher for a suite of publications in Alaska, and we wish her the best of luck. We’ll visit in the summer.