The 2019 &LEADERS LEGACIES Awards

At our 2019 awards ceremony, Prairie Business proudly presented our inaugural Leaders & Legacies Awards to the following executives, honoring those executives as some of the most successful and civic-minded leaders in our region. Congratulations to all!

Hal Gershman President, Happy Harry’s Bottle Shops Grand Forks, N.D.

Alan Richard “Dick” Dempster Founding principal architect, Architecture Incorporated Sioux Falls, S.D.

Alan Richard “Dick” Dempster “has devoted his career to community service and architectural stewardship.”

And you don’t have to take our word for it, for that’s the summary of the South Dakota chapter of the American Institute of Architects, when they awarded Dempster their very first AIA South Dakota Legacy Award in 2017.

The award testifies to Dempster’s lifetime of service and achievement.

Dempster and two partners founded Architecture Incorporated in 1976. The first office was located in the basement of Dr. Montoya’s Dental Clinic on East 10th Street in Sioux Falls, Architecture Incorporated reports.

Today, the company is South Dakota’s biggest architecture firm and is housed in Sioux Falls’ former Masonic Library, a historic treasure that’s one of many Architecture Incorporated has preserved.

Under Dempster’s leadership, Architecture Incorporated became one of the four founding firms that helped establish the state’s first architecture program at South Dakota State University.

Dempster was one of five initial incorporators of the Historic South Dakota Foundation, a nonprofit that supports historic preservation efforts.

The Housing and Redevelopment Commission, the Sioux Falls Planning Commission, the Sioux Falls Board of Preservation, the Downtown Sioux Falls Design Committee and the Children’s Inn Board also have benefitted from his direct involvement.

A past president of AIA South Dakota, Dempster holds a bachelor’s degree in architecture from Iowa State University.

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, the saying goes. Life gave Hal Gershman the fruit of the grape, and he made it into something even sweeter than wine.

Gershman became president of Happy Harry’s Bottle Shop – the liquor store in Grand Forks, N.D., that his father had founded – in 1976. Today, Happy Harry’s has two stores in Grand Forks and three in Fargo, N.D., but that’s just the start of the company’s recent history.

Twice named “One of America’s Ten Best” by Beverage Dynamics magazine, Happy Harry’s Bottle Shops now feature the largest selection of beer, wine and spirits between Minneapolis and Seattle, housed in striking buildings built to resemble barns.

“The real Happy Harry, Harry ‘Happy’ Gershman ... would, if he could see the family business now, be ecstatic,” Beverage Dynamics said in its 2010 cover story on the retailer.

“Also, astounded.”

But Hal Gershman’s record in civic and charitable works has matched his business success. Elected to the Grand Forks City Council in 2000, Gershman was chosen to be council president at his first meeting and remained president for as long as he stayed on the council, which was 14 years.

Meanwhile, in 2017 alone, Happy Harry’s contributed nearly $150,000 to charity organizations and events, while the Hal & Kathleen Gershman Family Foundation gave $192,633, Market Watch magazine reported.

The magazine cited the figures in honoring Hal Gershman with its 2018 Market Watch Leaders Community Service Award. And as Gershman told Market Watch, “it feels good to provide contributions, and it’s my belief that you always feel better giving than getting.”

Brian L. Johnson CEO, Choice Bank Grand Forks, N.D.

In 2000, when the $18 million Walhalla State Bank in Walhalla, N.D., came under a cease-and-desist order and the top three managers were removed, a recently hired executive spoke up. “I pitched the idea to our regulator that I could lead the bank out of cease and desist,” the exec said in a later interview.

The regulator listened, and the executive, Brian L. Johnson, became president.

He was 25.

By 2001, the $18 million bank was a $25 million bank and well-placed for the merger that year with three other banks, which would form Choice Bank.

Johnson rose through Choice’s ranks to become president and CEO in 2011. Choice Bank now has some 380 team members and assets of $2.15 billion, the company’s website reports.

Johnson’s accomplishments as CEO include such things as securing $100 million in local dollars for the bank’s most recent capital raise. This let Choice buy Venture Bank, a successful community bank in the Twin Cities, in 2018.

And his philanthropic commitment has helped the bank succeed in that area, too, as shown by Choice’s being awarded the Corporate Leadership in Philanthropy Award by the Northern Plains chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals in November.

In one year, Choice had helped raise $176,092 for hospice care and more than $40,000 for local food banks, while workers donated nearly 5,300 hours to the bank’s communities.

“Choice Bank’s reputation of being a PeopleFirst, mission-driven company is known throughout the region,” said Karen Crane, president of the AFP chapter.

The company’s leadership “has resulted in over $1 million in donations. We are honored to recognize them and their generosity.”