The Beat Monthly, Ed. 2, June 2022

HOW BIG BLUE PUT ROCHESTER ON THE CUTTING EDGE OF COMPUTING

an emphasis on end users, and an eye toward the long view.

In many ways, Rochester has been along for the ride. IBM’s iconic blue-glass facility brought brains, diversity, money, massive family picnics, prestige, and civic leaders to the city. When lay offs occured, the city felt them acutely, too.

While IBM has helped push Rochester forward, the products designed and manufactured here have shaped our world. Supercomputers designed and manufactured by IBM Rochester have been used to steward nuclear weapons, fore cast weather, further facial recog nition capabilities, and develop vaccines for Covid-19.

The first layoffs in the history of IBM Rochester occur after IBM suffers massive losses as industry demand for mainframe and mid range computers slows.

worldwide. Original ly codenamed ‘Project Silverlake,’ development on the AS/400 began in December of 1985.

IBM sells its campus for $33.9 million. The company retains a 12-year lease for 8 buildings. IBM Finance and Oper ations, the IBM U.S. Patent center, and several other teams remain.

IBM Rochester begins work on supercomputers in collaboration with the US Department of Energy. In 2005, Blue Gene L was the world’s fastest supercomputer. In this time period, IBM Rochester also begins work on microprocessors for the XBox 360, Sony PlayStation, and Nintendo.

Roadrunner achieves 1.026 petaFLOPs (one thousand million million float ing-point operations per second), the world’s first supercomputer to do so. Later that year, it is named the fastest supercomputer in the world. Several more supercomputers with ties to IBM Rochester would go on to hold that title.

Courtesy IBM

Courtesy IBM

Courtesy IBM

IN BRIEF

A FRESH TAKE ON AN OLD IDEA

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MEET THE TEAM

SEAN BAKER — Editor SARAH MILLER — Creative Director BRIANA BEYERSTEDT — Designer BRYAN LUND — Writer WILLIAM FORSMAN — Photographer

SPECIAL ELECTION SET FOR CD1

Former Hormel CEO Jeff Ettinger and ex-USDA official Brad Finstad will face each other in the Aug. 9 special election to fill the open First Congressional District seat. Ettinger, who held the top job at Hormel from 2005 to 2016, easily won the DFL primary in May. Finstad, a former member of the Minnesota House who served as director for USDA Rural Development in Minnesota in the Trump administration, narrowly beat out a more hard-line conserva tive candidate in State Rep. Jeremy Munson. The special election was called by Gov. Tim Walz following the death of GOP Congressman Jim Hagedorn. The First District stretches across southern Minnesota, and is mostly rural except for Rochester and Mankato.

BIOTECH FIRM RAISES $30M IN NEW INVESTMENT

Vyriad, a Rochester-based biotech nology company, has secured $29.5 million in new funding in its efforts to expand the use of its novel onco lytic virus therapies for the treat ment of cancers. The investment from Iowa billionaire Harry Stine brings the total amount Vyriad has raised since 2015 to more than $100 million. The company, founded by researchers from Mayo Clinic and the University of Miami, operates out of a 25,000-square-facility in the Rochester Technology Campus with about 70 employees. In 2019, Vyriad announced a collaboration and option licensing agreement with the pharmaceutical company Regeneron focused on the development of new virus-based treatments for various forms of cancer.

NEW OPERATOR FOR THE CHATEAU THEATRE

A local arts group has been given the keys to the historic Chateau Theatre. With support from the Rochester City Council, Threshold Arts has signed a three-year contract to acti vate the city-owned building, which has sat empty for much of the past two years. Threshold’s plans for the space include retail, gallery exhi bitions, theater, music, and other special events. The group’s direc tor expects the building to open in phases as renovations to the building take place. DMC officials have allo cated up to $250,000 to go toward bathroom renovations, AV improve ments, and new furniture, among other upgrades. City administration said all of the enhancements would benefit the long-term use of the space, regardless of the tenant.

PLANS FOR A THIRD DISCOVERY SQUARE BUILDING

The developer behind the first two buildings in the Discovery Square complex has begun talks with DMC about the potential construction of a third building in downtown Rochester. Mortensen construction’s plans call for a seven-story, 156,000-square-foot facility to be built to the south of the existing two Discovery Square build ings. The $73 million project would include lab space and biomanufac turing capabilities, according to DMC. Mortensen has requested $12.7 million in DMC funds for the project, though DMC Corp. board members suggested they would like to review a more detailed assessment of any potential public investment. Over the 20-year lifespan of DMC, Mortenson plans to work with Mayo to develop 2 million square feet of new research, commer cial and product development space in the 16-block Discovery Square area.

BRING BACK THE LAUGHS

Goonie’s Comedy Club is making a comeback inside the new Crooked Pint location, 1625 South Broadway. Like with past iterations of Goonie’s, owner Mark Klampe plans to bring in regional and national comedy acts to the Med City on Friday and Saturday nights. Klampe said renovations are under way at the new space, although an opening date has not been set.

MEXICAN POPSICLES ON THE WAY

A popular Twin Cities’ shop specializing in traditional Mexican popsicles and ice cream is expanding into the Rochester market. La Michoacana Purépecha plans to open this summer at 28 Ninth Street SE, next to Olmsted Medical Center’s Southeast Clinic. For more local business news, visit medcitybeat.com.

The Beat Crossword

01 One of the most famous candy bars in the galaxy, once known as the “Minneapolis Nougat”

03 This medical breakthrough earned two Mayo researchers a Nobel Prize in 1950

04 “Hawaiian steak,” made in Austin, Minn.

05 Co-creator of the unified medical record, a building downtown

10 A tangled-up game full of falls and awkward party moments

11 Toys that belong in the sandbox, originally invented and made in Mound, Minn.

14 Before Minneapolis-born Charles Strite came along, toasters didn’t automatically do this

07 A pedestrian’s escape from the Minnesota winter, pioneered in Minneapolis before spreading to Rochester in the 80s

08 In 1912, a St. Paul shopkeeper became the first to add this feature to paper grocery bags

09 Mayo cardiac surgeon Dr. John Kirklin became the first to perform a successful series of these surgeries in the mid-50s

12 Originally designed for hockey players training in the offseason, this product ushered in a new era of inline skating

Full-body uniform designed by Mayo during WWII to help prevent pilots from blacking out

Every year, 3M sells enough of this Minnesota invention to circle Earth 165 times

02 The “Breakfast of Champions,” this cereal helped propel a Minneapolis milling company to become a global name in packaged food

06 This smaller, softer version of an American pastime was developed by a Minnesota Vikings field-goal kicker

This bus line got its start in the birthplace of Minnesota’s most famous musical son

Rochester-made product for dry skin

This sport’s humble roots began in Lake Pepin in 1922 with a pair of boards and a clothesline

NOTABLE MINNESOTA BREAKTHROUGHS

A New Pulse in the Heart of the City

BY SEAN BAKER

After two years of construction, the east end of Peace Plaza has a new look — with Destination Medical Center leaders betting the project will be a catalyst for a resurgence in downtown activity.

Here are five things to know about phase one of the Heart of the City project.

01 02

AN

With 3 million visitors converging on the area each year, upgrading Peace Plaza was top of mind when the first DMC development plan was released seven years ago. Peter Cavaluzzi, the New York-based architect brought on to lead the master plan, had come to the conclusion that upgrading the Heart of the City would have the potential to make the biggest impact early on for DMC. “The first phase of every large-scale project has to be large enough and bold enough to have an impact, but at the same time it has to be small enough that it can be achieved,” he said in 2015.

PROJECT WASN’T CHEAP

The project came in at $19.4 million, above the initial estimate of $15 million. Much of the cost, about $15.4 million, went toward infrastructure; $1.6 million was spent on the design and engineering of the project; $2.4 million was put toward art. The price tag was covered almost entirely using state DMC funds. Key elements of the project included the remodeled plaza, an overhaul of the adjacent two blocks of First Avenue, and the replacement of underground infrastructure — stormwater, sewer, and other utilities — to support future growth.

FIRST AVENUE HAS BEEN TRANSFORMED

For Patrick Seeb, executive director of the DMC EDA, one of the most consequential components of the project was reconstructing First Avenue as a “people-oriented space,” rather than for cars only. “Many communities talk about making their city more pedes trian-oriented,” said Seeb. “This actually does it in a demonstrable way.” Along with the curbless street design, the abutting sidewalks have been enhanced with wooden benches tucked under rows of trees — providing visitors and workers additional space for respite.

PUBLIC ART IS BUILT IN

To integrate public art into the project, DMC commissioned works from three art ists, including two with international acclaim. The installations include a 26-foot-tall sculpture dubbed “Not So Private Sky” from Iñigo Manglano-Ovall ($520,000); “A Song for Water,” featuring a collection of pavers with words and phrases caved into them, produced by Ann Hamilton in collaboration with poet and Dakota historian Dr. Gwen Westerman ($735,000); and Rochester-based artist Eric Anderson’s “Wakefield” ($150,000), which produces a fog in the plaza everytime someone takes their first or last breath within the nearby hospital walls. DMC also spent $51,000 repositioning the Peace Fountain next to the water scrim feature. A lights-focused installation proposed by artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer was put on hold due to supply chain issues.

BUSINESS OWNERS ARE OPTIMISTIC

For Natalie Victoria, owner of Victoria’s Ristorante, this is the first spring in four years she has not had construction immediately outside of her business. Despite the pains of construction, however, Victoria — pointing to an expanded patio along First Avenue — said she is optimistic the project will lead to an upturn in activity in the area. “If you were to ask me maybe a year ago, two years ago, I would have said absolutely not. But this year, I am really optimistic.” Victoria, along with other business owners near the plaza, said they have already noticed an increase in foot traffic in the area since the project wrapped up last month. Still, in the absence of thousands of Mayo employees who continue to work remotely, Victoria noted that not all businesses have bounced back equally, and that it is going to take new ideas to bring locals back to the city center after an extended period of Covid and construction. Seeb, the DMC director, agreed.

“We need to work together to create a downtown that is a place that people want to come to, not where they are forced to by their employer,” he said.

Photo by William Forsman

THE BEGINNING

In the 1950s, IBM was looking to build a new manufacturing plant in a midwestern city. The field of eligible cities narrowed to Madison, Wis. and Rochester. The company, according to its archives, selected Rochester for its quality labor force, good schools, moral fiber, utilities infrastructure, and less powerful unions.

Initially, IBM Rochester had one focus: manufacturing. The first machine to roll off the produc tion floor of IBM Rochester was an IBM 077 Numeric Collator, a punch card machine developed in the late 1930s.

A development lab opened on the campus in 1961, leading to vertical integration of design and manufacturing. This turned the campus into a kind of human supercomputer, with nodes of experts all working toward one goal. That approach was high lighted with the development and launch of the AS/400 in 1988.

PROJECT SILVERLAKE

When Steve Will, chief architect for the operating system IBMi, arrived as a programmer in 1985, he was put to work on the AS/400 project. Back then, there was an understood dress code for the engineers, a quasi-team uniform, modeled after the IBM Service Corps, who were known for their NASA-esque white shirts and ties.

Bruce Buchardt started in man ufacturing that same year, where dress norms trended toward kha kis and a polo.

The AS/400 project was code named Silverlake. It aimed to combine two existing systems serving thousands of small and medium business clients. The resulting product was remark able at the time for its ability to integrate security, storage, and database into a single system. Thousands of clients world wide, from mid-size to large businesses, even Fortune 500 companies, made use of the sys tem over the following years. By July 1991, revenue from the AS/400 had reached roughly $14 billion.

“It was a driving force behind Rochester growing to be as big as it was in terms of the development of the platform. It was designed here, tested here, was built here,” said Will.

The success of the AS/400 con tinued, and by the early 1990s, IBM Rochester employed more than 8,000 employees — the most it would ever have. IBM has not divulged employee numbers since 2008, when it reported 4,200 employees, but a recent estimate using OSHA data by Post-Bulletin reporter Jeff Kiger puts the current number around 2,500 to 2,800 employees. (IBM did not confirm this number.)

As hardware changed over the years, the AS/400’s operating sys tem, OS/400, continued to work on new machines. Elements of it are still present in the modern IBMi operating system, which is used by banks, pharmacies, and shipping companies.

“If you order something today, online, it's probably going to get shipped by somebody who is using IBMi in the background to figure out where to pick it up, where to put it on the truck, how that truck gets here, etc.” said Will.

IBMi was officially launched in 2008, nine months after Will was named chief architect.

THE AGE OF SUPERCOMPUTERS

While Will worked to shepherd IBM’s clients into the modern age, others in the company were designing and building the fastest computers in the world.

Andy Schram was a program executive responsible for the CORAL program, which included Oak Ridge National Laboratories’ Summit supercomputer and Livermore National Laboratories’ Sierra supercomputer. In 2018, Summit and Sierra were the first and second fastest supercomput ers in the world.

Schram was hired in 1979 as a junior engineer; he began work ing on supercomputers in 2002, when IBM’s research department approached IBM Rochester to design the microprocessor and the interconnect system for super computers. Rochester’s vertical integration made the location uniquely qualified, as it had all the skills on one site to do hardware design, software design, and man ufacturing. The first supercom puter they developed was called Blue Gene L.

This project made full use of the IBM Rochester facility. According to Buchardt, who worked as a test analyzer on the project, IBM’s tool room even fabricated brand new tools (like a two-headed screwdriver) for specific uses on the project.

“It requires so much deep knowledge that there's not one person that actually could under stand, in detail, the entire process from high level design all the way through manufacturing,” said Schram of supercomputers.

Around the same time, a new division in IBM started devel oping the microprocessor for the XBOX360. They also worked on microprocessors for Sony PlayStation and Nintendo

systems between 2005 and 2008.

The microprocessor developed for PlayStation would go on to be used in the Roadrunner super computer, built in Rochester for Los Alamos National Laboratories in New Mexico.

In 2008, Roadrunner was the first supercomputer to reach one petaflop.

“In the world of supercomput ing, it was a major coup for IBM Rochester to design and manufac ture the first machine that reached the petaflop,” said Schram.

MANUFACTURING WIND-DOWN

Through much of its life, IBM Rochester manufactured main frames, PCs, typewriters, print ers, and cash registers. As markets changed, however, the campus

The ‘good old days’ were good, said Tory Johnson, IBM Minnesota Senior State Executive, Rochester Senior Location Executive, and VP of Supply Chain Engineering, Systems, but they also came with a thicker bureaucracy and less flexibility. He believes employ ees are far more entrepreneurial and empowered to make decisions now.

Consolidating IBM’s operations on the east side of the campus has allowed for a renewed spirit of culture and collaboration. Last year, IBM employees volunteered a total of 23,000 hours, according to Johnson.

On May 31, IBM announced its next generation of mainframe systems, the Z16 Artemis — which Rochester helps support. It

moved away from manufacturing.

In 2013, for example, IBM informed employees that serv ers would be assembled in Guadalajara, Mexico. At the Rochester location, employees like Buchardt helped teach their replacements. The company's shift abroad was notable enough that then-candidate Donald Trump touched on the subject during his remarks in Minneapolis on Nov. 6, 2016.

IBM Rochester now focuses on cloud computing, AI services, finance, and patents. In 2018, IBM sold its Rochester campus to real estate development company IRG. This meant the cavernous ware house and manufacturing spaces of the campus could be used by companies more focused on pro duction. In the past few years, can cer therapeutics company Vyriad, for example, moved into a space on the campus.

represents just one more step in the ceaseless march of innovation in tech.

The work at IBM Rochester has always bordered on indecipher able to laypeople, but as tech evolves, the ability for one per son to understand it all has gone away entirely.

“We design the computers on computers,” said Schram. “You can't touch them anymore. You can't probe them, you can't mea sure things necessarily. It's all so small, that you are looking at a computer virtual design of some thing that some other machine magically produces in a factory with chemicals and UV light, and all sorts of stuff that nobody can really see or touch. But at the end of the day, something pops out and you connect a few wires up to it and it works.”

Courtesy History Center of Olmsted County

within an hour of Rochester

Looking for an escape outside of the city? There is no need to travel far. From great bluffs to gorgeous waterfalls, there are 11 state parks within an hour drive of Rochester — each featuring their own distinct characteristics for planning your next epic Minnesota outdoor adventure.

NERSTRAND BIG WOODS STATE PARK

A four-season spot for recreation. Take in cool waterfalls in the summer, dazzling leaves come autumn, ski trails in the winter, and wildflowers in the spring. A plethora of trails and camp sites make this a great spot for an extended nature experience. Drive-in and walk-in campsites are available.

SAKATAH LAKE STATE PARK

Bring a kayak or canoe to paddle the calm waters of Sakatah Lake, a natural widening of the Cannon River. Anglers: drop a line in for walleye, largemouth and white bass, and northern pike. Bicyclists and in-line skaters can explore the 41-mile-long paved Sakatah Singing Hills State Trail, which goes through the park. Drive-in and bike-in campsites are available.

RICE LAKE STATE PARK

One of the most underrated parks in the region, Rice Lake offers a quaint camping experience, along with hiking trails, a picnic area, fishing pier, and canoe access. Drive-in, walk-in, and canoe-in sites are available.

BIG MYRE ISLAND STATE PARK

Perfect for a longer getaway. Cozy cabins, hiking and biking trails, and views of Albert Lea Lake are all highlights, while the Northern hardwood forest of 120 acre Big Island is an ideal place to birdwatch. Drive-in and back pack campsites are available.

LAKE LOUISE STATE PARK

Enjoy sunbathing and sandcastles at Lake Louise Beach. Hike across the bridge at the confluence of the Upper Iowa and Little Iowa Rivers. The park also offers an array of picnic options and hiking or horse back riding trails. The Lake Louise Dam, built in 1925, is a dynamic attraction. Drive-in campsites are available.

FRONTENAC STATE PARK

Thirteen miles of trails through prairies, wooden ravines, and along the bluffs. Picnic area with panoramic views of Lake Pepin and the Mississippi River Valley. Drive-in, cart-in, and backpack campsites are available.

JOHN A. LATSCH STATE PARK

This park features a challenging half-mile trek up stairs to the top of Mount Charity; once at the top, hikers are rewarded with stunning views of the Mississippi River Valley. Day use only.

CARLEY STATE PARK

A quieter alternative to Whitewater, Carley offers hiking along the Whitewater River through towering white pines and patches of wild flowers, including bluebells in early spring. The park also offers picnic areas, a playground, and 20 wooded drive-in campsites.

WHITEWATER STATE PARK

Explore 10 miles of hiking trails, including the Chimney Rock Trail with a scenic view of the Whitewater River. Relax on the sandy beach with spring-fed water, open May through Labor Day. Take a turn at fly fishing for brook, brown, and rainbow trout, or climb 110 feet to the top of the nearby Elba Fire Tower. Drive-in and cart-in campsites are available.

MYSTERY CAVE STATE PARK

Limestone cliffs, trout streams, and campsites for you (and your horses) are just the start of the attractions here. Stop in at the General Store in Historic Forestville, a restored 1800s village run by the Minnesota Historical Society, or spelunk around the Mystery Cave, which features striking stalactites and other cave formations.

GREAT RIVER BLUFFS STATE PARK

This park offers easy trails with scenic overlooks of Mississippi River Valley. Like other parks along the bluffs, bring binoculars to look out for water fowl, eagles, and hawks. Drive-in, cart-in, and bike-in campsites are available.

Historic hospital car brought back to life

BY SEAN BAKER

BEFORE COMMERCIAL PLANES AND VAST HIGHWAY SYSTEMS, IT WAS RAIL THAT HELPED PUT MAYO CLINIC ON THE MAP.

Now, thanks to a years-long restoration project at the National Railroad Museum in Green Bay, Wis., you can experi ence first-hand what it may have been like to board a hospital car bound for Rochester during the middle part of the 20th century.

After more than two and a half years of work, the museum recently unveiled the restored Joseph Lister hospital car.

Built in 1930 by the Pullman Company, the Lister transported patients and medical personnel to Rochester for more than 30 years as part of the Chicago and North Western Railroad — becoming an important part of Mayo’s early growth.

“To have this in the 30s, 40s, and 50s, and to be able to get that quicker connection — that was a huge deal for patients at the time. Because you were not going to drive that distance,” said Daniel Liedtke, curator of the National Railroad Museum.

To make the nine-hour ride from Chicago to Rochester as comfortable as possible for

patients, the Lister car had a number of engineering fea tures built in to reduce noise and vibration, including rubber shock absorbers between the car body and its trucks. The car also offered private rooms for sleeping and wider entrances for accommodating stretchers. According to the museum, as many as five ambulances would be awaiting the Lister’s arrival in Rochester, ready to take patients to Mayo. As noted rail road historian William Kratville described in his book, Steam, Steel & Limiteds, riding a train with the Lister car attached could be a sol emn experience.

passenger service to Chicago. Once the Lister was removed from service, the interior was gutted and turned into a bunk car for CNW rail crews. It was donated to the museum in 1988.

“It needed a full restoration,” said Liedtke. “We basically had the wheels and the shell of the car, and most of the interior was ripped out. Everything from the benches, to the sinks we have in the restrooms, the beds — all of that had to be reproduced to put back in here.”

To bring the Lister back to life, staff and volunteers at the museum referenced more than 100 detailed blueprints and pho tographs. The restoration team also conducted extensive metal work on the car, put in new wir ing, and gave the exterior a fresh paint job.

With the emergence of other forms of transportation, Mayo’s dependence on rail began to decrease midway through the century, and in the early 60s, CNW discontinued all rail

The car is now on display in the museum’s Lenfestey Center, alongside the likes of the Dwight D. Eisenhower and Union Pacific #4017 “Big Boy” locomotives. Liedtke said the museum plans to eventually make the Lister — named for the famed English surgeon who is best known as the founder of antiseptic medi cine — a permanent exhibit in an expanded part of the facility.

Photos courtesy National Railroad Museum

“It was always a som ber sight to walk to your sleeper, because there were many passengers heading for the Mayo Clinic for treatment,” wrote Kratville.

Photo by William Forsman

The Magic of Learning

BY BRYAN LUND

MAGIKIDS, A ROCHESTER-BASED NON profit, is showing kids the fun side of learning one mythical beast and arcane spell at a time. The organization provides free starter kits of Magic: The Gathering cards, as well as educational materials to kids across the nation.

They have the capacity to send out 30 kits a week, which means a reach of up to 10,000 kids per quarter. It’s a remark able achievement for an organization that relies on donations; luckily, Magic is a hobby that generates plenty of sur plus materials.

“Every magic player that you've ever known has bulk,” said Matt Decker, brand manager for the organization.

“Thousands of cards come out a year, and hundreds of those are never ever going to be played, whether they're just not high powered enough to play com petitively, or they're reprints or what have you.”

MagiKids gains its inven tory by attending Magic Fests and tournaments and asking for card donations.

After their first few tournament appear ances, according to Decker, “It got to be this magic spiral of people finding us

because they knew we took donated cards and what we did with them. It was not an exaggeration to say that, at one time, we had 2 million cards in hand.”

MagiKids kits come with roughly 5,000 cards and are absolutely free to recipi ents. Thanks to corporate partnerships, they’ve been able to provide the ancil lary things needed for a Magic game, things like deck boxes, deck sleeves, and dice. These items often come from things unsold in retail. Wizards of the Coast, makers of Magic: The Gathering, are sponsors.

In an interview with Med City Beat, Decker said MagiKids is so focused on distributing cards because the group sees the game as an educational tool.

“You can apply a lot of the tenets of real classical education to a learning device like Magic: The Gathering,” he explained. “You have to employ reading, you have to read the cards. It's computation, it's math; I have to figure out how much mana I can spend to cast this card against my opponents.”

MagiKids’ education lead is an award-winning middle school teacher who developed a curriculum for start ing to play the game. It teaches players

the most basic version of Magic, with a quasi-hidden emphasis on the edu cational aspects. The group provides educational kits to teachers, and is also teaching Community Education classes locally and working with the Rochester Boys and Girls Club. Later this year, they will attend the American Library Association’s annual meeting to continue expounding upon Magic’s edu cational value.

Locally, MagiKids has an office at 4229 W Frontage Road NW, next door to D6 Games. They have a small gift shop and run their main nonprofit offices from there. For more information, or to get involved, head over to magikids.org, or email info@magikids.org.

“It got to be this magic spiral of people finding us because they knew we took donated cards and what we did with them. It was not an exaggeration to say that, at one time, we had 2 million cards in hand.”

ON JUNE 19, 1973, MAYO CLINIC became the first health care institution in North America to conduct a computed tomogra phy (CT) scan. With an ability to produce full, 3D images of internal organs, the introduction of the CT scanner represented a medical breakthrough.

'REMARKABLE CLARITY'

Months before the first scan, Mayo radiologist Dr. Hillier Baker had traveled to England to learn about the emerging CT technology. There, Baker met

with Godfrey Hounsfield, the engineer who had pioneered the innovative approach to medical imaging.

It only took Baker a few hours of reviewing Hounsfield’s mate rials to determine Mayo needed a machine of its own. “As I saw the images, it was obvious that … the system was capable of dis playing with remarkable clar ity many pathologic processes involving the brain … the time was ripe for Mayo to acquire this technology,” said Baker, accord ing to Mayo’s files.

With authority from Mayo’s Board of Governors to order a scanner “on the spot,” Baker did just that — purchasing a machine for $350,000 (about $2 million today). The scanner was later installed at Mayo Clinic with Hounsfield, who went to share the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work, in attendance. Today, thanks to continued advance ments in medical imaging, more than 80 million CT scans are conducted in the U.S. each year.

The first commercial CT scanner to be used in North America, now on display in Mayo’s Department of Radiology; Courtesy Cynthia McCollough

SESSIONS

concerts will be happening all month in Peace Plaza. Hear local musicians, such as Amanda Jay (June 6), Luke Hendrickson (June 20), and My Grandma’s Cardigan (June 27). All performances go from 12:30 to 1:15 p.m. and are free to attend.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Civic Music’s forWARD Neighborhood Park Concerts bring touring musicians to municipal parks across Rochester. This month’s headlin ers are Twin Cities’ rockers Kiss the Tiger (June 8), Minneapolis singer-songwriter Humbird (June 15), and the Eau Claire folk group Them Coulee Boys (June 29). All concerts are free to attend. Just bring a lawn chair or blanket.

FARMERS MARKETS

FOR THE ARTS

JUNETEENTH CELEBRATION

Community members are invited to come out to celebrate Juneenth, presented by the Roch ester Branch of the NAACP. This year’s event — the second since Juneteenth was declared a federal holiday — will feature food, cultural programming, and live entertainment from LaSonya Natividad and The Soul Train.

One of the great things about living in south ern Minnesota is the access we have to fresh food. The asparagus and rhubarb in the spring; beans and strawberries in July; and corn and apples as summer winds down. If you can’t make Saturdays, the Wednesday market begins on June 15.

The Rochester Art Center is hosting a series of brunches featuring guided tours from different artists. Reservations are required. Tickets are $20 for adults, $10 for kids 10 and under, and $18 for seniors. Want to skip the meal? The tours, minus the food, are free and open to the public.

RACK POP-UP

BRUNCH

Café Steam is teaming up with local clothing designer Brooke Burch on another pop-up shop featuring a curated collection of vintage clothing and accessories. The event runs 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Leave your dad jeans at home.

Celebrate Pride Month with brunch and a show at CRAVE Rochester. Special guests will include The Rochester Girls and host Allota Shots. Shows begin at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Reser vations are required. Tickets are $10 per person and can be purchased through Eventbrite.

18th season of Thursday Downtown begins early this year, with two additional dates being added to the 2022 calendar. A summer staple

Rochester, the

and more than 60 musical performances now through August.

Rochester’s great annual celebration returns for a 39th season. Of note, there will be a spe cial musical tribute this year to former Mayor Chuck Hazama, who launched the first Roches terfest event. The performance will feature two artists from Hazama’s birthplace of Hawaii.