Made in Scott County

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SCOTT COUNTY

YOUR VISION - OUR TEAM - GREAT PROJECTS

SERVING OUR COMMUNITY FOR 27 YEARS!• Design/Build Services

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Commercial — Industrial — Agriculture

2 | April 2014 Made in Scott County

All the care you need, where you need it.St. Francis Regional Medical Center is your best choice for comprehensive health care. For years, the people of Shakopee have relied on us for

high quality medical services and respectful care. St. Francis has been distinguished as one of the best community hospitals,with top-rated patient satisfaction.We’ve grown into a comprehensive, state-of-the-art regional medical center,

offering all of the health care services you and your family need.

For more information on St. Francis Services, Physicians, Specialties orHealth and Wellness Classes, call 952-428-2000 or

visit www.stfrancis-shakopee.com

Advanced CancerCare Center

Advanced Diagnostics3-D Ultrasound and

Bone Density

Specialized Women’sHealth Services

Intimate FamilyBirth Place

Emergency andLevel 3 Trauma

Physical Therapy& Rehabilitation

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Top-RatedSurgical Team

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Made in Scott County April 2014 | 3

Edina RealtyEdina Realty Prior Lake/Savage/Shakopee

#1 in homes sales South of the RiverIt’s a great time to sell & buy….

Why not choose the best!

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Index Businesses featured:

Sensor Electronics ......................................4EquiScentials ................................................5Stealth Manufacturing, Inc......................6Fabcon ............................................................7By The Yard ...................................................8My Pillow .......................................................9Cedar Summit Farm .................................10Tarps Inc. ......................................................11Abdallah Candies .....................................12Continental Hydraulics ...........................14The Village Company ..............................16Midwest Military .......................................19Beauty in the Grain ................................. 20Gedney Foods Co. ....................................21Becker Arena Products, Inc. ................. 22Sand Creek Antler Products................. 23The Mulch Store ........................................24Dahlen Sign Company ........................... 25Seagate Technology ............................... 26

SCOTT COUNTY This special news section takes a close look at some of the “producers” in the southwest suburbs. Manufacturing provides a crucial foundation for jobs, commerce and quality of life for our region. We hope you enjoy learning more about some of the interesting products “Made in Scott County.”

We’ve only scratched the surface of local companies making great products. If you have an idea for a future “Made in Scott County” story, contact Richard Crawford at (952) 345-6471 or [email protected].


BY ALEX HALL

[email protected]

If your business re-quires your work to be done in a setting where toxic or com-bustible gases may ex-ist, Sensor Electron-

ics in Savage is determined to make sure you, your em-ployees and your equipment stays safe.

Sensor Electronics started in 1991 as a two-man opera-tion in Edina by Alan Peters-en. The business, which now has 15 employees, moved its headquarters to Savage last August. Sensor Electronics is now run by Petersen’s son, Alan Petersen, Jr.

The business manufac-tures a wide variety of gas detectors and analyzers to be used in industrial settings, and the detectors can sense hundreds of types of gases.

“We’re not the [carbon monoxide] sensors that you plug into your wall,” said Petersen, Jr., “we’re the ones that go into parking garages and offshore oil rigs and other places for much more industrial applications … basically to protect the plant and/or personnel from some-thing bad happening.”

In addition to oil rigs and parking garages, the detec-tors are also used in places such as chemical plants, industrial dry cleaning set-tings and oil refineries. They have a share of the local market, selling detectors to places including the Seneca Wastewater Treatment Plant in Eagan and large medi-cal device manufacturers,

but they also sell detectors to companies from around the world. Currently, their products are being used in 30 countries.

“We get into to some di-verse markets with our prod-ucts,” said Petersen, Jr.

The company can build about 24 detectors in a day, but then the high-tech devic-

es must go through rigorous testing and thermal calibra-tion. The business can send out an order in two-to-four weeks. The detectors are made with stainless steel and are explosion proof.

“They work all day, all night,” said Petersen, Jr. “They’re not designed to ever be powered down, they’re designed to be a very reliable system.”

While the detectors can each sense hundreds of gases, each model is essentially de-signed for a specific industry.

“We sell a lot of ammonia detectors to the refrigeration industry,” noted Petersen, Jr.

One of the biggest turning points for the company’s suc-cess was when Pat Smith, its chief engineer, developed an infrared sensor for detecting combustible gases.

“It’s quite unique how he’s designed the product,” said Petersen, Jr. “All of our competitors have mirrors in [the detectors], and they tend to corrode and have problems in higher-moisture atmo-spheres … It’s proven to be a very good sensor for our core-type business [partners].”

The devices with the in-frared sensors are noted for their reliability.

“Our power source [in those] is never going to burn out,” said Petersen, Jr. “It’s proven itself, because our product has been in the field for over 10 years now.”

Smith has obtained sev-eral patents for the prod-ucts he’s designed for Sensor Electronics. He’s currently working with NASA to cre-ate an ammonia detector for its space stations. NASA has previously been a client of Sensor Electronics.

Petersen, Jr. said the busi-ness will continue to look for “oddball markets” for its detectors, but that its future and continued success will likely come from Smith’s innovation when it comes to product development.

“Gas detection is a very mature market,” explained Petersen, Jr., “but we have some newer technologies and new twists that allow us to break into that market.”

Business geared toward industrial safetySavage company makes sensors that monitor dangerous gases

PHOTOS BY ALEX HALL

A row of recently completed industrial gas detectors at Sensor Electronics in Savage.

Sensor Electronics President Alan Petersen, Jr. shows a collection of contained gases used to fi eld test the detectors made at his company in Savage.

Chief engineer Pat Smith shows the intricate technology used inside the industrial gas detectors made at Sensor Electronics in Savage.

Just the factsBusiness: Sensor Electronics

Address: 12730 Creek View Ave., Savage

In current location: less than a year

Number of employees: 15

Facts:

- Products sold to businesses in 30 countries

- Produces approximately 5,000 gas detectors each year

- Detectors used at off shore oil rigs, refrigeration facilities, medical device manufacturers and more

Website: sensorelectronics.com

Team Solutions with Coldwell Banker Burnet is ranked in the top 1% of all Minnesota Realtor’s.Our services include staging for “FREE”. Free home preparation is unheard of in the Real-estateindustry. A service that cost most sellers thousands of dollars. We work with sellers to get their propertyset for todays market. With the use of the homeowners items along with designated staging pieces,we make our listings shine. Statistics have shown that a staged home will sell 26% faster and stagedhomes on an average sell 11% higher.

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BY LORI CARLSON

[email protected]

In the world of hair and skin care, hu-mans and horses are not equal.

Prior Lake horse owner and chemist

Tom Tweeten saw a need for coat and hair care products that work specifically for horses.

In 1996 he launched his own line, EquiScentials Horse Care Products, under his parent company, ATH Science Inc. (ATH stands for “About the Horse.”)

A fter years of g room-ing horses with products intended for human use, Tweeten got frustrated by the dry, dusty, oily results. As a horse show competi-tor, he wanted products that would specifically enhance a horse’s appearance while relieving skin irritations often caused by synthetic fragrances and harsh chemi-cals.

“I wanted to focus on a product for the benefit of the horse,” Tweeten says.

With more than 40 years of experience in analytical chemistry, Tweeten had a leg up on his competitors when he developed his six-product line for cleaning, maintain-ing and finishing horse hair and hooves. Tweeten is a Ph.D. with a long history of work in chemistry, from the food product industry and environmental testing, to personal care and pharma-ceutical products.

After working on a prod-uct for one of his horses, which had extreme coat problems, Tweeten intro-duced his coat enhancer at a horse show in Louisville, Ky. in 1996. Shortly thereafter, he started the seed corpora-tion for ATH Science.

Tweeten used his knowl-edge of dermatological com-pounds and non-allergenic ingredients to develop his product line, which har-nesses the benefits of more natural ingredients (such as glycerol instead of the harsher, commercially used propylene glycol. He pre-fers natural ly extracted fragrances such as certain types of citronella, which repel insects, instead of synthetically made scents.

The line of products is manufactured just over the Scott-Dakota county border in Burnsville. Tweeten has competitors in the horse-care product industry, but he says they mostly manu-facture their products out-side of Minnesota.

“It’s important to me to maintain that [locally made] identity,” he says.

He sells EquiScentials

through dealers, for tack shops and smal l-volume stores throughout the Unit-ed States, a way to provide somet hi ng chai n stores don’t sell.

“As a small business, I like to support small busi-nesses,” he says.

Tweeten continues to use his experience in chemis-try and his understanding of grooming as a means of communication in the ani-mal world. From his home in Spring Lake Township, in rural Prior Lake, he’s currently developing a line of dog care products called CaniScentials.

In between developing products, he manages Tweet-en Edgewood Stables and shows Morgan and Ameri-can Saddlebred horses. He

also gives presentations on horse care at expos, fairs and festivals throughout the United States, and he has led horse care clinics for Scott County 4H groups. He recently took on a student intern from St. Olaf Col-lege in Northfield, who is soaking up Tweeten’s vast

knowledge of horse care and chemistry.

Tweeten admits to strug-gling with the business side of his product line, saying he’s considering adding a business partner to make the company more finan-cially viable.

“The toughest par t of

being an entrepreneur is being all things within the company,” he says.

M e a nwh i l e , T w e e t e n works with horse owners and trainers throughout the country to test the ef-fectiveness of his products in a wide variety of envi-ronments (temperatures, humidity levels, etc.)

“The way you treat the hair greatly affects the way moisture and heat move

away from the body,” he explains.

“The idea is not to make the horse pretty, but a pretty horse may be the outcome.”

EquiScentials: Smart chemistry for healthy horses

PHOTOS BY LORI CARLSON

Tom Tweeten grooms one of his horses in his barn in Spring Lake Township, just outside of Prior Lake.

Tweeten fi lls bottles of horse coat enhancer in his home offi ce, where he also develops and manages his line of six horse care products.

The EquiScentials product line includes cleaners, enhancers, detanglers and moisturizers for horse hair and hoof care.

Just the factsBusiness: EquiScentials (ATH Science)

Address: 4190 190th St. E., Suite 10, Prior Lake

Years in location: 14

Number of employees: One principal, several in manufacturing

Website: equiscentials.com

Helping keep up appearances in equestrian world

“Th e idea is not to make the horse pretty, but a pretty horse may be the outcome.”


BY ALEX HALL

[email protected]

At age 19, Jeff H a m e l i n k started North Star Machine Company in the building

that now houses Adoration Church in Savage.

He made that company a success, but he dreamed of something bigger. So Hame-link and his staff started building new machines, and they ended up building a ma-chine that used a computer operating system to punch holes in steel tubing. That led them to make burner tubes, which are filled with hundreds of holes that emit gas so flames can be created.

Hamelink then established Stealth Manufacturing Inc. in 1990, and the business started selling the burner tubes to companies that made gas fireplaces. Stealth has since moved to another facil-ity in Savage’s Eagle Creek Industrial Park. Hamelink said the initial machine they had to make the burner tubes was unique in the industry as it “wasn’t a hard-tool me-chanical device.”

“Nobody in the industry had [that] at the time,” said Hamelink. “We were able to do things that customers wanted but vendors previ-ously said couldn’t be done.”

Today, Stealth sells to “vir-tually every North American manufacturer of gas fire-places,” said Hamelink. “We probably have close to 90 percent of the market.”

Hamelink said a recent study showed that one in three new homes in America has at least one of Stealth’s products in it. “It’s amazing,” said Hamelink. “We’re just this little place down here in

Savage, but our parts are so prevalent.”

For the fireplace burner tubes, variations in the pat-terns of holes affect the shape and placement of flames dis-played in the fireplace, and the size of the holes deter-mine the size of the flames. The size and placement of the holes are “very, very specific to how the flame is going to look,” said Hamelink. “The manufacturers put in a set of ceramic logs that the con-sumer is going to look at, so you have to have a visual fire that works with that log set.”

Each burner is custom-made to each client’s specifi-cations, and during the past 24 years, Stealth Manufactur-ing has created more than 8,000 different burner tube designs.

“Every model is made spe-

cifically for them and that burner never goes anywhere else,” said Hamelink. “We’re not making a product like toothpicks. These burners are like snowflakes: no two are the same. They’re all similar, but they’re all dif-ferent.”

Hamelink said there are probably four burner tube manufacturers in North America, but that Stealth is “the most original and unique.”

“We build all our own ma-chines,” said Hamelink, “and that very first machine [we made] has probably parlayed into the 40 different machines we have now. Some are pretty sophisticated laser, robotic machines. Our competitors don’t have the ability to make specific machinery.”

While burner tubes for

gas fireplaces have been the biggest money-maker for Stealth over the years, they do make burner tubes for other products. They design burner tubes for a company in Canada that makes incin-erating toilets for the Cana-dian military, some burners go into industrial size coffee urns, and they’ve even made burner tubes for cremato-riums used at veterinary clinics.

“Most anything that pro-

duces heat has a burner in it of some sort or another,” Hamelink said.

However, in the past five to 10 years, Stealth’s biggest focus has been an expansion into the commercial cooking market, meaning that they’ve been making burners for large stoves used in restau-rants. So far, the expansion has been a success. “If you get your eggs or bacon done at Perkins, chances are its [stoves] are going to have

burners in it from us,” said Hamelink.

Hamelink said Stealth Manufacturing is constantly working on at least one or two research and development projects, and in the coming years, Stealth will continue to focus on expanding its presence in the commercial cooking market.

“We want to be the indus-try leaders [in that market],” said Hamelink, “and we’re gaining strides. Fast.”

Keeping you warm and your eggs sizzlingSavage company a leader in heat products

Stealth Manufacturing, Inc. Owner and President Jeff Hamelink displays a steel burner tube used for gas fi replaces at the company’s facility in Savage.

A pile of fi nished burner tubes at Stealth Manufacturing, Inc. in Savage.

PHOTOS BY ALEX HALL

A Stealth Manufacturing, Inc. employee feeds a steel tube into a machine that punches holes into it. The holes allow the tubes to emit gas, which allows the tubes to provide fl ames for products like gas fi replaces and commercial stoves.

Just the factsBusiness: Stealth Manufacturing, Inc.

Address: 12511 Boone Ave., Savage

Years in Location: Operated in three diff erent buildings in Savage’s Eagle Creek Industrial Park since 1978 (started as North Star Machine Company)

Number of Employees: 25

Product: Burner tubes used in gas fi replaces, commercial stoves and more. Approximately 900,000 burner tubes produced per year.

Website: stealthmanufacturing.com


BY AMY LYON

[email protected]

Dr i v e n b y a Walmart store lately? You’ve seen them.

T r a v e l e d along County

Road 42 through western Burnsville? You’ve seen them.

And as Hy-Vee grocery stores continue to develop in the Twin Cities area, you’ll see even more of them.

They’re Fabcon’s No. 1 sell-ing product and they make up 95 percent of the Savage plant’s business: Versacore+Green precast concrete wall panels.

But this isn’t your one-size-fits-all panel of yesteryear. Aside from the ability to cus-tomize the panels in a range of thicknesses and widths to suit a company’s project, the panels have sustainability written all over them.

Versacore+Green pan-els incorporate 58 percent

recycled content, as well as the potential for increased LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) points. The proprietary mix and unique construction combine to deliver R-values (as high as R-21) that can lower heating and cooling costs.

And they look good while doing it, says Fabcon Presi-dent Michael Le Jeune.

The trend now is to create architectural precast panels that look like brick and rock, and come in a variety of styles and colors.

“We became architectur-ally certified two or three years ago,” said Le Jeune. “It’s another way we can di-versify our product.”

On an average summer day, the Savage plant pumps out nearly a mile and a half of precast concrete panels — ap-proximately 7,000 lineal feet.

A nd it ’s during those months that employment peaks at the Savage plant to about 300 workers.

Across the company’s oth-er locations in Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York, summer employment has been known to hit 800.

LOOKING AHEAD

Fabcon survived the eco-nomic downturn and is slow-

ly recovering, said Le Jeune. In fact, the company saw a record profit year in 2013.

Since its start in 1971, Fabcon has completed 11,000-plus projects — with well over 5,000 of them in Minne-sota. In addition to Walmart stores, Versacore+Green panels can be found on a va-riety of Target, Home Depot, Lowe’s and Menard’s stores.

From a construction stand-point, it takes about 12 days to enclose a 100,000-square-foot

building with the precast panels.

Big-box retail projects ac-count for about 40 percent of the Versacore+Green precast concrete wall panel business and industrial projects ac-count for another 40 percent. The other 20 percent are miscellaneous projects, Le Jeune said.

On the horizon are build-ings with less people and more elect ronic compo -nents. Buildings like Fab-

con’s recent project with Compass Datacenters in Shakopee, which is one of many such “server farms” popping up to provide must-have infrastructure for the computing systems of grow-ing companies.

“People think of ‘the cloud’ as being this imaginary place, but these data centers have millions of square feet of server farms,” said Le Jeune. “This could be bigger than big-box retail ever was.”

Casting a wide net in the precast concrete market

PHOTO BY AMY LYON

Inside the Fabcon plant, concrete is poured over foam insulation for the Versacore+Green panels.

SUBMITTED PHOTO

A new trend in precast panels, says Fabcon President Michael Le Jeune, is to create panels that are more architecturally pleasing and appear to be made from brick or stone.

VIDEO ONLINESTEP INSIDE

FABCON’S SAVAGE PLANTwww.savagepacer.com

Just the factsBusiness: Fabcon

Address: 6111 W. Highway 13, Savage


No. of employees: 250-300 (Savage plant)

Website: www.fabcon-usa.com

About: Manufacturer of precast concrete panels used on exteriors of Walmart buildings in 30 states, as well as many buildings for Home Depot, Lowe’s, Menard’s and Hy-Vee grocery stores.

Panels can give architecturally pleasing illusion


BY KAITLYN EGAN

[email protected]

Wh e n g a z -i n g over your gar-den while lou ngi ng i n p a t i o

furniture created by By the Yard Inc., things may look a bit greener from where your sitting. Every piece of fur-niture made by the Jordan business uses plastic lum-ber, which is created from recycled clear plastic.

The material is known as recycled high density poly-ethylene, or HDPE, with the highest percentage coming from milk and water jugs.

For the past 19 years, own-ers Deb Anderson and her husband, Roger, have been using their own secret plas-tic lumber recipe, which Anderson says yields the best product on the market.

“The quality of our mate-rial surpasses anything else you’re going to find in the U.S.,” she says.

By the Yard offers over 180 designs in nine colors, and warrants the furniture won’t crack, break, splinter

or peel since their unique recipe doesn’t allow the flex-ible polymer to break down or become brittle from the sun or cold.

It took three years to “tweak” the recipe to per-fection, despite the fact that there are few ingredients. The key is in the foaming agent, basically the amount of air in the mix, says Ander-son. More air means a less-expensive product, but that

also means a lower-quality product.

But that’s not an issue with By the Yard products — the company’s furniture is g uaranteed to last 35 years. In fact, there have only been nine returns in 19 years. Most of them had nothing to do with the qual-ity of the product, Anderson says. Many products were returned because they ended up being too large for the

space.The company’s material

is also considered colorfast and won’t fade more than 3 percent over a 10-year period (a color change that isn’t noticeable to the human eye).

The furniture is also easy to maintain, since it never needs paint or stain. The only maintenance may be a good cleaning, which can be done with water or non-abrasive cleaner, including

bleach. High-pressure wash-ing may be just the ticket for lighter colored pieces.

GROWING BUSINESS

Anderson used to make Adirondack chairs with her grandfather and started making chairs using plastic lumber as a hobby, she said. Friends asked her for a set, and then so did their friends. It didn’t take long before she realized she couldn’t keep up with demand. So Anderson quit her job and started By the Yard out of her garage.

About four years later, she won a bid to provide Cascade Bay in Eagan with 40 tables and 160 chairs.

“That was a project too big for my garage,” Ander-son said. At that point, her husband quit his job to help and the couple rented a space in Shakopee. In 2003, By the Yard moved to Jordan and its current location.

Now, the business has already outgrown its home, and Anderson is hoping to move her business across the nearby highway and greatly expand her floor space.

All By the Yard products are made in Jordan and can be purchased from the showroom there. The patio furniture also made pilot appearances at a few Schnei-derman’s and Bachman’s lo-cations last year. This year, By the Yard furniture will be available at all Schneider-

man’s and Bachman’s loca-tions, ranging from Duluth to Rochester.

By the Yard is also sold at retailers across the country and can be found at plenty of home and garden shows as well.

Plus, “our online sales have just gone through the cei ling,” Anderson said, attributing that to the com-pany’s easy-to-use website.

Though she mused, “it still amazes me how many people will buy a chair that they haven’t sat in.”

By The Yard designs for a lifetime

By the Yard Inc. has over 180 patio furniture designs, including these gliders.

PHOTOS BY KAITLYN EGAN

Demytro Vovk pieces together one of By the Yard’s patio tables.

Did you know?By the Yard Inc. patio furniture is built to last, no matter where it ends up.

According to owner Deb Anderson, a pastor of a church felt six Glider chairs would be the perfect addition to an orphanage in Jamaica. The long-lasting plastic chairs would be perfect, since the island’s humidity and termites easily destroy wood.

By the Yard donated the chairs, but shipping them turned out to be unreasonably costly.

Instead of giving up, the pastor tucked individual pieces of the chairs in his suitcase and flew to the island himself, multiple times. It took about a month of back and forth to get all the pieces there, Deb recalls, before the pastor assembled the chairs himself.

Not long after, there was a terrible storm that hit the island, but Deb said she received pictures of the Gliders, which all withstood the storm just fine.

Just the factsBusiness: By The Yard Inc.

Address: 16775 Greystone Lane, Jordan



Website: www.bytheyard.net

Facts:

Only nine returns in 19 years of business

10 percent of By the Yard’s business is custom work

Over 180 styles of products in nine earth-tone colors

Glider line is the best seller

There are 463 gallon jugs in the Days End Rocking Chair

Products are guaranteed to last 35 years

Plastic sawdust is recycled and also used in experiments to make jet fuel

Jordan company has more than 150 patio furniture designs


BY PAT MINELLI

[email protected]

Spend five minutes with Mike Lindell and you know this man will not be s l o w i n g d o w n a ny t i m e s o o n .

Spend another five minutes with him and you’ll learn his Shakopee manufacturing plant won’t be slowing down either. In fact, it’s sometimes operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, churning out MyPillow products.

Lindell’s plant, which em-ploys between 200 and 250 people in Shakopee, produc-es between 10,000 and 15,000 pillows a day. It’s quite a leap from just a few years ago when he started making the pillows during the evenings at home after working his regular daytime job.

And business is hot, as MyPillow thrives by using Lindell in infomercials and appearances on television programs to hawk the vari-ety of pillows the company makes.

“They told me to get a movie star. They said this would never work,” said Lin-dell, explaining the reaction he got from marketing pros when they learned that Lin-dell himself would be push-ing his company’s products.

But Lindell proved the experts wrong, as he has over and over since starting

MyPillow in 2004. And he has a successful company, which has sold more than 4.3 mil-lion pillows, to show for it.

The growth of MyPillow has been on a steep upward climb ever since a 30-minute infomercial and the opening of a store at the Burnsville Center mall helped propel sales from about $3 million in 2010 to more than $100 million in 2012.

Lindell, a former Carver County bar and restaurant owner, invented the pillow after suffering from back problems and having prob-lems sleeping. After years of research and studying human anatomy, he con-cluded that people have back pain and problems sleeping because they use poorly constructed pillows. He can give anyone who will lis-ten an anatomy lesson that would put a chiropractor to shame, but basically, what Lindell concluded was that for a restful sleep, the human neck must remain stable and even in relationship to the rest of the body. That’s pretty

much it.But, he said, there were no

pillows on the market that would hold their shape — or the neck — for long.

He decided to design his own pillow and began experi-menting with various kinds of fill. Finally, after years of looking and testing 94 differ-ent kinds of foam, he found the material. The only draw-back was he needed to find a way for the filler material to retain its shape. Again, after a long search, he found what he needed.

The result: a poly-foam fil ler for which he has a patent.

The difference between his products and pillows sold elsewhere? “Shape reten-tion,” said Lindell.

“You can pay good mon-ey for pillows you buy in stores and they’ll lose their shape not long after you buy them, and you have the same

sleep problems,” Lindell said. When a pillow loses its shape, he said, the neck’s po-sition in relation to the rest of the body changes and the sleeping and snoring prob-lems start all over again. “It’s like a garden hose when you bend it,” he emphasizes.

He calls most pillows “the number-one non-disposable product that doesn’t work.”

The answer, Lindell loves to tell you, is MyPillow.

“I guarantee it’s the most comfortable pillow you’ll ever own.” You’ll hear him say those words on infomercials and in print advertisements. And he stands by his claim. His company offers a 60-day money-back guarantee and a 10-year warranty that the pillow will not go flat.

Not only will they retain their shape for about a de-cade, Lindell said, but his pillows stay cool (“you don’t have to turn them over”) and

unlike many pillows, they can be washed and dried. “In fact, we recommend washing them,” he said.

Lindell’s pillows are cus-tom-fitted for each customer, depending on the broadness of his or her shoulders.

In need of more space, he moved his operations from a smaller building in Carver to a 70,000-square-foot Sha-kopee facility on 12th Avenue East in 2012.

In addition to the 200-plus employees at the Shakopee plant, MyPillow’s corporate of fice and call center in Chanhassen employs an-other 100 to 150.

The products have ap-peared on the television home - shoppi ng cha n nel QVC, which presented MyP-illow with the 2013 Q-Star Award for Product Concept of the Year. “It’s unheard of for a pillow to win that award,” said Lindell.

MyPillow products are also available at stores such as Walmart, which sells the pillows for $59.99, and at Bed Bath & Beyond and Target.

The products can be found in the Twin Cities area at Rosedale mall in Roseville and at the Burnsville mall. They are also available at the corporate showroom at 950 Lake Drive in Chanhassen. They are also sold in malls in North and South Dakota, Iowa and Nebraska. In addi-tion, several employees are fanned out across the country weekly at such places as state and county fairs and garden and outdoors shows to show the products. They are also available in stores on military bases and even the Pentagon.

In addition to bed pillows, his company features bed toppers, pet beds, travel pil-lows and body pillows.

And Lindell says there are more products on the way.

MyPillow production not ready to rest

Several employees at the Shakopee plant sew the materials that will become pillows. The fi nished products are carefully inspected.

A worker at the Shakopee plant carefully fi lls a pillow with poly foam. The plant meticulously puts the same amount in each pillow, which are inspected and weighed.

Just the factsBusiness: MyPillow

Company start: 2004

Employees: 200 Shakopee, 100-plus in Chanhassen

Pillows sold: 4.3 million

Pillows made daily: 10,000-15,000

Products: Bed toppers, pet beds, travel pillows and body pillows

Website: www.mypillow.com

Shakopee plantchurns out morethen 10,000pillows per day

PHOTOS BY PAT MINELLI

Mike Lindell stands in his Shakopee warehouse near pallets loaded with foam, which will be processed to become a poly-foam fi ller for his pillows. He holds a patent on the material.


BY AMANDA MCKNIGHT

[email protected]

Do e s a n y o n e r e m e m b e r t h e d a y s o f the milkman, w h e n e a c h day you had

organic, non-homogenized milk delivered right to your doorstep?

Dave and Florence Minar of Cedar Summit Farm in New Prague remember. And while they don’t deliver to customers’ doorsteps, they do produce delicious, organic,

non-homogenized milk from 100 percent grass-fed cows.

“Cows are made to eat grass,” Florence said. “They just do better and are much healthier if they’re fed an all-grass diet.”

Cedar Summit Farm has

been in the Mi na r fa m-i ly for fou r generations. Florence and Dave bought it from Dave’s p a r e n t s i n 1 9 6 9 a n d f a r me d t he land, growing corn and al-falfa and rais-ing Holsteins, until 1993.

In 1993, the Minars decid-ed to sell their milking herd and start fresh by building a new milking parlor. At that time, their milking cows were still fed both grass and corn, but as time went on, they decided to rethink their approach.

“When cows eat corn they get acidosis,” Florence ex-plained. “It takes a stronger acid to break down the corn than it does the grass, so they get upset stomachs.”

Not only is corn bad for the cows, but it trickles down to how healthy a corn-fed cow’s milk is for humans.

“Our diet is supposed to be equal amounts Omega 3 and Omega 6,” Florence explained. “The minute you start feeding them even small amounts of grains, the Ome-ga 3 plummets.”

While organic, grass-fed milk is a little more spendy than commercial milk, Dave

and Florence said the taste and health benefits are worth it for many fami-lies.

A c c o r d -ing to Dave, Cedar Sum-mit Farm’s target mar-ket is young families with children, be-cause many parents are

b e c o m i n g more savvy about what they put into their children’s bod-ies.

“All the good stuff that milk does for you is killed (in commercial milk),” Florence said. “(Commercial milk) has gradually gotten so bad that people don’t even realize it.”

Nearly three-quarters of the milk sold by the Minars is whole milk, as opposed to about 12 years ago when three-quarters of the milk sold was skim. Over time, milk consumers have learned that the health benefits of milk are in the fat, making whole milk a good choice in moderation, Dave said.

Milk isn’t the only product coming from Cedar Summit Farm, though. The Minars also sell organic, grass-fed ground beef, steaks and roasts, and they raise pigs in the summer. Organic turkey

and chicken is brought in from other Minnesota pro-ducers to be sold in the farm store.

There’s even a company in Mankato, called Alemar Cheese, that buys milk from the Minars and makes it into cheese. One of Alemar Cheese’s most recent cheeses is called Good Thunder, and it is soaked in Surly Bender beer.

Good Thunder is not for the faint of heart, though. It is an incredibly robust cheese best served with bread or crackers and maybe a dab of honey.

When it comes down to it,

Dave and Florence Minar are passionate about the animals they raise and the land they take care of, but they also love their customers. They don’t see as many customers as they used to several years ago when they would attend farmers markets each week, but they still get to see the ones who buy straight from the farm instead of from lo-cal co-ops.

“Meeting customers and the people part of it is what’s so great,” Dave said.

“That’s one part a lot of farmers don’t like,” added Florence, “but we always found that a lot of fun.”

Farm focus is on ‘all the good stuff’ in dairy

Dave and Florence Minar own Cedar Summit Farm.The calves graze while this one takes a second to scratch his head.

PHOTOS BY AMANDA MCKNIGHT

The Minars own around 120 milking cows on Cedar Summit Farm in New Prague. Their cows are 100 percent grass fed.

Just the factsBusiness: Cedar Summit Farm

Address: 25830 Drexel Avenue, New Prague


About: Cedar Summit Farm is the only grass-fed creamery in Minnesota

Website: www.cedarsummit.com/

Company also sells organic ground beef


BY TOM SCHARDIN

[email protected]

What do the R e d H o t Chili Pep-p e r s a nd t h e P r o F o o t b a l l

Hall of Fame have in common?They’re both customers of

Tarps Inc. The Savage-based company has been in business since 1975, manufacturing vinyl and canvas products for marine, commercial and industrial applications.

Keith Teltester bought the company in 2007 from its origi-nal owner, Don Williams. In its infancy, Tarps Inc. was a tire shop doing oil changes. It evolved into making rec-reational-style boat covers and transportation tarps for freight haulers, which make up around 50 percent of the business.

“The company has really evolved over time,” said Tel-tester. “Back in the day, they did oil changes. They did any-thing it could to make money. Slowly but surely, we trans-formed.

“On the highways, if you see flatbed trucks or any grain truck, anything that has a tarp, chances are we made it,” added Teltester. “We are all over the country.”

And all over the world. Tarps Inc. makes up to 10,000 document pouches a year for Thermal King, which go on shipping containers to mul-tiple overseas destinations.

That’s the small manufac-turing part of the business. The document pouches are an example of how diverse the company has become. It even makes zippers.

Go to a music concert lo-cally and chances are the vinyl coverings were made by Tarps Inc. Teltester said he works with multiple produc-tion companies.

He’s also worked with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The funk/alternative rock band out of Los Angeles came to Tarps Inc. directly to create vinyl and canvas coverings for their stage show.

“They manage their own tour,” said Teltester. “They sent me a bunch of pictures of their concert and stage and we

designed some coverings for it. It was pretty cool.”

The Pro Football Hall of Fame also came to Teltester. So every year, the induction ceremony in Canton, Ohio has a Tarps Inc. stamp on it.

The Minnesota State Fair and the Renaissance Festival have custom-made applica-tions at numerous vendor sites made by Tarps Inc. So does Valley Fair in Shakopee.

What’s Teltester’s secret weapon? What makes his company standout among his competitors? It’s many things, but he said the No. 1 weapon is the Radio Frequency Welder.

Teltester’s said it’s the only one in Minnesota and, as far he knows, he’s the only tarp maker in the industry with one.

The seams from Tarps Inc.

products are not sewn. They are welded by the Radio Fre-quency Welder.

“It’s permanent — it never comes apart,” said Teltester. “Stitching can rot over time. This won’t. It’s what sets us apart.”

“We have a really great rep-utation,” added Teltester. “We produce the best of the best, the best quality and longevity. We’re not the cheapest, but we make the best and people are willing to pay us more based on our reputation.”

Notre Dame University paid Tarps Inc. for 3,500 linear feet for a covering for the indoor auditorium, as well stage cov-ers for their graduation cer-emonies.

Inside Tarps Inc., there are three parts to the business — their smaller and bigger

application sides and the re-pair business. The company will take tarps made by other companies and repair them.

Depending on the size and lead time, it doesn’t take long to make an application. Most can be made in a single work day.

“If it takes more than a day to produce something, it has to be rather large application,”

said Teltester. “And we don’t throw anything away. We can use all our scraps. We try not to waste anything.

“Our coverings are the most durable known to man,” added Teltester. “You can’t physically tear them. We’ve been around 40 years, so we’ve tested everything presented. Nothing performs better than our product.”

3501 County Rd 42 WestBurnsville, MN 55306

2 miles west of B’ville Center on 42

952.890.4770abdallahcandies.comM-F 10-6:30, Sat 10-4

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Giving Back:

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Hennepin Technical College is an affirmative action, equal opportunity educator and employer.

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COMPLETE AUTO SERVICE & TIRESBrakes • Exhaust • Oil Changes • Air Conditioning

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952.496.2656 104 N. Market St. SHAKOPEE

Tarps Inc: They’ve got it all coveredSavage-based business manufactures vinyl tarps and canvas products

PHOTOS BY TOM SCHARDIN

The Radio Frequency Welder is what helps set Tarps Inc. apart from the competition. The Savage-based company has been in business since 1975 manufacturing textile product like boat covers, lift canopies, awnings, shade clothes and much more.

Tarps Inc. in Savage makes up to 10,000 document pouches a year for Thermal King and many go on shipping containers that go all over the world.

Just the factsBusiness: Tarps Inc.

Product: Custom Textile Manufacturer, provide protective solutions for both indoor and outdoor environments.

Address: 7329 West Highway 13, Savage

Phone: (952) 890-1610

Website: www.tarpsinc.com

Employees: 9

Annual sales: $1 million in 2013

Years in business: Founded in 1975

LOCATION:19375 Fairview LaneJordan • Minnesota

SCOTT-CARVER THRESHERS ASSOCIATION32ND ANNUAL CONSIGNMENT AUCTION

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Saturday, May 3rd & Sunday May 4th, 2014


BY KAITLYN EGAN

[email protected]

There are no oom-pa loompas or giant chocolate-frothing water-falls behind the scenes at Abdal-

lah Candies in Burnsville, but that doesn’t mean the chocolate is any less magical.

Although Abdallah Can-dies manufactures 8,000 to 10,000 pounds of candy each day, the company still main-tains the highest quality and a hand-made touch that makes each item special.

In 1901, CEO Steven He-gedus’ great grandparents Albert and Helen Abdallah opened the first store on Lake Street and Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis.

Albert came to the United States from Syria when he was 17, Hegedus said, and married Helen, who was from Monticello. Though their marriage was uncommon in their day, the two loved each other very much and went into business together.

Abdallah Candies had four retail locations early on, but now has just the one manu-facturing and retail location in Burnsville. The company sells directly to consum-ers and retailers including Lunds & Byerly’s, Kowalski’s Markets and specialty shops, said Hegedus, ensuring con-sumers get a fresh product.

You can also find Abdallah Candies at nearly 7,000 retail-ers across the country.

There’s plenty of products to choose from since Abdal-lah Candies offers over 200 varieties of delicious confec-tions. Consumers likely know Abdallah Candies for its boxes of assorted chocolates, but the confectioner also of-

fers sugar-free chocolates, caramels, toffees, truff les and candy dish favorites.

“I think people are sur-prised to hear how many things we actually make,” Hegedus said.

Consumers may also be surprised to know Abdallah Candies supplies other con-fectioners and manufactur-ers with Abdallah-made cara-mel, marshmallow frappe and other ingredients. You may even find an Abdallah chocolate in another com-pany’s box.

Some ingredients or items are hard to make, explained Hegedus, so other confection-ers just buy it from Abdallah Candies.

Currently, the company is looking to relocate to a larger

facility, either locally or perhaps out o f t h e r e -gion, after s e v e r a l years of s t e a d y growth.

“We’re s t u f f e d , ” Hegedus said. “We’re nearly to capacity in our building.”

MADE WITH CARE

In many cases, the choco-lates are made using ma-chines from Europe since they know how to do it best, said Hegedus, but all the chocolates were developed in the United States.

“Everything was done

r i g h t here in the

heart of the Mid-west,” he said.

Some of the machines even date back to the 1940s and make items in small batches (like the 800 pound batches of caramel).

Though it may seem old fashioned, “changing the equipment is like chang-ing the recipe,” Hegedus explained.

The factory floor resem-bles an amusement park for candies, with winding assem-bly lines, chocolate cascades and a giant, water-cooled caramel wheel.

Abdallah Candies uses several techniques to create confections, including molds, hand dipping, extruding and “enrobing” (that’s when the candy, like a vanilla center, travels under a waterfall of chocolate for its coating).

Most candies travel down an assembly line where the confection is cut into bite-sized pieces, jiggled over chocolate for its bottom lay-er and then covered by the Enrobers (machines that waterfall the chocolate over each piece). Then the candies travel under the “Stringer,” an invention created by He-gedus’ grandfather that uses little chains to create the

swirl on top of each chocolate.As the candy nears the end

of the line, a worker uses a stick to pop any chocolate bubbles, ensuring the can-dies stay moist and fresh. Then other workers add the finishing touches like a dash of sea salt or the “V,” “M,” or “O” stamp hinting at the vanilla, maple or orange fill-ing inside.

Finally, the candies are checked, sorted and boxed by hand.

And, if you’re curious, He-gedus said Abdallah Candies is working on five new items, including one brand new item in the dark chocolate family.

“[The new products] are going to be geared more to-wards personal- or self-con-sumption than gift-giving,” he hinted.

Four generations of chocolate-covered goodness

PHOTOS BY KAITLYN EGAN

Vanilla Cream centers travel under the “Enrober” to get their chocolate coating.

A giant wheel rolls out a sheet of caramel that will later be cut into bite-sized pieces.

Did you know?Abdallah Candies are a good bet when you need an indulgent tasty treat, whether you live nearby, across the country or on another continent.

CEO Steven Hegedus said Burnsville Mayor Elizabeth Kautz enjoys the chocolates herself, but added Abdallah Chocolates are also the only ones she will take with her on world travels to give as gifts.

Of course she is a supporter of local businesses, but “she’s doing it because she just loves the chocolate,” Hegedus said.

Just the factsBusiness: Abdallah Candies

Address: 3501 County Road 42 West, Burnsville

Years in current location: Almost 14 years in the current location and in Burnville since 1965


Website: www.abdallahcandies.com

Candy notes:

Make milk, dark, white and sugar-free chocolate candies

Over 200 varieties of candy including chocolates, truffl es, caramels and toff ee

Best sellers (three-way tie): Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Caramels, Milk Chocolate Alligators, Butter Almond Toff ee

Fasting growing product: Fresh Whipping Cream Truffl es

Produce 8,000 to 10,000 pounds of candy per day

Also sell their caramel, marshmallow frappe, chocolates and more to other manufacturers

Invented the “Stringer,” which puts a swirl in the chocolate on top of the candy

“Enrobers” are the machines that fl ow chocolate over the candy

Produce 1 million caramel apples in two months for local markets

Abdallah Candies sold at nearly 7,000 sites around country


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belleplainemn.com952-873-5553

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Services and Advantages atPrime Security Bank

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Independent Living • Assisted Living • Memory Care622 Aberdeen Ave., Jordan, MN 55352

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To schedule a tour or receive more information,call 952-492-5559.

For lunch, dinner or Sunday Brunch, you will find our food, serviceand atmosphere to be superior by every measure.We have six special occasion facilities are sure to please any group,from 20 to 150 guests.Spacious screened in decks with a delightful view of the nativewaterfowl, pest FREE dining in Minnesota at its best.Join us at the Rib Tickler located in Dangerfield’s for outstandingcomedy shows every Friday and Saturday night. Call to reserveyour seat.

1583 East First Avenue • Shakopee952.445.2245

www.dangerfieldsrestaurant.com

BY AMY LYON

[email protected]

When pa s -s e n g e r s board the St a rGa z-er, a sim-u l a t i o n

attraction found in theme parks, museums and zoos around the world, they don’t typically think about what’s under their seats. Instead, t hey’re more concer ned about what’s showing on the big screen in front of them and the way the seats will lift and jolt, allowing them to “ride” the movie.

Continental Hydraulics of Savage manufacturers the proportional control valves that are used in the StarGazer motion bases – essentially giving lift and movement to the ride.

Here’s how it works: The StarGazer is a seven-seat, six-degrees-of-freedom, 4D motion platform. When the high-definition film pro-jection system suggests a movement – a pitch, rol l or yaw, for example – the

motion base moves the au-dience’s seats. For action-type films, this requires fast response times, smooth control of the power, preci-sion and quiet operation.

The hydraulic mo -tion base simulator uses six cylinders, each one utilizing a proportional valve — Continental’s VE-D03MJ proportional valve, to be exact, featuring high-power and heavy-lift capaci-ties.

In the event of a power loss, the fail-safe function enables the simulation seat to go to a rest position, allow-ing occupants to exit safely.

Previously, the StarGazer used traditional servo valves from another company — an option that was widely used before the creation of modern proportional valves with integrated digital elec-tronics.

According to Chris Bent-ley, vice president of sales and marketing for Conti-nental Hydraulics, some of the benefits of newer propor-tional valves over the servo valves include servo-like precision at a fraction of the cost, increased up-time and reliability due to contamina-tion issues with servo valves, and higher efficiency since proportional valves don’t waste energy at neutral.

The proportional valve used on the StarGazer is just

one of Conti-nental’s products.

According to Bentley, in its manufacturing facility on Highway 13, Continental cre-ates “20 to 25 products with thousands of applications” to the tune of about 300,000 components each year.

Those applications span from uses in outer space and under the sea, and hundreds of options in between.

“They’ve been used by the space industry, NASA,” said Bentley. “We build parts for assembly lines for cars... it goes on and on.”

Continental hangs its hat on the ability to build prod-ucts that can be relied upon in the harshest conditions — whether its petroleum explorers drilling for oil, food processors requiring wash-down cleansing or the StarGazer providing thrills to hundreds of riders per day.

And while the various products have complex ap-plications, Bentley said the

b a s i s fo r C o n t i n e n t a l Hydraulics is simple: “Our products make things move.”

Product puts the thrill in theme parks

SUBMITTED PHOTO

The StarGazer thrill ride features seven seats, six-degrees-of-freedom and a 4D motion platform. When the movie suggests a movement — a pitch, roll or yaw, for example — the motion base moves the audience’s seats.

Just the factsBusiness: Continental Hydraulics

Address: 5501 W. 123rd St., Savage


No. of employees: 88

Website: www.continentalhydraulics.com

About: Continental Hydraulics manufactures 25 to 30 products with thousands of applications — from outer space to under the sea and all areas in between.

Control valves give lift , movement to park rides


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[email protected]

He ’ s t h a t bouncy pink bubble that h a s b e e n the delight of bath time

since 1961, but for the last six years, Mr. Bubble has also been a point of pride for Chaska. That’s when The Village Company acquired the line and brought the bubble to town.

“It’s such an iconic brand in the bath category,” said Laura Eisen, vice president of marketing for The Village Company. “Our company makes bath products so it was a perfect fit.”

The Village Company has been located in the Jonathan Industrial Park in Chaska since 2004. Before moving to town, it was known as Minnetonka Brands. The company has 11 employees and a series of product lines.

Mr. Bubble joined The Village Company’s existing lines that include Village Naturals and Sesame Street products.

“We’re now the steward of a brand that’s 50 years old,” said Eisen, of Mr. Bubble.

“A lot of people have really fond memories of the brand,” she continued. “They remember their childhood and a lot of good memories. It’s our challenge to keep that going.”

Mr. Bubble was created in 1961 by Harold Schafer and the Gold Seal Com-pany. It was the first time a bubble bath had made its way into drug stores rather than being available solely in department stores as a luxury item.

The first Mr. Bubble was

a powdered bubble bath that was advertised as being able to “bubble kids clean” and leave no bathtub ring. The product was eventually converted to a liquid form.

Eisen said Mr. Bubble stands apart from its com-petitors because it is “gently formulated, tear free and pediatrician tested.”

When The Village Com-pany acquired the line in 2008, it was reformulated to create more bubbles and a gentler clean. In addition to the bubble bath, Mr. Bubble is also featured in a 3-in-1 body wash, shampoo and conditioner, a foam soap and fizzy bath bombs.

In 2011, Mr. Bubble cel-ebrated his 50th birthday. Just in time for the momen-tous occasion, The Village Company introduced a new look for Mr. Bubble, continu-ing his style evolution.

“We gave him a facelift,” said Eisen. “To make him look more contemporary.”

Mr. Bubble’s pink face was brightened and his fa-cial features strengthened to bring him in line with more modern cartoon char-acters. “We take great care to make him appealing,” said Eisen.

After five decades, Mr. Bubble hasn’t missed a step and he continues his reign over the bubble bath realm. Eisen said that Mr. Bubble is the No. 1 bubble bath brand in the United States. In 2013, The Vil-lage Company produced 80 million ounces of Mr. Bubble Bubble Bath — the equivalent of 40 million bubble baths.

The Village Company is ready to make sure Mr. Bubble has got at least an-other 50 years ahead of him. Eisen said the strength of the brand depends greatly on its iconic bubble man.

“[Mr. Bubble] put us in a unique position,” said Eisen.”He’s is a strong char-acter plus a good product.”

Eisen said their market-ing department is currently working to craft a story line for Mr. Bubble to further

enhance his appeal.“The character is re-

ally fun,” said Eisen. “Right now we’re working on de-

veloping a story for him that’s fun and exciting, too.”

So how would Eisen de-scribe that bouncy pink

bubble? Without a second of hesitation she answers, “He’s funny and whimsical. Quirky even.”

An iconic brand for bath timeFunny man is face of bubblemaker

Just the factsBusiness: The Village Company

Address: 124 W. Columbia Court, Chaska



Business/product: Bath products

Fun facts: Mr. Bubble is the No. 1 bubble bath brand in the US. In 2013, The Village Company produced about 80 million ounces of Mr. Bubble Bubble Bath in Chaska, which is about 40 million bubble baths!

Website: thevillagecompany.com

SUBMITTED PHOTOS

Mr. Bubble was acquired by the Village Company in 2008.


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BY TOM SCHARDIN

[email protected]

What started out a s a hobby has t u r n e d into prof-i t a b l e

business for John Bizal.The owner of Midwest

Military in Prior Lake, he manufactures and supplies collector military vehicle parts. He caters to World War II and Korean-era, Dodge-built vehicles, Korean-era Jeeps and other WWII ve-hicles.

“I have not let the busi-ness overtake the initial focus — ‘the hobby,’” it says on the company’s Facebook page. “I’m still an avid col-lector and restorer.”

Bizal started the business as a hobby in 1991 and in 2000 it became incorporated. Last year, he did $1.3 million in gross sales. He has five employees and he works out of an 8,000-square-foot ware-house that is filled with all types of vehicle parts on one side, while the other side is manufacturing.

Bizal owns 14 military-style trucks and jeeps that are road ready. He takes them to parades, provid-ing he can find drivers for them all. His collection is displayed every year in Prior Lake’s annual Memorial Day Parade.

How did Bizal get started?“I started messing with

these trucks when I was 16,” he said. “I bought my first one to keep when I was 28 or 29. For me, it was an oppor-tunity to make money. I put myself through two years of college buying and selling military trucks.

“From there, it took off,” he added. “I’ve had countless trucks since then.”

Bizal said when he began trying to restore the vehicles he bought, parts were tough to find. That’s where the manufacturing side of the business came into play. He decided he could make the parts that were no longer available.

And thus, his world-wide

business was born.“Where do you go to get

your parts?” said Bizal, who went to the University of Wisconsin-Platteville for industrial technology (1979-84). “You can’t go to NAPA. So collectors turn to some-body like me. We are a pretty much a mail-order business. I get very little walk-in traf-fic. The UPS driver is my biggest costumer.”

Bizal’s 1944 Ford GPW World War II Jeep made the

cover of Military Vehicles Magazine in February of 2013. He’s part of the Mili-tary Vehicle Preservation Association, including the Red Bull Chapter in Minne-sota that has 160 members.

Bizal has taken five of his vehicles to the national con-vention and won first prize for restoration with each of them.

M a ny of t he vehicles and trucks Bizal restores are from 1940 to 1965. He’s

shipped parts to customers in South Africa, Australia and Russia to name a few countries.

“Pick a country and I’ve probably sent parts there,” said Bizal.

One of his customers was a sheikh in the United Arab Emirates.

“That’s about as close to famous as anyone I’ve made parts for,” said Bizal. “I’ve got clients in their twenties all the way to their eighties.

If you drive down the road and see an old military truck in someone’s yard and you buy it, you are now my client. I cater to Joe Average.”

Bizal’s company manu-factures about 600 different parts. He will also reverse engineer original equipment manufacture parts if it will help his clients.

Repair panels, brackets, floor pans, antenna brackets, support channels and bum-pers are just a small sample of the parts manufactured by Midwest Military.

“There is no one common part,” said Bizal. “It’s all over the map. Whatever the client needs, we try to make.”

“If you would have told me when I first started I would have an operation this size with employees I would have said you were crazy,” said Bizal. “It’s been a fun way to make a living.”

One-man hobby becomes big businessMidwest Military manufactures collector vehicle parts

John Bizal, owner of Midwest Military in Prior Lake, stands next to a old military jeep that is being restored for a customer with parts manufactured by Bizal’s company.

PHOTOS BY TOM SCHARDIN

There are shelves fi lled with different parts like repair panels, brackets, fl oor pans, antenna brackets and bumpers at Midwest Military, a supplier and manufacturer of over 600 collector military vehicle parts.

John Bizal’s 1944 Ford GPW World War II Jeep made the cover of Military Vehicles Magazine in February of 2013.

Just the factsBusiness: Midwest Military

Product: Antique Military truck parts and Custom Sheet Metal Fabrication Services

Address: 16075 Highway 13 South, Prior Lake

Phone: (952) 440-8778

Website: www.midwestmilitary.net/

Employees: 6

Annual sales: $1.2 million in 2013

Years in business: Founded in 1991


BY LORI CARLSON

[email protected]

For kids, playing with dolls is all fun and games. But for parents, the hobby — with its plethora of

accessories and furniture — can deal a wallop to the wallet.

Beauty in the Grain’s Jodi Boller takes that investment seriously, as she proudly cre-

ates handmade, long-lasting, beautiful doll furniture with quality woods such as pine, maple and oak.

Since 2011, the longtime woodworker has operated Beauty in the Grain out of her Prior Lake home, using the wood shop at her dad’s home in Burnsville.

Boller primarily makes furniture for 18-inch dolls (including American Girl), such as bunk beds, armoires, tables and chairs and Ad-

irondack chairs. The items include handmade fabric bed-ding, pillows and canopies by another Prior Lake artisan, Jocelyn Einarson.

With its natural wood and handcrafted design, the prod-uct line is aesthetically ap-pealing, but also strong and ready to withstand child’s play. Chairs recline, drawers open and closets stand ready for hanging doll clothes.

“It’s made to be played with,” Boller says. “I try to make everything functional.”

Boller wants every item to stand up to the name: Beauty in the Grain.

“ O u r m o t h e r a lw ay s taught us there is strength and beauty in everything,” she says.

Boller also was inspired by her dad, who shared his love of woodworking and proudly opened his wood shop to the family business. In addition to doll furniture, Boller also creates wood tissue boxes and coaster sets, as well as beds for small pets.

Most recently, Boller took on the new challenge of craft-

ing a giant dollhouse. A cus-tomer requested the nearly 6-foot-tall house, filled with furniture — a dream-come-true surprise for a very lucky young girl. Boller spent about two months designing the house and another month to craft two of the dollhouses.

But regardless of the scale, there’s something for every doll lover in the mix, from a $5 mirror to a $960 house (sans furniture).

The products are free of chemical finishes, though customers can opt for a pro-tective water-based paint for the outdoor furniture, such as the Adirondack chairs.

Boller offers free delivery to Prior Lake, Savage, Burns-ville, Shakopee and Apple Valley customers.

“The customers mean ev-erything to us,” she says.

Beauty in the Grain makes regular appearances at craft shows throughout Minne-sota, where Boller enjoys

meeting new and returning customers.

Starting this spring, she’s leading a newly created “building with wood” club at Glendale Elementary School in Savage. To get the word out, she is a member of the Prior Lake Chamber of Com-merce and frequents craft shows, but the company relies primarily on word of mouth.

“Christmas is when our

web sales go up,” she adds.Boller laughs at the irony

that she makes doll furni-ture but her children aren’t interested in dolls. (She and her husband, Jeffrey, have two sons, ages 11 and 14.) As the boys get older and her schedule changes, she looks forward to having even more time to devote to the business.

“I love creating and de-signing new items,” she says.

Beauty in the Grain: Doll furniture made to last

Jodi Boller works in the wood shop.

PHOTOS BY LORI CARLSON

Each item that Boller creates is meant to withstand playtime. “Everything is made to be functional,” she says.

Jodi Boller found inspiration for her company’s name — and philosophy — from her mother, who always said “there’s beauty and strength in everything.”

Just the factsName: Beauty in the Grain

Address: Prior Lake


Number of employees: One principal, plus accessory designer and family helpers

Website: www.beautyinthegrain.com

Quality woods are important to long life of products


BY MOLLEE FRANCISCO

[email protected]

For more than 130 years, Gedney has been churning out jars of its famous Minnesota pickles. During the past

five decades, those jars have come out of Chaska, where Gedney is now headquartered on 18 acres near the Chaska/Chanhassen border.

To the trained nose, gentle wafts of vinegary brine can even be caught in the summer breeze when operations at the plant are at their peak and the lines run up to seven days a week.

“Gedney Foods Company is the No. 1 pickle producer in Minnesota,” said DaleAnn Murphy, who manages Ged-ney’s public relations.

From Sweet Bread & But-ter Chips to Zinger Planks to Kosher Dills, Gedney has more than 100 different products under its brand, but none can top the Gedney Babies.

Gedney Babies are dill pick-les made from a fresh crop of 1A cucumbers. They are packed in a secret Gedney brine customized with vin-egar, natural dill and spices. The result packs a popular

punch.“They are bite-size bursts

of delicious dill,” said Murphy. “Small, but firm. Smooth and crunchy.”

Jim Cook, vice president of technical services with Ged-ney, said that the key to their success with the Babies is get-ting their hands on the pickles used to make them.

“They’re hand-harvested, very high quality” said Cook, noting that the majority of pickles are machine harvested these days. “We are the abso-lute experts in procuring these cucumbers.”

Sixty cucumbers are packed into each jar of Babies — all on the same day they arrive at Gedney from farmers across the United States and Mexico.

“We do everything we can to protect that texture,” said Cook. “Preserve that crisp-ness.”

“Our mindset is quality,” he added.

All the hard work seems to be paying off. “[Gedney] produces enough Babies each year to reach from the Twin Cities to Duluth and back five times,” siad Murphy.

The pickle lines at Gedney run year-round, with pickles coming in constantly. “We’re always running pickles,” said Cook.

It’s a massive operation that all started in 1881 when Math-ias Anderson Gedney opened his first pickle plant at the corner of Lowry and Pacific avenues in Minneapolis. Sales

were made from horse-driven “cash wagons.”

By 1893, Gedney’s opera-tions had expanded outside of Minneapolis to include St. Paul, Chaska, Omaha, Kearney, Neb., and Mauston, Wis. At the time, Gedney was producing some 30,000 barrels of pickles.

In 1958, Gedney moved all of its operations to a brand new 50,000- square-foot ware-house space in Chaska. Over the years, five generations of the Gedney family worked for the company. Today, Gedney employs about 165 people and prides itself on quality and innovation.

“It’s a labor of love,” said Cook, who has been with the company for 43 years. “An exciting world to be in.”

Gedney is constantly on the hunt for new pickle products.

One of their most successful lines was based on actual prize-winning recipes from the Minnesota State Fair. In 1991, the first two State Fair Pickles — made from recipes for Genevieve Spano’s Kosher Dills and Nita Schemmel’s Bread & Butter Pickles — were launched at the fair.

“The line did extremely well,” said Cook.

While Gedney no longer carries the State Fair Pickles, it has adapted those winning recipes into its new Homestyle product line, launched in 2013.

“Wherever I am, I look to see what [a grocer’s] pickle section is like,” said Cook. “Seeing the Gedney label is always a source of pride.”

Gedney is state’s top pickle packerSecret brine is key ingredient in famous dills

FILE PHOTO

Gedney has been producing pickles since 1958 in Carver County.

Just the factsBusiness: Gedney Foods Co.

Address: 2100 Stoughton Avenue, Chaska



Fun facts: Elvis Presley was a big pickle fan. Annual pickle consumption averages 9 pounds of pickles per person in the U.S. A pickle is both a fruit and a vegetable — because it is grown on a vine and has seeds.

Website: gedneyfoods.com

Dilly is the Gedney mascot.


BY TODD ABELN

[email protected]

Have you ever wondered who m a k e s t h e boards for all the ice rinks in Minnesota?

If so, one of the answers is Becker Arena Products in Savage.

Becker Arena Products is the industry leader in arena products with their No. 1 product being the dasher boards that surround all indoor rinks.

They have installed the dasher boards all over Min-nesota and the world.

“We are a leader in the industry,” Becker Arena Products President Jim Beck-er said. “Nobody has been around as long as we have been and we are growing.”

The business started in December 1988 when Becker left his job to start Becker

Arena Products.He was the lone employee

in year one but the business took off and has been growing ever since.

Becker Arena Products started out as a distribution company of arena products.

“At that time, all we did was distribute product,” Becker said.

It wasn’t until 1995 that they got into the business of making the dasher boards.

Their first job was in Hoyt Lakes, Minn., and Becker can remember it like yesterday.

“ T he a r en a m a n a g er called and said ‘Why would I buy this, you’ve never done

this before,’” Becker said. “I told him, you think I would screw up my first job.”

He didn’t and since 1995 they have done hundreds of jobs.

Their most famous arena is the Big Hat Arena in Naga-no, Japan. That arena hosted the 1998 Olympics.

They have built 11 rinks

in Russia along with jobs in Romania, South Korea, Aus-tralia and Canada.

“It’s amazing the calls and inquiries we get from around the world,” Becker said.

They have also built the practice facility rink for the NHL’s Washington Capitols along with college facilities for Army, Air Force, Holy

Cross and Merrimack.Closer to home, Becker

Arena Products have built the boards for the arenas at the Burnsville Ice Center, Chaska Community Center, Dakotah Ice Center, Shako-pee Ice Arena and the Uni-versity of Minnesota’s Ridder Arena to name just a few.

“We specialize in the com-

munity rink,” Becker said.Becker estimated that they

do about 60 rinks a year.All the boards are made

in the warehouse just off of Highway 13 in Savage.

“We can fit for whatever is right for that rink,” Becker said.

The process from bid to in-stallation is about 12 weeks.

From the time the bid is accepted, Becker Arena Prod-ucts does everything.

They engineer the product to the costumers specifica-tions, build it in their ware-house and then ship it to the arena, where they will install everything with their own employees.

“We have a detailed pro-cess, so things get done on time,” Becker said.

NOT JUST BOARDS

Becker Arena is not just dasher boards though.

If it goes into an arena, Becker can do it.

“We do pretty much any-thing in a rink except the ice,” Becker said.

That includes scoreboards, benching, protective f loor-ing, storage systems, main-tenance equipment and much more.

Becker’s boards frame ice rinks around globeSUBMITTED PHOTO

Becker Arena Products supplied the Burnsville Ice Center with their boards for both of their rinks.

PHOTO BY TODD ABELN

Boards for an upcoming rink are ready to go in the Becker Arena warehouse.

Just the factsBusiness: Becker Arena Products, Inc.

Address: 6611 West Highway 13, Savage



Factoids: Built the hockey rinks for 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan

Website: www.beckerarena.com

Savage company involved with Nagano Olympic hockey arena


BY BRITT JOHNSEN

When John W e r m e r -s k i r c h e n a n d h i s wife, Barb W e r m e r -

skirchen, built their Jordan house in 1997, they wanted to make their home look rus-tic. So John, an avid hunter, turned to an outdoor retailer to look for something that fit their taste.

The chandelier that he saw and liked was made out of whitetail deer antlers. But it was $700. He thought to him-self he could make one just like it himself.

And just like that, a busi-ness was born.

John, an avid hunter and outdoorsman, had never carved anything in his life. And he says he doesn’t come from a particularly artistic family. But he Googled how to do this, and picked up the phone to call people who make furniture, home decor and ac-cessories out of antlers from animals such as deer and moose. He began carving ant-lers, which he says are 98 percent from animals that are not harmed (the antlers naturally fall off, similar to the way humans shed hair). He turns these carved antlers into everything from lamps to tables to coasters to fireplace tools, and more.

“It’s taking something from nature and making something out of it,” he said.

Of course, he also makes custom chandeliers, much like the one he made for himself. That one was 6 feet wide and 5 feet high. He even makes dog chews made out of antlers; those are very popular, he said.

The sales have won John and Barb, who does account-ing for the company, atten-

tion from the media. They have appeared on Minnesota Bound with Ron Schara, who visited their Jordan home and featured the products on television. In total, John says

they’ve appeared on TV 50 times.

As successful as his compa-ny has become, John does not do this as his day job. He works as a manager in the facilities

department at Mayo C l i n ic H e a lt h System’s New Prague satellite location. When he comes home, he often goes to his garage to put his carving mag-ic skills to work.

Barb describes John’s craft as this: “It’s hours and hours of putzy, putzy, putzy,” she said, noting how detailed his work is. John, who has new contacts in this business, exchanges ideas for new products with a friend in Bozeman, Mont., who he met through a simple Internet search to find out who else in the country makes products out of antlers. They now go elk hunting together.

John takes a lot of pride in what he does, and Barb is amazed by what her husband can do. This time of year, he’s gearing up for the busy season. He’s typically busy with art shows (they do three to four per year) and stocking up

on inventory to prepare. “I like

to stay busy,” he said.

That’s a good thing, because it’s not always

easy work. He makes a

table out of moose antlers, for example,

that takes about 40 hours to create. A lamp he makes from elk antlers can take about 25 hours. Meanwhile, a small antler keychain is easy — 20 minutes and he’s got a new product for his stockpile of inventory.

John said that they mostly buy their products from an antler broker (believe it or not, for those of you wondering, that is someone’s profession). But Barb says that they get phone calls from people who have antlers they find in their backyard or that they got from hunting. Such people want to donate to the couple, who know they could put the antlers to

good use.Aside from stocking up

on inventory and going to art shows, John also makes custom items. He’ll work with people on what they want, such as the chandelier that started the business in the first place.

“They’re happy when they get the end result,” he said.

Sand Creek Antler Products carves out nicheJordan owners turn hobby into thriving business

PHOTO BY BRITT JOHNSEN

John Wermerskirchen and Barb Wermerskirchen make up the staff at Sand Creek Antler Products.

Just the factsBusiness: Sand Creek Antler Products

Address: 3195 220th St. W., Jordan


Employees: Two, owners John Wermerskirchen and Barb Wermerskirchen

Factoid: Price range of products is from $25 to $4,000

Website: www.sandcreekantlerproducts.com


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For more than 45 years Mount Olivet Rolling Acres hasprovided care and services to people with developmentaland other disabilities. We are now using that expertise toprovide exceptional home health care services.

We provide services to a large portion of the West Metroand beyond with the goal of keeping people in their homes.

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BY BRITT JOHNSEN

Th e r e ’ s m o r e to mulch than meets the eye.

A n n e L u d -v i k , d i r e c tor of organics for

The Mulch Store, breaks the complex into the simple. The Mulch Store is a retail store that sells landscaping products and materials, which it also makes from its composting sites, the other leg of its business. It gets its compost by working with local waste management companies, which work with companies and individu-als to pick up compostable materials.

I n o t h e r wo r d s , T h e Mulch Store turns trash into treasure. The profit comes from the materials that someone throws away as unusable and the store turns it into mulch and compost that feeds gardens, inhibits weed growth and protects soil from erosion.

More people are seeing the benefit of donating their trash to be turned into trea-sure. Thanks to organiza-tions like the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, and people such as Ludvik, more residents and compa-nies understand that there is less room in landfills for trash, and more of a need for and benefit to recycling. In fact, Ludvik explained, in 1997, Twin Cities waste haulers picked up 500 tons of food waste from local residents and companies. But in 2013, waste haulers

picked up 16,000 tons.Rob Friend works at The

Mulch Store in marketing and organics, setting up new programs and educating the community. He’s cer-tainly seen a big shift. “It’s become more mainstream (to recycle),” he said. “The industry has grown.”

So what is mulch, any-way? Mulch is a material that gets sprinkled on top of soil to protect it from erosion, reduce compaction from heavy rains, maintain even soil temperature and several other benefits. Or-ganic mulch includes hard-woods, bark, cypress, cedar and compost, according to educational materials from The Mulch Store. There are also inorganic mulches, which include stones, brick chips and recycled rubber. Compost is a type of mulch made from decayed grass,

leaves and food scraps.The Mulch Store’s busi-

ness is turning yard waste, food scraps and more into mulches, composts and soil blends, which it sells. Soil blends include compost and sand or dirt to help gardens, plants, trees and shrubs be their best.

The company began in 2000 when owners Kevin Tritz and Kevin Nordby, who live in the Twin Cities, were making their way through the waste management in-dustry. They started their careers as garbage haul-ers driving waste trucks, then made their way up as managers. In the late 1980s, Ludvik said, Minnesota made it illegal to dump yard waste in the trash. So a new subset of the waste industry

was born after that. Then Tritz and Nordby made their entrance into it with The Mulch Store (technically, the parent company is called Specialized Environmental Technologies Inc., but The Mulch Store is the retail face and is much easier to say and remember, Ludvik said).

“People are starting to look at their waste differ-ently (as something that has value),” said Ludvik, who estimated that 30 to 40 per-cent of a person’s trash can be composted. “It’s a whole mindset change.”

She hopes the trend will continue spreading, and believes that composting is the next wave of recycling.

“If everybody (compos-ted) ... your trash would be so minimal,” she said.

The Mulch Store turns trash into treasureLocal business gains solid ground thanks to local recyclers

SUBMITTED PHOTO

The Mulch Store has locations in Burnsville, Empire Township, Minnetrista and Shakopee.

PHOTO BY BRITT JOHNSEN

Andy Mesenbring of The Mulch Store poses for a picture at the Shakopee site on a sunny day in early March.

Just the factsBusiness: The Mulch Store

Locations: Burnsville, Empire Township, Minnetrista and Shakopee.

Founded: 2000

Employees: 20 in non-peak seasons (December to March), and 45 in peak seasons (April to November).

Factoid: In 1997, Twin Cities waste haulers picked up 500 tons of food waste from local residents and companies, said Anne Ludvik, director of organics for The Mulch Store. In 2013, waste haulers picked up 16,000 tons.

Website: www.mulchstoremn.com


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[email protected]

Do you need a sign made?

I f s o , Dahlen Sig n C o m p a n y , could be the

place for you.Since 1956 Dahlen Sign

Company has been putting up signs all over the world.

“As far as signs go, we will make anything,” owner Dan Dahlen said. “We’ve been around a lot of changes in the sign business and seen most everything.”

Dahlen Sign Company, located in Shakopee near Highway 169 and Highway 101, will do any sign, any-where.

Whether it be monument sig ns, specialty, vehicle graphics, interior signs or backlit signs, they can do it.

Dahlen said that right now printed vinyl signs are hot items.

He said the vinyl signs c a n b e pl ac e d on c a r s , trucks, mailboxes, basket-balls, sidewalks and just about anywhere else.

“It’s really your imagina-tion and budget that limits what you can do,” Dahlen said. “Anything is possible.”

All the signs are made right in Dahlen’s office in Shakopee by the Dahlen family.

Dan is joined by his dad, Dick, cousin John, and aunt Barb as the four employees

of the family business.That doesn’t stop them

from doing anything.“We do pretty everything,

right here in our building,” Dahlen said. “We are mainly in the local area but have gone around the world.”

Dahlen said they have Dahlen signs hanging in the Grand Cayman’s, British Columbia, Russia, Europe and Asia.

Dahlen places an empha-sis on costumer service.

“It ’s our name on the door,”he said. “It’s the fami-ly business for over 50 years,

we care and want it done right.”

Dahlen signs can end up almost anywhere

PHOTOS BY TODD ABELN

Owner Dan Dahlen puts a sign on a car door for a costumer. The company has been in operation since 1956.

Just the factsBusiness: Dahlen Sign Company

Address: 901 Stagecoach Road, Shakopee


No. of employees: 4 - All employees are family

Website: www.dahlensign.com/

Vinyl signs are hot item for family-owned business


1000Valley Park Drive, Minneapolis, MN 55379 • 952.903.4400 • www.imagineps.com

Imagine! Print Solutions is a national printerright here in your neighborhood.

• Multiple career opportunities• Excellent pay — $15 pay rates! Plus great benefits• Large company with family-like atmosphere• Financially strong and growing

Check out available positions atwww.imagineps.com click on careers.

A great career pathclose to home.

BY PAT MINELLI

[email protected]

Zillions of vehi-cles pass by the sleek, attractive and large white bui ldi ng a long Highway 169 in

Shakopee each week. Most of the vehicle occupants prob-ably wonder what — and who — is inside.

Many Shakopee residents could tell you that the build-ing houses Seagate Technol-ogy. But even if they know generally what Seagate is, it’s unlikely they know what the Shakopee facility is all about.

California-based Seagate Technology is a leading pro-vider of hard disk drives and storage solutions, producing products for a wide range of applications, including enter-prise, desktop, mobile com-puting, consumer electronics and for the retail market.

While Seagate has been part of the Twin Cities for 25 years, its connection actually goes back much further — to the early 1960s with Control Data, said Lori Johnson, manager of communications for Seagate.

Seagate purchased Control Data’s drive division (Im-primis) in October 1989 and now is a leading independent designer, manufacturer and distributor of data storage products and components.

The Minnesota operation serves as a strategic hub of technology research and development efforts, prod-uct and component design work, as well as prototype manufacturing. Seagate is one of Minnesota’s largest technology companies and consistently is ranked as one of the state’s top patent hold-ers, said Johnson. Last year alone, Seagate’s Minnesota-based inventors were granted more than 200 U.S. patents.

The state-of-the-art Prod-uct and Technology Devel-

opment center, located in Shakopee, develops the fast-est and most advanced en-terprise hard-disk drives and solid-state drives in the world, said Johnson. The de-velopment center researches new technology, develops new enterprise products, builds prototypes and tests these products. The site’s technical experts also touch other areas, including new enabling technologies and drive security.

Johnson said that enter-prise drives developed in Minnesota can store more than 1 terabyte of data on a drive the size of a box of note cards; Seagate’s first product stored 5 megabytes of data on a washing machine-sized drive. Seagate disk drives are typically found in large serv-ers that store a company’s critical data, and are the stor-age backbone of the Internet. The 15,000 -rpm product’s performance is equivalent to reading the entire works of Shakespeare 25 times in less than a second, said Johnson.

Johnson said the Product

and Technol-ogy develop-ment center in Shakop-ee employs about 1,200, i ncludi ng i n t e r n s , c o n t r a c -t o r s a n d temporary workers.

The Re-c o r d i n g Heads op-e r at ion , l o c a t e d in Bloom-ington, is the internal and prin-cipal supplier of recording heads for the entire line of Seagate products. The divi-sion’s leading research and development capabilities continually push the technol-ogy envelope – allowing the company to design and de-

velop indus-try-leading a d v a n c e d read/write h e a d s f o r disk drives, s a id Joh n-son.

Recording h e a d t e c h -nology is the most precise, complex and dynamic tech-nology in the c o m p u t i n g industry – the heads are no larger than a

grain of coarse sand. It is the head that writes, saves, erases, sends and receives data. This all happens very quickly — a drive writes data at a rate that exceeds more than a hundred million “bits” per second.

The Recording Heads divi-sion employs more than 1,750, which also includes interns, contractors and temporary workers.

Seagate’s Minnesota op-erations employ people from about 80 countries, including more than 300 employees with doctorate degrees and 1,500 engineers. The annual Minnesota payroll tops $360 million, said Johnson.

Seagate’s employees have pioneered significant ad-vances in data recording and storage speed, capacity and increasingly important data security. Some of the in-dustry’s firsts were designed and developed in Minnesota, starting with the 5,400-rpm drive and continuing through today’s 15,000-rpm drive.

When data recording tech-nology faced limitations, Seagate’s local team helped pioneer perpendicular re-

cording, a format now ad-opted industry-wide. Addi-tionally, the industry’s first 2.5-inch enterprise disk drive originated here, providing customers with significant power savings and reduced cooling costs over the stan-dard 3.5-inch drive. Other pioneering work currently is focusing on enterprise solid state and hybrid drives.

Seagate’s technical ex-perts develop storage solu-tions that touch anyone who uses a computer, withdraws cash from an ATM machine, makes airline reservations, enjoys gaming on an X-box, records television programs on a digital video recorder, backs up their data with an external portable drive, downloads music off of the Internet, or watches Hol-lywood’s latest movies (digi-tally stored and edited). And, this is only a partial list.

Seagate products are storage backbone to Internet

PHOTO COURTSEY SEAGATE TECHNOLOGY

The Shakopee Seagate facility at night. The business is located next to Highway 169.

Just the factsBusiness: Seagate Technology

Location: Shakopee

Website: www.seagate.com

Facts:

Seagate Minnesota has 12 clean rooms that are 3,000 times cleaner than a typical household and 100 times cleaner than a hospital operating room.

Seagate’s Minnesota employees have been awarded more than 350 patents for the five-year period ending in 2009.

Seagate Minnesota’s manufacturing operations have ISO 9001 and 14001 and OHSAS 18001 certifications for quality, environmental standards, and health and safety.

Monday - Friday5:00pm to 9:00pm

Tuesday - Saturday3:00am to 7:30am

All interested candidates must attend a sort observation at our facility prior to applying forthe position. For more information or to register for a sort observation, please visit

www.watchasort.com

Location: Shakopee5800 12th Avenue EastShakopee, MN 55379

Company bought Control Data division in 1989

We’ve only scratched the surface of local companies

making great products. If you have an idea for a future “Made in Scott County” story, contact

Richard Crawford at (952) 345-6471 or dcrawford@

swpub.com.

SCOTT COUNTY


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