Features Region: Midwest

The early part of 2019 brought an unforgiving winter to the Heartland, but Aaron Conaway knew it would lift. Always does, of course, and when you measure the 12 months in quarters, the next one is never far away. So for Conaway, president and co-owner of one of the nation’s largest  single facility producers of […]

President, with a capital “P.” It’s a role that countless professionals, and more than a few politicians, spend a lifetime trying to achieve, often at the expense of their health and happiness. Now that he’s earned the badge himself, Ron Ahlensdorf Jr., head of the Toledo-based Summit Valuation Solutions (SVS), has a dark secret to […]

Merrill Lynch is bullish on America. So is Bite Squad, but primarily on Middle America—the large towns and smaller cities that don’t so often appear on the radar screens of its bigger competitors. Hence a land of opportunity for a still-young company that’s filling the niche of delivering freshly cooked restaurant meals to customers who […]

So what came first, the beer or the can? The beer, of course, but without the can it’s not going far, kegs of any size being unwieldly in the grocery store. And as far as bottles go, customers and shippers prefer cans, because chilled aluminum keeps the suds cold and they’re easier to transport. But […]

Roger Nesbitt tried, really tried, to retire, but he just couldn’t do it. “I was bored to death,” he recalls. It was only a few weeks before the stir-craziness got to be too much and he just had to get back to work. Simply put, “I was looking for a new venture to get into, […]

In the run-up to last Thanksgiving, the several hundred clients of Minneapolis-based Advanced Wealth Management Group (AWMG) got greeting cards from the firm they’ve long entrusted to guide their financial futures and plan their retirements. Only the cards were about more than just the usual good wishes. Recipients were given the choice of designating one […]

A one-time construction engineer turned financial adviser, Kenneth Heise sees similarities between the two seemingly dissimilar professions. “We now talk about building a fiscal house as opposed to building a physical structure,” says the founder and president of the St. Louis-based independent retirement planning firm Heise Advisory Group. “It’s a similar thought process, helping to […]

A changing culture has largely rendered archaic that old jingle of yesteryear, “Hey, Culligan Man!” giving way to something less gender-defined. But the good-natured fellow who’s owner and boss of, at last count, 37 of the water-treatment products company’s franchises, may still hear the original line from folks of sufficient longevity, and he’s more than […]

To most driving by, the 125-acre plot along St. Paul’s Mississippi River banks looks like nothing more than a blank earthen canvas—the hole where a beating, pumping Ford plant used to be. Todd Hurley sees the masterpiece to come, and the heart of a 21st century community years in the making. He sees the potential […]

When the Hyatt chain opened one of its newest resorts near the Caribbean paradise of Cancun on Mexico’s eastern shore, Carl Kernodle, vice president of planning and design, practiced his own method of quality assessment. “I walk the property and talk to the people, asking them where they’re from, how they’re enjoying their vacation and […]