Last month, Minnesota Management and Budget predicted state government will have a budget surplus of $1.3 billion. This set many a tongue wagging among legislators, economists, agencies and taxpayers as to what this will mean for the state. Specifically, what can Minnesota get out of such a windfall, or i...Continue Reading

A fifth-generation Finnish dairy farm in northern Minnesota is exclusively breeding an A2 herd and bottling A2 milk. “We’re the first in Minnesota to do that,” said Joel Hendrickson, a 2003 Menahga High School graduate. Joel and wife Amanda own a 310-acre farm, three miles south of Menahga, situated next to th...Continue Reading

The 2020 edition of Minnesota’s economic development magazine – Minnesota: Thriving in the North – highlights the state’s many assets, from its innovation ecosystem and well-educated workforce to its supportive business climate and top-notch quality of life. Available in both print and digital versions, the publication is part of DEED’s ongoing efforts to promote th...Continue Reading

The East Central MN Business Inventors and Entrepreneurs Club will host its monthly meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 28, at East Central Energy, Braham.  Doors open at 5:30 p.m. for a time of refreshments and networking; meeting begins at 6 p.m.  The speaker will be Neela Mollgaard, of Launch Minnesota. As executive director...Continue Reading

Innovative new program aims to give entrepreneurs a leg up. When it comes to spurring innovation and entrepreneurship, Minnesota leaves nothing to chance. The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) has rolled out the welcome mat for entrepreneurs and venture capital investors through Launch Minnesota (LM), which took flight o...Continue Reading

Record-breaking R&D investment in the life sciences industry is spurring real estate innovation too. Investment in new drug discovery is at an all-time high, creating opportunity and demand for more innovative real estate strategies. Last year, U.S. biopharma firms spent a record-breaking $179 billion on research and development (R&D) to improv...Continue Reading

Food processing, packaging, and delivery are all being disrupted by changes in technology, consumer preferences, and government regulations. The world’s population is expected to reach nearly ten billion by 2050, an increase of two billion people within 30 years. What impact is this growth having on the food and beverage industry? Simpl...Continue Reading

After the difficult few years that the nation’s dairy farmers have been through, Collin Peterson said many might be skeptical of the advice he shared with First District Association members. “People have given me a hard time for saying this, but I think if you’re a young person, and you wan...Continue Reading

Public-private initiative aimed for bringing in tech companies  The Minnesota Technology Corridor, a collaborative public-private initiative to attract technology companies to the north metro that would benefit from an abundant electrical capacity, unlimited fiber optic bandwidth, large parcels of available land, and the talented workforce in the area, won an Associatio...Continue Reading

Prairie River Minerals. L.L.C. (PRM) is a new and innovative Iron Range iron ore mining company. Created in early 2019, PRM will harvest and reprocess previously mined hematite located along the Western Mesabi in legacy stockpiles. With the special efforts of community partners, The Blandin Foundation and Itasca Economic Development Corporation (IEDC), the University o...Continue Reading

There are hobbies and there are serious hobbies. Steve Burgess crossed the line from one to the other shortly after moving from Neillsville, Wis., to the Twin Ports in 2012.  About 20 years ago in Neillsville, Steve, his wife Kathy and their five children began tapping trees, hanging a bucket o...Continue Reading

Tri-County Health Care has released the first designs of their new construction project scheduled to start groundbreaking in July. You can get an even closer look at the project at an upcoming forum. TCHC and Joel Beiswenger, president and CEO, will host four public forums over two days to give ...Continue Reading

Launch Minnesota hosted a “Coffee and Conversation” event at its new space in Osborn370 in downtown St. Paul. We caught up with Neela Mollgaard, executive director, for an update on how the first quarter has gone and what’s coming up for Launch Minnesota in 2020. October 1st was the official kickoff o...Continue Reading

Two years after the opportunity zone program became law, the final round of regulations about how they will be implemented has been released to the public.   The Treasury Department and the IRS published the 544-page document with a number of substantial changes and additions from previous iterations of guidance. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin sai...Continue Reading

For too long, Minnesota’s tribal nations did not have a voice on matters of state policy. That was until Executive Order 19-24, the state’s strongest order yet, affirming the government-to-government relationship between the state and tribal   nations in Minnesota. The  order mandated, in part, that Minnesota state agencies maintain ongoing consultatio...Continue Reading

Rob Sjostrand to work from Grand Rapids and Kate Welch from Duluth The Northeast Minnesota Regional office of the Small Business Development Center has announced the addition of two new business consultants. Robert Sjostrand will work from the Itasca Economic Development Corporation (IEDC) office located in Grand Rapids. Previously, the Grand Rapid...Continue Reading

Greater Fergus Falls (GFF), a nonprofit economic development organization serving the Fergus Falls area, is proud to announce the launch of its newly redesigned website at GreaterFergusFalls.com. The new site features a streamlined, modern design, improved functionality, and easy access to essential information to help promote economic development efforts in Fergu...Continue Reading

The Minnesota Department of Agriculture awarded $241,009 to nine farmers and researchers in Minnesota. The Anishinaabe Agriculture Institute, an organization in Becker County, received $25,000 of that for its work with hemp. While hemp and marijuana leaves may look similar and both come from the cannabis species, the two are ver...Continue Reading

As companies get more innovative on the computing front, they have to figure out how to keep things cool — literally. Electrons aren’t much of a growth industry in the U.S., the second-largest electricity market in the world after China. Electricity sales rose last year, after nearly a decade of being fla...Continue Reading

RACCOON TOWNSHIP, Ind./NEW YORK (Reuters) - When the U.S. ethanol industry was booming, Indiana farmer Paul Hodgen made good money selling about a quarter of his crop to a local facility that produced the corn-based fuel. Now that plant has stopped churning out ethanol and has instead converted to a grai...Continue Reading

Finding workers to fill open jobs in manufacturing is more difficult now than any time since the start of the Great Recession. As hiring outpaces the number of applicants, manufacturing employers are ramping up investments in training and retention strategies, according to an article by Alessia Leibert in Minnesota Economic Trends magazine. Overall...Continue Reading

Minnesota officials have released a revised environmental review of the proposed Line 3 oil pipeline replacement, a step that will restart the regulatory approval process for the oft-delayed, controversial project. The new environmental impact statement, or EIS, completed by the Minnesota Department of Commerce, was revised to include an analysis of the impacts of a potentia...Continue Reading

Next time you’re on your morning commute, merging on to a freeway or crossing a bridge, think of the decennial census. Your responses to the 2020 Census, which includes every person living in the United States, may help decide when and where roads and bridges will be built in your community. Clic...Continue Reading

Rush City firefighters recently added a new fire truck to their fleet after being presented with a $252,000 check from East Central Energy (ECE), one of Great River Energy’s 28 member-owner cooperatives. The 2019 Spartan MetroStar Chassis fire truck replaces a 1992 model that had become insufficient in meeting th...Continue Reading