Made in Scott County

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MADE INMADE IN

SCOTT COUNTYSCOTT COUNTY

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2 | April 2015 Made in Scott County

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Made in Scott County April 2015 | 3

BY NICK LONGWORTH

[email protected]

Mu sic i s p er -haps the best testament to the old adage, “You get what

you pay for.”Any good musician knows

that to sound and be at your best, you need to be playing with the best — people, as well as equipment.

Savage Audio owner and founder Jeff Krumm knew this long ago. In fact, it’s the exact reason why he’s been able to do what he loves — building his own brand of hand-crafted guitar ampli-fiers under the name Savage Amps — for a quarter of a century now.

A family operation at heart, Krumm began his ca-reer working in his basement on a hobby that he loved and was fascinated with.

His hobby of repairing electronics soon blossomed into a career once others began to discover the product that he, and his team, could create.

Krumm opened up primar-ily a repair shop in Burns-ville, and was successful for over a decade.

“But after working on a lot of amps, we kind of saw some things in them that we would do differently,” Krumm said. “We sort of decided to give it a try, and kept showing up ev-ery day with designs. Things took care of themselves.”

Savage Audio recently relocated to downtown Sav-age. W hi le sti l l repairing equip-ment, they are also selling a variety of different Savage Amps out of their shop as well.

Savage A mps currently makes about 10 different models, from five watts to 125 watts. A popular seller is the Junger 3 — a three watt, one channel practice amp that currently sells for $799.99.

All Savage Amps are tube and hand-wired. All amps feature top quality electronic components and transform-ers, point-to-point wiring, hand-built and finger-jointed nine-ply birch cabinets, a choice of loudspeakers from brands including Mojotone, Celestion, Jensen, EV, Scum-back, Tone Tubby, and a choice of cabinet coverings, control panels and logo plates.

In other words, Savage

Amps aren’t put to-gether by a machine, in some factory a thousand miles away (to be bounced around a truck until it arrives at your door).

“We make all hand-crafted amps; they’re all hand-built, each individually. We put everything together here,” said Krumm. “Everything is hand-wired; it’s real old-school. A lot of players ap-preciate that. They like the fact that they are built here.”

Savage Amps hand-crafted work is so reliable that they

stand by it 100 percent, of-fering all amps a limited lifetime warranty.

“It includes everything that isn’t physical damage. If any components fail, we cover them,” Krumm said.

Should you have any prob-lems arise, you won’t be deal-ing with some distant war-ranty center either. Simply bring the amp back in, and tell Krumm what the prob-lem is.

Krumm says that a lot of musicians, especially in rock and roll, prefer the tube am-plifiers he makes as opposed to newer, solid-state versions commonly solid at big-box stores.

And he may be right.Savage Amps have been

played by the likes of such international touring artists as Pearl Jam, Sheryl Crow, Beck, REM, Jeff Tweedy and many more.

“Word of mouth is a big thing. A lot of those peo-ple know each other,” said Krumm. “If one gets a piece of gear and they like it, it can be kind of nice.”

Savage Audio still also repairs musicians’ gear. Us-ing the same due diligence that they put into each of their amps, Krumm and his staff are able to fix even the most technical issues within an amp, all with friendly

service.“We’ve all experienced

bad service before,” Krumm said. “If we did that we would never survive. With the lon-gevity that we’ve had, people trust us.”

Savage Audio is located at 4813 W 124 St. in Savage. For a repair, or to order a custom amp of your own, Savage Audio can be reached at by phone at 952.894.1022 or on-line at www.savageamps.com

Currently they of fer a loaner amp for anyone inter-ested in ordering one.

Look for Savage Audio to also expand their amp-building into areas of home audio in the future.

Savage Amps: Locally made, sweet soundsOne man’s vision to create something unique has begun a legacy of excellence

PHOTO BY NICK LONGWORTH

From left, Savage Audio founder Jeff Krumm stands with long-time employee Steve Hall and daughter and current employee Erica Krumm.

Just the FactsBusiness: Savage Audio

Address: 4813 W 124 St., Savage

Years in location: Less than one

Employees: Three part-time, three full-time

Interesting facts: Founded my Jeff Krumm, his daughter Erica is a full-time employee who is also taking over the business aspects of the store.

Website: www.SavageAmps.com

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This special news section takes a close look at some of the “producers” in Scott County. 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 have only scratched the surface of local companies making interesting products in the region. If you have an idea for additional “Made in Scott County” stories, contact Richard Crawford at (952) 345-6471 or [email protected].

Index Businesses featured:

Savage Audio ............................... 3RPM Inc. ......................................... 4Siwek Lumber .............................. 5Pure Country Alpacas ............... 6Driscoll Board Shop ................... 8Rahr Corporation ........................ 9North Aire Market ..................... 10Glewwe Castle Brewery ......... 11

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MADE INMADE IN

SCOTT COUNTYSCOTT COUNTY

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BY ALEX HALL

[email protected]

Has your dog e v e r c o m e in after run-ning around outdoors on a hot day, head-

ing straight to the water dish for some hydration, only to leave more of the water on your nice hardwood f loor than in the dog’s belly?

RPM Inc. co-founder Mike Bachman can relate.

“I’ve got three dogs, and they can make a big mess,” said Bachman.

Thankfully, RPM has a solution: water absorbent place mats for pets with a waterproof bottom that pro-tects floors.

RPM, which has oper-ated out of Savage since 1999, manufactures a wide variety of water absorbent and wa-terproof products through its Drymate line for markets such as pet, kitchen, garden-ing, automotive, garage, hunting, baby and more.

In 1980, Bachman began RPM Inc., which sold prod-ucts that would be given as free gifts for other compa-nies’ promotional of fers. However, in 1997, RPM ac-quired a manufacturer that made three waterproof prod-ucts for schools, one of which was a waterproof blanket that Bachman said was “very unique because your conven-tional blanket, if the ground is wet, it’s just going to suck up all the moisture. This [blanket] had a waterproof bonded barrier backing, so it was different than anything else on the market.”

Before the acquisition, RPM was acting as a middle-man by selling the blankets to Hollywood movie stu-dios. At the time, the studios would offer free giveaway promotions to boost the sales

or rentals of underperform-ing movies, and RPM would customize the packaging to go with the movie it was pro-moting. So chances are that if you rented a bad movie from Blockbuster in the late 1990s and came home with a waterproof blanket, it probably came from RPM in Savage.

“I sold thousands and thousands [of blankets] to many, many studios,” said Bachman.

A f t e r a c q u i r i n g t h e blanket ’s manu facturer, Bachman and his business partner Nick Sovell saw an opportunity to make the step from a business that provides promotional gifts for other companies, to a business that sold its prod-ucts directly to retail stores. Bachman, Sovell and their employees then began com-ing up with other ideas for other waterproof items that could be used around the home utilizing the design for

a soft, felt-like, non-woven material that is super absor-bent on the top layer but wa-terproof on the bottom layer, so it would contain spills on the top while preventing the liquid from secreting out the bottom and damaging floors. The design also works in reverse for products like the blankets, preventing mois-ture from migrating from the bottom to the top.

The design, eventually patented as Zorb-Tech, also features a non-slip back-ing, and the material dries quickly through a wicking process. The Zorb-Tech prod-ucts can absorb up to 5 times their weight in liquids, yet remain waterproof.

“When you pour water on [one of our products]… the key thing is that it keeps [the area underneath it] dry, and then the moisture just wicks away because the way we needle punch our fibers. So it wicks away and it’s dry within probably six-to-eight hours,” explained Bachman. “It’s a solution-based product so that the water doesn’t get on your f loors, your wood f loors, your ceramic, your carpeting, your linoleum. It protects it.”

The products can be ma-chine washed and dried, but Bachman suggests let-ting the products air dry because they can dry so quickly. Drymate products are comprised of more than 50 percent post-consumer and post-industrial recycled products.

Today, Drymate makes products such as Christmas tree stand mats, kitchen mats, plant coasters, garden-ing mats, tent carpets and gun cleaning mats, just to name a few. In the automo-tive market, Drymate makes products like garage f loor mats, runners, cargo liners and trunk liners; in 2013, RPM secured a licensing agreement to offer its auto-motive protective mat line

under the Armor All brand name.

However, the most suc-cessful part of Drymate’s business is its pet line, which includes products such as the doggie placemats, litter mats and crate/kennel pads. The “potty” pads are specially designed to handle urine, which is more acidic.

“Our pet industry is grow-ing by leaps in bounds,” said Bachman, noting that they do a lot of private label work with many major retailers.

One reason for that, Bach-man said, is the variety in de-signs they offer for their pet products. For instance, while the doggie placemats were not initially very decorative, RPM now contracts with a variety of artists who pro-vide licensed designs. Want your placemat to have a leop-ard print design? No prob-lem. How about a placemat that resembles distressed wood? They have that, as well. Bachman said it’s the quality of the design — as well as the overall durability of its products — that sets the Drymate brand apart from its competitors.

“We can do photo-real-ism,” said Bachman. “The detail we can do with our product and our printing capabilities sets us apart from everyone. We have in-novation, we have colors on prints, we design things that are fashionable, and that’s what makes us di f ferent from anyone else, because when you see our line, it’s expansive… and we go with the trends.”

Drymate’s products can be found in a multitude of retail stores, such as Pet-co, Petsmart, Pet Supplies Plus, Home Goods, Target, Walmart, Bed Bath and Be-yond, Gander Mountain and Cabelas. Their products also span the globe, as they’re sold in places like Cana-da, Mexico, Europe, South America and Australia.

RPM/Drymate employs 20 full and part-time employees in their Savage corporate of-fice and distribution center. While much of the company’s manufacturing takes place at other sites, the personal-ized and custom products are sublimated, packaged and shipped out of RPM’s warehouse in Savage. Sub-limation is a process using heat and solid dyes to perma-nently dye the fabric fibers. So essentially, a mat’s design is printed out (perhaps with your dog’s own name on it, if you ordered a personal-ized one from a store like Petsmart), then applied to the special Zorb-Tech mat. The mat with the print at-

tached is then put into the sublimation machine, and in a couple short minutes, the machine spits out the mat. The print is then peeled off, and the mat is finished.

Looking ahead, Bachman sees great potential for Dry-mate’s growth, and the busi-ness plans to have an even larger presence in the pet market in the years to come. It even has some new product offerings it will be rolling out in the near future.

“We are constantly bring-ing new products to the ta-ble,” said Bachman. “Our business is growing, and the future looks good, but you have to have innovation all the time.”

Don’t stress the messDrymate’s Zorb-Tech technology helps its products contain spills

PHOTOS BY ALEX HALL

A fi nished doggie placemat fresh out of the sublimation machine.

A design is applied to a Zorb-Tech mat before being put through the sublimation machine.

A design is printed out at RPM’s warehouse. The design was then applied to a doggie placemat and placed inside the sublimation machine, which transferred the design to the Zorb-Tech mat.

Just the FactsBusiness: RPM Inc.

Address: 6665 W. Highway 13, Savage

Years in location: 16 years

Number of employees: 20 full- and part-time employees in its corporate offi ce and distribution center in Savage

Good to know: RPM’s Drymate Zorb-Tech products can absorb up to 5 times their weight in liquids, yet remain waterproof; Drymate products are comprised of more than 50 percent post-consumer and post-industrial recycled products.

Contact: (800) 872-8201 or www.drymate.com


BY KARA HILDRETH

[email protected]

Logs hauled into Scott County travel a 100-mile radius to Siwek Lumber in Jordan where the tall tree

trunks are transformed into lumber to serve needs in many diversified ways in commer-cial, agricultural, industrial and manufacturing indus-tries.

This finished lumber is used to build homes for resi-dential and commercial real estate. Finished lumber that leaves the saw mill and lumber yard may be used for flooring, decorative trim inside interior spaces or may be used raw as a rustic log mantel North Woods cabin fireplace.

Jordan’s Siwek Lumber employs friendly, knowledge-able staff who have earned a trusted reputation and have become local and area experts in Scott County for remodel-ing, mill work, hardwoods, crating and packaging lumber.

“Lumber is a way ahead of the cool trendsetters and they have always been America’s true renewable resource,” said Dave Siwek, vice president and general manager of Siwek Lumber in Jordan.

Huge, century-old tree logs are debarked on site and sliced up in a green way to be reused for landscaping materials.

“Our wood scraps we chip or bundle up for firewood so there is no waste, and the saw dust goes to the farmers,”

Siwek said.Inside the saw mill, wood

is re-manufactured into all kinds of lumber products sold across the county.

“We are the only large pro-duction saw mill in the seven-county area and the only one that is considered a large production saw mill,” Siwek said. A large production mill reports a million-board feed per year by state standards.

As a family-run lumber business that began operating a lumberyard during the De-pression in 1933, Siwek Lum-ber has certainly grown its business in the Twin Cities. Siwek Lumber has remained a staple in Jordan’s indus-trial park complex for 26 years since 1989. Siwek Lumber owns a second lumberyard in northeast Minneapolis.

“But our Jordan store grew into our bigger store,” Siwek said. This Scott County lo-cation employs 20 full-time workers year around.

Recalling how his grandfa-ther founded Siwek Lumber, Dave finds reward in working as the third generation where his son, nieces and nephews carry on the family tradition.

Siwek Lumber has diversi-fied its lumber products and continues to gain varied busi-ness industries as corporate clients and customers, so that Siwek Lumber has become nearly recession proof, Siwek said.

“What sets us apart is what it does for us — the multi-faceted things we do year-around when one thing is slowing down like when the housing market slowed way down, people were doing more remodeling and then we did more large agricultural busi-ness with pole buildings, steel and fencing,” Siwek said.

Jordan Siwek Lumber flourished in the 1990s and into the new millennium when post and pole framed buildings became the rage on farmsteads and commercial properties.

Today demand for lum-ber is strong again since the recession is over and new

construction is rebounding, Siwek said.

“A lot of stuff we make goes for steel companies or businesses with pipelines that are hauling steel up to North Dakota,” Siwek said. Wooden blocks are placed between pipes to act as a buffer during transport.

Inside the saw mill, a $100,000 piece of large mill equipment is known by staff as the Super Saw. This strong industrial saw can easily cut giant piles of wood — up to 240 pieces of wood at a time — into exact lengths measured with a precision red laser line. The machine operates with ease to cut wood with ease much like a bread slicer.

“The Super Saw is like Superman because it is able to cut several pieces of wood in a single bound,” Siwek said, jokingly.

All winter Siwek Lumber makes fence stakes and sur-vey sticks pointed like pencils that are bundled and shipped across the country for local surveyors to use in land proj-ects across the United States.

“Ames Construction prob-ably buys a pallet a week of this stuff,” Siwek said. He offered a walking tour of Siwek Lumber to show off the outdoor, drive-up lumber yard, the indoor sawmill and the hardware shop storefront.

Inside the hardware store, custom pieces of lumber can be purchased and cut to size. Rustic logs can be selected to serve as fireplace mantels.

Siwek said a man can make a decision and choose a fire-place log mantel in about three minutes, but it may take a woman up to three weeks to select just the perfect rustic log mantel.

Many types of wood — ma-hogany, oak, pine, spruce and cedar just to name a few — can be selected for flooring, fur-niture or building projects. All types of fine wood can be purchased for custom proj-ects like paneling to enhance interior remodeling projects. Many profiles of wood trim can update a room or return

an interior space back to its original glory.

“What sets us apart and what is our big deal is we are a regular lumber yard, a hard-ware store and we have a saw mill — that no other lumber yard has — and we use the lumber for re-manufacturing and we can cut lumber to size.”

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Logs come into Siwek Lumber from Scott County and a 100-mile radius. “We are the only large production saw mill in the seven county area,” said Dave Siwek,

Just the FactsAddress: Siwek Lumber & Millwork, Inc., in Jordan is located at 350 Valley View Drive, off Hwy. 169 in Jordan’s Industrial Park.

Years in location: A third generation family-run business operating since 1933, the Jordan lumber yard has been open in Scott County and Jordan for 26 years since 1988. Siwek Lumber operates a second lumber yard off Marshall Street in Minneapolis.

Number of employees: Siwek Lumber in Jordan employs 20 full-time workers year around and another 20 employees at its Minneapolis lumber yard.

Interesting facts: The Jordan location fl ourished in the 1990’s and into the new millennium when post and pole frame buildings became the rage.

Siwek Lumber boasts a friendly, knowledgeable and industry experienced staff who are experts in remodeling, mill work, hardwoods, crating and packaging lumber.

Website: Check out a virtual video at www.siweklumber.com or call (952) 492-6666.

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BY HANNAH JONES

[email protected]

Eighteen years ago, P at a nd B ut ch Hansen were on vacation, sitting in a restaurant

near Mount Hood, when they saw their first alpaca. It was actually on the cover of a brochure for an alpaca farm that was left on their table. They didn’t recognize the animal: a furry face with doe-eyes and a prim, supercilious mouth.

Pat picked up the brochure and said to her husband, half-jokingly, “Well, here’s our next adventure.”

The Hansens had recently acquired 11 acres of farmland back in Prior Lake, and until that moment, had no idea what to do with it. That bro-chure turned out to be the first step on a long, odd journey. Be-fore they returned

home, they toured the farm from the brochure, struck up an immediate friendship with the owners and met their 75 alpacas. After return-ing to their own 11 acres and giving it some thought, they decided they had found a purpose for the land.

“We ended up purchasing our first three animals,” she said. Alpacas went for $20,000 a piece in those days, so buy-ing the furry stock from the farm in Oregon was no light undertaking.

But, as Pat put it: “If you don’t try it, who knows?”

They ended up with their first baby alpaca later that year, and at the first show they went to, that baby took the blue ribbon. Their com-pany, Pure Country Alpacas LLC, was born. They began to trade in alpacas, alpaca products and hold tours of their unconventional farm, at

the same time working their respective day jobs.

Alpacas, while they make odd investments, are gener-ally mild-mannered, space-efficient and environmental-ly friendly. They don’t need a lot of room; in its peak, Pure Country’s herd included 40 to

50 alpacas all grazing on six acres of pasture.

That being said, they’re also a lot of work. Every si n g le one of those alpacas needs food, vac-cines, shearing and even nai l

trimming, plus proper care for the

winter and summer extremes in Minneso-

ta. As one of about 20 alpaca

farms in the whole state, Pat and Butch were learning all of this on their feet, and mostly on their own. They needed a sort of alpaca brain trust.

“As soon as we got our animals home from our first show, we decided we needed to network with other peo-ple,” Pat said. They called up the other alpaca farms in Minnesota and shared their idea for a networking group. Soon, a coalition of Min-nesota alpaca farmers was gathered in the Hansen farm-house, ready to share advice and learn from one another, forming a mutual support group for alpaca farmers in Minnesota.

The Hansens continued to have a couple of open houses

a year, and in 2000, they set up the first iteration of an annual Minnesota State Fair Booth, selling alpaca prod-ucts and educating the public. They saw countless people reliving their first reaction to the brochure by Mount Hood.

“The booth was packed,” Pat said. “People were saying, ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve never seen these.’”

W hen Pat a nd But ch reached retiring age, they pared down the business and focused more on the apparel side, selling the products made from alpaca wool. Their sweaters and blankets they get from Peru, but 30 to 40 percent of the products are made right there by them-selves and a few helpers. One of those helpers, Marie Ells-worth, is a 92-year-old woman living in Prior Lake. She met Butch, she said, at one of the Hansens’ exhibitions. Just like that, she started making alpaca hats for them.

“They’re nice to work for,”

she said.Most recently, they’ve

moved toward getting their online store set up and finally tapping into the digital mar-ket, but their connection to their community runs deep, and, Pat said, they’re always going to be a smaller busi-ness. They also enjoy helping other alpaca farms in the area get their own start.

“If we find out a local farm will be doing an exhibition somewhere, we back off,” Pat said.

Nowadays, the Hansens still have 12 alpacas, with names like “Princess Leia” and “Princess Elsa,” whom they still love and care for. They’ve gone from knowing nothing about them to basing their entire way of living off of them, calling it the “alpaca lifestyle.”

And it all started with a brochure by Mount Hood.

“As long as we enjoy it, we’re going to keep doing it,” Pat said.

Warm fuzziesPure Country Alpacas LLC

PHOTO BY LORI CARLSON

Pat Hansen stands with a few members of the herd at Pure Country Alpacas LLC, which she and her husband, Butch, started in 1997.

ad recentlyf farmland

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Alpaca wool dyes handily and can take on just about any color before it’s made into sweaters, blankets, hats and more.

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Just the FactsBusiness: Pure Country Alpacas LLC

Address: 5691 190th St. E., Prior Lake

Years in location: 18

Employees: Just the owners, Pat and Butch, and a few local helpers

Interesting facts: At its peak, Pure Country Alpacas had 40 to 50 animals on their farm, but have since focused on selling alpaca products. Alpaca fl eece is strong and soft, water-repellent, fi re-resistant, easy to dye and, thanks to a lack of lanolin, hypoallergenic.

Website: http://www.purecountryalpacas.com/pca/home.html

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BY CRISTETA BOARINI

[email protected]

A good businessman identifies a need and supplies the demand.

Scott County has two new businessmen in Nick Driscoll and Jamie Smith, 21-year-old Shakopee High School graduates who have recently opened their own skateboard shop in down-town Shakopee.

“There’s no other place around here that carries high quality longboards and snows-kates,” said Driscoll, co-found-er of Driscoll Board Shop.

Longboards and snows-kates are based off of their older brother the skateboard, but serve entirely different functions and sports. Long-boards are built more for speed and travel with fatter wheels and longer boards than skate-boards.

Snowskates are like a hy-brid between a snowboard and a skateboard, or a skateboard and a ski for the bi-level kinds. Without the restrictive bind-ings of a snowboard or skis, Driscoll said snowskate riders can do many of the same skate-board tricks, but on the slopes rather than at the skate park.

But the boards and equip-ment locally available weren’t cutting it, Driscoll and Smith said.

“Everything was over-

priced and low-quality,” Smith said.

The two noticed that if they wanted boards that didn’t crack easily, wheels that spun cleanly, and trucks (skate-board axles) that helped them do better tricks, they had to travel all over the metro or order online to get what they needed for longboarding.

But the real catalyst was when Driscoll broke one of the bindings on his wake-board over the summer. Even though the board itself was in perfect shape, the shop they went to could only sell them an entirely new board instead of parts to repair it.

“It just didn’t seem right,”

Smith said.And thus an idea was born.

Smith and Driscoll have been pals since they were 10. They started planning for the shop while Smith was home for the summer from studying at the University of Minnesota for nanotechnology.

B acke d by D r i s c ol l ’s parents, Lolita and Kevin, Driscoll Board Shop opened for business in early Decem-ber 2014, selling longboards, snowskates, and all the equip-ment to customize the boards to a rider’s taste.

“It was pretty instant love from Shakopee,” Driscoll said of the opening.

Situated in what was once a 19th century bank building in

historic downtown Shakopee, Driscoll Board Shop sits on the corner of Second Avenue and Lewis Street. The build-ing is owned by Billy Wermir-skirchen, whose father Bill did a full renovation of the building. At the board shop, the original stained glass windows and even the bank’s vault door add to a classic vibe in the space.

“The space and the price were right. We knew we want-ed to be in old downtown,” Driscoll said.

Driscoll Board Shop is home to the brand Pyrate, Driscoll’s custom brand for longboards and snowskates of all shapes. Along with the Pyrate brand boards, Driscoll

Board Shop sells boards by San Diego-based Kahuna Cre-ations. The Pyrate boards are manufactured in California to Driscoll’s precise specifi-cations, then shipped to Sha-kopee where the boards are assembled in the shop with custom fittings.

“We tell them what wood, how to press it, what shape,” Driscoll said.

THE BOARDS

Each snowskate and long-board features a specially designed graphic drawn by Nick Driscoll’s first-cousin-once-removed, artist Steve Driscoll. Based out of the south metro, Steve Driscoll has had exhibitions across

the United States and Canada, and even in Australia and Japan. When the two paired up for the designs on Pyrate boards, it was a perfect match.

B ec au se of t he n a me Pyrate, Nick Driscoll wanted all the boards to have a nauti-cal theme, with one of Steve Driscoll’s designs adorning the underside. There’s the Tortuga board, which is the Spanish word both for tortoise and a dry island where pirates tend to hideout. Steve Driscoll created a breathtaking sea turtle gliding through the open ocean. For the Cutlass board, the design features a sword pointing forward, held by the hand of a uniformed naval officer. And then there’s the Dutchman board, named for the ghostly ship said to be captained by Davy Jones.

“We would bring him an idea, and it would turn out beautifully,” Nick Driscoll said.

For Pyrate’s snowskate, Steve Driscoll was given a blank canvas. When he came up with an angry yeti pulling a nosegrab in the mountains, the final product was perfect.

Each of the boards are a different shape, designed for a slightly different purpose. Some are better for speed, some are better for cruising, some are better for downhill racing. And with a variety of shapes, trucks and wheels to mix-and-match at the shop, Smith said all riders can find something.

“All of my next purchases, I’m getting here,” Smith said.

Over the past winter, Driscoll and Smith were fo-cused on getting the word out about snowskates. Hav-ing gained popularity on the slopes of the Rockies and at Tahoe in the early 2000s, the sport has finally begun to make its way to the Upper Midwest. Driscoll, Smith and their friends have taken their snowskates onto the Minne-sota and Wisconsin hills to spread the word and build up business for the shop.

“The first time people see them, they’re just amazed,” Driscoll said.

But investing in a board can be a big leap for some-thing you’ve never tried. That’s why Driscoll Board Shop offers a $35 snowskate rental with a lesson during the snowy season.

But now, with the warm weather sweeping the state, longboards and longboard accessories are in high de-mand. To attract new young riders, Driscoll Board Shop has teamed up with Bill’s Toggery to offer a chance to win a Pyrate longboard with every tuxedo rental during prom season.

In the future, Driscoll and Smith hope to expand their product line, offering more board shapes and a wider variety of trucks.

“Business has started to pick up a lot. We’re going to make money, and invest it back into the business,” Driscoll said.

Two best friends become two entrepreneurs: Driscoll Board Shop

PHOTO BY CRISTETA BOARINI

Friends since childhood Nick Driscoll, left, and Jamie Smith, right, are now business partners for Driscoll Board Shop. The two both went to Shakopee Public Schools.

Just the FactsBusiness name: Driscoll Board Shop

Address: 138 Lewis Street S, Suite #1, Shakopee, Minnesota 55379


No. of employees: 2

Business/product: Longboard and snowskate sales

Price range: $150 — $300

Website: http://www.driscollboardshop.com/

Phone number: 612-708-7257

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BY CRISTETA BOARINI

[email protected]

In April 1935, Rahr Malt-ing first broke ground on its first malthouses in Shakopee. Farm fields surrounded Rahr’s tall

silos that rose up in the middle of the Depression-era prairie.

This spring, when Rahr Corp. breaks ground on its new $68.3 million expansion, the event will mark the com-pany’s 80th anniversary at the site.

The oldest industrial entity in Shakopee, Rahr has seen the area grow from rural agricultural town to booming Twin Cities suburb and has weathered all the storms in between.

What’s kept this family-owned business going for so long? Constant innovation, with a keen eye for people and community.

MALTING, A TASTY SCIENCE

Malt is the product that gives Whopper milk balls their sweetness, that gives beers their color, booze and richness and is the base for the best vin-egar on fish and chips.

It all starts with barley. Malting is the process that converts the starches in grain into sugars. At its most es-sential level, malting coaxes barley grains to sprout, thus activating the enzyme amylase (the same enzyme in your saliva) to chew through the grain’s starches and convert them into sugar. Once the sugars have been produced, the barley then gets roasted in a kiln to caramelize those sug-ars. Various temperatures and lengths of roasting time give the barley grains their color.

The Celts once malted their barley by digging trenches, allowing the grains to sprout, or germinate, in the moist ground. At Rahr’s 21st-century facility, the process is a clean, computerized and highly ef-ficient procedure that takes place on industry standard equipment — designed and fabricated mostly by Rahr employees.

“Our employees put a lot of heart into their work. There’s an art to the process now that wasn’t there before,” said Jesse Theis, Rahr’s chief operations officer and an agronomist specializing in plant biology.

From start to finish, malt-ing takes about eight to nine days at Rahr. In one malt-house, grains are steeped in vessels 85 feet in diameter and 15 feet deep for 36 to 48 hours, each vessel holding 2,000 bush-els at a time.

The grains then move to germination where the grains are aerated and the sprout-ing process gets kickstarted. Depending on the type of mal-thouse, the grains germinate in either long wide troughs (saladin style) or in circular vats (tower style) for four days.

While germinating, the grains sprout little rootlets. The germination and steep-ing stages are kept at a cool 60 degree room temperature

with 100 percent humidity to maintain proper moisture levels. The whole germination and steeping areas smell like fresh cucumber.

“We want the grain to think it’s in the ground, ready to grow,” Theis said.

From there the grains are moved to the kiln for one to two days, where they are first roasted at 140 degrees Fahren-heit to get rid of moisture and deactivate the starch-convert-ing enzymes, then bumped up to 160 degrees and eventually 180 degrees to caramelize.

John Heitzman, a senior maltster with Rahr, said each of Rahr’s many malthouses has a slightly different sized system, which allows the malt-sters to perfect the malting process for different varietals of barley grain or even to the many harvests from different regions or years. The malt-houses allow batches to be at multiple stages in the process at one time. In fact, a new batch gets steeped in every 19.2 hours.

“Our employees, our pro-cess development, it’s made us the industry leader,” Theis said.

GENERATIONS IN THE COMMUNITY

Rahr got its start in 1847 in Milwaukee, along the shores of Lake Michigan. Over the com-pany’s 168 years in business, Rahr has survived countless changes in the industry.

“When you look at the histo-ry and consider how Rahr has been threw many profound events — I mean, Civil War, two World Wars, Prohibition, Depression — it’s remark-able that the company has remained intact,” said Willie Rahr, president of Rahr Corp., and the fifth generation of Rahr men to lead the company.

But the Rahrs are not the only multigenerational family

in the company. Heitzeman, a 40-year employee with Rahr, is the second in his family to work for Rahr, succeeding his father. Heitzeman also has a nephew in the business. Many of Rahr’s employees can boast decades of experience, includ-ing Theis who was once a maltster and has since worked up the ladder.

“We have 40 years of em-ployee input in our process de-velopment,” Theis said. “I don’t know of any other company that has the kind of average tenure we do. People tend to be here for their career.”

Rahr also has a long career of giving back to the communi-ty. The Rahr family’s charita-ble arm, the Rahr Foundation, has made donations to more than a dozen organizations in Shakopee, including St. Fran-cis Regional Medical Center, Shakopee High School Envi-ronmental Learning Center, the local YMCA, the Shakopee Fire Department and many others. Rahr also has a schol-arship program for college students, as well as summer student work programs to give students on-the-job experience at a good wage.

But Rahr not only gives of its money, but also its time. Rahr employees are active volunteers of numerous com-munity groups like the CAP Agency, Scott County Special Olympics and 4-H.

RISING DEMAND

Rahr’s upcoming expansion in Shakopee can be credited in large part to the explosive rise of the craft beer industry. In Minnesota alone the craft beer scene has grown at a staggering pace. In 2012 the state had 47 breweries. Three years later, the Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild now has 72 members, with more brew-eries opening up statewide almost monthly.

A nd t h at hei g ht ene d growth is echoed across the nation. According to the Brew-ers Association, the number of operating breweries in the U.S. in 2014 grew 19 percent, totaling 3,464 breweries.

Those thousands of brewer-ies have been clamoring for product. And Rahr has stepped up to meet the demand.

With 13 sites across the U.S. and Canada for warehous-ing, distribution, packaging, trucking, and energy Rahr has grown into much more than just a malting company. In the last few years, what had traditionally been Rahr Malt-ing Co. became Rahr Corp. to better manage the many dif-ferent aspects of the business.

“The resturcture has been important for us, because it has allowed us to grow,” Willie Rahr said.

Brewers Supply Group, Rahr’s wholly-owned sub-sidiary for supplying craft brewers, has been growing at a rapid pace. So far, Theis said BSG has been hiring about 1.5 full-time jobs per month.

There was a time, Theis said, when Rahr only had two or three customers through the big macro brewers of An-heuser Busch and Molson-Miller-Coors. Now, because of craft beer, their customers number in the thousands. Even requests to tour malting facilities have dramatically increased.

The $68.3 million Shakopee expansion will bring between 28 to 42 jobs to the local com-munity alone. Consisting of four new structures at Rahr, the expansion would make the Shakopee campus the single largest site for malting in the world. The expansion will include a new warehouse and automated bagging facility on the north side of First Avenue, a tech center with a pilot brew-ery and lab for testing product,

a maintenance facility and a new malthouse on Third Avenue. The malthouse will be of a hybrid design uniquely engineered by Rahr employees that takes the traditional wide rectangular beds for steeping, germinating and kilning malt

and stacking them vertically. No other malthouses in the world have such a design.

“Our expansion really started with the craft beer boom. It’s been about meeting the opportunity,” Rahr said.

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[email protected]

Ma g g i e M o r t e n s e n a n d M a r y D o dd s h ave b e e n b e s t

friends since they met while attending the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, now called St. Catherine Uni-versity. And it’s no wonder: They both like to work hard and have fun, and not neces-sarily in that order.

They also like to dream. As undergraduates at St. Kate’s, they aspired to start a business together one day.

That day came 28 years ago when they started North Aire Market, a privately held manufacturer of specialty foods. The business started in Shakopee in 1987 and has remained there, though it’s now in its third location in the city’s industrial park.

North Aire Market’s pri-mary product is a line of national award-winning dry soup mixes sold under the brands Maggie & Mary’s and Camp Traditions. The Mag-gie & Mary’s brand is sold in gourmet and specialty stores. The Camp Tradi-tions brand was formulated specifically for the outdoor enthusiast market and is sold in outdoor and sporting goods stores nationwide.

The company also pro-duces a line of popcorn kits under the brand Pop It Top It, which is sold in specialty retailers across the country. The company also produces dip, appetizer, dessert and beverage mixes. In addi-tion to their own products, North Aire Market produces private-label specialty foods for large, national accounts.

North Aire, the owners proudly say, prides itself in creating “quality foods for real people.”

REALIZATION OF A DREAM

Dodds, originally from Dubuque, Iowa, now lives in Chanhassen. Mortensen was born in Heron Lake, Minn., and moved with her parents to Prior Lake when she was in high school. She resides in Eden Prairie.

At St. Catherine, Dodds received her undergradu-ate degree in education and later got a master’s degree in special education at the University of St. Thomas. She worked as a program director in special educa-tion before starting in the business world. Mortensen got her undergraduate de-gree in psychology and did graduate work at the Uni-versity of St. Thomas. Right out of college she worked in human resources and after graduate school, worked as a counselor and instructor at a couple local technical colleges.

So, how did two young women on those career paths end up in the business world?

“Starting a business had been a dream of ours when we

were undergrads at St . K ate’s ,” Mortensen said. “Both our fathers owned their own businesses. We h a d e n -t r e p r e -n e u r i a l s p i r i t s , a n d w e w e n t t h r o u g h

St. Kate’s at a time when women were finding and making new opportunities for themselves. The business world was beginning to ac-cept women into its ranks, but we wanted to create our own path. We also wanted to incorporate the values we had learned in our families, in our experiences in educa-tion, in human services and in other businesses, to cre-ate a company where qual-ity work was completed and people were truly valued.”

North Aire Market has both full- and part-time em-ployees. Because it’s a sea-sonal business, during the “slow” part of the year the company employs 12. In the fall, when production picks up, that number grows to 25 to 30.

WHOLESALE RETAILERS

Only about 3 percent of North Aire’s business is con-ducted online. The majority of the sales are wholesale to stores that sell its products. North Aire’s products are available at more than 3,000 stores nationwide.

Its Camp Traditions line is sold in all the Cabela’s stores, at L.L. Bean, Mills Fleet Farm, at some of the Bass Pro Shops, and in many hardware and other outdoor specialty retailers. Maggie & Mary’s and Pop It Top It product lines are sold at up-scale specialty shops. Locally they are available at Lunds and Byerly’s, Bachman’s, the General Store, Bibelot shops, and other specialty retailers.

Nationally they have been sold by Williams Sonoma, Crate & Barrel and Macy’s, among others. In addition, the company makes products that are sold by national and international retailers under their own brands.

North Aire has a small group of independent sales representatives who sell its products, but the majority of its local sales take place in the office in Shakopee.

“We have a tremendous woman who heads up our sales efforts and attends many of our trade shows. She lives right here in Shakopee, as do many of our employ-ees,” said Mortensen.

The store also holds two warehouse sales each year. At the event, the company sells

products going through packaging changes or for-mula changes, along with

overstock. “It’s a win-win opportu-nity for everyone,” said Mortensen. “Consumers get great products, we get good feedback from the folks who use our products, and because we can sell overstock this

way, we don’t have to pass ex-cess costs onto our wholesale customers. This also allows us to move through inven-tory more quickly, which en-sures stores they are always getting product that is fresh.”

There is one coming up in April. The warehouse sale will be held at the business office at 1157 Valley Park Drive S., Friday through Sun-day, April 10-12 and Thurs-day through Saturday, April 16-18. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday.

Mortensen and Dodds also attend various trade shows to meet prospective clients. “We meet gourmet buyers at the International Fancy Food Show in San Fran-

cisco, we meet department store buyers at the Interna-tional Housewares Show in Chicago, we meet specialty buyers at local and regional gift shows. We attend various hardware shows, and also farm and fleet buying shows,” said Dodds.

NEW PRODUCTS

North Aire’s core product is its soup line, which has won some of the most presti-gious awards in the specialty food industry. Most soups require only adding water.

“Our quality is unsur-passed,” said Mortensen.

The company is launching a new soup brand, Pantry Pack, “which we hope to grow as a standard pantry staple for middle America,” Mortensen said. “Everyone is getting busier and busier, and yet folks still crave the comfort of home cooking. Our Pantry Pack line will give home cooks a place to easily start, and they can ‘doctor’ the mixes however they want to put their own signature on the finished product. Families can still have delicious home-cooked, a f for d able me a l s , even though everyone’s sched-

ule is jam-packed. Many of our mixes can be prepared in crockpots, making the experience of walking into the house after a busy day at work smell terrific.”

The recipes for their prod-uct are an offshoot of their upbringing, Mortensen said.

“We love good food. We come from families where food was a way of expressing love and hospitality. Both our moms and our grand-moms were great cooks,” Mortensen explained. “All of our products start out as a basic recipe that you might find in a cookbook. One of our best-selling soup mixes, our chicken dumpling soup, started out using my grandma’s recipe. Because we wanted the dumplings to be truly authentic, and no one was making authentic dumplings domestically, we have our dumplings made in Bavaria and bring them in for our soup.

“In the case of our Pop It Top It, a woman who works for us came into the office and delivered a recipe for candy-coated popcorn that she had gotten from one of her girlfriends in book club. She said how terrific the product was. We tasted it and agreed and then went about figuring out how we could produce that on a larger scale to sell wholesale.”

TIME FOR FUN

Dodds and Mortensen said company employees work hard, but they also take the time for fun. The employees easily engage in banter with the company owners, more as friends than employees and bosses, as they scurry about the workplace.

While maintaining high standards to create excep-tional food products, the com-pany also enforces a strict dress code: “No blue suits, pantyhose, or high heels are allowed anywhere within 30 feet of the building’s perim-eter.”

North Aire Market: Dream becomes 28-year business

PHOTOS BY PAT MINELLI

Mary Dodds (left) and Maggie Mortensen met at college where they dreamed of owning a business. They opened North Aire Market in Shakopee 28 years ago.

North Aire Market employees package food items.

were undergradsat St . K ate’s ,”Mortensen said.“Both our fathersowned their ownbusinesses. Weh a d e n -t r e p r e -n e u r i a ls p i r i t s ,a n d w ew e n tt h r o u g h

products packagingmula chan

ovewinitsa“Cgregetfromuseand

Mary Doddowning a b

Just the FactsBusiness name: North Aire Market

Address: 1157 Valley Park Drive, Suite 130

Years in location: 28 years in Shakopee

Number of employees: 12; 25-30 seasonal

Business/product: Specialty food

Website/phone: (952) 496-2887; (800) 662-3781; www.northairemarket.com/


BY TOM SCHARDIN

[email protected]

What’s better t h a n home -made?

G l e w w e Castle Brew-

ery has been brewing its own root beer since 1994. It started as a two-person operation, went to four, and now is back to two.

And you can get it in Spring Lake Township, just south of Prior Lake, courtesy of Mark and Laurel Glewwe.

“We make enough money from it for a vacation every year; we’re not getting rich,” said Mark, who added an-nual profits are around about $2,500 per year. “If it wasn’t for the social aspect of this making your own root beer wouldn’t make any sense at all. We enjoy meeting people and the farmers markets.”

That’s where you can get Glewwe’s root beer — farm-ers markets. It’s been avail-able at the Prior Lake Farm-ers Market since 2004. It’s been sold at the Eagan Farm-ers Market since 2008 and now it’s available at the New Prague Farmers Market.

Back in the early 1990s, Mark and Laurel went to England for a trip and were intrigued by the homemade ciders and beer. So they used that inspiration to make that own root beer, as well as other assorted sodas like cream and orange.

You can’t find their root beers and sodas in stores or restaurants. That would take licensing from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA). Mark said that would change the game a lot.

First and foremost, it would require inspections from the MDA and additional costs. Second, more work — a lot more.

“We’ve thought about it many times,” said Mark. “I know there are markets for us. Several stores would like to sell our stuff. Would it be worth the time? I’m getting to the point where I’m looking to do less work, not more. I’m not getting any younger.

“Technically, we are a business. We’re declared as a business,” added Mark. “But we are not incorporated.”

The Glewwe’s two children used to help in the operation back in the day. But not any-more, since their daughter, Diana, is now 30 and their son, Erik, is 25.

“They helped a lot in the beginning, washing bottles or whatever little things needed to be done,” said Mark. “But they’ve moved on. For us, this is basically

a hobby that’s gone out of control.

“We’re not going to be Cargill anytime soon,” added Mark.

So how did Mark and Lau-rel perfect their array of sodas? When the operation first started, it was run right out of the house and, for the most part, the neighborhood enjoyed their brews.

But as the years went on and their popularity rose, the Glewwes added on, adding

Glewwe Castle Brewery to the property.

Now, it’s not a real castle — not like the logo depicts.

“My wife was getting tired of her feet sticking to the floor, so I had to move the opera-tion,” Mark joked. “It’s right by the house.

“It took us a while to per-fect what we were doing,” said Mark. “It was a learning process. Not all our early batches tasted great. But we kept making it, perfecting it. People liked it. And now we are selling it. It sort of took off on us.”

And just because Glewwe Castle Brewery is not licensed by the MDA doesn’t mean Mark is cutting corners dur-ing the making process. All the brewing is done in Na-tional Science Foundation

materials. It’s food safe.How long does it take to

make enough root beer for a day at the Prior Lake Farmer’s Market? Mark said they make the root beer in 11 gallon batch-es, which comes out to be about five cases of 12-ounce bottles. He makes about 20 gallons per week.

“It takes about five days from start to finish,” he said.

And don’t forget, the Glew-wes make their own labels, too.

A small “to-go” bottle will cost $2. A “mix-and-match” four pack costs $7. A case, 24 bottles, will run you $38.

Are you looking for a 5-gal-lon keg for a party? Glewwe

Castle Brewery also does ca-tering. That will run you $38, plus a $5 set-up fee.

So how tasty is the root beer? Well, in 2008, Twin Cit-ies Metropolitan Magazine ranked Glewwe Castle Brew-ery’s product “the most flavor-ful” in a review of Minnesota-made root beers.

Small in size, big in tasteGlewwe Castle Brewery has made homemade root beer since 1994

SUBMITTED PHOTOS

The inside of Glewwe Castle Brewery in Spring Lake Township in Prior Lake, which has specialized in making root beer since 1994.

Just the FactsBusiness name: Glewwe’s Castle Brewery

Address: 4620 207 St. East, Prior Lake


No. of employees: 2

Business/product: Homemade root beer, along with cream soda and orange soda.

Website/phone number: www.glewwe-castle.com/sales2/index.html; (952) 440-4558

Last Septemer at the 20th anniversary of Glewwe Castle Brewery, Mark Glewwe gives an presentation on how to make ginger ale.

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Awards Reception: April 26Open to the public. Here’s your chance tosee all of the competition art work in oneplace! $1600 in prizes awarded. Doorsopen at 1:00pm at the McColl PondEnvironmental Learning Center.

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“But they’ve moved on. For us, this is basically a hobby that’s gone out of control.”Mark Glewwe


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