country when it opened and mark has been twice named james beard national semifinal for outstanding barbara graham areas of trust be in the minneapolis for the minneapolis institute of arts and a  and thank you for having me here this evening to speak this is really an honor i really appreciate it i'd like to share with you tonight a bit of a side project i've been working on is certainly not my job and start relieving a major focus of mine in terms of time or energy but it's become quite big on its own without much pushing for me or anyone else it's the idea of minnesota our state and the surrounding region as america's north and it's really caught on but i'm to begin with a little background on the idea for contacts i remember when i first realized that minnesota had a serious identity problem i was eighteen and had just arrived for called orientation in massachusetts surrounded by other students primarily from the coasts for the first time i was hearing what other people thought of the place i was proud to call my home state and they sensually knew three things here thank you first they said you have the big mall right you hang out there a lot no not really i would say don't you have that wrestler guys your governor he's crazy yes i would have to admit that we prefer to call him eccentric and it's pretty much cold there all the time right well not all the time i would say also the movie fargo had just come out and my classmates basically assumed that it was a national geographic documentary on life in minnesota needless to say our reputation back then did not exactly fill my heart with pride i was born and raised in minneapolis a fifth generation minnesotan i loved growing up here but it was time spent outdoors in the boundary waters visits to our world class museums or playing hockey all winter long i know how great this part of the country is but over time i've become painfully aware that very few people in other parts of the country do in fact they don't know much about us at all and to be honest it pisses me off because i take minnesota personally a few years ago i took a trip with my wife through scandinavia copenhagen's noma had just been named the best restaurant in the world and suddenly all eyes were on the region whether it was the vibrant food scene the world class design community or the extraordinary natural beauty of the landscape it seemed the whole world was celebrating all things nordic i certainly came home impressed by everything we'd seen tasted and experience but also a little frustrated so many of scandinavia strengths were familiar to me and that's because they were minnesota strengths too and yet our region of the country continued to go overlooked but we weren't part of a defined region and that was the problem we were fly over country part of the big nebulous midwest a catch all for states left over after all the other regions of the country had been established and mrs minnesota didn't have much in common with many of those other midwestern states if you think about it even the term midwest reflects an east coast perspective of the country there was a time when minnesota was part of the western frontier and thus the northwest of the known united states is that front here pushed onto the west coast this part of the country was just midway to the west of the midwest or even worse for minnesota the upper midwest with each additional relative modifier minnesota geographic identity got weaker now to be very clear just in case there are any native islands in the room i'm not anti mid west rather this is about being pro minnesota and just longing for an identity that better reflects and represents the state i love we've been letting other parts of the country define us for far too long and they certainly aren't doing us any favors perhaps you remember last fall when the new york times it around up of traditional thanksgiving recipes from each state in the country do you remember what ours was they proclaimed minnesota's favorite dish to be grape salad it was just another instance of someone in another part of the country not knowing all that much about minnesota and telling our story in accurately but although it may have been the times as gaffe it was our problem we needed to take control of the narrative and i had no idea what if just a scandinavian countries had their own collective identity as northern or nordic europe what minnesota and the surrounding states had our own identity as the northern united states or to be concise the north it seems somewhat promising and after all it really was nothing new minnesota's official state motto has been the star of the north since one thousand nine hundred sixty one is even our state flag but we needed to test the idea so we did the obvious thing we made hats we figured that if people liked the idea of our region is the north instead of the midwest they would buy a hat and show their pride it was really that simple we ordered one hundred fifty hats and introduce them in early fall of two thousand and thirteen thinking that our supply would certainly last us through christmas but guess what happened they sold out in four days and what i found remarkable is that we really didn't have to sell the hats or the idea at all people just got it intuitively instinctively who was as if we'd all been thinking the same thing and it just took a little spark to start what has become a movement there  showing their northern pride not just here in minnesota but all across the country and even around the world and what started as a fun little idea and a very simple test has become much bigger than hats here's why i think the north is working and it really boils down to three things first the north is accurate or the northernmost state in the contiguous us period that's not branding it's just geography and there's something timeless something permanent about geography this isn't about trying to invent a new region of the country and this isn't about trying to make minnesota seem better than it is or something it's not it's about rediscovering a region that's always been here hiding in plain sight and telling our own stories to the rest of the world second the north is authentic a few months back i learned that minneapolis is actually considered an identity as the north years ago but decided against it because community leaders were worried that it sounded cold and would scare people away yes the north sounds cold but minnesota is cold at least for a good part of the year and one of the first things that comes to mind when people think of our state whether we like it or not so let's own it there's a strategy in boxing called stepping into the punch the idea goes that if you know you're going to get ahead you want to step into the punch which takes the power out of it if you try to lean away from the punch it actually lands with more force trying to lean away from our cold winters is a losing strategy and it always has been lastly the north the specific the midwest as we knew it was so vast and it states so diverse that they couldn't really collectively stand for anything by focusing in on this region is the north minnesota in the surat in the immediately surrounding states can be known for the characteristics they actually share and that's good for the other states to do self identify as the midwest as it makes their identity more specific to everyone says the conversation first started two years ago we've seen incredible momentum as more and more people have started to make the idea of the north their own and the press has taken notice first locally and then nationally but perhaps my favorite example of how far the north movement has come and where it can go and where i think you can take us is minnesota's upcoming super bowl and i got a little a little sneak preview for you so what's remarkable about minnesota super bowl is not just the adoption of the north as a central theme but even before that how the big committee pitched our state as a potential site the n f l after decades of trying to downplay our reputation as cold or hide from it inside of shopping malls in downtown skyways they led with the cold and in doing so they stepped into the punch there's no denying that in february of two thousand and eighteen it will be winter in minnesota so the committee made the argument that our cold was an asset a differentiating feature and that if given the chance we were going to show the rest of the world how winners done and it worked it turns out that the cold isn't our biggest liability after all in fact it might just be one of the best things about minnesota we see this changing attitude in events like the us pond hockey championships and the locus cross country ski festival events that couldn't happen without our cold and snowy winters and don't happen anywhere else in america you'll only find them here in the north the cold also toughens us up and makes us have to work a little harder to thrive year and that's actually a really good thing by creating challenges cold fosters creativity and that's not just my opinion if you look at the two thousand and fourteen global innovation index of the top ten countries in the world in terms of innovative economies eight are in northern cold climate regions and the top twenty includes all five nordic countries he see the pattern here on a national level minnesota has long punched above its weight and continues to outperform here's just some of the recent recognition our state has received this is what a changing narrative looks like now of course embracing the north didn't all of a sudden make our state great many of the qualities now being recognized nationally have been foundational to minnesota for generations and this is not to say that our state doesn't face important challenges because it does but the north gives us a new platform to tell our stories and talk about what makes this state unique and it allows others to view the region with fresh eyes and to see it for what it really is before i conclude i want to circle back to something i said at the beginning which is that the north movement really requires very little for me and i think this is important as we all think about how to make our cities and our state more appealing i often hear from people i love what you guys are doing with the north how can i get involved it's as if they imagine a committee running this thing well there's not there's no board no staff no budget we honestly just produce hats and started selling them so not only is there no budget but we've actually made a little money doing this the full extent of the north campaign was one of that at the walker art center which really was more of a panel discussion about this idea with participation and feedback from the audience the intention was to invite people into the conversation and hear what they thought rather than an effort to sell them on the north and that's it i've often wondered why a state with some of the finest advertising agencies in the country has historically such done such a poor job of marketing itself but i think that's actually the problem if you look at how we've tried to position ourselves in the past it's always started with a committee and then a budget and then the hiring of pricey consultants in a marketing firm usually results in some kind of a new slogan and a logo and then a fancy website and lots and lots of glossy brochures and it's never worked very well in spite of all that time effort and investment like i said it's not that we don't have great advertising and design talent in this community it's precisely because past efforts have always felt like a top down branding and marketing campaign in my opinion that's not what makes places attractive the folks we're competing against nationally the portland's the denver's the brooklyn's aren't winning with slogans and logos they're winning with stories and perception and it doesn't feel forced it feels authentic and organic if anything as a consumer i worry that a place that has to try really hard to sell itself is overcompensating for something and doesn't really have all that much to offer and that's sad for minnesota because we have so much to offer we just need to make sure people know it without it looking like we're desperate for them to know it's a tricky balance but it can be done i'd also like to acknowledge one of the biggest challenges and obstacles that i see to building our national reputation and that's that we've always had a hard time deciding exactly who we are here's what i mean when i went off to college seventeen years ago if someone asked me where i was from i'd say that i was from minnesota but if someone asked me now i always answer minneapolis and there's a reason for that change when i listed the places we're up against portland denver brooklyn i listen cities not states all the national demographic trends are pointed toward urban areas and that's especially true among young professionals and yet there's historically been a tension in minnesota around identity between state and city between greater minnesota and the metro area and even if we could all decide to lead with our urban core and i personally think we should we can ever even seem to agree on what to call that is it minneapolis and st paul the twin cities or most recently greater m s p it's hard to create a chorus of voices about this place if we're all reading from different song books i don't have the answer but it's a real problem here's what i do know when you meet someone from seattle they don't say they're from washington state we need to think about our identity and message in terms of what's relevant to the people we're trying to reach and attract and focus less on what makes everyone here happy and avoids hurting anyone's feelings case in point when the north movement first started to gain traction the chicago tribune published an op ed criticizing the idea in the most condescending and patronizing way possible because apparently chicago felt left out and a little bit slighted and that was one of the moments when i knew we were really on to something because if the north wasn't working they wouldn't care i'd like to close by addressing a question i've often heard along the way why does any of this matter why should minnesota even care what other places think of us or what they call us here's my answer as the owner of a small business i'm constantly on the hunt for the very best people to join our team and it's not always easy that's because if you look around minnesota across the country even if you can be on america's borders there's a fierce competition taking place for talent young people can move and work anywhere and with them go important new ideas at this very moment some recent college graduate with a promising future and a lot to offer his deciding where he or she wants to move and start a career or maybe even their own company  we don't have much of a shot if they're imagining minnesota as log cabins as my college classmates did or worse if we're not on the radar at all as minnesotans were rightfully proud that our state is home to seventeen fortune five hundred companies second most per capita in the nation and most of those companies are homegrown however if you look more closely the average age of minnesota's fortune five hundred companies is ninety years old and the most recent one thousand here was in hundred seventy seven as united health in case you're wondering do you know what the life expectancy of a fortune five hundred company is today it's fifteen years and following the future success of our state is not guaranteed we must make sure that minnesota's a place that both produces and the tracks the best in the brightest because is that talent that will drive our shared success for the years to come as i said i take minnesota personally i think we all do the fight for that bright young talent is happening right now all around us and we can't afford to lose so let's tell our story the real story of this place let's have the courage and the confidence to compete globally because we have a lot to offer and let's be in it to win it because the consolation prize is great salad thank you very much or you know the neighborhood that oh yeah of course i'm sorry so how can how can first ring suburbs sort of participate in the revitalization of the downtown area were in an area called the north loop of downtown minneapolis where our businesses are located it's an area that's seeing a lot of great growth we're seeing we're seeing employers track to the area we're seeing a lot of residents attraction the area and i believe that you know what's what's good for minneapolis what's good for st paul is really good for this this whole this whole area even though i've talked about sort of leading with cities i think the whole area benefits and you know there are some things that are going to work really well in the north of minneapolis retail restaurants those are the businesses were and so i think you'll see i hope more and more people thinking about doing manufacturing here and in minnesota even in this this sort of metro area i think you're and continue to see people why hope more and more people think about living in minneapolis or you're going to see people who choose to live and they want to be close to close to the city but not live in it whether it's because they want more space they have a larger family whatever that reason might be so i really think that what's what's the what's happening in minneapolis what i'm seeing what's happening now in st paul has a lot of great momentum there i think it's going to really benefit all of the communities around the downtown areas and i think i think that's sort of the the teamwork that it's going to take if we can all sort of trust that it's going to benefit all of us that we can we can work together to continue momentum we as was mentioned i work for target prior to going to graduate school worked there for two years there was never any pressure to go in to the retail business and my dad grew up in a retail family i grew up in  political family so going into business was like an act of rebellion i think there's something but you know so there was never it was never any pressure and i always try to dispel any notion that we have somehow retail in our veins and  special advantage because we've made every rookie mistake that i can i can think of but in terms of the idea it was really driven by this this first building that we acquired it's it's an old historic warehouse building that was in serious disrepair and we we took on the project renovating it and we could just sort of see how the scale of the building was was right for a few different businesses that could they could hopefully work well together and that's what we set out to do and it's been so far so far as work as we hoped it w oh there's there's a dog i'll do the restaurant one there it's funny how hard to pick a favorite i've got a lot of friends and chefs who are in this business so and i was on t v so they're going to hear it but the restaurant that my wife and i love to go do it's just across the stone arch ridge from where we live in downtown minneapolis called restaurant almost it's owned by a good friend of mine alex roberts great guys been very helpful to us was helpful to us as we got our start in the business and so if it's if it's my wife's birthday she doesn't want to go to the bachelor farmer because i'm working and she thinks i'm too worried about all the little things that we can't go there so we've got all mine i don't have to worry about the lighting or the music it's someone else's problem and they do agree they do a great job so and your favorite local business like i said we we  carry a lot of really good ones in our store i've got you know friends who are entrepreneurs in minneapolis who are doing really exciting things in a lot of different areas that's one thing one and one thing i think that is gone a little bit overlooked is you know we talk so much about our fortune five hundred companies but there's actually a really vibrant healthy entrepreneurial startup community that i'm i'm seeing in minneapolis and that story kind of goes unreported at that starting to get a little more attention now but i'd like to cheer on all the fellow entrepreneurs whether minneapolis or you know the greater area here because we as i said we need more businesses to start to plant the seeds for the next generation of fortune five hundred companies hopefully we can rely on the ones we have for forever so couldn't agree more and you know it's it's it's not for me to decide what you know i'm not like the north gate keeper or anything i mean it's it's it's it's you know and i'll be curious you know maybe maybe maybe i'll be here after i beat you i'd love to hear your thoughts on this i mean you know that it should be a little bit of a debate is this the right is this the right identity the right direction we've seen that momentum with that doesn't mean that everyone is expected to agree in terms of you know we don't have to fill in what is what is the north mean i've talked about i think it means creativity i think it means hard work i think it really means you know great core values but but there's a lot more to fill in there i mean there's there's there's diversity to talk about there's the nonprofit community there's the entrepreneurial community so i'd  welcome your help and filling in the narrative and and telling you these are the exactly the stories we need to be telling that if we don't if we don't do the telling you know no one knows about it so will well when i when i bought the building i guess who was that was the sort of the the point of no return is as it was it was a really rundown hole where i was i later learned how many much more experienced real estate developers that looked at it and decided they knew better than to get themselves into that so it was actually i think by sort of our inexperience and that may be nave it either got us you know to take the plunge but once we once we fired the building was actually two years from when i graduated from graduate school and started working on this full time to when the restaurant opened so it was a big it was a big undertaking to restore the building put our team together all those pieces but once once that purchase agreement was signed it was  the identity of the north yes no question i'm sorry i should be repeating these the question was around for the impact of the stadium on on downtown minneapolis well i guess you could say the twins also on the vikings coming up next is major league soccer for st  paul and then in how that how that plays into the north i mean i think certainly you know there are different people for whom you know they'll prioritize one thing over another i think for some people professional sports will be a big part of that identity for others maybe maybe less so i think we've certainly seen a positive impact from the twin stadium on on our part of the neighborhood i don't think that's i don't think the twins stadium is the reason that the north loop has turned into what it is and i certainly think it's been has been positive and been positive for the city it's maybe a little too early to say what impact the vikings will have on downtown east it certainly spurred a lot of development but you know long term it will just have to wait and see i think this the soccer or the soccer stadium i mean a person each deal is different if you want try to measure how they are wired up the soccer the soccer deal was a was a pretty great one what was what was offered i'm sorry that i'm sorry to see you go to st paul but  i should have i should have on the go actually being with some big group of young entrepreneurs tomorrow i should have some some sage advice for them i mean i think you know i think we've been fortunate we have three businesses each one is doing well on its own but i think you know think it's from the inside we've had many more ups and downs and setbacks and frustrations and it and probably is visible from from the outside and so maybe it's just a nod to not be too easily discouraged because it's  it's hard you know we're in we're in the we're in the restaurant business we're in the brick and mortar retail business they're both supposed to be you know just hit industries you don't want to be in someone joked that i should buy a newspaper then i could have the trifecta of like the the three industries that are all all doomed but but you know if you if you have an idea and you believe in it and i think you that allows you to get through the you get through the stumbles and and then and then hopefully hopefully the the market reacts well your i execute well and you've got you've really got something and it certainly greater level and experience of satisfaction to have created something even something relatively small that we have comparing that to ok so we've got we've got some north hats here for her a giveaway and i should add it with these with these hats we actually just starting this fall if as was mentioned i didn't expedition with will steger in two thousand and four right out of college and we will has since started a nonprofit foundation called it was really the will steger foundation  called climate generation their mission is to deliver climate change education to high school students really put these kids to be leaders on the issue and so we're now doing an initiative where for every north south and north that we sell we make a donation to climb a generation we're calling to keep the north pole so i don't wonderful to see so many of you here and for the so many of you have been arrested in our organization i know on behalf of myself and the board of directors we just want to thank you for your commitment to a local business community and at this time i just want to ask our board of directors to please stand ladies and gentlemen these are the folks who work month and weekend with ensuring that this is a thriving place to do business thank your board of directors i just want to take a couple minutes to talk a little bit about where to be has been and then a little bit about where we're going in late two thousand and thirteen many of you know that the organization was deeply saddened with the loss of keith warner our executive director to cancer those of you new who knew key knew the community to tremendous impact he made on the business community as well as on the greater community left behind  great legacy of his spirit not only here at the v a but also in many other places as well last november i spoke at the annual dinner only two months into my role as the new executive director and a lot has happened in  focus has been more refined in twenty fifteen our members evolved into investors just to name change not sell this change was also a change in mindset for the board of directors to help us refine the emphasis of our work further to further the economic development of this area by serving as a conduit of resources and building strategic partnerships and collaboration should just the challenges that are faced in our local business trade area again thank you to our investors who understand the importance of not only participating in something that sustains their own businesses but be willing to invest in making sure all the neighboring businesses around you are successful as well so what exactly is the business of the v a g piece while our business is you your problems are our problems your needs are our priorities and growing business and those your business and those around you is something that we want to do together we strive to be the go to business resource organization of the northeast metro one need that we've recognized is to focus more on the redevelopment of properties in our area as businesses expanding grow seeking new places to do business in the local area can be very challenging the v a d c has recently invested with the help of the city of dallas heights in a database to bring that information to your fingertips on  website and more information for you is just a phone call or email away if you desire it we also took a significant step in branding our community with the first business directory and community profile and we're excited to be making plans for our next edition we continue to delve deeper into partnerships and collaboration's to bring local business solutions we continue to partner with our local school districts and with century college to ensure workforce for example the white bear lake area school district has had a desire to create career pathways that requires our industry support and guidance we have been there as they have launched their manufacturing pa and we continue to work with them as they launch others last year we sponsored an internship program at century college over the summer and we funded three in turns in area businesses and a local community and i believe one of the you looking ahead you know we cannot wait to get started on her initiatives for twenty sixteen will be partnering with the university of minnesota on an extensive and thorough business retention expansion program we're also going to be hosting the first ever north east community business expo at the bad sports on sunday may first we will be continuing our workforce initiatives with new ideas that have been locally generated through our recent community conversations i know the trend has been and in food and shopping to focus on local sustainability i challenge you to think about the importance of being sustainable as a business community by investing locally as well and when you look around the room these are your locally invested committed business colleagues who work next to you with similar demands similar issues and so together we're able to do a lot more for them apart so thank you for your investment in the when combined with the investment of all the people around you we know that we have great things in store for twenty six years so i think the time i'd like to transition into the award segment of our program it's a tremendous perk for me to celebrate business success with so many of our area businesses and each year the b g b c gives a business awards our and i would just encourage everyone to please consider nominating a business for an award beginning in may have every year on our website we start to take nominations and we'd be thrilled to have more nominations for our local business so our first award this evening is the b h e d c business achievement award this award was created to establish special tribute for outstanding companies that continue to thrive and support the local economy re symbionts demonstrate excellence in their professional service industry and i'd like you to watch the video of our first re product design mechanical engineering then it goes into you know tool making or fixture making which kind of makes it all go together assembly line and a big part of what we do is you know quality controls because sixty seventy percent of our products are  design them from them so there's anything from the i call you know the individual inventor himself will come to us with a napkin sketch and we'll do all the engineering and product design all the way up to they have a product they have a design they just want  manufacture it type of situation so yet today we're there is a very exciting for us because we were able to have you know twenty five thirty students that so an interest in manufacturing so for us we brought them in you know and been able to keep it fun and exciting for them we're able to show all the different job fields that are in the manufacturing world so whether they want to office and be in engineering whether they want to be in quality or understand quality or maybe didn't even know about quality and then also even on the floor and some of the trades and some of the and everything else so that to me was very exciting yeah i think the differentiator for us is really hands on that engineer the nice thing is we're able to be somewhat selective about our customers so we select our customers based on relationships and based on what are they needed and how is it hands on so we look at not only a partnership with the with the customer and everything else but we look at them as their product and how much engineering is really involved in it and making  because if it's something that's been there have been manufactured for an sparely easy to get into what we call kind of a price situation so we try to stay away from those types of product so there has to be something that we have a need or they have a need and we have a specialty fours type of products we look for when you look at a lot of the products that we do their life saving so teaching and educating training our employees at home port quality is built into those products is so important to us and what's really rewarding for a lot of us is seeing that product out in the field and seeing whether you see a policeman carrying a radio or you see what your product being used in some sort of hospital or surgery and then i think that is the most rewarding of all of our employees when they when economic development first and foremost for all they do for local businesses especially with the community and the lng is a firecracker i'm going to say at least right so if anybody's dealt with there it's very very  big honor for us so one thing about our company is several years back we restructured reorganized and in powered our employees and in doing so we adopted a servant leadership mentality and it's been for us it's been you know aligning that with our our culture of accountability and our core beliefs really brought in the right people and really i would say is a big contributor to our to our growth and our success so i think our employees have really started to really see how this success and all their hard work is paying off for all of us one of our main goals in an upcoming years is be one of the top companies  employees is a huge part of you know who we are and what we want to be and that's what's really important so investing in our poise you know that lives support and volunteer in our community is incredible so volunteering to both myself is a very big part of that we pay our employees to take time off and go spend time on local you know areas and want to get more involved in just the city of venice heights so not only achieving personal growth but also professional growth and and that's where helping to train and teach them you know job skills and everything else is really important so on behalf of them in the group family we're very honored and thank you all very much our organizations that bring increased collaboration within the community to bring a greater the community partnership on more proudly recognizes our outstanding partners for their exemplary commitment and accomplishments as collaborative my name is shelley hogan and i've been the chair for bug six years and i've been on the board for over ten years that is heights area community foundation we call it the v a chase seattle as sad as it was formed back in thousand dollars and we've been able to serve many aspects of the community so that b h a see at mission is to strengthen our community and that means a lot of different things i can i investment management and expertise and administration which makes us become much more efficient unable to focus on what we really want to do which is to grant  and so the part about ne to the family services is that we learned from when we got started it's all about partnership and so this is a perfect example of a community foundation working with a community organization to ensure that fun fellowship and food and the way that the foundation helped out was to give us the seed money for the sponsorship there one of these many partnerships in the community that add their peace to it and together everybody the boat floats a little higher or everybody's a little bit better it's not that the foundation does it on their own they know that they partner with others and so they're always looking for good partnerships but i think we all have the ultimate vision in mind that we want this to be a good place for people to live for people to work and to do business and so very that's their part of it we could not do the work that we do without the support from the community so grants like this from the venice high its  community foundation make what we do possible for the families that we serve and the fund for teachers is a fabulous organization that we are a part of and we have a the fun for teachers of about sixty thousand dollars we're able to send a teacher annually or a group of teachers to someplace around the world we've sent teachers on  to thank you for all that you do for the community been a great encourage or mentor for me personally congratulations think as a been listening to the things we've talked about tonight i think most importantly the community foundation is really our purpose is to make this a better place to work and to le fund i don't know what the size of it is now but small businesses can apply for that loan and it's a wonderful low interest loan program the v h e d c annual golf tournament was actually started by members of both the boards working together i think we each had our own golf tournaments and then we formed one together made it bigger and better we have annually provided financial assistance to the v a to d c and a number of community foundation of late seventy's seventy nine i think it was eighty four for the v c i was actually there was only five years old but i was there so many of the board members  foundation is all about because i don't think many of you have probably never heard of us and being around since nine hundred seventy nine you might say why is that and it's really because the foundation has been quietly assisting the community and they haven't really made a lot of noise but we're trying to make more noise we're becoming more well known were really trying to get our name out there this year is the first time ever that we had more grant requests than we did foundation they provide us with their expertise and guidance which is wonderful there's a lot of compliance related to foundations and they take care of all that and then we can concentrate on our main purpose which is to advertise and take in grant requests review them and recommend what we think we should do and then also just getting our name out there and letting people know so  community foundation please stand today or in the past if you're on the board please stand so we can recognize you of taking on an advisory role after i don't know thank you  ok finally our last award was named in honor of heath warner who exemplified community service and business success the key for warner standard of excellence award is bestowed on a business that has shown a lofted and lead johnson so they founded it in one nine hundred seventy it's a motion control solutions company we're very highly technical a lot of precision motion control is what we manufacture are more of a component supplier and we have our markets that we serve are primarily at emotive medical consumer electronics and office at a mission so in the automotive world that would look like a dropdown hinge in a d v d display within the automotive interiors or it would look like the center console of your car where you want to lift it up and it's all about smooth motion control as well the feel is really important so as you lift up your center console maybe you want to stop at a certain spot or the release could be really important if it does it slam down or do you have a real nice motion as it's coming down we were founded on judeo christian values and we were founded since one nine hundred seventy with the belief that if we were blessed with profit we would give back ten percent back to the community and that has looked different from various form factors across all those years to today sometimes we just cut checks and now today we're much more active in the community because we feel that if we serve in the communities we we benefit as well not just writing a check a huge piece of our community involvement the last four years this is going on for years now is our work in the dominican republic so this be your number four here this february where we go to serve we take about fifteen coworkers from the u s and a few from the netherlands as well and we go there and we serve and we're building a school it's a private little school and a house in a village called vacation to go and that's it but these trips obviously impact lives our life and the lives that we touch there in the dominican and i know for a fact that when people come back from the dominican you think you're going there to bless them and you're trying to impact their lives when you come back you really find out that you feel anyways that your life was way more impacted than there's possibly could have been well has been a in existence for forty five years and for much of those forty five years we've resided here and we we have been passionate about not only our global community but also our local community yeah we've done meals on wheels here we can done that for years we have an actually an actual group here that goes every few weeks and delivers meals on wheels to the elderly we do toys for tots locally and then we've had multiple food shelves for the local area through  once or twice a year you know we bring coworkers to feed my starving children profits do not come first necessarily so there's times where we will say no to profits but if we feel it's the right thing to do if it's an area of business we don't feel it ethical or right to participate in you know we'll turn away from it at the expense of profits you know we've had ups and downs like any company but if we're doing great and we've got a great group of people that are passionate about what we do and how we do it and and it comes through in lots and lots of ways and community involvement is just one of them is involved and i'd also like to accept it in honor of our founders sherry mentioned dale merrick wall stead and lee johnson who actually started the company forty six years ago now with the intent of always being able to give ten percent whenever profits made it possible so we've been doing that for quite a long time and it's just been more recently them and sherry mentioned that we've actually been able to get more involved in the community i think the original founders felt they couldn't ask people to give up their own time but over time we all realized that's what we wanted to do so you can see our trip to the dominican is kind of the biggest undertaking we've ever done we actually did our own fundraising this year so that we could get playground equipment because we purchased land and we kind of reached our limit but that was a big success just a few weeks ago so it's great everybody loves it and we're really proud to be part of this community and proud to be honored in short commitment to not only b news sites in minnesota but the greater global community so i just want to end with the words of my father his favorite verse he just passed away he would have been very happy and proud to see this but his favorite verse