Early Birds: Tom Ashbaugh and Craig Blixrud thought it would be fun to greet the usual early birds of Mark Arnold and Dick Anderson.
President Dave Goodwyne rang the bell for a moment of silence and to bring the meeting to order.
Guests: Arman Ahmadi, an IT professional, looking for work was brought by Erik Schindler.
Honorary Members: The Honorary members all slept in today.
Announcements:
- Pick up 2 of the new canary yellow member directories if you haven’t already.
- Golf outing is planned for June 17.
- Randy Korn has a home in this weekend’s Remodelers Showcase at 4500 Colfax Ave S. #44 in the directory. Open 12-6 PM.
- Todd Anderson mentioned that Jim Erickson was on the same flight as him but sat in first class. Jim’s retort was that “If you don’t fly first class, your kids will”.
- Along the same lines, Matt Crane had his daughter in a suite at a Wild game and she thought they should do it all the time.
- Bill McReavy was on the front page of the StarTribune today with an article on the Crystal Lake cemetery.
Business Networking: Houselift is looking for a Sales/Design Consultant. Summit Fire is looking for some one who wants to sell Fire Inspections and related services.
Business Exchange: Dwain Coleman started us off and was followed by Randy Korn, Don Thiets, Paula Mertens, John Winston, Dave Goodwyne, Chris Leonard, and Jerry Olson.
Business Updates: What’s new in your business?
Table Introductions: Table #5 was so afraid of table introductions that no one sat at the table. Where was the Table chairmen to ensure attendance?
Pot of Gold: Don Thiets graciously allowed Peter Eaton to draw in his place today. Renata Faeth won by having her card be the 5th one drawn.
Craft Talk:
Peter Eaton introduced today’s guest speaker, Peter Smerud, Executive Director of The Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center.
Peter Smerud is a Moorhead, MN native, Eagle Scout, and has spent 32 years at Wolf Ridge.
Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center located in Finland, MN is a 2000 acre, 400 bed live-in learning center that focuses on 5-6 graders during the school year and Family programs in the summer. They are the 8th largest employer in Lake County with over 100 employees and serve 13,000+ students annually. Their annual revenue is 85% derived from by program fees. Their program focuses on getting kids to experience the outdoors around them so that learning can continue throughout their lives based on their experiences at Wolf Ridge.
Peter focused his talk on a recent construction project at Wolf Ridge. They recently remodeled a 200-bed dormitory to meet the Living Building Challenge. This is the highest building standard in the world and strives to make a building have a net zero impact on the environment in terms of waste, water, and energy.
The Living Building Challenge project was the 45th in the world and 1st in Minnesota. Finding contractors and materials for the project was quite difficult. The project’s major funder of the $8.1M project was the Margaret Cargill Foundation.
Register to Peter Eaton at 612-227-6436 or peaton@b2bcfo.com
Looking ahead
April 3 will be TBD at the Edina CC. Any ideas?
April 10 will be Jon Peterson of New American Funding at the Edina CC.
April 17 will be Wells Fargo Advisors (Tony Rubin) at the Edina CC.