Jay Sachetti joined Jeff O’Brien, partner at Husch Blackwell and Dyanne Ross-Hanson, president of Exit Planning Strategies talked about the market for mergers and acquisitions, exit planning opportunities for companies that don’t end up for sale and how companies can maximize their eventual sale price during an early October panel at the first Upsize on Tap event at Summit Brewing Co. in St. Paul.
When the state Legislature passed a law requiring employers to provide paid leave and safe time for employees, Justin Bieganek started hearing differing details from friends, colleagues and peers.
I’ve been stirring the pot over education recently, in an op-ed piece I wrote for the Star Tribune.
I confessed I don’t use the “parent portal,” that web-based tool the school systems tout as an illuminating window into our children’s world—but that I think leads to a whole bunch of students who let mom and dad e-mail the teachers and otherwise take care of the heavy lifting when it comes to their studies.
“Dare I say it?” I wrote in the piece. “We should let our kids send the e-mails, or better yet, talk to their teachers in person. We already passed chemistry or honors English or remedial math, or we didn’t. We already had our Walkmans and 8-tracks confiscated, and now it’s their turn.
“I don’t romanticize the older generation’s parenting methods,” the piece continued, “but I do know this: there were no parent portals. The only ‘guidance’ we received at school from our parents was when we did something horribly wrong. And then we felt it: THE WRATH OF KAHN. It was undiluted by constant reminders about the little things, which were unknown to them. And we never did the big thing again.”
The comments poured in, both online at the Strib and to my personal e-mail, and the personal ran 10 to one from people who secretly feel the same way I do, but don’t dare opt out because of the public scorn that action entails. To them I say, be strong, and your kids will become stronger, too.
It was refreshing, then, to leave behind the fraught subject of K-12 education, with all the parental guilt that attends it, and turn to the topic of this issue’s primer: higher education, specifically MBA programs geared to entrepreneurs. Such programs abound in Minnesota, and there are plenty of business owners who add the pursuit of more knowledge to their already heaping plates.
Dr. Donna Block is one, an M.D. who armed herself with an MBA when she decided to break off from the large clinic where she practiced to start her own, Clinic Sofia. She’s going strong, opening a second clinic in the western suburbs to meet demand for her services that emphasize the full circle of women’s health care. She delivered my own two babies, now old enough to inspire my op-ed piece, so now I admire her as an accomplished and caring physician and as an entrepreneur.
Tom Salonek is another, the owner of Intertech who ditched one MBA program because it focused too heavily on large company case studies. Since then he’s sought out programs as much for their curriculum—which he believes must be based on practical solutions for his business—as for the students who attend and the professors who teach. Just as much learning goes on with fellow entrepreneurs after the classes, he says, as is imparted by the prof.
At Upsize, we’re set to launch the Upsize Growth Challenge blog, the newest feature of our own signature education series, presented by Winthrop & Weinstine, where we pair two winning companies with expert advisers who help them meet their growth goals. The first workshop was slated for late June and the blog will launch thereafter, updating progress and answering growth questions.
This is education anyone can stand behind: by the students, for the students, with no parent portals in sight. I’m looking forward to a lot of learning in this issue and the months ahead.
Beth Ewen
Editor and co-founder
Upsize Minnesota
be***@*******ag.com
