When Julia Ketcham Corbett graduated from Hamline University Law School in St. Paul, Blethen Gage & Krause in Mankato offered her a job. She eagerly accepted it, thinking she would spend a few years with the law firm and eventually make her way back to the Twin Cities.

That was 18 years ago, and all thoughts of leaving Mankato have long since disappeared.

Today, Ketcham Corbett is a managing partner in the 116-year-old general practice law firm that has 14 lawyers on staff. “I fell in love with the community and the job,” she says. “I have great work-life balance here. It’s a growing community, which is good for our business, but I can still go to the grocery store and run into someone I know. It’s a safe community, where you know who your kids are going to school with. The cost of living and salaries are competitive, and it’s a beautiful area.”

Julia Ketcham Corbett, Partner, Blethen Gage & Krause

Ketcham Corbett’s story is not unusual. Situated on the banks of the Minnesota and Blue Earth rivers about 80 miles southwest of the Twin Cities, Mankato is home to an impressive and growing number of businesses that provide opportunities for workers seeking good jobs and good pay, while the city provides them with an enviable quality of life.

The many livability awards Mankato has earned in recent years is testament to its appeal as a great place to live and work. Forbes ranked the city 11th on its 2012 list of the 100 best small places for business and careers; in 2010, the magazine ranked Mankato 15th out of 126 U.S. cities as one of the best small cities to raise a family. The city’s amenities are a big reason for those rankings. It is home to five colleges and has more than 60 parks, eight golf courses, and 50 miles of paved walking and biking trails. And it offers residents and visitors myriad sporting and cultural events in an attractive setting. But it is the vitality of Mankato’s business community and the stability of its economy that typically is the initial draw for people from outside the city: The Mankato area boasts a $9 billion economy driven by a strong, diverse business community. Once people experience life in Mankato, like Ketcham Corbett, they often are hooked.

Way to Grow

Keith Boleen, CEO and President, Frandsen Bank & Trust

Keith Boleen moved to Mankato in 1985. Today, he is CEO and president of Frandsen Bank & Trust in North Mankato. “The size is an attraction,” he says. “[The city] has grown to be a regional center, and it’s only one hour away from the Twin Cities. There is a mix of retail, wholesale, and manufacturing, so we’re not completely dependent on one industry to do well. And we’re in the river valley. Put all that together, and that’s why we’ve stayed here.”

Boleen also praises area businesses’ commitment to the community and its residents. “One of the things that is notable . . . is that we have a community that strongly backs the United Way and other groups that support diversity and educational needs,” he says. “It’s a very giving community. Businesses take a real serious attitude in knowing that in order for their businesses to prosper, it takes a certain amount of giving.”

Jean Bye, CEO and president of Dotson Iron Castings, grew up in Mankato and, like many young people, thought she would not return to the area after graduating from Concordia College in Moorhead. Yet here she is, running a company and enjoying the quality of life she took for granted when she was younger. “I worked at Dotson during the summers while I was in college,” Bye says; when the company made her a good job offer, she accepted and has never looked back.

Dotson Iron Castings was founded in 1876 as a blacksmith shop, evolving over the years to what it is today: a foundry occupying a 115,000-square-foot building with a 10,000-square-foot addition under way, an impressive list of products and clients, and 160 employees. The company melts scrap steel and iron and pours the molten metal into sand molds for parts that range from brackets and foot pedals to tillage points for agricultural machinery.

Jean Bye, CEO and President, Dotson Iron Castings

“We have about 1,200 different parts,” Bye says. “We use technology in designing, so we get a sound, solid part, and our plant is exceedingly automated. The other thing that sets our foundry apart is a quick turnaround. Our standard lead time is two weeks, which is way [faster than] industry standard. And we have a 99 percent on-time delivery, which is way above the industry standard. We deliver high-quality parts on time with a short lead time, which helps our customers capture market share.”

Like Bye, Todd Reinmann, managing director and COO of MTU Onsite Energy Corporation, is a Mankato native who has found everything he needs, and wants, in the city. Next March, he will celebrate 30 years with MTU, which designs, manufactures, and delivers power generation systems. Last year, the company built and delivered 36 generator sets (an engine with a generator that will start automatically and produce power) to a client in Japan—and it did so in just three months.

MTU Onsite’s clients include data centers, treatment plants, office buildings, and hospitals; it also has customers in the agriculture industry. “Our clients are worldwide—anyone who has a need for backup for their power needs,” Reinmann says, adding that the company builds to clients’ specific standards. Generators for hospitals, for example, “have to be up to speed and carrying full loads in 10 seconds,” he says. “We sell a whole solution, which includes software and switching.”

Troy Volk, CEO and President, Volk Transfer

MTU Onsite has 350 employees in Mankato, which includes the corporate headquarters, an 85,000-square-foot production facility, and a 90,000-square-foot inventory control site. “More than 50 percent of our workers [come] from outside the Mankato area,” Reinmann says. “That’s unique. We get a lot of support from Minnesota State University, Mankato, for engineering people and for internships.”

Mankato native Troy Volk is the third generation of his family to run Volk Transfer. Started by his grandfather in 1948, then run by his father, Volk Transfer transports products and goods throughout the United States and Canada. Troy Volk took the reins as CEO and president in 1997. Last fall, Volk Transfer completed construction of a 32,000-square-foot facility, quadrupling its space.

Volk credits the area’s industry mix and strong leadership for driving the local economy. “Mankato and North Mankato have a dynamic mix of manufacturing and retail,” he says. “The two cities and the public leaders have done a good job of promoting both. There is a lot of downtown revitalization, and Greater Mankato Growth [the area’s chamber of commerce and chief economic development organization] is progressive and proactive, and understands what our needs are.”

One of those needs is ready access to skilled workers. Jon Rippke, chairman of the board of Bolton & Menk, says he finds much of the talent the engineering firm needs from Minnesota State University, Mankato, and from South Central College in North Mankato. “One of the benefits of being in Mankato is the access to students at the various institutions,” he says. “The Mankato area has a strong and varied education foundation, from public and private high schools to postsecondary institutions.”

Bolton & Menk often hires students to fill part-time positions, which allows the company to evaluate their skills for future full-time employment while providing those students with valuable experience. “The institutions of higher learning are also very open and receptive to improving their programs in order to provide graduates who meet the current requirements of our industry,” Rippke says.

Founded in 1949 in nearby St. Peter, Bolton & Menk moved to Mankato in 1966 and today has 10 offices in Minnesota and two in Iowa; it has 300 engineers, technicians, and technical specialists on staff, who work on projects throughout the Upper Midwest. The firm has earned a host of awards, including the Minnesota Council of Airports 2008 Project of the Year for the Mankato Regional Airport runway extension. “The diverse industrial and manufacturing base, together with a robust ag economy, makes the greater Mankato area a solid regional center for growing a business and attracting and retaining high-quality staff,” Rippke says.

A Supportive Community

Tim Tupy, a relative newcomer to the Mankato area, represents a new and growing segment of business owners in the area. He came to Mankato as a college student in 1987. After earning a bachelor of science degree in finance from Minnesota State University, Mankato, and working for several years at two technology companies in the city, the entrepreneurial bug bit. Tupy and his wife, Tamera, started LIV Aveda salon and spa in 2002; the Tupys have grown the business to an employee roster of 59, with numerous services that draw customers from a 100-mile radius.

Three years ago, Tupy, who had been brewing beer at home for several years, decided to get into the brewery business. It was, he says, part of his heritage; his great-great-great-grandfather had opened the first brewery in New Prague in 1884. Tupy purchased a former beer distribution building in North Mankato, started Mankato Brewery, and began brewing beer in January. “We have two kinds of beer—Mankato Original and Stickum, which is a darker-style beer,” he says. “We’re in about 60 retail liquor store locations.”

Mankato Brewery has only two people on its payroll right now, but Tupy says the company will produce 1,000 barrels of beer—nearly the equivalent of 57,000 six-packs—during its first year of operation. He is glad he remained in Mankato and is excited about the future of both of his ventures. “This is a community that is supportive of its people and its businesses,” Tupy says.

Corey Brunton, the CEO, president, and owner of Brunton Architects, founded his firm in 2007. “I started in my basement, which lasted about one month,” he says. Brunton had a business relationship with a general contractor doing design/build work who “handed me $12 million worth of design work the day I opened my doors,” he recalls. Brunton moved the company twice and quickly outgrew each location before building a new office in North Mankato last fall. “And we’re outgrowing this one,” he says. “We have 12 employees, and one is working in the conference room.”

Brunton’s firm has a wide-ranging portfolio that includes fire halls, strip malls, churches, banks, restaurants, and retail stores throughout Minnesota and neighboring states. “Easily 50 percent of our work is right here in the city limits,” Brunton says. “Mankato has one of the best retail hubs in the state; that sector is strong and growing and draws a lot of people. Other businesses draw off that. A strong retail industry is a big reason there is so much going on here. The other thing I think really makes Mankato an optimal location to live, work, and look for business opportunities is that the community is very proactive.”

John Finke agrees. He is CEO and president of HickoryTech, a 114-year-old regional communications provider with headquarters in Mankato and 500 employees in Minnesota, Iowa, and North Dakota.

“The community is progressive, innovative, and constantly adapting to change and committed to enhancing the vitality of the community,” Finke says. “With four colleges within our community and several others nearby, HickoryTech can draw from a pool of qualified and skilled employees.”

Like the area itself, HickoryTech has experienced tremendous growth; its roots were as a local, independent telephone service provider, but it has diversified over the years to provide business and residential broadband services and IP-based voice, data, communications, and business solutions. The company is in phase two of its $24 million Greater Minnesota Broadband Collaborative Project, which will bring high-speed broadband capabilities to rural communities in northern Minnesota. About two-thirds of this project is being funded by a grant from the federal National Telecommunication and Information Administration’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program.

Workforce of the Future

The diversity of Mankato area businesses accounts in large part for its economic vitality and stability. The diversity of its residents also has a strong, and positive, impact on the area’s economy. Mankato has a population of about 50,000 and residents speak more than 34 different languages, according to Bukata Hayes, executive director of the Greater Mankato Growth Diversity Council, which works with businesses to prepare them to employ what he calls “the workforce of the future.”

“As our community continues to grow, those communities within it also continue to grow,” Hayes says. “Projections are that, by 2030, we will have an increase of about 117 percent in non-white population and only about a 3 percent increase in white population in our area.”

As the workforce changes, particularly as baby boomers retire, Hayes says, it will become increasingly important to provide access to job opportunities to those new and diverse members of the community. “We know there will be a lack of labor to sustain business, so one of the ways we can counteract that is to engage new community members to provide access and opportunities to the workforce,” he says. “We’re being proactive. We want to minimize the hurdles and barriers. The benefit of an integrated society is that our employers will have a larger talent pool to reach into; that’s a tangible thing.”

It is that type of forward thinking, combined with a spirit of cooperation among community leaders who are dedicated to growing the economy and ensuring that the needs of the area’s residents are being met, that is attracting—and retaining—a new generation of businesses and people. Ketcham Corbett says that she could not have landed in a better place—professionally or personally.

“I’ve had an opportunity to take leadership roles in the community and to have an ownership interest in my business,” she says. “I am also vice chair of the Greater Mankato Growth Board of Directors, which drives a huge economy and is concerned with the community as a whole. My work, family, and volunteer lives are well-balanced here.”