The Electric Fetus Co.

Headquarters: Minneapolis
Inception: 1968
Family members in the business: 3
Employees: 37 

The Electric Fetus has survived and thrived for nearly 60 years despite a pandemic, a destructive tornado, and huge changes in music retailing. Co-founder Keith Covart has passed on a strong sense of community to his daughter, Stephanie Covart Meyerring, and her husband, Aaron Meyerring, who now run the business day to day. “We’re not just a retail store but a gathering place,” Aaron says—one now serving second and third generations of customers. Still, “we don’t get stuck doing things the way they’ve always been done,” Stephanie says. The Fetus has stayed hip by hosting performances and keeping up with trends such as K-pop and the resurgence of vinyl.

Fury Motors

Headquarters: South St. Paul
Inception: 1963
Family members in the business: 2
Employees: 300 

Fury Motors began as a Chrysler Plymouth dealership operating out of a Quonset hut. Co-owners Thomas and James Leonard, members of Fury’s second generation, built the business into a dealership group with four locations across the metro. (Fury now sells GM and Ford brands as well as Chryslers.) The company has navigated changing consumer expectations and supply chain challenges. “It’s a tough business for an independent,” Thomas says. “In the car dealership world, you either grow or you find an exit strategy.” One factor he credits for Fury’s durability and growth: “maintaining a great work environment for all employees.”

Kavanaugh’s Sylvan Lake Resort

Headquarters: Brainerd
Inception: 1969
Family members in the business: 9
Employees: 8 full-time, 25 seasonal 

“We always joke that we’re the biggest of Minnesota’s small resorts and the smallest of Minnesota’s big resorts,” co-owner Tom Kavanaugh says. He and his three brothers now run the 51-unit resort, which their parents bought in 1969. Unlike the bigger destinations in the Brainerd Lakes area, Kavanaugh’s tends to attract “family groups that prefer a less busy, ‘lower-impact’ resort,” many of whom, he notes, “have been staying for many years. Some are multigenerational.”

St. Croix Sensory

Headquarters: Stillwater
Inception: 1993
Family members in the business: 2
Employees: 19 

St. Croix Sensory is a laboratory specializing in odor detection and remediation for a wide range of commercial products, including paints, insulation, and cat litter. It also tests the longevity of fragrances added to products. According to president Michael McGinley, his mother, Donna McGinley, developed the company in 1993 as a spinoff from his father’s environmental testing company. He and brother Kenneth McGinley joined the spinoff a few years later. Michael says St. Croix Sensory has grown—it has a second facility in Canada—because of its distinctive specialty in the product testing industry.

WTG Terrazzo & Tile

Headquarters: Burnsville
Inception: 2001
Family members in the business: 3
Employees: 40

Wayne Grazzini founded his commercial subcontracting company in 2001 after nearly 40 years in the industry. The company works with general contractors and business owners to install terrazzo, tile, natural stone, and industrial floor coatings. Grazzini’s son, Tony Grazzini, who is president, and daughter, Angela Ferguson, CFO, now manage WTG’s day-to-day operations. Ferguson credits her company’s durability to its cooperative approach with both customers and suppliers, guided by the “three R’s” her father established: relationship, responsibility, and respectability.

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