Hall of Famers

This issue you will be introduced to this year’s inductees into the Twin Cities Business Minnesota Business Hall of Fame, five of Minnesota’s most accomplished business leaders of all time.

Lee Anderson, Gary Holmes, Horst Rechelbacher, Guy Schoenecker, and Gene Sit have each led at least one competitively superior business organization while making substantial contributions to communities outside of business. They join a group of 46 outstanding Hall of Fame members inducted since 1999 who have discerned opportunities unnoticed by others; pursued those opportunities with imagination and persistence; conducted their activities with integrity; and enjoyed a lifetime of achievement and service.

We are pleased to be able to honor them in this issue—and in person, at an induction dinner at the Minneapolis Hilton hotel on July 24 (details).

We are especially pleased that they and all of the previously inducted members will be permanently enshrined this fall in a physical Minnesota Business Hall of Fame at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management, where Dean Allison Blake is committed to creating ties among students, faculty, and Minnesota’s business community.

Next to the skyway that connects the school’s soon-to-open undergraduate building and its existing building, the accomplishments of each member will be commemorated on a plaque, and the stories of their achievements that have appeared in Twin Cities Business will be available to read electronically. We also expect to show highlights from recent induction dinners on a video screen.

Thanks to contributions by companies associated with Hall of Fame members, families of members, and the company that publishes this magazine, an endowment will allow new inductees to be added to the display for decades to come. They will join this year’s inductees and the following distinguished members.

Al Annexstad , who joined Federated Insurance of Owatonna as a sales representative, and in the next 17 years opened offices in five states and doubled the number of Federated clients in the South. From the time he became CEO in 1999 until his induction in 2006, he built Federated into a company with $4.5 billion in assets, annual premiums of $1.4 billion, and a surplus of nearly $1.5 billion.

Elmer L. Andersen , newspaper owner, one-time governor, and long-time chairman of H. B. Fuller. Anderson, who died at age 95 in November 2004, was known for setting and achieving ambitious goals at Fuller. His favorite newspaper task was writing editorials.