All those news stories about air quality in Beijing during the Olympics? Many originated with TSI, Inc., in Shoreview. The Chinese government, along with the BBC and other media, ordered more than $1 million worth of TSI equipment to measure airborne particles, carbon monoxide, and other air quality indicators. TSI, which does $200 million in sales annually, says it also shipped an instrument to measure drafts on the Olympic badminton courts—“a very important parameter.”
Insight School of Minnesota, a new full-time, tuition-free, online high school governed by the Brooklyn Center School District, starts its first semester this month. The school is operated by Oregon-based Insight Schools, whose parent company, the Apollo Group, also owns the online University of Phoenix.
Oakridge Financial of Minneapolis led a $7.5 million round of financing for Spineology, an Oakdale company that makes devices for minimally invasive bone repair. The new capital goes to R&D and expanded sales and marketing of Spineology’s OptiMesh Deployable Grafting System, a mesh sack inserted through a small incision that keeps bone graft material in place in the porous bone.
Marion Ross (Watertown), Tippi Hedren (New Ulm), and Loni Anderson (St. Paul) are the first to get stars in a new Hennepin Avenue “Walk of Fame” for Minnesota actors of national renown. The Hennepin Theatre Trust, which owns and operates the State, Orpheum, and Pantages theaters in Minneapolis, inaugurated the walk in late July. Terrazzo stars are being placed in front of the theaters, between Seventh and Tenth Streets.
Not dead yet: Trucks and SUVs continue to sell in greater numbers than cars, according to the Minnesota Auto Dealers Association. While vehicle sales are slow overall (first quarter 2008 sales were down 10,000 vehicles from the same period in 2007, and that was down 15,000 vehicles from Q1 2006), cars accounted for 47.5 percent of those sales, while light trucks accounted for 52.5 percent. MADA forecasts a year-end result of 2,500 more trucks than cars sold out of a total of 160,000 vehicles.
In a national survey of 427 jury-eligible adults, the legal services division of Eden Prairie–based Kroll Ontrack found that nearly 50 percent believe that mortgage lenders would knowingly make loans to people who are unlikely to pay them back; 90 percent believe that subprime lenders took risks and abandoned prudent lending practices; 75 percent believe it’s unfair for those lenders to receive government bailouts.
