Midwest is Best

Franziska, Niilo and Ellis enjoying the cabin in Northern Minnesota

I spent my formative years growing up in Minnesota. With Canada as it’s northern neighbor Minnesota’s winter are a bone chilling affair. In spite of the snow-filled bone chilling winters, it has one of the most vibrant and tight-knit bike scenes in North America. I worked at a few bike shops when I went to high school including: Kenwood Cyclery (the one on Lake of the Isles and now out of business) and The Alt when it was located on Hennepin Avenue (it has since moved).

It was there, at the Alt, where I got my first taste of Minnesota’s advertising scene. One of the guys, Gene Oberpriller, I worked and raced with on the weekends had a girlfriend who was a graphic designer (Pam) that worked at Carmichael Lynch. She used to do the graphic design for all of the mountain bike races that the Alt would sponsor. I remember visiting her once in her office at that time oblivious to the fact that Carmichael Lynch was an ad agency.

A collection of photos from the Alt via Handsome Cycles

Another guy that I enjoyed working with was Luke Breen. Luke was the overnight mechanic that would get all of the repairs done so the customers could pick-up their bikes the day after dropping them off to get fixed. Hardcore? Most definitely! A few years later, when I was in my 2nd year of a 4 year college studying graphic design (thanks Pam), Luke started his own shop, Calhoun Cycles. It was around that time that I met his girlfriend Mary. She worked at Fallon, and incidentally, got me my first job working for an advertising agency; a day affair that had me cutting a lot of mounting boards.

Fast-forward 20 years to last summer….while visiting my relatives in Minnesota after over a 5 year stretch of no Minnesota, I came to the realization that it’s the people, environment and culture that make Minnesota so uniquely appealing: Minnesotan’s generosity that make it so open and caring, four distinctly different seasons that make the winter as extreme as the summer, and of course, a culture that breeds pop-culture icons such as Mary Tyler Moore, Prince and the Coen Brothers. It also got me thinking that maybe this applies to three very well-known (at least within the industry) strategic planners who happen to also choose to call Minnesota their home.

On to the second part of Midwest is Best.