Lee Schafer

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Lee Schafer

Columnist | Business

Phone: 612-673-4302

Lee Schafer came to the Star Tribune after 15 years as a corporate officer, consultant and investment banker in the Twin Cities. He has been a columnist for Twin Cities Business magazine and was senior editor for Corporate Report Minnesota.
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Schafer: Summit to stick with a recipe that works

Mark Stutrud, Summit Brewing Co. president and founder, is an entrepreneur who just kicked off a project that will double his plant's capacity amid an industry boom.

Updated: November 28, 2012, - 11:03 PM

Schafer: Replacing the CEO isn't easy for smaller firms

Techne Corp. CEO Thomas Oland, age 71, had a clear plan for CEO succession.

Updated: November 24, 2012, - 04:46 PM

Schafer: Shopping excess is an all-American tradition

Norm Tiedemann and his family in Woodbury have enjoyed hosting high school exchange students from Europe, and two years ago one of them insisted on shopping Black Friday. She argued that it "needs to be part of my American experience."

Updated: November 21, 2012, - 06:47 PM

Schafer: The Vikings owners need to run their business

What the Vikings owners are pursuing is not some sort of East Coast sharp-elbows trick of real estate tycoons. It's common sense: Finance the deal by using cash flow from the deal.

Updated: November 18, 2012, - 09:19 AM

Schafer: With retail turnarounds, sometimes less is more

It was not even 10 months ago that Ron Johnson of J.C. Penney Co. did what Hubert Joly of Best Buy Co. Inc. did on Tuesday -- unveil a turnaround plan to a ballroom of investors and analysts in New York.

Updated: November 13, 2012, - 09:39 PM

Schafer: Cash in the bank makes risk easier to stomach

Think about how an entrepreneur's behavior would change if the company had $1 million in the bank. Or maybe $5 million.

Updated: November 10, 2012, - 05:11 PM

Schafer: More banks will find that bigger is better

The pace of consolidation in banking seems poised to accelerate, and for the same reasons that we see so many fewer small grocery stores than we did 30 years ago.

Updated: November 06, 2012, - 11:11 PM

Latest plans for Imation make sense strategically

A week after announcing dismal sales and plans to lay off 20 percent of the employees, Imation Corp. CEO Mark Lucas clearly has no doubts about the direction he has pointed the company.

Updated: November 03, 2012, - 08:49 PM