Minnesota-based Alexandria Industries was one of the winners at last weekend's Indy 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The component manufacturer used its aluminum extrusion prowess to build the world's longest Hot Wheels track: Four one-mile-long lanes arranged side-by-side in a giant oval for a pre-race competition sponsored by toymaker Mattel.
About 30 Alexandria Industries employees, guests of the company, watched 12-year-old Christopher Bienusa from company hometown Alexandria win the race with his toy hot rod among four contestants. Bienusa made it to the Indy 500 through a Mattel online competition.
Alexandria Industries used nearly 5,000 pounds of aluminum to make the track through an extrusion process of heating a billet — or log — of aluminum and pushing it through a die, creating the track shape. To make the precision curved sections, team members enclosed the track in a form-fitting plastic mold and "stretch formed" the extrusion around the form to keep its track shape while bending.
"This project brought out the kid in our entire team," said Tom Schabel, CEO of privately held Alexandria Industries.
The company, which serves customers in the medical equipment, boating and snowmobile industries, took market share during and after the recession, which sidelined many competitors, Schabel said in an interview last week.
"We are a 'quick response manufacturer,' " Schabel said. "We focus on reducing lead times to improve quality, reduce cost and eliminate non-value-added waste. We have been doing that for a long time and it really allowed us to gain market share as we came out of the recession."
Sales rose 18 percent last year to $85 million. Alexandria, which added 74 employees in 2012 for a total of 525 at plants in Minnesota, Texas and Indiana, should top $100 million in sales this year.
Digital River gets say-on-pay OK from investors
Digital River shareholders approved the company's nonbinding "say-on-pay" proposal by 96 percent at the annual meeting on May 23. Last year, about 80 percent of shareholders voted against the CEO's pay package — one of worst showings in the country. The nonbinding vote was introduced in 2010 for public companies. Since then, the company parted ways with founding CEO Joel Ronning and replaced him with David Dobson, a veteran technology executive and outsider. The board also made changes to Digital River's executive compensation plan that followed a "shareholder outreach program to gather feedback regarding the key drivers to their vote."
In response to that feedback, the board altered its peer group; offered more information on historical performance targets and actual performance against those targets; adopted a compensation "clawback" policy, and made changes to incentive programs. Digital River also hired McKinsey & Co. to assist with a new long-term strategic plan.
PATRICK KENNEDY
platou center halfway to goal
Edina's Fairview Southdale Hospital is halfway to its $15 million community-giving goal for a new emergency center that will be named for the late Carl Platou, who built and ran Fairview Hospitals for 40 years.
Platou retired in 1988 to a second career of teaching and fundraising.
The total cost of the emergency center project is about $39 million.
"It's an ambitious project and to build the very best, we need to partner with the communities we serve to raise an additional $7.5 million in the next 18 months," said Larry Laukka, the community volunteer heading up the fundraising campaign.
Fairview Southdale opened in 1965, and the emergency department is largely unchanged since 1985.
Designed to manage 30,000 visits, last year, there were nearly 43,000 visits to the emergency room.
The new center, to open in 2015, will honor a humble executive.
For more information: www.fairview.org/ emergencycenter.
General mills oats project honored
General Mills was the business-category winner of the recent 2013 Environmental Initiative Awards for its conversion of leftover oat hulls at its Fridley cereal plant into boiler fuel. The process saves money and reduces General Mills' carbon footprint.
Minneapolis-based Environmental Initiative has brought together diverse business, environmental and public interests that resulted in collaborative partnerships and solutions that included Project Greenfleet, thousands of retrofitted school bus diesel engines, discussions that led to the Clean Water Legacy Act, and initiatives that turned polluted fields into tax-yielding housing and industrial centers, More information: www. environmental-initiative.org.
Doran's junction flats launched
Doran Construction has started building Junction Flats, a six-story, 182-unit apartment development on 5th Street just north of Target Field in Minneapolis, for a subsidiary of Dallas-based developer Trammell Crow. The project will be financed by the Carlyle Group of Washington, D.C.
"With the start of Junction Flats we now have over 1,000 units of multifamily housing under construction for mostly third-party developers in Upper Midwest cities, including Bismarck, Duluth, and the Twin Cities," said Ken Braun vice president at Doran Companies. Grady Hamilton, a Minneapolis native, leads the Chicago-based Trammell Crow development team on Junction Flats that also is developing the 165-unit Arcata luxury residential development that will break ground soon near the Colonnade office tower in Golden Valley.
