Inside Track: Party’s mood was electric

It was a special (albeit early) 85th birthday party Tuesday for Medtronic co-founder Earl Bakken. The celebration was at the Heights Theatre in Columbia Heights and the film -- fittingly -- was the original 1931 version of "Frankenstein." Bakken, the inventor of the world's first battery-powered pacemaker, says the film entranced him as an 8-year-old boy because electricity brought the Frankenstein monster to life (much like a pacemaker does for humans).

Bakken, who will be 85 next month, was introduced by Medtronic CEO Bill Hawkins and was joined by his boyhood friend and moviegoing buddy Harry Zook of Shoreview. (He recalled that the movie scared him silly, but Zook laughed through the whole thing.)

The event was sponsored by the Medtronic Foundation, the Institute for Engineering and Medicine and the Medical Devices Center at the University of Minnesota. About $34,000 was brought in for the Bakken Scholarship Fund, which raises money for children to visit the Bakken Museum in Minneapolis, as well as summer camps and school clubs that explore "the mysteries of our electrical world."

It may be a down economy and business may be reeling, but don't tell that to the Carlson School of Management. Freshman applications for the 2008-09 school year soared to 4,100 for 450 vacancies. That's up from 500 applications just 12 years ago, when the school admitted slightly more than 200 freshmen. With the addition of Hanson Hall, which opened next to the main Carlson building this fall, the school has grown by 132,000 square feet. The Carlson School has 2,000 undergraduates, nearing its goal of 2,400.

Wired magazine reported online last week that its pick for Transportation secretary in the new Barack Obama administration is Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, who was dubbed "forward-thinking" in terms of "sensible and sustainable transportation policy."

Rybak was cited in the article for his Access Minneapolis transportation plan, which calls for reviving streetcars in the city, as well as for "building a robust pedestrian network, increasing transit access and capacity and making city streets more bike-friendly." When the Interstate 35W bridge collapsed in August last year, he insisted that its replacement support light rail, the report says.

In addition, the report claims Rybak's policies have nearly doubled the number of cyclists and has made downtown "one of the few urban areas to return to the population levels it saw before the flight to the suburbs that followed World War II."

Another, unconventional caveat: "It doesn't hurt that he's also the only big-city U.S. mayor who's ever been seen crowd surfing."

Then again, the report states that Transportation secretary isn't exactly a glam job: It's "sort of like the brunette on 'Three's Company'; you might recognize the name, but you can never quite place it."

Grain Belt has moved its annual "Make your own Grain Belt Premium Commercial" contest online for the first time in its five-year history. Judging from early results, the link at grainbelt.com is a big success. There were 40,000 hits on the site last week even before the contest was officially announced. The 36 entries will be posted through New Year's Eve. First prize is $1,000 and a year's supply of Grain Belt Premium, an Upper Midwest staple for generations. It's now brewed by the August Schell Brewing Co., another Minnesota beer icon, in New Ulm. The contest will move to Grain Belt's former northeast Minneapolis neighborhood with an awards ceremony at the restored Ritz Theater at 13th and University Avenues NE.

After 15 years, the Mayo Clinic is closing its 100-employee clinical trials unit, which provides diagnostic testing for the clinical trials of other organizations. Mayo said the move wasn't related to the economy.

"As the marketplace developed, it increasingly became a commodity service and really didn't play to our strengths," said Jeff Korsmo, chief administrative officer of Mayo Clinic Rochester.

About 30 employees will be cut immediately, with the rest affected as Mayo completes its contracted studies into next year. Some are expected to find other jobs within Mayo.

The clinic, a major medical research institution, will continue to do its own clinical trials.

JANET MOORE, DAVID PHELPS, CHEN MAY YEE