The great financiers, greedy consumers and others who forgot about thrift and the law of gravity have managed to wipe out more 12 years' worth of value from the stock market -- and proved that tellers and janitors are more valuable than the overpaid stiffs who tanked Citigroup, Bank of America and General Motors.
But looking beyond today's dashed retirements, better days are ahead for working folks and long-term investors. The economic future, and the market lift that will start this year, will be driven less by financial jockeys than by real-company innovators, better ideas and decent people.
A few came across the horizon recently:
•Cardiovascular Systems Inc., a promising New Brighton company that went public this week through a merger with a dormant Colorado company, opened at $6.20 a share on Thursday and closed Friday at $10.15, creating $140 million in market value for more than 1,000 shareholders. CSI picked up about $35 million in cash and a ton of visibility and capacity to further its more-economical, catheter-based treatment of vascular diseases, compared with surgery.
"We've got the financing to fund a great mission," said CEO Dave Martin. "Our Diamondback 360 device allows us to treat more patients in an economical way for hospitals. It's safer and can get into hard-to-reach [blood] vessels below the knee and routinely treat the most difficult, rock-hard types of plaque."
The fast-growing company is adding good jobs and value to the Minnesota economy.
•Video Guidance, an Eden Prairie company that installs and manages videoconferencing equipment, has helped dozens of architects, builders, hospitals and other businesses cut their travel budget by millions of bucks annually. It's no longer grainy, delayed reception but a virtual meeting that also integrates electronic documents and everything else but the doughnuts and coffee.
CEO Mike Werch added employees in 2008. Earnings grew 37 percent to $1.5 million on revenue of $10.1 million, a 21 percent hike over 2007, and a bigger increase than year-over-year growth of the industry. The employees got profit-sharing.
"We're very confident that we will continue the growth," Werch said Friday. "The pipeline for our business is strong."
•The accolades came in all week for CEO David Hartwell, who recently decided to suspend layoff plans for a quarter of the 100-plus manufacturing workers at Bellcomb Technologies in New Hope in favor of renovating the plant, redoubling the sales effort and letting employees volunteer at schools and charities. Hartwell, the principal shareholder, was willing to sacrifice some short-term earnings for what he believes will be a company that is poised to take market share with its high-test, low-weight composite panels for the transportation and other industries.
•Every day, I hear about folks reaching out to the growing ranks of the less fortunate with time and cash.
About 120 geeks, including 40 Web designers at 85-employee Sierra Bravo, one of Minnesota's fast-growing tech companies, will spend most of this weekend helping cash-strapped Minnesota nonprofits create new websites and improve their online capacity. Each nonprofit will get about 200 hours' worth of work over a 24-hour period that begins Saturday morning at the University of Minnesota Continuing Education and Conference Center. Buffalo Wild Wings, Bruegger's, Chipotle Mexican Grill and Peace Coffee will fuel the techies during the 24-hour blitz. More information: www. overnightwebsitechallenge.com.
Neal St. Anthony • 612-673-7144 • nstanthony@startribune.com
