Electrolux workers get time to retrain before St. Cloud plant closes

The pending Electrolux factory closing in St. Cloud will cost the jobs of 835 people who make Frigidaire freezers, the biggest Minnesota layoff in years.

Electrolux has said the plant could remain open until 2020. That gave state and local workforce development a chance to come up with opportunities to retrain Electrolux workers for other jobs. Last Tuesday, one initiative launched an 18-month apprenticeship program in industrial manufacturing.

It combines classroom instruction with on-the-job teaching at Electrolux in manufacturing, maintenance, safety, first aid and technical math. The goal for participants is a state-certified journey card as an "industrial manufacturing technician'' in demand in a variety of manufacturing industries.

"Participants can go to any of the companies that recognize a journey card," said Tammy Biery, executive director at Career Solutions, a St. Cloud career services firm that was tapped by the Department of Employment and Economic Development to help displaced Electrolux workers.

She said the program was a new idea made possible in part by knowing about Electrolux's plan so far ahead of the closing of the plant.

More than 50 Electrolux workers signed up for the apprenticeship, which is being taught by instructors from St. Cloud Technical and Community College.

Other partners in the effort are the Minnesota Regional Training Partnership Center of Excellence, the Minnesota AFL-CIO, International Association of Machinists Local Lodge 623 and Electrolux.

Evan Ramstad

There is room for more than one health/technology conference in the Twin Cities this fall.

The Carlson School of Management's Medical Industry Leadership Institute (MILI) is playing host to the inaugural Convene Conference at the University of Minnesota on Oct. 3. It will draw academics and industry folks to focus on data science and analytics in the health care industries.

Pinar Karaca-Mandic has been working to organize the conference since she was named director of MILI last October.

"Industry needs to talk to academia," Karaca-Mandic said. "And academia needs to talk to industry."

The other new conference this fall, the Manova Global Summit, is focused on the consumerization of health and medical delivery through technology. It will occur over four days, Oct. 8-11, and draw as many as 2,000 attendees.

Dr. Archelle Georgiou, an industry adviser to MILI, will be a moderator at both conferences. She said a focus of the Convene Conference will be the "tension between human and artificial intelligence."

She said artificial intelligence can lead to such things as individualized medicine but there still needs to be plenty of human intelligence to realize the full potential of the traditional and nontraditional health care data sets.

Karaca-Mandic said there may be collaboration between the two conferences in future years.

Patrick Kennedy

Lilly replaced Jann Ozzello Wilcox, who retired in May.

Lilly, 55, will lead the investment group for the family and reports to Marquette CEO Bert Colianni, a longtime Pohlad executive, as well as Jim Pohlad, one of three sons in their 60s who run the family-owned business-and-investment complex started by late patriarch Carl Pohlad.

"We've had a relationship for a long time," Lilly said.

Lilly left Crocus Hill Partners, which she started in 2017 after working in investment management for Wall Street and Minneapolis firms.

"I was happy building Crocus Hill," said Lilly, who is returning nearly $100 million to investors. "But this is too good of an opportunity. I will be overseeing a team of 10 people who invest in private equity, public companies and choose outside investment managers. And I get to work with the Pohlad family, for whom I have tremendous respect."