Quam exits firm to help husband run for governor

In a surprise move, health care guru Lois Quam is relinquishing control of the advisory firm she launched just seven months ago, freeing the former UnitedHealth Group executive to help her husband run for governor.

Quam, founder of Tysvar LLC in St. Paul, said Monday she will step down as CEO and surrender her equity stake in the company so she can work on husband Matt Entenza's gubernatorial campaign. Entenza, a Democrat, is a former House Minority Leader. Quam will remain a non-executive chairwoman of the company and retain a symbolic $1 annual salary.

Tysvar, which bills itself as an "incubator" for clean tech and health care companies, has progressed faster than she expected, Quam told the Star Tribune, noting the company already landed four clients, including two large Norwegian manufacturers and a major university.

An Entenza victory would allow her to focus on improving education and economic opportunities for residents in rural Minnesota, she said.

"I will seek to be the best First Lady I can be," Quam said. "I would be very excited about being First Lady."

"Tysvar has taken off more quickly than I ever dreamed," she continued. "I realized that I needed to let the business spread its wings and expand. At the same time, I'm deeply committed to being alongside Matt as he campaigns for governor. I wanted to be in the position of having the time and naturally, with the election only a year away, wanted to avoid any sense of any perceived conflict of interest."

Still, Quam's decision leaves Tysvar in an awkward position because the company's fortunes largely rest with her star power, vision and connections on both sides of the Atlantic. She was a top executive at Minnetonka-based UnitedHealth and was regularly named by Fortune magazine as one of the 50 most powerful women in American business. There, she started the subsidiary Ovations to house UnitedHealth's Medicare business. Last year, Ovations contributed $28.1 billion to UnitedHealth's total revenue of $75.9 billion.

"Considering from the company's point of view, we don't consider this as a positive at all, but that doesn't mean we can't move forward," said Terje Mikalsen, a top Norwegian entrepreneur and executive Quam recruited to join Tysvar as a managing director. "A lot of things can happen in a year. What the company will look like a year from now is not easy to say. If [Entenza loses], I would look at Lois as an available resource. Let's sit down and figure out if we have some common interests."

Quam envisioned Tysvar, named after her grandfather's hometown in Norway, as an incubator to quickly develop start-ups in health care and clean energy and strengthen technology transfer between Norway and Minnesota, which boasts a large population of Norwegian ancestry.

"There are top-notch companies in Norway with strong growth potential," Quam said. "Where there is a gap, [it] lies with marketing, distribution and sales. We want to help provide these companies with a less risky way to establish themselves in the United States ... [by] gradually introducing Minnesota to Norway. The best business connection is a shared culture."

For example, Tysvar will help Norwegian firms Hybrid Energy AS and AquaFence find U.S. customers. Hybrid Energy manufacturers environmentally friendly industrial heat pumps, while AquaFence makes portable flood barriers that could replace sandbags as a primary defense against floods.

Tysvar will also advise Bellona Foundation, a Norwegian environmental organization, on issues such as persuading the Norwegian government to use almost $500 billion in its sovereign wealth fund to back green-technology companies. The firm will help the University of Tromso, the world's northernmost university, utilize its cold weather expertise and Arctic location to work on technologies to combat global warming.