Friday, November 18, 2005



Here are a couple of photographs of one of five plaques that my old company (Gruppo) made for the Federal Reserve Bank Ninth District. The plaques depicted what the city of Minneapolis looked like at various times throughout history. They are five feet in diameter and they sit in front of the bank on stone plinths. They won a national award from the Society of Environmental Graphic Design the year they were made. They have a lot of detail as you can see from the close up of the city scape.

I have been fortunate to have been able to do cool stuff in my life. People have always been curious to know how I got into this type of work. They were not satisfied with "I am an entrepreneur". They want details. The fact is I have had good luck making the best of things as I bump through life. I ended up with this company because I started my own business and one of the techniques I used was to capitalize on the strengths of the people that were around me. This led the company into the architectural arena in general and manufacturing commercial metal projects specifically. We did lots of cool stuff because cool stuff is more fun to make than boring stuff. We worked hard at it and made quite a name for ourselves as being the go-to guys for oddball and challenging projects.

Being in the construction business was pretty tough. I am grateful to be in the guitar business because getting guitars to people is more satisfying than battling architects and general contractors all day long. Folks are generally happy with their guitar because it is an emotional experience for them and it gives them pleasure to own and play a fine instrument. Actually, the construction industry is an emotional experience too, but not in the fun sense.

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