Beyond the Skyline

Eric Anthony Johnson is a native of New Orleans and has worked and studied throughout the country, but the new president of Minneapolis-based affordable housing developer Aeon is no stranger to Minnesota.

Johnson, who starts his job as president and CEO of Aeon on Feb. 8, earned a Master of Public Administration degree from Minnesota State University-Mankato in 1996 and later embarked on a career path that included a stop in Bloomington.

As Bloomington’s director of community development from 2018 to 2020, Johnson oversaw the creation of the city’s inclusionary housing policy and a $15 million affordable housing trust fund. The fund helped Aeon acquire and preserve 306 affordable homes.

In his most recent job as chief of economic development, housing, and neighborhood services for the city of Dallas, Johnson led efforts to create a $100 million affordable housing fund.

An alumnus of the Harvard University Advanced Management Development Program in Real Estate, Johnson earned an MBA from the University of Tennessee, and a Ph.D. in Urban Affairs and Public Policy from the University of Delaware.

Johnson succeeds Alan Arthur, who started his run as president and CEO in 1988 – two years after Aeon’s founding. The nonprofit developer, owner and manager of affordable housing now serves more than 16,000 people each year at 5,800 homes.

In the following interview, Johnson talks about his career path, his new role with Aeon, and the big-picture challenges and opportunities related to the construction of affordable housing in Minnesota.

When cities consider requests for tax increment financing or school districts seek help with bond referendums, people like Greg Crowe at Roseville-based Ehlers are oftentimes crunching the relevant numbers behind the scenes.

Ehlers, a provider of public finance services for 1,500 clients in five states, recently promoted Crowe to president. An Ehlers employee since 2012, Crowe previously worked as a senior municipal adviser and principal for the company’s Education Finance Team.

Previously, the Grand Rapids, Minnesota, native worked as the primary budget analyst for education finance and co-controller for the Minnesota House of Representatives.

As the company’s new president, Crowe takes the baton from Jeff Eaton, who announced plans to retire at the end of the year.

In the following interview, Crowe speaks with Reporter Brian Johnson about his new role with the company, the outlook for the bond market, the balancing act that school districts walk as they consider bond referendums and more.

After a four-year stint in the U.S. Marines, Justin Rost struggled to make the transition to civilian life.

Rost, an infantry rifleman who was deployed in 13 countries, tried his hand at real estate and other careers in his post-military life. Nothing seemed to fit.

“When I got back, it took me a long time to be comfortable walking around a mall or moving through my day without my regiment,” he said. “I felt like something was missing all the time.”

He finally settled on a career in construction, specifically as a union sheet metal worker. Skills he learned in the military, such as the importance of good communication and punctuality, lent themselves well to the building industry.

Two years ago, Rost landed his current job as director of Minnesota Helmets to Hardhats, a national program dedicated to connecting activity-duty military members, veterans, National Guard and reservists with construction training and career opportunities.

In the following interview, Rost talks with reporter Brian Johnson about his journey from military to civilian work, the mission of Helmets to Hardhats, the outlook for construction employment and more.

The past few weeks have been momentous for Margaret Anderson Kelliher and the state department she oversees.

In early November, the Minnesota Department of Transportation officially wrapped up its 2021 construction season, which advanced or completed more than 260 projects, including the mammoth $239 million, four-year overhaul of Interstate 35W south of downtown Minneapolis.

More recently, the federal government announced the passage of the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, which will deliver billions of dollars to roads, bridges, mass transit and more in Minnesota.

In the following interview, Anderson Kelliher speaks with Reporter Brian Johnson about the passage of the federal bill, the newly completed construction season, the future of transportation funding and more.

After roughly 20 years of working in commercial real estate, Andrew Babula recently made the transition to academia – specifically, as director of the real estate program at the University of St. Thomas.

Babula, who started his new job in September, has worked in commercial leasing and development, strategy and brokerage. He fills a position left vacant by the death of Herb Tousley, who directed the school’s real estate program from 2009 until his passing in January 2020.

A native of Ohio, Babula moved to the Twin Cities about 18 years ago to do real estate development for Target Corp. His resume includes stints with large companies like Target, UnitedHealth Group, JLL, as well as smaller firms.

In the following interview, Babula speaks with Reporter Brian Johnson about the present and future of the St. Thomas real estate program, efforts to diversify the industry and more.

Having launched just this year, A2 Art Storage and Services is M.E. Kirwan’s response to an underserved self-storage market.

A2 is a museum-grade art storage facility for objects of nearly any size, shape, medium or value. Kirwan, who is A2’s founder and president, has extensive experience in the self-storage industry. Her father founded Acorn Mini Storage in the mid-1980s, which her husband now runs.

The 35,000-square-foot art-storage facility in Roseville was strategically rehabilitated to include features needed for this type of storage, which included climate and pest control, security features, fire suppression and inventory management. Art collectors, artists and institutions all use the facility to store items.

Kirwan tells Reporter Kelly Busche, “We are having regular people reaching out [who are] looking for our services, and I really kind of think we’ve only scratched the surface here [having] just been open since mid-May.”

Big leadership changes are coming at Ryan Cos. US Inc.

On the heels of a busy construction season, Ryan recently announced that company President Jeff Smith is retiring, and that several of its longtime leaders will transition into new roles starting in 2022.

Among those with new duties is Mike Ryan, who was promoted to preside over the construction and development company’s Northern Division and oversee its expansion into the Denver-based Rocky Mountain Region.

Ryan, a fourth-generation leader, has been with the company for 11 years. In his new role, Ryan will take charge of a geographic area that includes Minneapolis, Chicago, Kansas City, Cedar Rapids and Des Moines.

In the following interview with reporter Brian Johnson, Mike Ryan talks about his new duties with the company, which expects to deliver 146 projects with a combined 28 million square feet of new construction this year. He also reads the tea leaves for the office and industrial sectors, and touches on topics such as the supply chain challenge and rent control.

In this episode, reporter Brian Johnson speaks with the 2021 Finance & Commerce Top Women in Construction winner Joelynne Hanson.

After decades of working in the construction industry, Hanson left her daytime job to launch her own custom crushing company in 2008 — right at the start of the Great Recession.

It wasn’t the best timing, perhaps, but the gamble paid off. HanSon Custom Crushing, based in Forest Lake, has done well in the crushing business with a cross-section of both public- and private-sector clients.

The company specializes in asphalt and concrete recycling, but it also provides quarry and pit crushing, and screening of rock, limestone, sand, gravel and other aggregates.

A past president of the Association of Women Contractors, Hanson has more than 30 years of procurement, administrative and management experience in construction. Prior to launching HanSon Custom Crushing, she was the crushing/office manager at Fra-Dor Inc. in Little Canada.

In the following interview, Hanson talks about starting her business during the recession, the company’s experience on projects such as the St. Croix Crossing and the recently completed 35W@94: Downtown to Crosstown job, and more.

Interview: Zachary Karabell, bestselling financial author

In this special episode, Finance & Commerce editor Joel Schettler speaks with historian, former financial services executive and bestselling author Zachary Karabell about his latest book, Inside Money: Brown Brothers Harriman and the American Way of Power.

As business and politicians consider the future of capitalism and its role in democracy, there is arguably no firm that has had a greater impact on American society than Brown Brothers Harriman. The company has weathered wars, banking panics, and stock market crashes by following Alexander Brown’s advice to his sons, including ‘avoid unnecessary risks,’ don’t trade with ‘unvetted partners,’ and ‘be known as someone whom others could trust.’ The legendary yet virtually unknown investment banking company preached stakeholder capitalism, whether they knew it or not, before it was a buzzword by investing their own money with their clients and preaching the idea of “enough.”

Throughout the nineteenth century, the partners helped to create paper money as the primary medium of American capitalism; underwrote the first major railroad; and almost unilaterally created the first foreign exchange system. More troublingly, they were a central player in the cotton trade and, by association, the system of slave labor that prevailed in the South until the Civil War. That history alone makes Inside Money a compelling read.

Brown Brothers was at the center of the American financial elite — educated at Ivy League colleges and northeast boarding schools — that eventually morphed into what was referred to, not without ambivalence, as the Establishment. A coterie of the firm’s partners — Robert Lovett, Averell Harriman and Prescott Bush (father and grandfather of the two Bush presidents) — revolved between Washington and Wall Street and oversaw an almost seamless merger between business and government that was part of the formula of the American century. They believed that they had a responsibility to put aside their parochial self-interest to serve the greater good, that the United States was bound to lead the world and that they and their country would prosper together.

The company instilled values that have come back in style including stakeholder capitalism and trust and relationships over profit. BBH executives also preached service to country and the greater public, something missing from today’s Wall Street and Silicon Valley titans.

In exploring the role of one family and one firm, Karabell has given us the story of American wealth and power, with important lessons, for better and for worse, from those who created and held it.

Fabyanske, Westra, Hart & Thomson P.A. is celebrating its 40-year anniversary this month.

During its four decades of work, the Minneapolis-based law firm has successfully represented clients in cases and advocated for legislation related to the state’s construction industry. Looking ahead to its next 40 years, the firm plans to continue shaping the real estate and construction industry through its work, says Matt Collins.

Collins is a shareholder and an attorney with the firm’s construction law department. His work spans litigating for successful verdicts in commercial and business disputes. His clients include leading local, national and international construction companies, while he also has experience that goes beyond the industry.

Although Collins has expertise on various topics, he says the firm’s work on the Spearin Doctrine through the Alley Construction Co. Inc. v. State of Minnesota case was among the most impactful on the state’s construction industry.

The Spearin Doctrine says the government impliedly warrants that plans and specifications given to contractors for a public project are accurate and adequate. The firm was the first to use the doctrine in Minnesota.

In this interview with Reporter Kelly Busche, Collins discusses the doctrine, work on cases that ensure public projects are property awarded and trends in the Twin Cities legal community.