Click the image to read the 2018 Progress Minnesota digital edition.

Now in its seventh year, Finance & Commerce’s Progress Minnesota is always fun. It’s a chance to take a look around the state and really appreciate the interesting, innovative and sometimes surprising work that’s happening here. Progress Minnesota honors the best of those individuals, companies and organizations that are doing work in economic development, technology, entrepreneurship and workforce development.

This year’s honorees were feted April 5 at a cocktail hour and awards ceremony at the Metropolitan Ballroom & Clubroom in Golden Valley.

Inside this magazine you’ll learn about efforts to remake and reposition buildings in downtown St. Paul like burgeoning tech hub Osborn370, which was once EcoLab’s headquarters, and the Treasure Island Center, which was once a blocky hulk of a Macy’s in the brutalist architectural style and is now full of windows, light and topped with a hockey rink.

You can read about people like Chris Webley and companies like Thor Cos. that are making a commitment to a more vital and economically healthy north Minneapolis.

And you can find out about the technological acumen of Reeher, Skywater and Sezzle, and the entrepreneurial ambition of Autonomous Tractor, Digi International and Monaco Air Duluth.

Minnesota has been home to a number of impressive companies, and thanks to the efforts of Hennepin County, the University of Minnesota’s Northside Job Creation Team, the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry Apprenticeship Program and others, those companies will be more likely to find the next generation of skilled workers they need to grow right here in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

Please join me in congratulating this year’s Progress Minnesota honorees. Thanks in part to them, our state’s future looks to be in capable hands.

— David Bohlander, Special Sections Editor, Finance & Commerce