THE FRANDSEN STORY

Dennis Frandsen has been an entrepreneur his whole life. As he continues to enjoy the adventure, he’s not slowing down.

Frandsen grew up on a dairy farm outside of Luck, Wisconsin, with a mother and father who had 8th grade educations. He attended school in a one-room schoolhouse. As a child, he didn’t receive any allowance, but his dad encouraged him to find ways to earn money. He received $3.57 from the Gedney Pickle Company as payment for cucumbers he had grown and picked, the first of many checks he would earn in his lifetime.

Average Student, Great Instinct
Dennis was an average student at Frederic High School. Literally. He graduated 26th out of 51 students, right smack dab in the middle of the Frederic Class of 1951. But he was the first in his family to finish high school.

After finishing high school in 1951, Dennis Frandsen’s entrepreneurial instincts led him to the first of several significant decisions he would make in his life. Having pondered a job offer to work as an office boy in the Twin Cities for the company that would become 3M, he decided that he could earn more money logging on his family farm and selling the lumber, just as he had earned money during high school. He already owned the requisite chain saw.

The young businessman hired his first employee, Bob Scheffer, who worked for Frandsen for more than 40 years until he retired. Dennis invested in a truck as well. When the family farm ran out of logs, he began to contract with neighbors to harvest their trees and pay them a portion of the proceeds. Before long, he was earning much more than he could have made in corporate America.

In 1953, at the age of 19, Dennis was faced with the next significant decision of his young career, a situation that taught him the value of a little pluck and a little luck. Upon hearing of 200 acres of virgin timber that had become available across the border in Rush City, Minnesota, he hopped on a plane (for the first time in his life) and traveled to Chicago (for the first time in his life) to drop in –with no appointment--on the woman who had inherited the land. Using a combination of pleading and charm, Frandsen emerged with an agreement to purchase the land for $13,000. Not that he had anywhere NEAR the capital required to fund the deal.

Banking on an Opportunity
Next moment of significance: Dennis Frandsen, now doing business as Frandsen Lumber Company, applied for a loan—to purchase the Rush City property—at his local bank in Luck. Upon being turned down, he walked out of the bank and vowed that someday he would own that bank, a prophecy that came true less than thirty years later. He was similarly turned down by a bank in Rush City. But as he drove home after the second try, fate seemingly guided him to the bank in Grantsburg, Wisconsin, where he met a kindred spirit, banker Walter Jensen. Jensen, whose name still shows up in every written account of Frandsen’s career, decided to fund the lumber venture.

Within five months, Frandsen Lumber paid off the note in full at the Grantsburg bank with half the timber still remaining unharvested, which would mean a very healthy profit. Dennis relocated to Rush City, where he soon met his wife Jeanette (who he still refers to as his trophy wife), an RN in the local hospital. He then purchased more land than he needed for a home on Rush Lake, started a family, turned his excess land into lakeshore lots, sold them at a profit, fell into one thousand acres of land in Mora through a bank foreclosure, subdivided that land into five-acre lots, sold them, and made more than a million dollars profit on that venture.

Certainly many more details contributed to the rapid growth of Frandsen’s holdings at the time, but it’s enough to say that hard work, good timing, and a good business sense all played a big role. “Dennis has a strong intuitive business acumen that serves him very well, ” said Phil Arneson, a longtime friend and business confidante.

In 1963, ten years after Frandsen joined forces with Jensen, Frandsen would once again turn to the banker friend to help finance his purchase of Plastech Research, which today sells $50 million a year in injected plastic moldings and is a component of the Frandsen Corporation, Dennis’ holding company.

But Dennis Frandsen wasn’t nearly finished. Since 1980 there have been more than 40 corporate acquisitions. More than 50 years after launching his business, he STILL isn’t finished. He has surrounded himself with a loyal group of talented businesspeople who are charged with running his companies with the same entrepreneurial spirit.  

The Frandsen Philosophy
The Frandsen Corporation has earned a reputation as a unique, innovative company that values honesty, fairness and accountability. Frandsen’s unique management style holds senior management accountable but allows them freedom to run the businesses. That style has earned him recognition as one of the state’s leading entrepreneurs, and a well-earned reputation for treating people right. “When I first started here, Dennis told me the quickest way to get fired is to treat a vendor or employee badly ,” added Dan Ferrise, who oversees Frandsen’s manufacturing entities.

As the corporation continues to grow by expansion and acquisition, Frandsen’s uniqueness stands out. Such as his model for buying profitable businesses and keeping them intact, from top management right on through employees on the assembly line. According to Tom Pesek, the president of Frandsen Corporation, “he believes that well-run enterprises can benefit the employees, the shareholders, the communities and the customers.” Added Tony Johnson, a partner in the first bank that Frandsen purchased—the very same one in Luck, Wisconsin that refused his loan application in 1953—and a Senior Vice President with the Frandsen Financial Corporation, repeated a core Frandsen business tenet: “If someone’s doing a decent job, let him do it! ” 

Frandsen’s acquisition philosophy has earned the company the moniker “the benevolent acquisition company,” according to Bill Richardson, founder of InterNet Corporation, now called Industrial Netting, which Frandsen purchased in 1999. “The sale process was beautiful, no bumps at all, and the business has plowed ahead. I still have lots of friends at the company, and they’re very happy with how things turned out.”

Pesek describes Dennis Frandsen as creative, a keen listener, and naturally curious about ideas. “We’ve been successful because we’re willing to try things and see if they work out.” Frandsen’s son, Greg, who now serves as president of InterNet Corporation, credits his father’s positive attitude as a huge factor in his success. “Everyday he believes is another wonderful day, and there are a lot of good people in the world .”

Today, Dennis Frandsen isn’t ready to retire, nor is he a workaholic. He makes time to enjoy his extended family: sons Bob and Greg, daughters Cathy and Susan –all of whom have had considerable business success – and ten grandchildren living in Minnesota and California. He and Jeanette spend considerable time during the winter months at their second home in Palm Desert, California. He tries not to miss Minnesota Timberwolves’ games (he’s a minority owner), plays golf whenever he can (he’ll once again take his 18 handicap to play in the Bob Hope Classic), and continues to find ways to grow his business. Not that he needs it—80 percent of his and Jeanette’s estate will be going to charity someday.

He can sleep well these days, thanks in part to all the people he trusts to run his enterprise. “You gotta hire the right people and put them in the right position,” Frandsen says. “Show them that you expect them to perform and deliver, and then compensate them well .”

Tom Pesek knows the drill. “As Dennis always says, ‘Big bonus checks are the best ones you can ever write. ’”