The Influentials 2008 | Opperman–Zimmerman

Vance Opperman
Lawyer, business leader, kingmaker
Opperman has been a force in Twin Cities legal, business, philanthropic, and political circles for four decades. After selling West Publishing, the world’s largest publisher of law texts, which he operated with his father, Dwight, he’s run Key Investment, whose activities involve, among other things, venture capital, real estate, and media, including Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Business, Minnesota Law & Politics, and their online counterparts. A mover in local DFL circles since his undergrad days at the U of M and long prominent among national party powers, Opperman, like Sam and Sylvia Kaplan, is an essential source of money and counsel for Democratic office-seekers at all levels.

Michael Osterholm
Director, Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy
The former longtime state epidemiologist, oft-quoted bioterrorism expert, and authority on all manner of germ-borne nightmares seems to be everywhere, warning of everything. Though his counsel is sought around the world, his base remains in Minnesota, and his interests can be as locally focused as the Star Tribune’s op-ed pages, where he recently took restaurateur Lenny Russo to task on the topic of E. coli infection and pasture grass-fed beef. (Irradiation is the only certain way to protect meat from contamination, Osterholm insists.) He’s been particularly insistent in recent years on the need to prepare for the next influenza pandemic. The question, he says, is not if, but when?

Tim Pawlenty
Governor
The stars seem to be aligning. Pawlenty chairs the National Governors Association, will host the Republican National Convention in September, and is frequently mentioned as a vice presidential candidate. Despite recent DFL majorities in the legislature and criticism of his fiscal and transportation policies, he remains popular statewide and at the top of his game—as smart and skillful a political pro as there is in these parts. Did we mention our newly green gov is planning to tag along on Will Steger’s next trip to the Arctic?

Richard Pettingill
President and CEO, Allina Hospitals & Clinics
Pettingill gets much of the credit for consolidating the corporate operations of Minnesota’s largest nonprofit health care provider at its East Lake Street location—and providing a catalyst for the rejuvenation of a long-troubled Minneapolis neighborhood. Rising on the old Sears department store site adjacent to Abbott Northwestern Hospital, the new Allina HQ brings a thousand employees to the Midtown Exchange with its mix of shops, restaurants, apartments, and condominiums. In the wake of large employers abandoning the inner city—and after more than a decade of attempts by the city, neighborhood groups, and private developers—it was Allina’s decision to sink roots here that finally made Midtown a reality. Pettingill’s pledge: “We will be part of the fabric of the community.”

The Pohlads
Family and fortune
Pohlad years ago joined Dayton as the most immediately recognizable surname in the Twin Cities. Today, brothers Jim, Bob, and Bill each has his own duchy, but ninety-two-year-old Carl remains in control of the family’s ever-expanding banking, consumer product, real estate, and entertainment kingdom—and of a personal fortune Forbes magazine estimates at $3.1 billion. Best known as owners of the Twins, the Pohlads have ponied up $145 million for the ballpark that opens in 2010, but recently added both a local hip-hop radio station and venerable downtown jeweler (J.B. Hudson) to their business mix. The family gives generously to diverse philanthropic interests ranging from the Minneapolis Public Library and Children’s Hospital Foundation to Twin Cities Public Television and Katrina hurricane relief. Still, it’s baseball that most Twin Citians think of when the Pohlads are discussed, and few community assets—none with the Twins’ civic and emotional connections—are more dependent, win or lose, on the leadership and largess of a single family.

Jim Ramstad
Congressman
Whether he stays or retires as previously announced, the popular, moderate, highly respected Third District representative may be the model for Republican candidates in the post–Bush, new Purple State environment. In any event, look for Ramstad, who’s sixty-one, to remain visible and vocal, especially on pet topics such as chemical-addiction treatment and mental health coverage.

Ralph Rapson
Paterfamilias
The godfather of local modernists, the ninety-three-year-old designer, architect, and former dean of the U of M architecture school is still turning heads with the point of his pencil. Last fall, the creator of the legendary Rapson Rapid Rocker won a Blu Dot/Dwell magazine competition with his design for the “ultimate lounge chair.” Locally, Rapson’s most famous creation—the original Guthrie Theater—is gone, but his vision lives on in the intimate, asymmetrical design of the Wurtele Thrust Stage in Jean Nouvel’s spectacular successor. Not to mention in the work of the legions of like-minded architects who studied under him and his colleagues at the U of M for thirty years.

John Rash
Media analyst
For thirteen years the Campbell Mithun media analyst has authored The Rash Report, which breaks down every network television show by the size and quality of its audience. Yes, it reads more like a Berkshire Hathaway prospectus than Entertainment Weekly, but it’s Rash’s job to ensure that his clients pick the right horse to pin ad dollars to, whether that horse is Samantha Who? or Cavemen. Rash’s wonky take on pop culture is appreciated by the general public too—he now does a daily version of The Rash Report, discussing media news and trends, on WCCO Radio.

Horst Rechelbacher
Entrepreneur, visionary
He’s the Willy Wonka of the cosmetics world, and opinions of him run the gamut from eccentric to genius. Having sold Aveda, in 1997, for $300 million, Rechelbacher—championing a fairly literal version of “You are what you eat”—is now leading a beauty revolution he calls Intelligent Nutrients. The business currently features organic power foods full of vitamins and, beginning this spring, will include a new hair–body care–cosmetics line. All the products will include only food-grade, natural, organic ingredients. Prediction: No longer bound by his noncompete agreement with Aveda, Horst will once again dominate his niche in the industry.

Tyler Richter
Ad man
Viral media, according to Richter, is the art of getting free media for the price of paid. It’s about producing thought-provoking, interesting, or funny material that encourages the viewer to tell others about it, send a Web link to friends, or call a radio talk show. The twenty-six-year-old Richter, of ASI Communications in Minneapolis, employed viral media during the waning hours of the 2006 campaign to help get Tim Pawlenty re-elected, in grass-roots efforts supporting the Roberts and Alito confirmations to the U.S. Supreme Court, and to make Families United one of the largest troop-support networks in the nation. Late this summer, as delegates converge on the Twin Cities for the Republican National Convention, Richter and his team will go viral on behalf of several local and national clients—though you may not know it until it’s too late.

Paul Ridgeway
Impresario
Talk about making it happen. Nobody in our part of the world does that with greater audacity and effectiveness than Paul Ridgeway, big-event planner extraordinaire. Ridgeway has been the operational mastermind behind such diverse local extravaganzas as Super Bowl XXVI, Scandinavia Today, Mikhail Gorbachev’s visit, and “Minnesota Remembers” in the wake of 9/11. Never mind the dozens of Super Bowls, corporate and civic celebrations, and other galas he’s helped stage around the world. His Twin Cities–based firm handles both event planning and logistics and could be deeply involved, in ways both visible and not, when the national Republicans gather here in September.

Phil Roberts
Restaurateur
The gastro war pitting chef-driven innovation versus chain-delivered consistency rages on. The chefs have the localvores and foodies, but the chains have everybody else. Is that so bad? Not if the head of the chain gang is provocative innovator Phil Roberts, whose Parasole Group is responsible for some of the most interesting, actually exciting, restaurants in these parts. Roberts has made sure his big tent is supported by strong poles such as Oceanaire (now spun off to another company), Manny’s (soon opening in Miami), and a second Salut Bar Americain (in the Sidney’s space on Grand in St. Paul) and provides cover for edgier experiments such as Chino Latino. Parsole’s one true failure, Girarrosto Toscano steak house, which proved too cool for Eden Prairie, was followed by Pittsburgh Blue, which has become a sure thing in Maple Grove.

David Salmela
Architect
Duluth–based Salmela is much honored and imitated because he’s stayed true to a Minnesota aesthetic while appealing to modernists and traditionalists alike. His diverse structures—large and small, open and cellular, ranging from restaurants and public buildings to private homes (including the Jackson Meadow development near Stillwater) and free-standing saunas—pay homage to our traditional, Scandinavian roots (he’s of Finnish ancestry) while reflecting a progressive worldview and an austere boreal beauty.

Don Samuels
City council member
While most of the Minneapolis City Council is stuck in an I’m-more-progressive-than-you game, Samuels garners attention by addressing problems that matter to the rest of us. His arguments are not always disseminated in the most politically sensitive, stick-to-the-talking-points fashion—he famously called for the incineration of North High—and he’ll take potshots at anybody, whether a powerful black minister or a police department official. In turn, critics of all colors are quick to play the race card against this first-generation immigrant from Jamaica. But critics trying to marginalize Samuels should take care because while once they called him “racist,” they someday might be calling him “mayor.”

Joe Selvaggio
Do-gooder
He changed the way Twin Citians help the poor become self-sufficient with his internationally renowned Project for Pride in Living, which he founded in 1972. For the past ten years, the former priest, putative saint, and relentless do-gooder has been cajoling our wealthiest citizens into contributing at least 1 percent of their net worth or 5 percent of their income (whichever is greater) to the worthy cause or causes of their choice. Despite a heart condition and alleged retirement, Selvaggio himself remains the soft-spoken, simple-living icon he’s been now for three decades, equally at home doing unto others on the city’s meaner streets and encouraging goodness among members at the Minneapolis Club.

Don Shelby
Newsman
Shelby, at sixty, remains the face and voice of local broadcast news, at once authoritative, annoying, and impossible to confuse with his mostly interchangeable colleagues and competitors. We take him seriously because he’s a throwback to the days when broadcast news provided, well, news, and because, unlike most TV anchors and radio talksters today, he’s an honest-to-God journalist who knows the difference between information and entertainment.

Patricia Simmons
Chair, University of Minnesota Board of Regents
Elected to her critical position atop the U’s governing board last year, Simmons quickly established herself as smart, decisive, and collegial—a consensus-builder who works effectively with President Bob Bruininks. A Carleton College grad who earned an MD from the University of Chicago, she’s also a highly regarded pediatrics professor at the Mayo Medical School in Rochester, where she has served on the boards of both the Mayo Clinic and Mayo Foundation.

Eugene Sit
Entrepreneur, philanthropist
Since Sit cofounded it two years ago, Minnesotans’ Military Appreciation Fund, with a broad range of nonpartisan sponsorship and support (cochairs include Walter Mondale and Arne Carlson), has raised more than $6 million for Minnesota soldiers and their families. A great example of how to make your own influence, Sit, who immigrated, at age ten, from China in 1948, runs Sit Investment Associates (with $6.6 billion under management) and his family’s philanthropic initiatives, with especially close ties to the U of M’s business school.

Tubby Smith
Gopher men’s basketball coach
It won’t happen overnight, but already there are signs (energetic recruiting, hard-nosed floor play . . . ) that Smith is ushering in a new era of good times at the Barn. To the extent that national rankings and postseason success galvanize ticket revenues, donor generosity, and all-around positive feelings toward Ski-U-Mah, boosters believe that Tubby will be worth every penny of the $13 million (over seven years) the school is paying him.

Doug Steenland
CEO, Northwest Airlines
Steenland—named CEO in 2004, after serving as Northwest’s president since 2001—has been on the airline’s flight deck during maybe the worst period in industry history. NWA has been under federal bankruptcy protection virtually his entire term as CEO, only recently emerging to face the same problems that caused the bankruptcy in the first place: an aging fleet, competition from smaller, lower-cost flyers, labor issues, and skyrocketing fuel costs. Still, Steenland is influential because Northwest is the fifth-largest airline in the country with 365 planes flying to 250 cities worldwide, is based in the Twin Cities, and employs 12,000 persons in Minnesota. Steenland himself chairs the Guthrie Theater board and has served on the boards of the Minnesota Orchestra and local United Way.

Will Steger
Environmentalist
No one, with the recent exception of Al Gore, is more closely or widely listened to on environmental topics than the sixty-three-year-old polar explorer and educator. After several decades of arctic expeditions, Steger, a Twin Cities native headquartered in Ely, has dedicated his life to spreading the word about global warming and its attendant perils. His global standing is unquestioned—his many honors include National Geographic Adventure magazine’s lifetime achievement award. Here at home, his audience continues to grow, most notably in corporate and political circles not historically associated with urgent environmental concerns. In October, Steger was joined by Tim Pawlenty at a Duluth conference on climate-change– related threats to Lake Superior. The governor had earlier announced tentative plans for a 2008 fact-finding trip to the Canadian arctic with Steger, whom he compared to Paul Revere “issuing a call to action.”

Gary Stern
President, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
Stern is one of eight Federal Reserve presidents around the country who collectively determine the trajectory of the nation’s short-term interest rates—and thus, ultimately, what most of us pay for our homes and cars. Among the most senior of Fed presidents—here since 1985, he’s serving under his third Fed chair—Stern is considered a pragmatist in monetary matters and an activist in his community, promoting strong relations with the University of Minnesota and serving as chair of St. Paul’s Northwest Area Foundation. He has also been an energetic advocate of economic education in our high schools, arguing that “policymaking becomes easier and more effective the better the general public understands economics.”

G. David Tilman
Regents’ Professor, University of Minnesota
“The world’s most cited ecologist,” Tilman is a giant in the study of biodiversity and related subjects, but perhaps casts his longest shadow in Minnesota, where his work in the field of biofuels is challenging the relative efficiency of ethanol, an increasingly important business for state farmers and agribusinesses. Unlike corn, on which ethanol is based, nonfood plants requiring less fertilizer and pesticides may be the best way to supply future fuel needs without worsening greenhouse effects and taking away from world food supplies, Tilman says. And that would seem to be good news for everyone around here except corn-growers.

Ruth Usem
Activist
It’s difficult to find a progressive, civic, or feminist organization or cause in which this Minneapolis woman-about-town hasn’t played a critical part, usually as an organizer, board member, and fundraiser. Involvements include the Minneapolis Public Library, Minneapolis Jewish Federation, the bipartisan Minneapolis–St. Paul Host Committee (for the Republican National Convention), Minnesota Women’s Campaign Fund, and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. When Gloria Steinem visits the Twin Cities, she stays at Usem’s house. Recently, Steinem repaid the favor. “She is the icon, isn’t she?” Steinem said. “And isn’t it a pleasure to live in a world where she is living?”

Osmo Vänskä
Music director, Minnesota Orchestra
According to no less an authority than The New Yorker critic Alex Ross, “Vänskä and Minnesota are in the very top rank of U.S. orchestras.” Ross and almost everybody else both here and around the country credit Vänskä for the dramatic upgrade, which the irrepressible Finn himself suggests—without much argument—has boosted the ensemble into the very top rank of local entertainment attractions. The orchestra’s recent tours and Grammy–worthy Beethoven recordings have given it a fresh, worldly luster; at home, attendance and financial contributions have risen significantly since 2003—owing, in large part, to the Osmo factor.

Sandra Vargas
President and CEO, The Minneapolis Foundation
For eight years, Vargas was Hennepin County administrator (the county’s highest executive position); for more than a year before that, she was deputy administrator; and before that, she served in a series of assignments with state and municipal governments. A year ago, she was selected to head the venerable, if somewhat sleepy, community foundation (established in 1915, it’s the state’s oldest) and already, according to close observers, has begun its reinvigoration.

Philippe Vergne
Chief curator, Walker Art Center
A superstar on the global arts scene, Vergne, a native of France who’s worked in prestigious curatorial posts in Europe and New York, is one reason the Walker continues to draw plaudits—and exhibits—from around the world. After an earlier stint at the WAC and a venture in France, Vergne was brought back to America to cocurate the 2006 Whitney Biennial, then, two years ago, returned to Minneapolis. Now, with curator Kathy Halbreich gone to New York, he’s the institution’s marquee player.

Roberta Walburn
Plaintiff’s attorney
Named one of Minnesota Law & Politics’ 100 most influential attorneys in state history, Walburn, of counsel to Minneapolis–based Robins Kaplan Miller & Ciresi, has represented the victors in some of Minnesota’s most famous recent cases. She was the plaintiffs’ liaison counsel in the state’s and Blue Cross Blue Shield’s $6.6 billion settlement with the tobacco industry and helped win $25 million for the families of the victims of the Wellstone plane crash in 2002. But Walburn’s advocacy extends beyond the courtroom—among other involvements, the onetime Star Tribune reporter is a board member of the Council on Crime and Justice and the Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights.

Patty Wetterling
Children’s safety advocate
In the nearly twenty years since the abduction of her eleven-year-old son, Jacob, Wetterling has become the area’s—and one of the nation’s—best-known advocates for child protection programs and legislation. The Jacob Wetterling Foundation, which she and her husband, Jerry, created in 1990, raises money for prevention education and counsels families dealing with crimes against children. Though the former school teacher and homemaker was unsuccessful in a pair of congressional runs, she and the foundation have played important roles in the passage of crucial child-protective laws.

Marcia Zimmerman
Senior rabbi, Temple Israel
Minnesota’s largest Jewish congregation, the 130-year-old Temple Israel in Minneapolis, serves 2,000 families in and around the metro area. Its leader is Marcia Zimmerman, the first woman to serve a congregation of this size in the United States and an acknowledged leader in the faith community at large. Like other ecumenically minded leaders, she believes her responsibility goes beyond her congregation, serving, for example, as chair of the Downtown Clergy Association, which brings leaders of downtown congregations to explore pressing interfaith issues.