Fred Friswold

“I grew up in a family of immigrants, and I learned that education is the ticket you need to succeed,” Fred Friswold says, explaining his involvement in the Minneapolis YMCA. “The Y is all about kids and their development—kids are growing and getting skills for life.”

Friswold, who’s known as a master at building private-public partnerships, says this type of community development is organic, as was his involvement in many of the organizations he now supports. His parents were educators; the University of Minnesota, his alma mater, is one of the biggest benefactors of his volunteerism—he has led both the University of Minnesota Alumni Association and the University of Minnesota Foundation and helped raise millions of dollars for the U. He and his wife lost a four-year-old daughter to leukemia, he is past director of, and still heavily involved in, the University of Minnesota Pediatrics Foundation. He was a Y camp counselor in his teens; he now heads 600 volunteers in a $55 million capital campaign. He says very little in his career has been planned, but one thing keeps him going. “It’s the kids,” Friswold says. “It’s exciting to know that kids coming into the world may have it a little easier.”

He thinks about how different the world and the Twin Cities are since he was a kid and his adolescent “rough patch” involved some schoolyard scuffles and zip guns. Programs at the Y and elsewhere helped him get on track, which led to a successful career in finance with RBC Dain Rauscher and, after a “retirement that didn’t stick,” acquiring Tonka Equipment Company and turning it into a much larger, more successful business. It is that perseverance and skill that Friswold wants to see passed on to future generations through institutions such as the YMCA.

“I want to work on projects significant enough so they make an impact on the lives of others,” says Friswold.

As for his failed attempt at retirement, as he and his wife celebrate their fiftieth anniversary this year, he contemplates whether he will make a second attempt.

“Things tend to cumulate with me,” Friswold says with a smile. “I have a hard time letting go.”