Business Notebook

Xcel Energy has hired an international firm to provide engineering, field engineering and construction services at the Prairie Island nuclear plant.

Bechtel works in nearly 50 countries. The company has served the nuclear power market for more than 60 years and its history with Xcel Energy dates to the 1960s when it designed and built the plant in Monticello, Minn., according to Carl Rau, president of Bechtel's nuclear division.

As part of a five-year contract, Bechtel will establish on-site engineering, construction and project controls staffs at each plant. Currently, a number of external firms and in-house contract staff provide those services.

"We expect that integrating engineering, field engineering and construction activities in a single provider will result in more predictable and efficient completion of capital projects and delivery of plant services, which ultimately will benefit our customers and stakeholders by providing more cost-effective and reliable electricity," Xcel's Dennis Koehl said in a press release. He is an Xcel Energy vice president and the chief nuclear officer.

• Former Goodhue County lawmaker and Department of Labor and Industry Commissioner Steve Sviggum has been appointed to AgStar Financial Services Board of Directors. He will serve for a year.

Sviggum brings significant farming, policy and civic engagement experience, said Chairman Lowell Schafer, who also is from Goodhue County. In addition to elected and civic leadership, Sviggum is a lifelong farmer who owns and operates 1,400 acres near in Kenyon with two brothers.

"AgStar is a community-based organization focused on creating more and better opportunities for farmers and rural communities and we know Steve will offer good ideas in helping us achieve that vision," Schafer said.

• Voth Insurance Agency of Goodhue and Lakeshore Agency of Lake Citywas recently were named to the Grinnell Mutual Reinsurance Co.'s President's Club for 2011 as a top agency for the company. The local agencies rank among the company's top 50 agencies and 15 farm mutual companies for outstanding production and profitability over a five-year period.

• On Monday, Red Wing Perkins will serve short stacks of buttermilk pancakes for free. In return, Perkins requests that guests make a donation of any amount to benefit Give Kids The World.

• The Red Wing Area Chamber of Commerce Government Affairs Committee will hold a legislative conference call at 7:30 a.m. Friday in the chamber boardroom.

• Scentsy Inc., a party plan company that provides scented, wickless candles, announced that Michelle Quade of Ellsworth has been promoted from consultant to the director level. To receive this distinction, Quade recruited an active team of consultants whose wholesale volume exceeded $10,000 in one month.

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