Business notebook: Dakota Electric marks anniversary by volunteering

To honor the 75th anniversary of Dakota Electric Association, employees of the company are stepping up their volunteer efforts.

Based in Farmington, Minn., the company provides electricity to more than 100,000 members in Dakota, Goodhue, Rice and Scott counties. Last year, it earned the title of Outstanding Philanthropic Organization for 2011 from the Association of Fundraising Professionals, and this year the cooperative is prepared to make a bigger impact.

“Many of our employees already do a lot of volunteer work, but we hope to get more employees involved and to try things they may not have done before,” Dakota Electric human resources manager Malinda Mehrhoff explained.

• Josie Dunn has been named the new store manager of Maurices in Red Wing. Dunn is responsible for day-to-day operations of the store, including sales performance, visual presentation and personnel recruitment and training.

• The Pepin County Fair Board was one of 18 Wisconsin and Minnesota county fair organizations to receive a grant from AgStar Fund for Rural America this year.

A total of $45,000 was given out as part of AgStar’s County Fair Facility Upgrade grant program. Pepin County’s portion of $2,500 is to be used toward agricultural building improvements on the fairgrounds.

The mission of the program is to support rural areas and county fair organizations as maintenance is performed on livestock buildings, 4-H buildings or livestock judging arenas.

• Red Wing Software Inc. is offering live product demonstrations to help its customers. The demonstrations are intended to take the guesswork out of selecting accounting or payroll software.

“After many years of testing and trying different things, we have found much more satisfied customers by offering these live demos,” Red Wing Software President Ken Hilton said.

For information, visit www.redwingsoftware.com or call 800-732-9464.

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