FAIRMONT — Fairmont may soon be home to a new business in the form of the Fairmont Brewing Company. Owner and operator Joseph Riemann recently had a request for proposal approved by the Fairmont City Council to secure the Fairmont Senior Citizens building in downtown Fairmont. Riemann grew up in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and went to college in Minneapolis. He shares how he was drawn to Fairmont.

“My wife and I have a blended family, we have about five kids together from previous marriages, and once COVID hit we started thinking about what working from home could look like,” Riemann said. We wanted to get a better work-life balance as well as improving where we lived.

“We really like the lakes up in Minneapolis and so we thought that if I’m working from home, home could be anywhere so let’s look for some lakes and maybe a more affordable place to live.”

Riemann shared that with the riots that took place in the Twin Cities over the summer of 2020, he was looking for a safer place to raise his children.

“So we looked around and found Fairmont. We took a weekend in September and drove into town and almost immediately seeing the logo on the water tower and driving past the lakes we wondered where had this gem of a city been? The idea of a city of lakes and being able to afford living so close to a chain of lakes just seemed exactly like what we were looking for.”

Riemann shares that he moved here in October and got married at the Yacht Club in November. Since then, he’s had his eyes set on becoming a part of, and contributing to, the Fairmont community.

“With the idea of entrepreneurship, we kind of looked around at some things that we liked, and one of those was the craft beer scene in the city,” Riemann said. “We noticed that, unlike a lot of small towns, there wasn’t a brewpub so that was something that hit high on the list.”

With that in mind, Riemann started talking to potential funders and Linsey Preuss, Fairmont economic development director, as well as some others.

“Everyone had the same kind of overwhelming response of saying that we need a brewpub,” Riemann said. “So we were looking at some commercial real estate a couple of months ago and what potential places might look like when we heard about this building [Fairmont Senior Citizens Center] going up for sale, and we jumped at the opportunity.”

Now that Riemann’s request for proposal has been approved by the city, he states that several different financial steps still need to be taken.

“Right now we’re in the process of talking with the bank and we’re also working with both the city revolving loan fund and Region Nine [Development Commission],” Riemann said. “We’re also working with SMIF [Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation], basically, the who’s who of normal loan funds who do economic development in Southern Minnesota. So it’s just a matter of tying up all those, which a lot of that was dependent upon an actual physical location.”

Despite all that still needs to happen, Riemann shares that he is excited about the future.

“We really fell in love with Fairmont, and we’re hoping to have the brewery be more than just locally brewed beer. We really want to try and lift up the people and history of Fairmont,” Riemann said. “We’re excited about it.”

For those interested in keeping up with Riemann’s progress, they can sign up for emails at www.fairmontbrewing.com. Riemann states that he hopes to be open sometime in the summer this year.

View the article here.

If there’s one good thing to come out of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it’s this: Greater Minnesota has more opportunities to train people to fill ongoing job vacancies.

That was what researchers at the Mankato-based Center for Rural Policy and Development told lawmakers Monday during a House workforce and business development committee hearing.

“The data says, essentially, we now have a pool of workers to engage, particularly from occupations in food preparation and service,” said Kelly Asche, research associate at the center. “We also have a significant workforce shortage in nearly all other occupations in rural Minnesota.”

The pandemic and subsequent government regulations have caused significant unemployment among food service, sales and office and administrative support jobs in particular across the state. At the same time, job vacancies have shrunk somewhat in Greater Minnesota but still remain above 3% overall.

That’s a healthy number of open jobs, Asche said. It shows the pandemic hasn’t done much to affect rural Minnesota’s longstanding demand for more workers.

In south-central and southwest Minnesota, there’s growing demand for workers in health care, community and social services, transportation and moving goods, farming, and computer and mathematics-related jobs, according to state and federal economic data.

All of those industries require advanced training, from certification programs to two- or four-year college degrees. While workforce development organizations have resources to help current clients get retrained, Asche told lawmakers many organizations worry about a sudden influx of unemployed workers who want training once the pandemic’s effects lessen.

Greater Minnesota has faced a growing need for workers in recent years as Minnesota’s population shifts from living in rural to urban areas. In rural areas across the state, job vacancies were at 5% or higher before the pandemic, reaching 6% in southwestern Minnesota.

Since the pandemic hit, open job vacancies in our region went from slightly above 6% to about 3.7%.

More people have been leaving the state’s labor pool due to the pandemic than in recent years as well. Labor numbers fluctuate throughout the year as some jobs are seasonal, but those numbers didn’t bounce back as effectively in 2020 compared to 2019, Asche said.

“Having less people participating in the labor force also compounds issues that we had prior to the pandemic,” said Diane Halvorson, executive director of the South Central Workforce Council.

Halvorson and other local workforce and economic development officials say they’re hearing from workers who are afraid to go back to work because of the pandemic or have to remain at home to help children with school.

There are opportunities for those who want training now, however. South Central College and Minnesota State University have recently ramped up their health care programs, while Region Nine Development Commission is working with MSU to research future workforce needs. In addition, Region Nine is focused on developing training programs to address workforce shortages in manufacturing.

“We have focused on advanced manufacturing and really having more conversations about filling labor,” said Nicole Griensewic, executive director of Region Nine.

Food, retail and hospitality unemployment has hit the Mankato area harder than in other communities throughout the region because of Mankato’s status as a rural hub. Yet Mankato is weathering the pandemic better than other communities for that same reason.

“We do have a higher concentration of industries in Greater Mankato that maybe haven’t been as negatively impacted,” said Jessica Beyer, president and CEO of Greater Mankato Growth.

That also means Mankato is uniquely positioned to take advantage of workforce training. Halvorson said it’s relatively easy to cross-train a person who has worked in service industries such as restaurants or retail for a variety of health care jobs as the two sectors often require similar skill sets in dealing with people. And there are plenty of jobs available in health care at the moment, from janitorial work to office support to machine technicians, among other things.

“There’s quite a wide range of needs out there,” Halvorson said.

The Center for Rural Policy and Development recommends lawmakers make workforce funding a little more flexible this session in how organizations can spend state money and what organizations may be eligible for funding.

Asche and other experts also recommend more support to connect workforce development groups with employers who can give input on the workers they need, as well as more help reaching out to unemployed Minnesotans.

Halvorson also recommends unemployed area residents reach out to local workforce development centers sooner than later.

View the Free Press article here.