Together in loss and in business

I had expected a rollicking good time when I called up Craig Kruckeberg, one of my favorite Minnesota entrepreneurs, who took over his father’s company, heavy-duty truck supplier Minimizer, when it had less than $1 million in revenue and grew it to a $60 million sale to a private equity firm.

I had just read his book, “If Success Comes Overnight, You’re Going to Jail!” and it was vintage Kruckeberg: brash, profane, funny and honest.

“Never let a money guy—who cares nothing for vendors, employees or customers, take control of a company,” he wrote.

“When you’re high-end price-wise in any space, there are always assholes who follow along with ‘just as good, but cheaper.’ We had those brain-dead numb-nuts swarming in and out of our product categories all the time,” he continued.

He even called people in the press, like me, “thieves and whores,” a point I planned to raise with him when we talked. “Except for me, right Craig?” I planned to say.

But then we connected and Kruckeberg was … subdued. He told the story of selling his company—he decided to do it when his accountant told him how much he could get. Sixty million, minus 39 percent in taxes, and he said let’s go.

“My executive team, I honestly thought we were friends,” but the day after he sold, “I thought I’d got the plague or something,” he reflects. “I love the industry. I miss the industry now, after selling.”

He’s still plenty busy, but with age the losses mount. He bought Stinar, a manufacturing company, out of bankruptcy and is working to revive it. His wife, Robyn, said, “I am so, so glad you got Stinar, because otherwise you’d be home every day.”

He and Robyn, who has M.S., used to live downtown but now have a place in Mound on Lake Minnetonka and were told by her doctors to reduce the stress in their lifestyles. “We used to live downtown. There’s something to do 24/7,” but at the lake, “I pray somebody goes by on the boat and at least waves.”

Then I realized: Kruckeberg is like all of us, who made it through the pandemic but with profound loss along the way. We at Upsize lost our founder, Wes Bergstrom, who brought us along on this journey to create a magazine.

My husband lost Tom Boerboom, his mentor in a career of service to seniors whom he greatly admired. We lost our beloved daughter, one of the many who died from deaths of despair during the pandemic, poisoned by street drugs laced with fentanyl.

You, dear readers, all have your own losses I am certain, and my heart goes out to each of you. I urge you to reach out, to tell me about what you’re going through, to contact someone else you haven’t spoken to in a while. It helps to know we’re together in loss yet still moving forward.

I asked Kruckeberg about his biggest lesson learned, as an entrepreneur.

“If you just go, just go do it, every day. Whether it’s a painful meeting, it’s just every day, you’ve got to do it. Nobody’s going to do it for you. Nobody’s going to believe in it like you do.”

I would add yes, but also: go do it together.

—Beth Ewen founding editor; bewen@upsizemag.com