MANUFACTURING

Edric Funk

The Toro Co., a Bloomington-based maker of lawn mowers and snow removal machines for consumers and businesses, announced that Edric C. Funk has been appointed president and chief operating officer, effective Sept. 1. Funk is a 29-year veteran of the company, most recently serving as group vice president of Golf, Grounds and Irrigation.

FINANCIAL SERVICES

Stearns Bank, St. Cloud, announced that Heather Braithwaite has joined as vice president, director of sustainable energy. Prior to Stearns Bank, Braithwaite served as chief investment officer at the Collective Clean Energy Fund.

FOOD

Hormel Foods Corp., an Austin, Minn.-based provider of grocery store prepared food brands, announced the following leadership appointments in its Retail business segment: Paul Peil, promoted to vice president of marketing for Fresh and Ready Meats, and Christie Crouch joins as vice president of marketing for Snacking and Entertaining. Peil, a 35-year company veteran, most recently was assistant vice president of sales for Value-Added Meats; Crouch most recently served as vice president and general manager at Conagra Brands.

HEALTH CARE

Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, a Center City-based provider of substance use and mental health treatment and research, announced the following additions to its Board of Trustees: Patrick Denzer, president of LI Ventures; Dr. Christopher Keir, vice president and global head of medical affairs at ADC Therapeutics; Dr. Monica Mayer, emergency medicine physician and enrolled member of the Mandan Hidatsa Arikara nation, and Cini Robb, president of FACE Foundation and a member of the La Jolla Scripps Hospital advisory board.

HONORS

Mulcahy Co., an Eagan-based supplier of HVAC equipment, announced that CEO Rob Grady has received a 2025 Leadership Award by Vistage, a CEO coaching and peer advisory organization for small and midsize businesses.

HOSPITALITY

Carlson Inc., a Minnetonka-based global travel and hospitality brand and private investment firm, announced the appointment of Scott C. Gage as its non-executive chair of the board, effective Aug. 8. Gage previously served as co-chair of Carlson Holdings, chair of the Carlson Real Estate Committee and past co-chair of the Carlson Family Trust Co. He succeeds Richard (Rick) C. Gage, who will remain a member of the Carlson board.

LAW

The Southeastern Legal Foundation, a Georgia-based organization that defends constitutional rights, announced the hire of Minnesota attorney James Dickey as a lead counsel. Dickey most recently served as a lead and later managing attorney at the Upper Midwest Law Center, Golden Valley. … Fredrikson, Minneapolis, announced the expansion of its Mergers & Acquisitions Group with the addition of Jake Heck, associate; Dan Lenhardt, senior associate, and returning associate Mitchell Stauch. … SiebenCarey, Minneapolis, announced that attorney Susan M. Holden was inducted as a Fellow into the International Academy of Trial Lawyers during the organization’s 2025 Mid-Year Meeting.

LABOR

The Minnesota Newspaper & Communications Guild announced the hiring of Debbie Prokopf as executive officer, effective Aug. 25, succeeding Candace Lund. Prokopf is director of special projects at the Minnesota Training Partnership. The Guild represents employees of the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

MANUFACTURING

Denali Campers, a Pine River, Minn.-based maker of off-road recreational campers and trailers, announced its rebrand and name change to Iron Peak Campers.

RETAIL

Dick’s Sporting Goods, a national chain, announced the opening a second Twin Cities outlet store, located in Tamarack Village at I-94 and Radio Drive in Woodbury. … Acme Tools, a Grand Forks, N.D.-based hardware store chain, announced the opening of a location at 808 Apache Lane SW, Rochester.

TECHNOLOGY

Entrust, a Minneapolis-based provider of money transfer and data security services for business, announced the following promotions to its leadership team: Mike Baxter, promoted to president and chief technology and product officer; Patrick Steele, to chief sales officer, and Kelsey Holthus, promoted to chief human resources officer.

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EMAIL ITEMS to businessnews@pioneerpress.com.

By PAN PYLAS

LONDON (AP) — Terence Stamp, the British actor who often played the role of a complex villain, including that of General Zod in the early Superman films, has died. He was 87.

His death on Sunday was disclosed in a death notice published online.

The London-born Stamp started his film career with 1962’s seafaring “Billy Budd,” for which he earned an Oscar nomination.

Stamp’s six decades in the business were peppered with highlights, including his touching portrayal of the transsexual Bernadette in 1994’s “The Adventure of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.” Stamp also was widely praised for his lead in director Steven Soderbergh’s 1999 crime drama “The Limey.”

But it will be his portrayal of the bearded Zod in 1978’s “Superman” and its sequel “Superman II” two years later that most people associate with Stamp. As the Kryptonian arch enemy to Christopher Reeve’s Man of Steel, Stamp introduced a darker and charming — more human — element to the franchise, one that’s been replicated in countless superhero movies ever since.

Stamp started out his film career in the early 1960s as part of the “angry young men” movement that was introducing an element of social realism into British moviemaking.

That was perhaps most notable in the 1965 adaptation of John Fowles’ creepy debut novel “The Collector,” where he played the awkward and lonely Freddie Clegg, who kidnapped Samantha Eggar’s Miranda Grey in a warped attempt to win her love. It was a performance that would earn the young Stamp, fresh off his Oscar nomination, the best actor award at 1965’s Cannes Film Festival.

While part of that 1960s British movement, Stamp learned from some of the most seasoned actors from the classical era, including Laurence Olivier.

“I worked with Olivier briefly on my second movie (1962’s “Term of Trial),” Stamp recalled in an interview with the AP in 2013. “And he said to me, ‘You should always study your voice.’” Stamp then segued into a spot-on Olivier impersonation, continuing, “‘Because, as you get older, your looks go, but your voice will become empowered.’”

Born in London’s East End on July 22, 1938, Stamp lived a colorful life, particularly during the 1960s when he had a string of romances, including with actress Julie Christie and model Jean Shrimpton. He married 29-year-old Elizabeth O’Rourke in 2002 at the age of 64 but the couple divorced six years later. Stamp did not have any children.

Stamp retained his looks as the years ticked by, his natural handsomeness hardened by a more grizzled look.

He generally sought to keep his standards high, but up to a point.

“I don’t do crappy movies, unless I haven’t got the rent,” he said.

Edward Lotterman

The U.S. Department of Agriculture just released its key Aug. 1 forecast of corn production for 2025. It predicts a record harvest, up 13% from last year.

This is good news for the overall economy — more output from available resources is better than less. Also, all other things being equal, it is good for some farmers including livestock operations that buy a lot of corn.

However, contrary to what many might think, a big crop is bad on balance for farmers who sell corn. That apparent paradox — greater output bringing less income — contains an economics lesson.

News of this ag forecast was largely submerged in the brouhaha over the Bureau of Labor Statistics employment and consumer price numbers, a blaze re-stoked by President Donald Trump naming a new BLS commissioner with no experience and a bad reputation among economists.

The day after the corn crop forecast, the BLS released Producer Price Index numbers for July showing an 0.9% one-month spike from June, 3.3% over a year earlier and a 5.6% rate if you annualize the most recent three months. With that gas on the monetary policy fire, a 13% increase in national corn production won’t get much attention outside of the farm sector.

But for the rest of us, it illustrates issues about which economic indicators the government measures.

A USDA crop forecast is fundamentally different from tabulations by the BLS of employment numbers or of prices paid by households and business. Those look backward. They use statistical survey methods that sample households, employers or consumer items.

USDA does conduct many such backward-looking surveys. One can look up, county by county, how many acres of corn or cotton were planted or harvested and what the yields were. Cattle and hog slaughter numbers come out daily. So some USDA reports resemble those of statistical agencies within the Labor and Commerce departments. In fact, somewhat by historical accident, we measure far more things in farming than in any other economic sector.

However, USDA crop forecasts differ in that they estimate a future outcome. The task is more complex than getting accurate samples from a given population. Yes, they do need accurate numbers on how many acres planted where and what condition they are in.

But they also must factor in subjective variables of how rain, temperature, sunlight and even humidity will affect yields between Aug. 1 and harvests in October and November. Moreover, details matter. Nighttime temperatures, for example, have different effects than daytime ones.

These relationships vary by soil types and fertilization levels and across more than 30 states. Coastal North Carolina, central Wisconsin and eastern Kansas all differ in soil-weather-yield relationships. Constructing a mathematical prediction model thus inherently involves making dozens of calibrated but subjective choices.

These forecasts give corn producers, processors, transporters and users better information to plan going forward. Individual farmers otherwise would have no way of knowing what is going on around the country. And in a national and global market, these data will determine the price and demand they will see for their crop down the road.

Understand that while carefully constructed, outcomes can and do vary from these forecasts.

Large grain traders and processors, whether corporations like Cargill or ADM, or cooperatives like CHS, have resources to make forecasts for their own internal use. Having USDA do this for general publication levels the playing field.

Working with agriculture in developing countries teaches one the importance of improving information for the smallest market participants. As an economist on a livestock project in Peru decades ago, it was evident to me how middlemen buying their fiber at markets in isolated towns took advantage of peasant alpaca raisers. These producers had no way of knowing what prices might be offered at other towns in the area. So they faced take-it-or-leave-it offers from the scalpers.

This was before cell phones, but the producers did listen to local radio stations. A modest effort to induce radio stations to report wool, alpaca fiber, potato and other prices in their areas was a concrete step toward greater fairness and economic efficiency.

The same logic applies to USDA market information. Weekly, USDA reports on hay prices in Pipestone, Minn., and Rock Valley, Iowa. These unremarkable towns just happen to be where sales of hay have become major adjuncts to weekly auctions of livestock. Perhaps only 20 wagon loads or truck loads get sold, but these reported prices serve as a reference point for other farmers wanting to buy or sell by private treaty. Auctions provide “price discovery” for a broader market.

Similarly, USDA national yield projections, in addition to reports on crop plantings and conditions, provide useful info for myriad decision makers. The result is that better decisions are made, resources are more productive.

So getting back to the Aug. 1 report, why would the forecast of a bumper crop be bad news for farmers? And what is the economics behind this?

The problem is one of a larger supply facing an inelastic demand — the situation in which a market’s willingness to buy different quantities does not vary much with regard to price. Not only does this mean that prices will fall because of increased yields, the simpler supply-and-demand equation. It also means that the drop in price per bushel will more than wipe out the increase in the number of bushels harvested. People won’t buy more because there’s more on the market or because it costs less. So farmers will get less total money per acre of the crop.

This outcome is not limited to farming. The first thing anyone gaining monopoly power does is cut back output from what prevailed with greater competition. It is precisely why monopolistic sellers collude to fix prices. They can all earn more by agreeing how much each must cut production.

Farmers are too numerous to collude like this. When nature gives them bountiful yields, they do enjoy the pleasure any grower has in reaping abundance. But they know that their net incomes will be lower than if the national crop were smaller.

The very worst position as an individual farmer is to have a poor crop in a year when yields are high nationally, depressing prices. That happened to us on Sept. 4, 1974, when an early frost hit our valley killing our corn just as a good crop nationally was coming in. Kandiyohi County in Minnesota is in a similar boat this year. Flooding damaged some 30% of its crop acres in June. Low local production coupled with low national prices will hammer affected farmers.

The flip side occurs when an area with good yields when bad weather smites the crop nationally. In 1973, historic rains from May into July devastated crops in 20 states. Yet here and there, farms with well-drained upland fields had good yields and high net incomes.

That is the upside for Minnesota corn producers. The 16.1% yield increase for us tops the major corn-producing states. If these actually materialize, Minnesota will weather a falling-price year better than most of the rest of the nation, including the Dakotas, Iowa or Wisconsin.

The situation differs with the degree of integration of a crop into world markets. The Bretton Woods exchange rate system made U.S. farm products expensive in world markets. When President Richard Nixon repudiated the system 54 years ago this week, it seemed a national humiliation but touched off a boom for agriculture. The U.S. became the largest exporter of ag commodities and exposure to wider markets reduced the impact of weather variations on price. Now, as Trump’s tariffs taint U.S. farm exports, how this will mesh with a projected record crop is anyone’s guess.

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St. Paul economist and writer Edward Lotterman can be reached at stpaul@edlotterman.com.

You may feel like you’re “in a pickle” if you haven’t tried pickleball.

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All the cool kids are playing the game. And I mean cool kids ranging from youngsters to seniors. It seems just about everyone is playing the sport. It’s been around for over 50 years, and now it’s trending as one of the most popular sports around.

Why? I assume because it’s pretty easy to pick up. The low-impact sport is easier than tennis and provides a decent workout with the bonus of social interaction. I’d describe it as a mix between tennis, ping pong and badminton. Jim Aldrich, co-owner of Pickleball Virginia Beach, described the sport like you’re standing up on a ping pong table playing. He thinks the popularity has to do with the smaller court that lends itself to be a more social sport.

Last year, my husband and and I decided to give it a try. We took an introductory lesson.

Admittedly, the rules confused me. It took me awhile to get the tennis rules out of my head. You can’t volley in “the kitchen.” That’s the area close to the net. It’s really hard to stay out of the kitchen, just like at home. Scoring was confusing, too. I was a slow adapter to the rules.

However, hitting the ball was easy. I think that’s what hooks people along with the soothing paddle pop sound effect. So, we were gung ho after the first lesson.

We played at a public pickleball court and then joined a friend for doubles at his club. My husband continued playing at his friend’s club for several months. Now, our paddles are dusty. It’s been almost a year since we’ve picked up our paddles.

With the growing popularity, it’s not easy finding an open pickleball court. If you’re a “pickler” (pickleball fanatic), here are some suggestions to get your pickleball game on:

Go big and build your own pickleball court

Thomas Dye shows off one of the pickleball courts his company installed. He recommended having a 30 by 60 foot area in your yard if you want to install a pickleball court. (Lee Belote/For The Virginian-Pilot)

If you’re a die-hard pickleball player and have the space, you could always build your own court and invite friends and neighbors over to play. There are indoor and outdoor options.

A standard pickleball court requires a space of 20 feet wide by 44 feet long. Thomas Dye, a Virginia Beach-based home builder, installs Versacourt pickleball courts. He recommends some additional space around the court for optimal play and safety. He suggested a 30-by-60-foot area. Dye said his customers want unlimited play with no waiting or reservation.

“The courts are all backed up with heavy demand,” Dye said. “My customers wanted better access to courts, and the best way is to build their own.”  Visit twdhomes.com for more information.

BETHESDA, MARYLAND – APRIL 13: Michelle Ezra, Shelley Caplan, Rob Slattery and Kyle McKinney play pickleball on a backyard court on April 13, 2023 in Bethesda, Maryland. Pickleball is a game that combines elements of tennis, badminton and ping-pong. According to a report from the Sports & Fitness Industry Association pickleball was the fastest-growing sport in America for the third year in a row in 2022. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Other options include joining a club, playing at public courts or finding a pickleball festival.

Lee Belote, jlbelote@verizon.net