Enterprise Minnesota Welcomes Two New Board Members
An operations leader from the North Shore and a finance veteran from southwest Minnesota bring perspectives from the plant floor and the balance sheet.
Draw a line from Two Harbors to Redwood Falls and you’ve crossed a massive slice of Minnesota’s manufacturing map. Enterprise Minnesota’s two newest board members live on either end of that map. Ally Johnston, general manager at Epiroc in Two Harbors, and Christie Larson, a CPA and longtime commercial banker from Redwood Falls, joined the board this fall.
Ally Johnston didn’t need an onboarding packet. She spent nearly six years as a continuous improvement consultant with Enterprise Minnesota, crisscrossing the state to help manufacturers apply lean principles, streamline operations, and build lasting cultures of improvement.
Today she applies those principles inside Epiroc, a Stockholm, Sweden-based company that makes drill rigs and rock excavation and construction equipment for mining and infrastructure customers. She oversees daily operations, drives continuous improvement, and leads a team that serves customers across the region.
“Ally has lived the client experience from both sides,” says Bob Kill, Enterprise Minnesota’s board chair and immediate past president and CEO. “She understands firsthand the challenges manufacturers face, and she’s now leading those efforts inside a growing company.”
A Duluth native, Johnston earned a B.S. in industrial engineering and a psychology minor from the University of Minnesota. That’s a useful pairing for anyone who’s tried to change how a shop floor works. She also studied through the International Industrial Engineering Program at Luleå Tekniska Universitet in Sweden.
“Enterprise Minnesota played a significant role in shaping how I think about operational excellence and manufacturing leadership,” she says. “I’m honored to now help guide an organization that does so much to strengthen manufacturers throughout Minnesota, especially in our region.”
Christie Larson has built a career around the questions that keep business owners up at night: Can we afford to grow? Should we? What do we give up if we do? As a senior banker and sales professional, she’s helped commercial businesses work through financial planning, growth strategies, and capital allocation. She’s been a VP at Minnwest Bank and Franklin State Bank, and director of sales operations for Taylor Communications.
Kill points to her knack for how the pieces connect, from financial performance and operational priorities, to market conditions and investment decisions. “Christie gives our board a proven track record of guiding businesses through complex growth decisions,” he says.
In southwest Minnesota Larson is the kind of business executive who shows up. She’s a vice president of the Redwood County Economic Development Authority, a board member of LINC Redwood County, and treasurer of the Redwood Area Animal Shelter. She holds a B.S. in accounting from Winona State University and is an active Minnesota CPA. She’s attended the Graduate School of Banking at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and completed executive programs at the Wisconsin School of Business and the Carlson School of Management.
“Manufacturing is a cornerstone of Greater Minnesota’s economic strength,” Larson says. “I’ve seen firsthand how access to sound financial guidance can make the difference between a business that survives and one that thrives.”
Johnston and Larson give the board a sharp read on what manufacturers outside the metro need, and they share the goal of helping manufacturers across our state compete, innovate, and grow.
Nonprofits that service businesses – like ours – sometimes start seeing manufacturers the way they would like to see them instead of how they really are. Outside board members are the cure for that. An organization that exists to help manufacturers improve has to keep improving itself, and that works best with the guidance of people like Ally and Christie.
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