Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Rescuing His Hometown

“Tuscumbia was wasting away, and no one was willing to fight for it anymore—until entrepreneur Harvey Robbins came to town. Robins, 73, grew up in Tuscumbia and began his career at his father’s tire and rubber business downtown. He had been away for years, making his fortune in the plastics industry and building National Floor Products, a vinyl floor tile business that he sold in 1995 for $120 million.”

Lyle Hevern, president of North Star Manufacturing and mayor of Estherville, IA sent me a link to the article about Harvey in this month’s MY Business from the NFIB. Be sure to read the entire article at http://www.mybusinessmag.com/fullstory.php3?sid=1325.

Estherville (population 6,656) is a wonderful town that I talked at in 2004 in their new community center, which was built in a combined effort of the town, school and National Guard working together. It took real visionary leadership to work thru the various groups to accomplish a project like this, unfortunately one of the few such projects that I see in my travels.

Two towns.....two great stories!

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