Executive Director's Column
15 YEARS OF AG INNOVATIONS

By Edgar Olson

Time has its share of clichés - it flies, waits for no man, marches on - all expressions of how quickly time goes by.

Take 1989, for example. It is hard to believe that it has already been 15 years since:

• Exxon Valdez ran aground, spilling millions of gallons of crude oil.
• The Berlin Wall came down,
• The U.S. invaded Panama,
• Driving Miss Daisy won the Oscar for best picture,
• We said goodbye to Lucille Ball, Gilda Radner, Sir Laurence Olivier and Mel Blanc,
• George H. Bush was president,
• Rudy Perpich was the governor of Minnesota, and
• AURI was established as an independent organization.

This year marks AURI’s 15th anniversary. Created by the State Legislature in 1987 under the umbrella of the Greater Minnesota Corporation, AURI became a nonprofit organization with its own board of directors in 1989. 

Much has changed since. But AURI’s mission has remained the same. We are still committed to improving rural Minnesota’s economy through developing new uses and markets for our agricultural commodities.

That’s not to say AURI is the same organization today as it was in 1989.

Like any organization with a 15-year track record, we have changed how we operate, streamlined our systems and reacted to the needs of our clients and available resources. Some changes have been difficult, but we have to adjust to the world we operate in today.