Welcome to In Business.

I'm Ken Buler.

We're in the western section of the Vouth, the place they call Quarry Park.

And obviously, it's an old stone quarry.

In the 1970s, local climbers scaled those icy walls and gave it a different name.

They called it Coffin Quarry Park.

Now, why was that?

Well, you have to know a little bit of the history first.

Back in 1902, the Duth Crush Stone Company discovered all this.

And what it is is gabro rock, a very hard, very dense rock called black granite.

And they used it for everything from aggregate.

There was a couple of train lines that came up here from the Duth Msabi Northern Railway, now the Canadian National.

They had a huge big crushing plant and as they mined and quarried the rock they'd crush it into aggregate or use it as big stones that they would use to make breakke walls in places like Superior and Ashlin, Wisconsin.

And here's where the coffin part comes in.

They also made mausoleum stones.

And that aggregate also became a part of concrete.

And just across the way, there was a plant that take that concrete and make burial vaults.

And those burial vaults were made by a company called the Polaris Wilbert Vault Company.

And they were here for many years using some of this stone.

And when they went out of business, they just left.

And so there were vaults stacked along the railroad tracks.

There were coffin pieces.

And that's how this became known as Coffin Quarry Park.

When the company left, they just left everything.

And some of the burial vaults were left lying around.

Here are a couple of them right here.

And what they would do is they would put this over the wooden coffin.

So as the coffin rotted, the ground would tend to sink.

But if you had one of these burial vaults on top of it, that would keep the level ground in the cemetery.

And that's one of the things that they made with the rock from the quarry.

From Coffin Corey to a vacant lot here in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Duth.

This was once a tie-in to Coffin Quarry.

They didn't make the burial vaults.

They made what went in them, coffins.

This was the home of the Duth Burial case company from about 1910 to 1960.

They made coffins and shipped them all over the country here.

They played a group of full-time women who did nothing but stitch the fabric inside those coffins that I say were shipped all over the country.

And they're still doing sewing here because this is right across the street from Duth Pack tent and awning.

And that's where they make of course the famous Duth Pack which is stitched as well.

Why are we bringing up these dead businesses?

Well, because we're introducing a new segment on In Business called they make what here?

We're going to introduce you to some companies here in Duth that are currently making products that are shipped all over the country and in one case all over the world.

We're also going to take a look at President Donald Trump's State of the Union address.

You talked a lot about the economy and we'll kind of break it down for you nationally and how it relates to us here in Minnesota.

And we'll also introduce you to another company that you'll say they make what here.

Stay tuned for In Business.

Welcome to In Business.

I'm Ken Beller.

We began this week talking about one of the most important economic speeches of the year, the State of the Union address from President Donald Trump.

It wasn't just about politics.

It was about business, jobs, and the economic direction of the country.

The State of the Union has long been a moment where presidents outlined their economic agenda, proposing policies that affect taxes, trade, regulation, government spending, and investment.

These decisions help shape the environment businesses operate in and can influence everything from hiring to expansion.

This year, President Trump focused heavily on tariffs, manufacturing, and efforts to reshape global trade.

Policies like these can have ripple effects across the economy, impacting supply chains, cost for businesses, and the prices consumers pay.

For business owners, investors, and workers, the State of the Union isn't just a speech.

It can signal what policies may be coming next and how businesses plan for the future.

This week, President Donald Trump gave his State of the Union address.

It was upbeat, optimistic, as these speeches are supposed to be.

And he covered a wide range of topics, which you can do in an hour and 47 minutes, setting, by the way, the record for the longest State of the Union address ever.

He beat out Bill Clinton's 2000 uh State of the Union address, which was an hour and 28 minutes.

So, as I said, he covered a wide range of topics in that almost two-hour address this week.

We're not going to bother with some of them because the name of this program is in business.

And as it is in business, we're going to focus on the economics of the speech and some of the policies that were laid out by the president this week.

And our special guest is the chief economist for the center on budget and policy priorities, Ba Aalori.

And uh thank you very much, sir, for being with us.

Thank you for having me.

Now, as I said, he had a large amount of topics, but one of them, of course, was the economy, obviously, and that's what we're here to talk about.

The economy, of course, uh you can look at it many different ways, but in one of the pieces that I read, 2025 was kind of flat.

It wasn't up, it wasn't down, uh but it was kind of flat.

It started and ended the year about the same way.

Of course, in the president's address, he had it skyrocketing.

What are the real economic numbers?

So what we have is that if you look at the unemployment rate, it went up from about 4% to about 4.3%.

So a slight rise.

We've also saw there was some a lot of job losses in certain sectors like federal workforce, manufacturing, but there were some gains in other job uh sectors like the healthcare and education.

So you know, in the this case with the labor market, it was kind of frozen where there's not a lot of hiring, but there's also not a lot of firing.

So as you said before, that's been pretty steady um kind of low growth.

Well, some people would say that 227,000 fewer federal employees uh was a good thing.

We have smaller government.

We may have less taxes because of it, but it was pretty much in one particular segment that was affected negatively by this, the people that got hurt.

Yeah.

So, one of the problems when we talk about federal government workforce is that the federal government is not just located in Washington DC.

We have federal employees all over the country.

And so, you know, I used to work for the department of agriculture and we had a lot of local field offices at rural development.

So, in the small towns, the small counties and that's where a lot of this job loss was.

And so, now we have the people in these small towns who don't have uh connection to the federal government.

So, a lot of times there might be, you know, more efficient ways of doing government, but the way the job losses went in the federal workforce isn't that way.

And didn't that affect one particular group more than others?

I think the black unemployment rate went up higher than the unemployment rate as general.

That is correct.

So while the overall unemployment rate went from 4% to 4.3%, the black unemployment rate went up a full percentage point from 6% to 6.9%.

And one of the reasons why we're concerned about that is that this may pretend a you know a larger job loss, you know, in this year or in future years.

So it's something to keep our eyes on.

Well, the president did say that America was back bigger, better, and richer than ever.

That was the tone of his speech as he gave it this week.

Uh Banga Ajalori is the chief economist for the center on budget and policy priorities.

Joins us from Washington DC to talk about some of the other aspects in the uh president's address.

Other topics that the president covered in his state of the union address of course were tariffs.

Uh the president this week pointing to the fact that he thought the tariffs were a good thing even though the US Supreme Court struck down his earlier tariffs and uh that caused a change in his particular program which he did speak about last night.

He was very kind to the justices who did show up, shook their hands, talked about uh it was an un he said unfortunate decision that they had made and I thought he was very kind to them for that.

But what is the tariff situation now?

Where do we sit?

So with tariffs, this is pretty much the number one policy of this administration.

And so while the tar tariffs were struck down uh last Friday by the Supreme Court, this was just one tool.

The uh what they call the AIBA or international emergency um protection act.

Um those are just one part.

Now that those tariffs were about 70% of the revenue that was generated, but there are a number of other tariffs that he's used.

And even though those were struck down, he's immediately talked about adding new tariffs through a different authority to try to uh maintain and try to replace that revenue.

Benga Alori is our guest.

He is the chief economist at the center on budget and policy priorities.

He joins us from Washington DC to talk about the state of the union address that President Donald Trump gave this past week.

We're talking about tariffs and that had a huge impact on Minnesota and soybean farmers.

Where does that sit?

So we had, you know, the big issue with soybeans last year because of the trade war with China and we saw that there was an escalating tariff that went all the way up to 145%.

And so then one of the biggest issues was that China stopped purchasing soybeans from the US which was hitting a lot of these Midwest states like Minnesota.

And so I think it was about five or six months where they just stopped purchases altogether.

Now they came together with a deal and China agreed to buy soybeans again and I think they started purchasing earlier this year.

But one of the biggest problems was during this period of time when there was a trade war, China went to Argentina to start buying soybeans.

And so now China has a new export market for their soybeans.

We saw this, you know, a number of years ago with the first Trump administration where there was a trade war.

China went to Brazil.

And so now the concern with soybean farmers is that now you're not just competing with Brazil, but you're competing with Argentina.

And so while they're purchasing soybeans again, it's not going to be to the same extent that we saw a decade ago.

There was a bailout for farmers.

I believe it was $12 billion and some of that has migrated its way into Minnesota to help soybean farmers here in our state.

Uh and then elsewhere through the Midwest as as you mentioned, sir.

But there are other impacts of this new tariff.

This uh it was originally 10% now 15% across the board.

Uh good for 150 days.

Uh what does that do to this uh our trading partners?

So, one of the things about this tariff scheme and the way the administration has done it, it's been very complicated and it's been very halfhazard.

So, as you mentioned, these are 15%.

I think they're actually 10% at the moment.

So, when he first did it, they were 10%, but these tariffs called section 122 tariffs, you have a maximum of 15%.

Then on True Social, he said it was up to 15%, but in guidance that came out yesterday, it was 10%.

Now, the reason why I'm talking about this that you see how complicated it is to be able to kind of navigate this.

This is hard for consumers, hard for businesses, hard for our partners.

And so once again, what's going to happen now is that, you know, these 15% are on top of other tariffs that we've had.

Tariffs on certain goods like steel and aluminum.

There's tariffs on certain countries.

Some of them might be exempt, but it's one of those things where, you know, this is where the lawyers and the lobbyists come in and with their million-doll, you know, ideas to be able to figure out how to navigate these things.

And so that's one of the things that we're worried about is that these regime is so complicated to, you know, navigate that for farmers and consumers, it's really difficult.

All we know is that costs are going up.

And you mentioned lawyers, uh, due to the Supreme Court decision striking down the original tariffs and already we see that FedEx has issued a lawsuit.

They want their money back.

How does that happen?

So this is very complicated.

This is what I think we call the $170 billion question where you know because of the tariffs and they paid the tariffs you know some of them at rates of 30% 80%.

Now it's like well if these tariffs were illegal then the money that they took from us as from a business standpoint is illegal and we should get that money back.

So the question is if they do win that lawsuit how do you design that?

Because then the other question is, okay, if you're a business who paid more for this, but then you raise prices to your consumers, do your consumers get that money?

And so then try to navigate that.

So which businesses ate the cost?

Which businesses passed it on?

And then how do you allocate those refunds?

And so it's just going to be a very complicated situation.

And that's my final question to you, sir.

if I paid more as a consumer because uh the product I bought wasn't fully absorbed by either the c country that shipped it to us or the company that imported it and all of or some was passed on to me.

How do I get my money back?

So that's going to be the question for the administration.

So part of what could be done is that you, you know, businesses have the receipts and they might be able to do it, but then also, you know, some of that revenue, they could probably just cut checks to the American consumer and say, "Okay, here are rebate checks because the tariffs were illegal."

Banga Ajelori, thank you very much for being our guest on in business.

He is the chief economist for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Thank you for your time.

My pleasure.

Before we showcase a brand new segment on the show, here's a quick look at top business news from across the region.

The theme Minnesota Conference will be taking place at the Duth Entertainment Convention Center from April 14th through the 16th.

The event will bring together mining, metallurgy, and mineral professionals from across the upper Midwest to talk about new advances in technology that are shaping the industry.

The conference will include talks from expert speakers and two days of technical sessions focused on mining innovation, sustainability, and workforce development.

The US Army Corps of Engineers approved the Enbridge number five line, the rerouting permit on Tuesday after a year's long court battle over the project.

Construction has officially begun on the 41m segment of new pipeline that will go around the Bad River Reservation.

The project is set to employ over 700 familyup supported union construction jobs and is expected to bring millions of dollars in construction related spending to the state of Minnesota, excuse me, Wisconsin.

The nonprofit public interest group Earth Justice is challenging the approvals on behalf of the Bad River Band, citing concerns that the pipeline will cause serious damage to northern Wisconsin's waterways and wetlands.

Minnesota Senator Matt Klein proposed new legislation that aims to cap the amount of THC allowed in cannabis products such as concentrate cannabis flour and topical or transdermal hemp products.

If passed, there would be a limit of 15% total THC on flour products and concentrates would be capped at 30% total THC.

The Duth City Council approved a settlement with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and Pollution Control Agency following the release of 1.7 million gallons of treated water from a reservoir in Duth that found its way into Tisher Creek.

The chlorine treated water that was released in August of 2024 led to the killing of over 2,000 fish.

The settlement includes a $12,000 civil penalty, as well as further $190,000 settlement, which pays for the state's staff's time that the agencies determined was the dollar amount lost by killing of so many fish.

Cirrus Aircraft has once again led the nation in aircraft sales.

The Duthbased manufacturer sold 797 planes in 2025, marking its fourth straight year as the top US general aviation producer.

The company also reported more than $1.18 billion in billings.

Cirrus employs about 1500 people in Duth and has seen steady growth in recent years driven largely by strong demand for its vision jet reinforcing its role as a major regional employer.

And now we introduce a brand new segment called they make what here.

It's a look inside businesses across our region that are making products you might be surprised to learn about that are made right here at home.

From specialized manufacturing to products used around the world, these companies are playing an important role in our local economy.

This is in business with a segment we call they make what here.

Actually, they make it right there.

Altech manufacturing.

In 1953, Jim and Carolyn Raymond start Arrowhead Tree Service here in Duth and it's very successful business.

In the 1960s though, Jim's getting on in age.

He doesn't like climbing trees that much anymore.

and he's kind of a wrench.

For years, he built and raced stock cars.

In fact, he was pretty good at it.

And he taught about an idea that if you put a lift, like a bucket lift, on the back of a truck, he wouldn't have to climb the trees anymore.

And in 1965, he started reachall manufacturing here in Duth to make bucket lifts.

Now, Minnesota Power was an investor for a while.

Why?

Well, because what other company needs to get people up in elevated places to work on stuff?

A power company.

And why do we mention that this week?

Well, what did we just have in the Northland a week or so ago?

A blizzard.

What is the East Coast doing right now?

Digging out from backto back blizzards.

And what does that mean?

They need lift trucks to restore down power lines.

And they make a lot of them right here at Altech.

Because in 2002, Reachall was purchased by an Alabama based company called Altech Manufacturing because now they make what here and ship it all over the world.

This is in business.

I'm Ken Ber and they make what?

Here we've moved from Duth to Superior and we're seeing how they make saunas at Cedar and Stone Sauna here in Superior.

Ken, it's too cold out there.

We got to come in here and see how the saunas are being built.

All right, this is Justin Jutton.

He is the co-founder of Cedar and Stone and he's going to show us around the plant here in Superior.

Come on in, you guys.

What are we doing right here?

So, we build the most beautiful longl lasting saunas or saunas like my grandparents have said and we build them and ship them all over the country.

Uh, this one's going up north by Voyagers National Park and we have them going to Martha's Vineyard, Utah and California just this week.

So we are building and shipping them all over the country from this kind of the mecca of sauna culture in the US is the upper Midwest is Minnesota is the twin ports because a 100 years ago duth was called little Helsinki there were so many Finnish immigrants who lived here and Canal Park at the time was called Fintown.

Yep.

So now we get to live on that heritage with beautiful design and they get built step by step by step and shipped all over the country.

It's kind of like an assembly line.

It is.

It is.

We build them and we can come in right here.

We'll kind of get get a little closer.

We're building them to the highest grades of architectural standards to sustainability standards and we want them to last for generations.

I grew up in SA my whole life and the goal was not to make the cheap kit that lasted for a couple years.

The goal was let's build something that will serve the family for my kids, my grandkids, and maybe even their kids.

That's what we're trying to do for folks around the country is build high quality.

We're doing that through this very interesting model of sustainable mass timber.

You look inside here, these walls are the modern version of a log cabin.

There are these pressed panels of wood that are thick that hold the rigidity because we have to deliver this somewhere all the way across the country and they hold heat beautifully.

The sound of geeks and afficionados, the old-timers who like good sauna, they talk about log sauna as the premier pinnacle of what great quality heat is.

And I'm a geek about heat like people are wine and beer and spirits.

So that's what we've reinvented here is how do we do quality highquality sauna?

How do we do it at scale?

And now we're in a facility that can really do that over here in Superior, Wisconsin.

It has been so great to to live and grow and develop the business as we go.

Where do you uh source all this fine wood you've been talking about?

Yeah.

Uh all over the country, but we try to do as much locally and regionally as we can.

Now, most of the cedar in the US comes from the Pacific Northwest or Canada.

Um, but we are Americanmade homegrown manufacturing.

So, we're doing our best not to import exotic things.

We're trying to say, you know what, this is this isn't a Nordic tradition, but it lives here as an ability to then use the best ingredients found on this side of the the Atlantic.

Did you have a hard time finding the crafts people to uh put this together or were they readily available in our area?

So, one thing I love about the Twin Forks is we have great carpenters, laborers, people who love to make things.

Yeah.

Uh and we are also a company who cares about their people, desires high quality, wants to build and help train people as they go.

And so what that means is we have never worried about finding great people.

They've always come to us and they've spent time and they've said something's happening here at Cedar and Stone.

It's a young, innovative, in interesting company.

Uh I want to be a part of that.

So we have folks who have been fine woodworkers that have come in and they they work in our wood shop to do detailed stuff.

And we've had folks that are really kind of green in the trades and we've developed an apprenticeship program where you can come in and really learn the trades with us over the course of your time as opposed to needing to come in as a full-time contractor and know how to do everything.

We're happy to train you.

We're happy to bring you in.

And I think that side of it really opens up more people's possibility to be somebody who is working in the trades.

Ken, welcome to the sound.

Well, thank you.

Uh Justin Jutton is one of the co-founders of Cedar and Stone and we are in one of the nearly finished saunas made here at the plant in Superior.

Let's go back to the beginning of your interest in coming up with this.

Well, I have one of those Finnish last names with too many vowels in it.

So, I don't have a first memory of SA because I was in it my whole life as just a little baby.

We This That's the spot in our Finnish family where you went to go get your bath.

Now, my kids have done the same thing.

And I do have a memory of building my first sauna, though.

I was three years old with my dad in Esco, Minnesota, uh, in our basement.

And so, at every home we lived in, the sound would always be built.

Cuz the sound in Finnish culture is not opulence.

It's the way to get through a long winter.

It's the way to process your emotions as stoic fins.

It's the way to uh connect with your family.

And so all of those things were just in my life growing up.

And that was never business.

It was family pastime.

It was the thing that we did when we were all around the dinner table together.

Somebody was heating the sauna up and we would be there afterwards.

Now it flipped to business one day, Ken, when my wife and I went to Finland.

And we were there in Finland and I went to all these public saunas and one of them was floating on the Baltic.

And we got in this rowboat with this little Finnish man.

He rose us out to leave us on this raft that had a sauna on it.

And we sounded and swam and sounded and swam and it was just magic.

And I said, "We could do this in Duth."

And as any good partner would, she rolled her eyes at me and said, "Sure, honey.

What are you talking about?"

Um, we But that was the day that it was like, "This could work.

This could be a business.

Maybe someday."

We moved back to Duth at that time.

Uh we fell in love with the twin ports and in my mind was someday maybe that could turn into a business.

7 years later we opened the doors.

9 years later we put that floating sauna in the harbor at Pier B right on the slip between Bayfront there.

Um and we've grown the company to 70 plus employees and shipping saunas all over the country.

And it is just wild.

It's like my life's work, my family pastime uh all rolled into one.

So how does that make you feel?

I mean, how what when when you look at all this and you think about how this uh evolved at the end of the day, how do you feel?

Uh it's a feeling of responsibility and stewardship for the cultural gift that grandma and grandpa gave me.

I'm I'm the grandson of Finnish immigrants who came across and knew this thing and now we are serving that cultural gift to folks all over the country.

And so there's a very real for me commitment to high quality of sauna to not cheapen it to not sort of McDonald'sify things that so often business and things that maybe in America can happen is what's the cheap version of it?

And uh it makes me really proud.

It makes me really proud of the way that we're doing that.

The way that we're known throughout the country when people look into SA they find us.

Um, and now we're we're going to be continuing to grow that.

You know, the goal as we continue to do it is never have a bottleneck.

We had a year plus wait time to get a sound from us for the last 2 years.

So, we went into a new facility that's much bigger.

Now, that's hard.

All of your business owners who are watching, they know what it's like to grow and how difficult and the growing pains that come with it.

But it's also one of the things that we're proud of as we're committing to economic development in our area, creating jobs in our area, and serving more folks around the country.

Justin Chutton is one of the co-founders of Cedar and Stone, a growing business shipping saunas clear across the country, and we thank you for your time today.

An honor to have you here, Ken.

I'm Ken Buer.

Thanks for watching In Business.

If you missed any parts of tonight's show, you can always watch it at pbsnorth.org or listen on Mondays at 5:30 on the North 1033.

Thanks again for watching and until next time, let's take care of each other.