| ‘One Couple’s Gift’ is giving |
By: By Claire Gilbert
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Posted: Wednesday, May 6, 2009 1:10 am
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Special to The Kenyon Leader
NORTHFIELD — Steve Swanson’s latest book, “One Couple’s Gift,” peeks into the life of Kenyon resident Harold Nielsen, founder and former owner of the Foldcraft Company.
“This is not the story of a businessman who built up a company from nothing to quite something,” Swanson writes in his book — although that’s exactly what happened.
Instead, it tells the story of a man who took his financial success and used it to serve the underprivileged around the world.
Nielsen turned Foldcraft into an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) company in December 1985.
By selling the company to his employees, Nielsen marked his break with what he calls “the capitalist business world.”
He took the money he had accumulated and started the Winds of Peace Foundation, which serves the underprivileged, focusing on women and children in Nicaragua, Mexico, and recently Uzbekistan.
“He’s a behind-the-scenes person, wears suspenders, looks like a farmer,” Swanson said.
In the book, Swanson writes that even when Nielsen was running the company, he was often mistaken as a janitor or “just another worker.”
The book details how Nielsen went from an aspiring capitalist to a philanthropist with the help of his wife, Louise.
She had always been interested in helping others and had spent time in Mexico, where she had seen the disparaging effects of poverty.
Those experiences led both Harold and Louise Nielsen to use their resources to serve others.
Swanson said he began hearing about the Nielsens when he was the minister of the Vang Lutheran parish in rural Dennison. Several of his parishioners worked for Foldcraft.
“We began hearing about him, and the more we heard, the more impressed we were,” said Swanson’s wife, Judy.
“One Couple’s Gift” has been a long process, Swanson said. It took him approximately three years to write and publish.
Steve Sheppard, a former CEO of Foldcraft, helped Swanson understand the inner workings of the company as well as Nielsen’s business practices and ideals.
Swanson was interested in Nielsen’s story because it is an example of a person in a position of economic power making a difference.
“It’s about trying to get other people who have serious funds to think about benevolence,” Swanson said of his book.
“The intention is to use the book to maybe show other people what they can do.” |
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