Humbled.
That best describes the way Beth Lenhardt Finch felt when the 1985 College of Saint Benedict graduate was informed she will join Matt Bergmann ’04 and Wendy Kampa Hinnenkamp ’97 as winners of this year’s Entrepreneur of the Year Awards.
The awards, presented by the Donald McNeely Center for Entrepreneurship at CSB and SJU, are meant to celebrate the entrepreneurial spirit that is such a huge part of the foundation of both schools.
Finch earned this year’s CSB and SJU Social Entrepreneur of the Year honor, while Bergmann is this year’s SJU winner and Hinnenkamp is this year’s CSB honoree.
All three winners will be recognized at the annual award ceremony, scheduled to run from 5 to 8 p.m. Wednesday (Nov. 4) at the Metropolitan Ballroom and Clubroom in Golden Valley.
The Social Entrepreneur Award of the Year “recognizes the achievements and qualities of a Johnnie or Bennie who best exemplifies the ideals of social entrepreneurship by starting and successfully managing one or more ventures that enrich humanity or address a social issue in a way that demonstrates notable entrepreneurial characteristics and achievements while practicing Benedictine values in the workplace and in their lives.”
The CSB and SJU awards “recognize the achievements of a Johnnie and a Bennie who best exemplify the ideals of entrepreneurship by starting and successfully managing one or more businesses in a way that demonstrates notable entrepreneurial characteristics and achievements while practicing Benedictine values in the workplace and in their lives.”
The awards have been presented annually since 2011.
“It came as a complete surprise to me,” said Finch, who boasts more than 25 years experience in education and is the founder of CharterSource, a nonprofit designed to help school boards and leaders establish governance, operational frameworks and systems needed to build and sustain high-performing charter schools.
“There are so many talented Bennies and Johnnies out there doing amazing work with incredible organizations. I’m just incredibly flattered to be recognized as part of that group.”
Wednesday’s event is scheduled to begin with a social hour from 5 to 6 p.m. with the awards presentation slated to begin at 6:15. Time for networking and dessert follows at 7. Tickets cost $35 to $50. Those interested in attending can still register here.
“It’s always an amazing event,” said Shannon M.B. Goergen, director of the McNeely Center and a visiting assistant professor of entrepreneurship at CSB and SJU. “It’s an opportunity for us to honor alums who launch and lead ventures of various sizes that create real and lasting value.”
Here is more on this year’s winners:
- Matt Bergmann is the CEO of Laketown Electric Corporation (LEC), one of Minnesota’s leading commercial and industrial electrical contractors. The business was founded by his father David and his mother Christine in 1975.
“My dad’s parents died when he was young and he was raised by his neighbors,” recalled Matt, who worked for the business while in high school, spending his summers in the field. “He always liked tinkering with farm equipment and electrical components. He paid his way through trade school and made a career out of it.”
After graduating from SJU with a degree in management and communication, Bergmann began his career outside the family business before joining Laketown Electric in 2012. His father passed away later that year at just 60 years old, leaving Matt to navigate the loss of his dad while facing the challenges of helping to lead the family business.
He ran the business with his brother before taking over as sole owner in 2020. Under his leadership, the company has grown from 12 employees to a team of more than 160 with over $60 million in annual sales. The company has offices in both Waconia and Mankato and serves clients in Minnesota, North and South Dakota and Iowa.
“It was the tail-end of the recession and my dad needed help,” Matt said. “The first step was helping him save the business. But by 2013, we started to right the ship and we’ve kept growing from there. I’ve been lucky enough to be able to hire people smart and talented in areas that I’m not, which has allowed me to focus on the things I’m good at like sales and developing the culture.
“We’ve been able to make Laketown a place people want to work. We have 90 percent retention year-over-year and we had over 1,400 applicants last year alone.”
- Wendy Kampa Hinnenkamp and her husband Augie are the co-founders of Clo Cloud Foods, a wellness and lifestyle food brand built on the belief that “great food should make life better, bring people together and never require compromise.”
The venture was inspired by the couple’s own experiences figuring out daily diet and menu choices after their middle daughter Chloe was diagnosed with severe food allergies when she was six months old.
“The first few years of her life we went through elimination diets trying to figure everything out,” Wendy said in a 2025 interview. “We’d spend hours going to grocery stores, looking at labels and ingredients to be safe about what we could buy. We made a lot of food from scratch at home because there weren’t a ton of options for those in our situation on the market.”
Today, her company’s own line of plant-based pizzas and flatbreads are available at select locations in chains like Target, Cub, Coborn’s, Lunds and Byerlys, Sprouts Farmers Market and others, as well is in co-ops including Wedge Lynden Hills and Wedge Lyndale in Minneapolis.
“We created this because we wanted to help other people who were dealing with severe food allergies, or had dietary restrictions of any kind,” she said in that 2025 interview. “But also for people looking for a healthier diet and lifestyle.
“We wanted to create more options like this that actually taste amazing.”
- Beth Lenhardt Finch’s career in education has been guided by one fundamental goal.
“We want to help make sure all kids are able to go to a great school, whether they live in a suburb like Eden Prairie or in North Minneapolis,” she said. “No one should have to settle for a lesser education because of their zip code.”
Finch was a founder of Lake Country Academy, a pre-K through eighth grade public charter school in Wisconsin and also served on the founding board of Great MN Schools, an organization that works to increase access to high-quality schools for Minneapolis students.
In 2016, she founded CharterSource, which serves schools not just in Minnesota, but nationally.
“We focus on the business side of schools, not the instructional aspect,” she said. “Our job is to make it easier for the real heroes, the leaders and teachers, so they can focus on teaching and learning.”
