Carol Chen'04 BSB When Carol Chen traveled from China to visit friends in Minnesota in 2000, she made time to visit the Carlson School. "I had heard of it as a good business school and a pioneer in management information systems (MIS), she says. I loved the campus, the old architecture. It reminded me of Paris." The visit made quite an impression. Within a year, Chen was a student at the Carlson School, and she went on to earn a BSB with an MIS major in 2004. During her time at the Carlson School, she also met her husband Mike Otto, founder of Mike Otto Construction, the White Bear Lake residential remodeling firm and has since put her business savvy to work in helping her business grow. Armed with her degree and an extensive background in marketing she earned while working for foreign-owned telecommunication companies in China, Chen set out to boost the efficiencies and the revenues of the company she now heads as president. She and Mike took a three-step approach to developing the business. They refocused the company by transforming it from a subcontractor to a general contractor; improved efficiencies; and developed a new marketing strategy and a five-year plan. Chen set out to define and identify the company's target customers and ways to reach them. "I wanted to define what they wanted and where they were," she says, adding that she also set up a system to keep projects on time and on budget. The system has established firm timelines for each job, including start and completion dates, the number of hours each portion of the job will entail, and which workers will arrive at what time. To say the strategies have been successful would be an understatement. Under her leadership, the company met its five-year goals in just two years. Mike Otto Construction is now headquartered in Champlin, in the couple's 1887 home, which Chen says they spent a year remodeling "from top to bottom to return it to its Victorian glory." Along with increased efficiencies and revenues, and kudos from satisfied clients, the company received a 2005 Remodelers of Merit Award (ROMA), which is given by the Remodeler's Council/Builders Association of the Twin Cities. Although pleased by the company's growth, Chen isn't about to rest on her laurels. Her next goal is to increase revenues to $1.5 million. And she's confident that the company will achieve that goal. “Mike and I are a really good team," she says. "We're better than we thought we were." Now, Mike Otto Construction is one of 20 area builders to participate in a new green certification pilot program, Minnesota GreenStar Certified Green Homes and Remodeling. It's the first to put the program into action, and one of the few solely construction companies to qualify for the project, which is sponsored by the Green Institute, NARI (National Association of the Remodeling Industry of Minnesota), BATC (Builders Association of the Twin Cities) and many other organizations, including the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA).