Coming from a family of educators, 1996 Apollo High School graduate Aaron Brossoit was instead bitten by the entrepreneurial bug even before graduating from St. Cloud State University (SCSU). While at SCSU, Brossoit became interested in websites and started to “play around” with them, teaching himself how to design web pages. He loved the creativity of art design and technology. By the time he was a junior at SCSU, he already owned his own web development company, Webkromatic.
Within a few years, Brossoit’s company merged with a cartography company (map-making) locally (in St. Cloud, MN) and it became Brain Magnet, a full-service marketing firm. The firm closed in 2009 when Brossoit opened a new company named Golden Shovel Agency, another full-service marketing agency with a niche in city, county and state economic development.
Brossoit’s firm assists local government agencies to attract businesses and people. The business currently is assisting over 175 communities nationally.
In September of 2017 at a conference in Toronto, Canada, Golden Shovel unveiled virtual reality for economic development-the first in the industry to do it. The company began filming 360-degree footage.
“We created this using VR goggles so that someone could have an experience without actually being there,” explains Brossoit. “It’s a very moving experience. It totally tricks your brain.”
Now, his company can take a green field of a potential industrial-zoned area and create a building popping into view to show the virtual viewer the possibilities of the space.
“It’s really something else,” describes Brossoit. “Technology is changing so fast. … So now … you can show anybody your city even overseas. You [virtual viewer] can take an eight-minute tour of Duluth, MN.”
The technology has been such a huge success that Golden Shovel Agency now hosts virtual meetings for clients. Someone from South Carolina can meet with someone from Minnesota and also watch the virtual video and experience the city of Duluth.
“It’s like being in an Omni theater,” laughs Brossoit.
Virtual has become such an integral part of his company’s services that his own agency is virtual. With 28 employees scattered across the United States and Mexico, it’s how they meet.
“We used to meet once a week over coffee,” says Brossoit. “Now, we only see each other [in-person] once a year.”
His company is currently filming internationally.
Brossoit attributes his success to his education at Apollo High School. He truly feels the modular system of education at Apollo gave him the opportunity and flexibility to schedule his interests to fit his time. He was active in orchestra, jazz band, choir, theater, speech, track and field, and so much more.
“Apollo is a very special place,” reminisces Brossoit. “It certainly has had a lot of talent come out of it.”
With the speed at which technology is advancing, Broissoit says to future Apollo graduates, “It’s a bit like the Wild West: you don’t know what is going to happen … There aren’t rules on ‘how to’ or what you have to do or should do … especially when it comes to education. … You’ve got to create it [your path].”
If today’s District 742 students create their own path, they too may be bitten by the entrepreneurial bug and be the next “first in their industry” as well.
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