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To place an obituary, please include the information from the obituary checklist below in an email to obits@pioneerpress.com. There is no option to place them through our website. Feel free to contact our obituary desk at 651-228-5263 with any questions. General Information: Your full name, Address (City, State, Zip Code), Phone number, And an alternate phone number (if any) Obituary Specification: Name of Deceased, Obituary Text, A photo in a JPEG or PDF file is preferable, TIF and other files are accepted, we will contact you if there are any issues with the photo. Ad Run dates There is a discount for running more than one day, but this must be scheduled on the first run date to apply. If a photo is used, it must be used for both days for the discount to apply, contact us for more information. Policies: Verification of Death: In order to publish obituaries a name and phone number of funeral home/cremation society is required. 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Every line after the first 10 is $12.20. If the ad is under 10 lines it will be charged the minimum rate of $162. On a second run date, the lines are $8.20 per line, starting w/ the first line. For example: if first run date was 20 lines the cost would be $164. Each photo published is $125 per day. For example: 2 photos in the paper on 2 days would be 4 photo charges at $500. Deadlines: Please follow deadline times to ensure your obituary is published on the day requested. Hours Deadline (no exceptions) Ad Photos MEMORIAM (NON-OBITUARY) REQUEST Unlike an obituary, Memoriam submissions are remembrances of a loved one who has passed. The rates for a memoriam differ from obituaries. Please call or email us for more memoriam information Please call 651-228-5280 for more information. HOURS: Monday – Friday 8:00AM – 5:00PM (CLOSED WEEKENDS and HOLIDAYS) Please submit your memoriam ad to memoriams@pioneerpress.com or call 651-228-5280. Dakota County land that was once used to manufacture gunpowder could soon be home to an industry-leading aerospace facility. North Wind Test, a St. Paul-based aerospace engineering research, development and test company, was awarded nearly $50 million this week to aid in the construction and development of the Minnesota Aerospace Complex at UMore Park. A partnership between the University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering and North Wind, the facility will be used to advance the United States’ supersonic ground testing, modeling and simulation capabilities, according to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development. The goal is for it to be “the country’s premier aerospace complex for hypersonic system research, development and testing,” DEED said in a grant announcement this week. The initial phase of the aerospace complex is expected to cost around $191.5 million and create 40 new jobs. If all goes according to plan, the facility will be located on a 60-acre site directly south of a Meta data center at the corner of the future 151st Street and Blaine Avenue, according to city documents. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is constructing its $800 million data center on a 280-acre parcel of UMore Park near Dakota County Technical College. Spanning over 4,500 acres, the land was bought by the federal government in 1942 for a gunpowder manufacturing facility. After World War II, it was given to the University of Minnesota and used as a research site. The land earmarked for the aerospace complex, which has been vacant and contaminated for nearly 80 years, would be fully remediated and repurposed, according to North Wind. Minnesota Aerospace Complex Rosemount City Council approved a preliminary, final plat and rezoning from A-2 Agriculture to B-2 Employment for the project in February, said Adam Kienberger, community development director for the city. “We’re excited to design, build and operate the Minnesota Aerospace Complex in Rosemount,” said North Wind President and CEO David Meier at the Feb. 18 meeting. Once completed, the estimated $1 billion complex will boast three wind tunnels, which are used to study the effects and safety of air moving over an object, like an aircraft. A portion of the UMore parcel tagged for the aerospace complex “was actually the original location of the University of Minnesota Rosemount Aeronautical Lab that did wind tunnel testing from 1946 to 1962,” Meier said. “We have a strong partnership with the University of Minnesota and they will be doing the modeling and simulation work side-by-side with us,” Meier said. “We think this will be a critical research center in the U.S. going forward.” North Wind, which was founded in Minnesota in 1952, specializes in air-breathing propulsion systems and high speed aerodynamics and designs and manufactures mission-critical components. Since 1959, the company has also had a footprint in Plymouth where it houses its hypersonic wind tunnel. “We actually did testing for the Apollo mission to the moon in that facility,” Meier said. The preliminary Rosemount site plan shows several buildings including an 80,500-square-foot aero-thermal tunnel, a 60,000-square-foot UMN engineering facility and a 46,500-square-foot aerodynamic tunnel building. Other facilities noted on the site plan include a campus heating and cooling plant and air storage and air compressor buildings. In the long term, the complex is expected to employ roughly 100 people including engineers, technicians and calibration experts, Meier said, adding that it could be five years until the facility is up and running. Still to come in the way of approvals are a final site and building plan and related development agreements, Kienberger said. The nearly $50 million grant given Monday for the construction and development of the facility was funded by the Minnesota Forward Fund, which facilitates private investment that supports business attraction and expansion in existing and new industries in Minnesota. University of St. Thomas The University of St. Thomas was awarded $5 million this week, also from the Minnesota Forward Fund. The university will use the grant money to establish the Minnesota Semiconductor Artificial Intelligence Hub to improve semiconductor manufacturing, according to DEED. The nearly $11 million program, which is a collaboration between the school and manufacturers Seagate, SkyWater Technology and Polar Semiconductor, will establish a graduate curriculum related to smart manufacturing. The goal of the program is to create “a pipeline of over 120 highly skilled professionals adept at leveraging AI and data science in semiconductor manufacturing,” per the release. St. Thomas plans to award around $250,000 in scholarships and industry partners will provide roughly $5.5 million in engineering and equipment time.
