MAYNARD — Growing up in the large city of Hamburg, Germany, Vanessa Hansch knew the United States from television shows and movies featuring places like New York City, Los Angeles or even Disneyland. And, from the age of 10, she wanted to come to the U.S.
as a foreign exchange student. She got that opportunity in 1999, and learned her destination: Maynard, Minnesota. She arrived bleary-eyed, jet-lagged and very groggy after a long flight and delays.
On the ride from the airport in Minneapolis, “I woke up a couple of times and all I could see was just fields,” Hansch said. The next thing she knew, she was driving down a gravel driveway and could not even see what would be her new home. “Just trees,” she said she saw while thinking to herself: “What did I get myself into here?” These years later, and that question answered, Hansch has brought her husband, Hanno, and their two young children for a summer vacation to show them Minnesota in person.
They stayed during the third week of August at Dickerson’s Resort on Lake Florida, enjoying all the best that Minnesota offers. Little did she expect it in 1999, but that road to Maynard led Hansch to travel more of the world, take positions with Cargill and ExxonMobil, and just over eight years ago, to launch and lead her own company, Y2B. Her company is focused on improving the workplace environment at companies large and small in her native Hamburg and locations across much of Germany.
She credits her time as a student at MACCRAY during the 1999-2000 school year, the friendly people of Minnesota and, especially, her host family, Mary and Jim Lee, formerly of Maynard and now of Granite Falls, with the trajectory her life has taken. “They played a very significant role in making me become the person I am today,” said Hansch. The sum total of her knowledge of Minnesota prior to her arrival was this: The character Brandon Walsh played by Jason Priestly on the TV series “Beverly Hill 90210” was from Minnesota.
“At the end, I think it is a really beautiful place, Minnesota," Hansch said. “The scenery is beautiful and the people are so nice." Rural life in Minnesota was by all measures “really different” from that she knew in urban Hamburg.
“People really live in their own little area,” Hansch said. She came to appreciate the local focus, and the people who live here. ”People really care about the communities they live in,” she said.
“People really help out each other.” She arrived as a foreign exchange student intent on improving her English skills to improve her career opportunities after school. Minnesota proved to be the right place.
Minnesotans speak a very clear version of American English, and were very patient and helpful in teaching her the language, she explained. She can’t say her time in Minnesota exactly got her into the door at Cargill when she started her career, but she believes it helped. After leaving MACCRAY, she returned to Hamburg and earned a bachelor’s degree in business.
She accepted a position at Cargill, but realized she needed a master’s degree to advance her career options. She earned her master's degree in business administration in Madrid, Spain, where she improved on the Spanish she had first studied as a student at MACCRAY. Her work with Cargill provided opportunities to return to the U.
S. and Minnesota. She and her husband honeymooned in New York City.
She also visited Florida to attend the wedding of her host family sibling. Hansch said she originally arrived in Minnesota as a student with a career-focused mindset. Living in a place where people cared about one another, and were focused on their communities and the rural lives they lived, showed her another side of life.
She remains especially appreciative of the perspective her host family provided on life. The small-town lessons from Minnesota carried over into her professional life. She believes the lessons she learned about life in Minnesota have had much to do with her launching a company focused on creating better workplace environments.
In some respects, "Minnesota Nice" is part of the formula behind it all. “Everything is just more enjoyable if you surround yourself with nice people,” she said..
