Building a Legacy

When Ken Bergstrom, '49 Carpentry, passed away in 2010, he left behind a loving family, a legacy of entrepreneurial success and an estate gift of an IRA to benefit Dunwoody College of Technology. Ken and his wife Joan, who died in 2014, attended many Dunwoody events in the 1980s and 90s and made a significant impact on students with their generous gifts.

"Dunwoody taught me more than technical skills; it taught be fundamentals like how to research," Ken said. "No other school teaches what Dunwoody taught: honesty and common sense."

Ken was raised in Spring Lake and Pengilly, Minn. He served in the U.S. Army in North Africa and Germany during World War II, and after the war worked at Sears & Roebuck and Raymond Trucking while attending Dunwoody and the Minnesota School of Business. He was president and owner of Bergstrom Construction (1950-1978), which built and developed many neighborhoods in the northern Minneapolis suburbs. He was also president and owner of Minn-Kota Excavating (1958-2001), a highway/heavy construction firm based in Brooklyn Park, Minn., that built and improved infrastructure in the upper Midwest and Texas.

Including an IRA gift to Dunwoody College is one way to make a gift while taking advantage of potential tax savings for your heirs. To learn more about this and other planned giving options, please contact Dawn Fish, CFRE, Senior Director, Leadership Giving, at [email protected] or 612-381-3047.