Off the Record

Dave Wellstone, CEO and co-founder, Pathfinder Solutions, on identifying what’s important

Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal and Platinum Bank Season 1 Episode 20

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Five years ago, Pathfinder Solutions CEO and Co-founder Dave Wellstone had an epiphany in a helicopter. He had just had a heart attack and a “weird calmness about what’s important to me” came over him as he was being transported to the hospital, he says in this episode of Off the Record. 

“I’m thinking I’m going to die, and I’m in a helicopter getting flown into the city here from Northfield,” Wellstone says. “The things that were (in my mind), it was like family and what you’re leaving on this earth…This notion of ‘doing well by doing good’ really came back.” 

Listen to Wellstone’s conversation with hosts Kathy Robideau, market president and publisher of the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal, and Dave Faust, president and CEO of Platinum Bank, to hear more about:

  • Building mobile chicken coops in the Peace Corps.
  • Lessons Wellstone learned as a corrections officer in Chicago’s Cook County Jail.
  • How Wellstone is continuing the work of his late father, Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone, on mental health parity. 
  • Connection as the opposite of addiction — and how that mindset drives Pathfinder’s mission. 


Leaders like Wellstone understand the value of moving quickly and acting creatively, just like Platinum Bank. Learn more about business banking with a different kind of bank.