GMI featured in the
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Richard Powell didn't know, way back in the mid-1990s, what the Internet was. He couldn't believe anyone would send his son, Ben, money for baseball cards the teen sold on the Internet.
But they did. The checks piled up -- 50 cents here, a dollar or two there, $50 for a coveted Jose Canseco card -- and Powell got an idea. If it worked for his son's sports cards, why not for his field of medical technology and equipment?
Powell had wanted to go into business for himself. And he knew the market, after two decades in sales for big companies in the Twin Cities and the Upper Midwest. So he hired a programmer and set up shop in cyberspace in 1996.