Hyon Kim
president
MN Best Inc.
ABOUT hyon:
Hyon Kim came to the United States when she was 25 years old. In the past 50 years, she has built a life and career in Minnesota, raising two children, graduating from college, starting several successful businesses, and representing minorities and women for various organizations such as the Council of Asian Pacific Minnesotans, the YWCA, and the Board of Regents at the University of Minnesota, her alma mater. Her first entrepreneurial venture was a medical device trading company that sourced manufacturers in Korea for large medical device companies in the United States like 3M and Smiths Medical.
She first started working in the construction industry in 2002, when she parlayed an office cleaning business into a construction management company. She named the company MN Best and primarily did work for public agencies. She focused on hiring smaller, minority-owned subcontractors and helping them navigate the specific demands of public sector work.
In 2010, MN Best entered a mentor-protegee relationship with a multinational engineering firm and refocused its energy into the civil engineering field, providing design, inspection, and project controls services. Again, she looked for opportunities to provide opportunity to others while achieving success, often hiring minority immigrants who often found difficulty breaking into the field.
Today, MN Best is expanding into the growing IT services market with a focus on cloud-based technologies. Ms. Kim hopes to continue to work with AGC and its construction partners as part of this expansion.
Ms. Kim is also the author of Alone on the Battlefield, a memoir. In her book she discusses the devastating effects of the Korean War on her family and the Korean people, as well as her perspectives on race and class in the United States as she recounts her childhood in Korea and her experiences in Minnesota.