When it’s in your blood, the best thing to do is go with it. Dr. Cheryl Elsbernd has a lot of math teachers and chemists in her family – curious, head-scratching people who think solving complex problems is creative fun. So, it seemed inevitable that at every indecisive juncture in her early education, ancestral genes linked with chance encounters to nudge her toward a career in science.

Elsbernd is a research chemist at 3M, the global technology and manufacturing giant with headquarters in St. Paul, Minn. Hers is a world of white lab coats, beakers, pipettes, data logs, and precision equipment, where people engage in the constant search for something new. She has worked there 20 years, ever since earning her doctorate in polymer chemistry in 1988 from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University at Blacksburg, Va.

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Even as a child, David Farnsworth liked to plan and organize. He kept a diary, made lists for backpacking and studied maps, ever mindful of the functional elegance of perfection and the rewards of self-discipline. This proclivity toward order and method helped shape early success in the precision sports of gymnastics and diving, advancement to Eagle Scout, his exacting work as a civil engineer, and a 4.0 GPA in high school through his MBA. Whether derived from nature or nurture, this bent for what’s useful settled teenage questions about his future career.

“I guess I was a very practical person,” says Farnsworth, power generation and engineering leader for Great River Energy’s Coal Creek Station at Underwood, the largest power plant in North Dakota. “I couldn’t waste time because I didn’t have the money and had to get done with college as soon as possible. I was determined to do something where I could make a decent living.”

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