Kelly Hansen and Tim Reimann – two good leaders speak!

The Fall Good Leadership Breakfast series began with a discussion about mindset: your mindset is your fundamental way of thinking that determines your approach to life’s challenges and opportunities. We like to test our collective mindset by asking the question: Do you believe accountability can be healthy? Kelly Hansen and Tim Reimann from Veit were the guest speakers at the Good Leadership Breakfast last Friday. They are positive role models for how accountability can be healthy.

By featuring two speakers on the same stage, we were also demonstrating our passion for the “plural mindset” we call pluralism. That’s when two or more people with different skills both have insight and knowledge about something important and are sharing responsibility for the outcome. It’s about operational assurance through redundancy. It’s the opposite of a single point of failure. In leadership, it means we need the support and encouragement of other people to do important things.

In other words, pluralism is embracing the idea: Nothing significant ever happens alone.

Two leaders – one passion

Tim Reimann is the President of Veit; his background starts in the US Navy and continued in many forms of construction. He’s been President for 5 years and the company has doubled in size under his leadership. “We’re both intense and driven people who are motivated to do good,” Tim shared. “Kelly is very observant and often points out our blind spots – my blind spots – which I really appreciate.”

Kelly added: “When Tim hired me, I was motivated by the challenge to take a 90+ year old company to the next level. We didn’t have a vision, we didn’t have a plan – what we had were good people, who did good work, for good customers…we just needed to pull it all together.”

Kelly Hansen, Senior Vice President of People and Culture at Veit, was the inaugural Good Leadership Award Winner at the 2026 HR THRIVE Awards event, which we hosted with Gallagher and Twin Cities Business as partners. What stood out in her nomination: she led the strategic planning for Veit. In the 17-year history of Good Leadership, she’s the only HR leader who has earned that opportunity. “What I saw in Kelly was someone who was thinking about the business as a whole,” commented Tim. “She knew the people and processes intimately – that’s why it made sense to everyone that she lead the process.”

We asked Kelly to speak at the October breakfast, but she liked the idea better when we suggested she and Tim share the stage together. Pluralism.

Shaping the next 100 years

Today, Tim and Kelly are charting a course for Veit to thrive as it heads into the next 100 years. “We intend to become a regionalized company, growing alongside our key customers,” Kelly explained. “We are shifting away from being tactical, niche service providers to strategic partners who will help our customers chart their path to growth. And we think that’s exciting!”

It’s clear to me – and to all the guests last Friday – Veit is headed in the right direction, with leaders working together for good.

The final breakfast of the season is a few weeks away. Follow this link to get your tickets to meet Jeff Kiesel, current Chairman of the Board, who recently retired after 21+ years serving as President & CEO of Restaurant Technologies, on November 13.