Mike is the son of Ed Kaeding, the founder of Norhart Inc. In the mid-1990s, Ed began designing, constructing, and renting apartment buildings in the Minneapolis area. Over the years, Norhart has become a sophisticated property developer that has built over 900 modern and affordable multi-family housing units. Today, Mike is the President and CEO of Norhart, a name that reflects his proud Norwegian heritage and his dedication to creating thriving communities, which are the core of Norhart's housing developments.
Mike's family has been farming for generations. His great grandparents on both sides immigrated to the US over a century ago to cultivate the grasslands of North Dakota. They were the earliest property developers in a way, constructing self-sufficient farming communities from the ground up under incredibly harsh conditions. By the time Mike's grandparents retired from farming, they had saved close to a million dollars, which was the seed capital Mike's father used to fund some of Norhart's earliest projects.
Mike spent most of his childhood working on Norhart's construction sites, doing odd jobs like cleaning up and purchasing supplies. Although he was more interested in computers than concrete, Mike worked hard and was soon promoted to junior foreman, and eventually superintendent of Norhart's construction team, all while completing a computer science degree at the University of Minnesota.
For many years, Mike resisted joining Norhart because he wanted to build a career on his own merit and not attach himself to his father's success. During this time, he researched the perception of distance in virtual reality (VR) systems at the University of Minnesota, designed 3D imaging for videogames and mapping programs, and worked at several start-ups, including toy company Q-Ba-Maze and fruit delivery service Fruitshare. In 2009, Mike returned to Norhart after realizing that he could "make a dent in the universe" (as Steve Jobs once said) by building quality affordable housing.
Since then, Mike has breathed new life into the company with his clever ideas, including revolutionizing Norhart's construction methods with manufacturing principles, designing an assembly line construction process that has saved the company time and money. By the time Mike took over from his father in 2014, Norhart had doubled in size.
As CEO, Mike has streamlined operations, built an international supply chain, and moved architecture and engineering in-house, driving Norhart's construction costs down by approximately 25% compared to its competitors. Under Mike's leadership, Norhart has become a $200 million construction company, completing more than 650 units over five projects to-date, and is on track to complete an additional 600 units by 2025. His goal is for Norhart to manage close to 200,000 multifamily units within the next decade, which means constructing close to 60,000 units per year.
Mike has incorporated philanthropy and social responsibility into the Norhart brand, publicly supporting local homeless shelters and food banks. Norhart has aligned itself with Hearts and Hammers, a charity repairing the homes of people in need, and has created a scholarship for students attending trade school.
