WINONA, Minnesota — Ron Passe retired from Fastenal in 2024 and said he has a comfortable lifetsyle thanks to dividend payments he receives on company stock he acquired throughout his years there.

Sporting a hat he bought during a recent trip to Ireland, he attended the company’s annual meeting, like he has since he retired.

“I was too busy working to attend the others,” said Passe, 67, who lives 15 minutes outside Winona in Rollingstone, Minnesota. But he likes reconnecting with old colleagues.

For the few companies like Fastenal that still hold in-person annual meetings, it’s for that connection with shareholders and the community.

Rarely do annual meetings have a big agenda. Most companies have found that a virtual meeting can do the job more efficiently, said Tony Carideo, who has been validating and counting votes at annual meetings for over 20 years.

Virtual meetings were “novel before the pandemic, and then it was necessary during the pandemic, and now it’s embedded,” said Carideo, who leads Carideo Group.

Companies sometime finish business now in 20 minutes, achieving what is necessary but without any of the personal touches of years past.

In a day and age when big, multinational companies have large funds as their biggest shareholders, that approach may work.

But what’s lost in the process is ”the ability of senior management to greet their shareholders by name and for ex-employees and retirees to show up and see their old friends,” Carideo said.

Public companies once routinely held in-person annual meetings on corporate campuses, in theaters, conference centers or arenas as part of a broader annual celebration for investors, workers and retirees. Sometimes, they held them in their home cities, like Fastenal, while some traveled to different places they did business.

3M Co. was once famous for its annual meetings; for a time it was held at St. Paul’s RiverCentre to accommodate the crowds. It handed out goody bags and a free lunch to its shareholders, employees and retirees, and had large displays of its latest products. 3M’s meetings are now virtual.

In the early 2000s when the Twin Cities Assembly Plant was still open, Ford Motor Co. held its meeting at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul. Ford is all-virtual now.

Of the 25 largest public companies in Minnesota, only five have in-person annual meetings.

Medtronic, Pentair and nVent Electric, which are run from the Twin Cities but headquartered in Dublin or London, held in-person meetings in those cities.

Like Fastenal, Hormel Foods, a big employer in a relatively small city, still hosts an in-person event.

Mike Cichanowski, owner of Wenonah Canoe Inc. and a big promoter of the Winona business community, was an early investor in Fastenal and tries to attend its meeting every year. He thinks it’s a gesture that reinforces “a great Winona success story.”

Some of the early Fastenal meetings were held in a company conference room or even the loading dock.

On April 23, shareholders, employees and retirees gathered at the Remlinger Collector Car Museum, took care of business, then had a nice lunch and networking time. It also was an unofficial handoff from CEO Dan Florness to his successor: Jeff Watts, now the company’s president and chief sales officer, will take over on July 16.

During Florness’ 10-year tenure, the 59-year-old company’s annual revenue more than doubled to $8.2 billion, and its stock has had a total return of almost 500%.

“This is a neat Winona event,” Cichanowski said.

The meeting’s business items were routine. But it also included festive moments, like honoring Patrick Jolliff and the four other employees who have been with Fastenal for 40 years. Jolliff made his way up from an assistant manager in a store to regional sales specialist.

Jolliff has also been a shareholder for years, after borrowing $900 from his dad to buy his first 100 shares. He and his wife, Pam, made the trip from their home in Stillwater, Oklahoma, to attend the meeting. He said the key to long-term success at Fastenal were its leaders, like Florness and the late Bob Kierlin, one of its founders.

“Care about the people, engage with the customer, give everybody the opportunity to belong and to grow," said Jolliff, who has two sons now working at the company.

Jolliff said part of what made the trip to this annual meeting special, was not just his recognition. “This is a special one to come to ”because this will be Dan Florness’ last one.”

Computershare, which helps companies manage annual meetings, says 80% of its S&P 500 clients in the U.S. chose a virtual option for their 2025 events.

“In our experience, companies often choose in-person annual general meetings when they want to showcase physical products or reinforce ties to the local or regional community they serve, including shareholders,” said Ann Bowering, CEO of Computershare’s issuer services for North America.

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