Kenneth H. Dahlberg

Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Dahlberg grew up on a farm near the village of Wilson, Wisconsin and attended classes in a one-room school for 11 years. During his senior year, he moved back to Saint Paul to live with an aunt in order to graduate from an accredited high school, Harding High School.

After graduation in 1935, he worked in the hotel business, starting as a dishwasher and working his way up to food and beverage manager for a hotel chain.

Dahlberg went to work for Telex, a company that made hearing aids. In 1948, he founded Dahlberg Electronics, a subsidiary of which is the Miracle-Ear hearing aids manufacturer. By 1959, Miracle-Ear had evolved into a subsidiary of Dahlberg, Inc., with $100 million in annual revenue. A national advertising campaign that Dahlberg, Inc. ran from 1988 until mid-1993 was subject to charges of false advertising by the Federal Trade Commission, which were settled in 1995 when the company agreed to pay a $2.75 million civil penalty. In the summer of 1993, Dahlberg sold his company to Bausch & Lomb for $139 million.

In 1995, Dahlberg started the venture capital firm Carefree Capital, whose investments include the Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant chain. As of 2010, Dahlberg lived in Carefree, Arizona, and still piloted a Cessna Citation jet.