Jack has been a long-time resident of Minnesota, spent his formative years in St. Paul, and his business career was with companies in the Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul area.  After graduating from the University of Wisconsin – River Falls with a degree in Economics, Jack started his business career with Control Data Corp. which was a young computer company at the time. He was in Magnetic Peripherals Division-Purchasing group.  With a desire to be in sales and marketing, Jack moved on to Xerox Corporation where he was a salesman for 4 years in their copier division.  In a promotion to a marketing staff position, Jack was a Sr. consultant in the Xerox Consulting Service that supported the Midwest Region for the next 2 years.  In 1978, Jack joined Dataserv Equipment, a remarketer of pre-owned IBM computer equipment where he had success buying, selling, and leasing IBM computer equipment and systems; he became Vice President of the company.  In 1982, Jack and 2 colleagues from Dataserv, became the founders of a new company, Winthrop Resources Corp.; they specialized in equipment leasing transactions that included both pre-owned and new IBM computer equipment.  For 10 years, Winthrop operated as a private company as the business grew significantly by having strong relationships with IBM sales reps throughout the country.  Jack was a strong revenue producer for the Company and also created and managed their lucrative point of sale (POS) sales group.  With a need to find more cost-effective debt for their leases, Winthrop completed an IPO under the symbol (WINR).  The company grew to over 100 employees and retained over $300 million in assets.  In 1997, the company was purchased by a Minneapolis based bank. TCF Financial, for $340 million.  Jack stayed on during the transition as Senior Vice President until 1999 when he retired from TCF Financial.

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Jack and his retired partners then started Rush River Group, an investment company that made strategic investments in both public and private companies.  The company made an impact on impact on numerous companies until it was liquidated, by choice, in 2012.  From the early 1990’s the Norquals have been active in Philanthropy through the Jack and Gretchen Norqual Foundation, mainly in Santa Barbara, California and in Minnesota.  Jack has been an active board member of the USA Hockey Foundation for 18 years where he also serves as its Development Chair.  He was instrumental in bringing ice skating to the Santa Barbara area as the Campaign Chair of the Greater Santa Barbara Ice Skating Association.  Currently, Jack serves as the Board Chair of Ice in Paradise which oversees the operation of 2 rinks at Ice in Paradise, located in Goleta, CA.  The long term financing was secured through the American Riviera Bank of Santa Barbara and that is where Jack met Ken Jacobsen.  Ken displayed great professionalism as his lending skills created the financing program that enabled Ice in Paradise to move forward and be built.  Without the efforts of Ken and ARB, he would not have been able to secure the financing that was needed to complete this $12 million ice arena that serves the people of the Greater S.B. area.  Ken has the experience that is necessary to complete high quality lending to the customers that require his services.