Alumnus works to connect, streamline business

St. Cloud State University alumnus Lucas Kunde doesn't consider himself to be impressive, but his colleagues and former professors disagree.

Kunde first enrolled at SCSU in the early 2000s and attended a couple years before deciding to take a step back and figure out what he really wanted to do next. When he decided to finish his degree, he knew exactly where he was going to go.

"There was no other place to go," he said. "St. Cloud is a great place. I have lifelong friends from there."

He eventually returned to the University and earned his degree in 2011, majoring in business economics and minoring in "FIRE" — finance, insurance, real estate.

"I enjoyed the economics department. I liked the teachers there; I just wasn't in the frame of mind to actually show up to class and read the first time around. So coming back was to finish, get it done, show that I could do it and accomplish it," he said. "Life would have been totally different without a degree. Who knows where my life would have been without a degree."

While he worked a few different jobs when he was enrolled at SCSU, Kunde said it was his work in collections that gave him early experience in his field.

"That probably helped me the most in general — sitting on the phone and just talking to people," he said.

Kunde moved to the Twin Cities and worked in a few different areas, such as short-term disability, closing mortgage loans and as a financial advisor. Being "almost an introvert," Kunde said financial advising wasn't for him. He took a job at Wealth Enhancement Group for an advisor and gradually moved up the chain. He's now director of operations — essentially a COO — with Pine Grove Financial Group.

"As director of operations, I run payroll, HR, technology, client services, vendor payments and contracts, event coordination," Kunde said. "Everything that isn’t an advisor giving advice or planning falls to me.”

Kunde works to make sure the advisors and the support staff have whatever they need to be successful. And the business is successful. Forbes named Pine Grove Financial Group the top wealth advisor in Minnesota for high-net-worth clients on its Best-in-State Wealth Advisors 2026 list.

"I probably am a better connector than anything. I'm better at floating something out there, knowing what I want to hear people say or where I want to go to get feedback or to get the buy-in of it," Kunde said. "I think that fits well in trying to get some of these things either done or established or changed."

Kunde writes out goals for himself each year. A recent goal was to look into what teaching would be like. In the hopes of being able to provide some real-world business perspective, he reached out to his alma mater. SCSU Economics Professor Dr. Lynn MacDonald encouraged Kunde to come back and teach at least one class to see how he felt.

"Instead of talking in a class, she had it as an open forum thing. So there was a good amount of people in there, which was cool. I talked about how to talk on the phone, how to get people on your side, went through what I did in collections. It's a talk I've done

before, but I also expanded it, talked about negotiations a little bit and how to go about some daily life stuff," Kunde said. "I thought it went well. I could have talked more, which is incredible for somebody who doesn't like to talk."

As his children grow up a bit more and start going to school, teaching or speaking with classes is something Kunde thinks he'd like to revisit. He encouraged students and recent graduates to take every opportunity to learn and show up for the opportunities that interest them.

"Show up five minutes early, 10 minutes early — most people don't do that. Don't leave right away; leave two minutes after five o'clock and you will surpass 80 percent of people just by doing those two things," he said. "Be around, give your opinion — don't forcibly do it. And then just learn. Ask questions from everybody who's older, who have been there. Poke around, prod around. If you find something interesting, start doing it. You'll figure out soon enough if that's where you should be."