Star Tribune
Minneapolis artist and advertising entrepreneur Miranda Moss dies at 81
Miranda Moss co-founded the design firm Seitz Yamamoto Moss in her Lake Harriet sunroom. But even after the company moved into bigger, grander offices, Moss made employees and clients feel at home.
If home were an art gallery, lined with water lilies and a white grand piano.
“‘Elegant, not arrogant,’ was one of the values of the organization,” said Shelly Regan, the retired president of Yamamoto and a longtime friend. “Elegance and grace were in the details.” Moss embodied that ethos, ensuring that a gift she selected for a client was just right, its tissue paper folded just so.
“It didn’t matter who it was — a client, an employee — the effort was worth it because the person was worth it,” Regan said.
With care and charisma, Moss led Seitz Yamamoto Moss, which became Yamamoto Moss in 1986, a pioneering branding agency that shaped not only the profession but its practitioners, many of whom went on to found their own firms.
Moss died Sept. 13 of breast cancer. The artist and entrepreneur was 81.
A native of Washington, D.C., Moss moved to Minneapolis with then-husband Peter Seitz after earning a bachelor’s of fine arts in painting and art education at Maryland Institute College of Art. She worked as an illustrator and graphic designer in Dayton’s advertising department.
In 1979, she, Seitz and Hideki Yamamoto founded Seitz Yamamoto Moss, “a new type of creative agency in the Twin Cities focused on the growing field of brand identity development,” according to advertising news website the Minneapolis Egotist.
Think logos, typography, tone.
“Over the next 30 years, the award-winning agency … built a national reputation for branding excellence and … helped put the Twin Cities on the national map as a creative hub,” the Egotist article said.
Regan first met Moss in her Minneapolis home. It was 1981, and Regan was a client, working on the Häagen-Dazs account. Moss and Seitz spread their concepts out on the coffee table. A few minutes later, Moss jumped up, exclaiming, “We need brownies!” She raced to the kitchen, whipping together the batter.
The concepts were “wonderful, spot on, terrific,” Regan said. But what struck her were the brownies, served warm with coffee.
“That was typical of what I would later learn was an essential part of what made the agency successful — this value around hospitality and warmth and making people feel comfortable,” she said. “That was a part of who she was.”
The Minnesota chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners named Moss entrepreneur of the year in 1996, citing her entrepreneurial spirit, tenacity and innovation, according to a Star Tribune article from the time.
Kasey Worrell Hatzung was employee number 30 at the agency, which at one point grew to 110 in Minneapolis, Miami and Shenzhen, China. With the help of all-staff cruises and practical jokes, Moss and Yamamoto created a hardworking, fun-loving company culture.
“We were there all the time into the evening, overnight,” said Worrell Hatzung, who went on to found her own agency, Fusion Hill. “But we had so much fun there that it was our work life and our social life.
“And Hideki and Miranda were right there with us.”
Because Moss collected brilliant, charming people, the place sparked relationships, marriages, partnerships. Among them were Moss and Yamamoto, who married in 2001.
Moss was “absolutely the most elegant woman I’ve ever known,” Worrell Hatzung said. She was also clever and wicked, charming and fun. “You could put her on a pedestal because of how graceful she was.
“But she was also so gracious.”
She remained a fine artist, creating bold, colorful paintings that hang in corporate headquarters and private collections, in the Minnetonka Center for the Arts and Ridgedale Center.
“Every time you look at a piece of Miranda’s, you can see something you didn’t see before,” said Roxanne Heaton, executive director of Minnetonka Center for the Arts, where Moss served on the board. “It’s very engaging, much like she was.”
Breast cancer brought Moss and Heaton together: Diagnosed at about the same time, in 2004, their surgeon thought they might get along. “One of the reasons I so quickly fell in love with her was that she was so hopeful and upbeat,” Heaton said, despite a more difficult diagnosis that required chemotherapy.
Heaton remembers laughing hard with Moss in the clinic.
Moss and Yamamoto retired in 2009 and moved to Princeville, Hawaii, the island’s flora finding its way onto Moss’ canvases.
“It shouldn’t have surprised me at all, but they created a family there,” Regan said. “That same sense of connection, that same sense of warmth and respect and love and friendship and fun. Those were all things that they picked up in Minneapolis, put in their suitcases, dropped themselves down in Kauai, opened up those suitcases and boom — that magic happened there, too.”
In addition to Yamamoto, Moss’ survivors include her sister Sheila Thomison, son Chris Seitz, daughter Miranda Johnson and five grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her son Bryan Seitz.
Other buildings destroyed at Khojir and Parchin likely included buildings where Iran used industrial mixers to create the solid fuel needed for its extensive ballistic missile arsenal, Eveleth said.
In a statement issued immediately after the attack Saturday, the Israeli military said it targeted ”missile manufacturing facilities used to produce the missiles that Iran fired at the state of Israel over the last year.”
Destroying such sites could greatly disrupt Iran’s ability to manufacture new ballistic missiles to replenish its arsenal after the two attacks on Israel. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which oversees the country’s ballistic missile program, has been silent since Saturday’s attack.
Iran’s overall ballistic missile arsenal, which includes shorter-range missiles unable to reach Israel, was estimated to be ”over 3,000” by Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, then-commander of the U.S. military’s Central Command, in testimony to the U.S. Senate in 2022. In the time since, Iran has fired hundreds of the missiles in a series of attacks.
There have been no videos or photos posted to social media of missile parts or damage in civilian neighborhoods following the recent attack — suggesting that the Israeli strikes were far more accurate that Iran’s ballistic missile barrages targeting Israel in April and October. Israel relied on aircraft-fired missiles during its attack.
However, one factory appeared to have been hit in Shamsabad Industrial City, just south of Tehran near Imam Khomeini International Airport, the country’s main gateway to the outside world. Online videos of the damaged building corresponded to an address for a firm known as TIECO, which advertises itself as building advanced machinery used in Iran’s oil and gas industry.
Some take him up on it and fret when he’s not around.
“It is nice to be missed and be part of the school’s culture,” Arzola said. But mostly, he added, he wants kids to know that police aren’t around just for when the bad stuff happens. He’ll hand out his stickers and bracelets, even a trading card bearing his image. Then, they’ll talk about dogs and family.
School resource officer Al Arzola talks to students in his office at John Adams Middle School in Rochester on Oct. 11. (Leila Navidi/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Two months ago, Rochester played host to a three-day training session for new SROs from across the state — an event organized by the Minnesota School Safety Center. On the final day, the 26 officers learned about surveillance challenges at the other school where Arzola works: Dakota Middle School.
It is a beautiful building with a scenic view. There is a lot of glass, too. Arzola, handling the role of instructor and tour guide, took the group outside and noted how one could look straight through the entrance to the large groups that gather inside. There were no curbs in front, either.
“There is nothing stopping any vehicle whatsoever from going through my front doors,” Arzola told the officers. “Law enforcement wasn’t talked to before this building was made. It was kind of like, ‘Here it is. You’re the SRO. Do what you do.’”
He showed them his office, too, which is separate from the main office and near those of other school support staff members. That makes sense, said Jenny Larrive, SRO coordinator for the Minnesota School Safety Center, given than SROs spend more time connecting with youth than on actual law enforcement.
“The basic rule in Minnesota is you cannot preemptively post law enforcement at a polling place,” he said. “A city can’t say, ‘Wow, Precinct Two, there’s a lot of intensity there, let’s just put a cop at the door.’”
Simon doesn’t go deep into the details on security, though. “I don’t want to give a total road map to the bad guys,” he said.
But testimony at the Capitol last year on behalf of the new law bolstering protections for election and polling place workers indicated there’s room for concern. One election worker was followed to her car by an angry voter; the head of elections in another county was called repeatedly on her home phone during off hours, and an official was lunged at by an aggrieved voter, forcing her to call the local sheriff.
Those who violate the law could now face civil damages and penalties of up to $1,000 for each violation.
The Brennan Center survey indicated more than four in 10 election leaders were concerned about recruiting enough poll workers due to threats of harassment and intimidation. This includes doxing — publishing a person’s personal information online in a threatening manner — and swatting, fake emergency calls that result in an armed response being sent to someone’s home.
“Election officials are working to prepare for everything right now,” said Liz Howard, director of partnership engagement at the Brennan Center. “More than 90% of election officials have made improvements to election security since 2020.”
Satellite images show damage from Israeli attack at 2 secretive Iranian military bases
JD Vance dismisses taking action against Russia for election interference
Transcript: “Face the Nation” excerpt of Norah O’Donnell interview with Vice President Kamala Harris
Satellite images show damage from Israeli attack at 2 secretive Iranian military bases
JD Vance dismisses taking action against Russia for election interference