BizTimes Milwaukee | April 3, 2017

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IZZY IS

BUSY

BONILLA PLANS MAJOR UPGRADES AT MITCHELL

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:

AEROTROPOLIS EFFORTS CONTINUE WITH LAUNCH OF NEW DEVELOPMENT PLAN GAME PLAN: CARW PARTNERING WITH UW TO RECRUIT ATHLETES BLAIR IS EVERYWHERE

ISMAEL “IZZY” BONILLA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, GENERAL MITCHELL INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

SPONSORED CONTENT

Expanding? Tap into local resources

Connections, coaching and incentives available to Wisconsin businesses

By Jerry Schlitz Jim Paetsch works every day with business owners looking to expand, relocate or build a new facility. The vice president of corporate relocation, expansion and attraction for Milwaukee 7 (M7) said owners consider a lot of factors before making a final decision, including location, financing options and the impact on workers and customers.

Jerry Schlitz Senior Vice President, Commercial Banking Park Bank

Once business owners decide on their expansion plans – whether it is building a new facility or expanding a current one – they should begin to look at financial incentives, Paetsch said. While Wisconsin and local municipalities have multiple programs available, it is not a given businesses will receive tax credits or funding.

“As a general rule of thumb, the state is willing to trade incentives for job creation, while local municipalities are willing to trade incentives for increased property-tax base,” he said. “Adding new jobs or retaining them is critical to receiving any incentive.”

Web: insights.parkbankonline.com

Social: linkedin.com/in/jschlitz

Contact: jerrys@parkbankonline.com (414) 616-4367

On the state level, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp.’s Business Development Tax Credit Program provides companies with refundable tax credits to help reduce their state income tax liability or provide a refund, which improves overall cash flow.

On the local level, Paetsch said municipalities also consider a company’s real estate footprint, since that increases the tax base.

Some ways cities and villages can help businesses include incentives or funding packages, whether through the creation a tax incremental financing (TIF) district or through a revolving loan fund.

Looking at different incentives can be time-consuming and confusing for business owners, which is why one of M7’s goals is to connect relocating and expanding businesses with state and local funding, Paetsch said. “We are a one-stop shop to help businesses navigate the various programs,” he said.

M7’s staff helps business owners find their way through the myriad available incentives by: Framing the story: M7 works with businesses to “tell their story,” Paetsch said. Business owners need to explain what their company does, their plan for growth and how that growth helps the state or municipality.

Forming connections: M7 helps business owners connect with the right person at the state or local level regarding incentives.

Coaching on the right approach: Businesses need to look at incentives as a benefit to not only themselves, but the larger community. According to Paetsch, coming to the table with that mentality can help businesses looking for tax credits or financing assistance. “If we are working with a business looking to relocate and the first thing mentioned is incentives, that’s a warning sign,” he said. “Businesses should look at location, workforce and those issues first before asking about incentives.”

Knowing the rules: The state monitors businesses receiving tax credits to make sure they live up to their end of the bargain. Paetsch walks business owners through the application process and makes sure they know what needs to be done once funds are received.

“Incentives are not entitlements,” he said. “Companies need to be able to clearly demonstrate why taxpayer dollars are better spent on them versus a competing project.”

Expansion comes in many forms. Visit insights.parkbankonline.com to see how other business owners manage growth.

Jim Paetsch Vice President Milwaukee 7

What's a TIF? Sponsored Content

Tax incremental financing (TIF) is the most powerful tool that local municipalities have when it comes to development. TIFs are a governmental finance tool that cities and villages can use to provide funds to build public infrastructure, promote development opportunities and expand the future tax base. Cities cite expanding the future tax base when they use a TIF to help a business with financing an expansion project.

inside

April 3 - 16, 2017 HIGHLIGHT S Now 4 GE Healthcare to add 170 Wisconsin jobs.

Political Beat

5

Former state senator plans to run for governor.

Book Review

6

‘Attitude: Develop a Winning Mindset on and Off the Court.’

The Good Life

7

Capturing her travels.

Drexel Town Square in Oak Creek.

In the Neighborhood

8

Mr. Dye’s Pies.

S TR ATE GIE S Human Resources 25 Daniel Schroeder Sales Jerry Stapleton 26 Marketing Robert Grede 27

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The Cornerstone in Shorewood.

COV E R S T ORY

Izzy is busy Bonilla plans major upgrades at Mitchell

ON THE COVER: Izzy Bonilla, executive director of General Mitchell International Airport.

— photo by Erich Schroeder Photography

S P E C I A L R E P O R T:

R E A L E S TATE & DE V E LOPME NT

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Coverage includes analysis of the new development plan proposed for the Aerotropolis concept near the airport, a profile of real estate developer Blair Williams and a look at the budding partnership between Commercial Association of Realtors Wisconsin and the University of Wisconsin athletic department.

BIZ CONNECTIONS Calendar 28 SBA Loans 30 Commentary 32 BizTimes Around Town 33 The Last Word 34

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Founded in 1995, BizTimes Milwaukee provides news and operational insights for CEOs, presidents, owners and other top level executives at companies in southeastern Wisconsin (Milwaukee, Waukesha, Ozaukee, Washington, Racine, Kenosha, Walworth and Sheboygan counties).

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BizTimes Milwaukee (ISSN 1095-936X & USPS # 017813) Volume 23, Number 1, April 3 - 16, 2017. BizTimes Milwaukee is published bi-weekly, except two consecutive weeks in December (the second and third weeks of December) by BizTimes Media LLC at 126 N. Jefferson St., Suite 403, Milwaukee, WI 53202-6120, USA. Basic annual subscription rate is $42.00. Single copy price is $3.25. Back issues are $5.00 each. Periodicals postage paid at Milwaukee, WI and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send all UAA to CFS. NON-POSTAL AND MILITARY FACILITIES: send address corrections to BizTimes Milwaukee, 126 N. Jefferson St., Suite 403, Milwaukee, WI 53202-6120. Entire contents copyright 2017 by BizTimes Media LLC. All rights reserved.

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leading edge NOW

GE Healthcare to add 170 Wisconsin jobs

G

E Healthcare plans to add about 170 jobs in Wisconsin over the next 18 months, spread among Wauwatosa, Oak Creek and Madison.

The Chicago-based medical technologies and services General Electric subsidiary, which previously had its U.S. headquarters in Wauwatosa, has a significant local presence. There are 50,000 global employees of GE Healthcare, about 6,000 of whom are based in Wisconsin. Approximately 5,000 of those are in southeastern Wisconsin. GE Healthcare operates more than 25 manufacturing plants and several smaller facilities in Wisconsin, South Carolina, Massachusetts, Arizona, Utah and Ohio.

About 100 of the jobs now being created in Wisconsin are part of GE Healthcare’s ongoing transition of a neonatal incubator and warmer manufacturing plant in Laurel, Maryland to Milwaukee County and Madison over the next 18 months. While some leaders from the Maryland plant are already relocating to Wauwatosa, it is unclear how many of the 180 Maryland employees will make the move to Wisconsin, said GE Healthcare

spokesperson Ben Fox. The 100 positions will be spread between Wauwatosa, which will house leadership, engineering, marketing and support functions, and Madison, where the manufacturing will be done. The Madison plant already manufactures life support equipment, which is similar to the neonatal intensive care equipment.

“There are going to be more than 100 new Maternal-Infant Care jobs,” Fox said. “That includes some people who are being transferred, that includes some new hires.”

GE Healthcare recently closed on the acquisition of UK-based Monica Healthcare, a wireless fetal heartbeat monitoring technology company, which will be integrated with the Maternal-Infant Care business. Its employees will remain in place at its UK facility, but the new business is expected to contribute to growth in Wisconsin jobs moving forward, Fox said.

Another 70 of the jobs being added are in Oak Creek, where the company continues to add to its workforce at the Repair Operations Center.

In the fall, GE moved its repair op-

erations to the current 280,000-squarefoot Oak Creek location, at 120 W. Opus Drive, and then hired about 60 new employees, bringing it to 150 employees.

The total employment at that facility will be about 220 people after this most recent hiring push.

——Molly Dill

SOCI AL M E D I A S T R AT E GI ES

You don’t have to say bye, bye, bye to the past

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Nostalgia is already part of social media.

Facebook has “On This Day” and every Thursday and Friday you see #ThrowbackThursday and #FlashbackFriday. Here are a few tips for using nostalgia on social media:

JAGUAR PS / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

I have a confession to make. I know the exact dance moves to multiple ’NSYNC songs.

While in college, a few friends and I would perform these dances in the annual talent show and I must say, we were a hit. There is even evidence of this on YouTube. One reason our act was popular was due to nostalgia.

Many of the students had grown up listening to ’NSYNC songs and our act brought back fond memories.

Nostalgia remains a powerful and effective tool. We’ve all seen it in things such as Pokemon Go, live action Disney movies, the upcoming Power Rangers movie, etc. But why does it work? It comes down to personal value.

When you connect to customers on a personal or emotional level, they are more likely to buy your product or service. People make purchasing decisions based, in part, upon emotion.

Reminding someone of a great memory is a valuable tactic.

»» Use topics that relate to your clients and customers. If the majority of your customers grew up in the ’90s, then a question involving boy bands might be applicable. »» Keep it light and funny. People enjoy laughing and it makes a positive connection to your brand. »» Ask open-ended questions that will get your demographic talking about a fond memory.

Perhaps post a picture of the company owner at his college job, where he had to dress up as a cow, with the question, “What unique job did you have while growing up?” »» Listen. As your followers respond, take note of what works and resonates with them. You

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can then use that topic or a similar topic in a future post.

Nostalgia can be a fun and effective way to utilize social media. Tap into the emotion and strike a chord with your audience that other tactics can’t reach. With that, I’ll sign off with a “Bye, Bye, Bye.”

——Jacob Werre is assistant account executive at Brookfield-based The Ritterbusch Group Inc.

leading edge COFF E E B R E A K

POLITIC AL BEAT

Former state senator plans to run for governor

BY WISPOLITICS.COM

What is one of the best business decisions you've ever made?

with integrity.”

“Starting to invest in commercial real estate as soon as it was feasible for me to do so.”

What is one of the biggest challenges facing your business or industry?

“Consistent and sustainable employment growth; it’s the fuel for a vibrant commercial real estate market.”

What’s the hottest trend in your industry?

What do you like best about doing business in the Milwaukee area?

“Milwaukee is a big city with a small town feel, where being successful in business begins and ends with building and maintaining relationships.”

What was the best advice you ever received?

“Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.”

Where do you take out-of-town guests to show off Milwaukee?

“Co-working space and crowdfunding for real estate investments; both will continue to get more traction as the commercial real estate industry evolves.”

“Any of our amazing microbreweries or tap rooms. It’s a great way to show guests where we came from and how we are mixing our heritage into the future of Milwaukee.”

Do you have a business mantra?

“Attitude is everything.”

From a business standpoint, who do you look up to?

“My parents, who taught me the value of hard work and the importance of approaching everything you do

What do you like to do in your free time?

Steve Pape Partner RFP Commercial Inc. 330 E. Kilbourn Ave., #800, Milwaukee www.rfpcommercial.com Industry: Commercial Real Estate Employees: 22 Family: Wife, Michelle; two daughters: Addie (10) and Emery (6). w w w.biztimes.com

“Spend time with my family, watch my kids’ many activities, exercise, listen to music, and anything to do with basketball, including watching, playing or coaching.” n

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Former State Sen. Tim Cullen told WisPolitics.com he is taking steps to allow him to begin fundraising for an expected gubernatorial bid next year.

Cullen (D-Janesville) stopped short of saying he will run for governor no matter what. But he said changing his registration with the Ethics Commission and opening a bank account are in advance of a formal announcement of his intention.

“If I wasn’t serious about running, I wouldn’t be doing this,” Cullen said.

“You don’t do this to announce you’re not going to run.”

Cullen said he plans to make a formal announcement in April. In the meantime, he plans to begin raising money, attend Democratic district conventions and continue meeting with others as he works toward officially getting into the race.

Cullen said he does not have an immediate fundraising goal, and the money raised will go toward a formal announcement and rollout of the campaign. His first campaign finance report would be due in July.

“Filing this is a significant step towards going ahead and rolling out a campaign,” he said.

If he does enter the race, Cullen would be the first to announce his candidacy for governor in 2018.

Gov. Scott Walker has said he won’t announce a decision about 2018 until after the state budget is approved this summer. Walker was first elected governor in 2010, defeating Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. He was the winner in a 2012 recall election, also against Barrett, and was re-elected in 2014, defeating former Trek Bicycle Corp. executive and former state Commerce Secretary Mary Burke.

Wispolitics.com is a media partner of BizTimes Milwaukee.

BY TH E NU MBERS

$5 billion

Milwaukee Tool expects to have annual revenue of $5 billion by 2020, according to its parent company, Techtronic Industries Co. Ltd.

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MA DE I N M I LWA U K E E

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M&A Forum

Precision Plus Inc. 840 Koopman Lane, Elkhorn Employees: 75 Industry: Swiss turned components www.preplus.com

A part is checked to see if it matches tolerances at Precision Plus in Elkhorn.

Precision Plus takes workforce investment to another level Elkhorn-based Precision Plus Inc. traces its founding in 1982 to the talent pool that developed in the Walworth County area from the presence of Borg Instruments Inc., a company that, among other things, used Swiss-style machining to produce parts for the U.S. Defense Department in World War II. Coincidentally, the draining of that talent pool over the years is what keeps Precision Plus president Mike Reader up at night. He’s concerned about where his company’s workforce will come from, competition in finding qualified people and developing talent from within the company.

“The biggest issue is messaging,”

ARTHUR THOMAS (414) 336-7123 | Twitter: @arthur8823 arthur.thomas@biztimes.com

Reader said. “People are not aware of what goes on in manufacturing.”

But don’t count Reader among those who are worried about the workforce but not doing anything to fix the problem. He kicked in $200,000 of his own money to expand the manufacturing facilities at the Elkhorn campus of Gateway Technical College, brought on an educator at Precision Plus, dedicated space to a training room, developed an internship program and put students on scholarship at two-year and four-year schools.

Those efforts are intended to help change the conversation about manufacturing and replenish the pool of talent.

“That’s a pretty long game,” Reader said. “And the good news for us is we’re very busy, but if you’re playing the long game, you (still) need (an) instant skilled workforce.”

Precision Plus is staying busy in part because of the diverse end markets it serves and its willingness to produce a wide range of part volumes. Some parts are manufactured in runs of 50 to 100 pieces, while 3 to 5 million pieces are made each year for other parts.

“The diversification is nice, but if you don’t have com-

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mon processes and materials, it makes it difficult from a scheduling standpoint,” Reader said.

The company machines parts for everything from deep sea oil drilling to high-end cufflinks, from musical instruments to the defense industry.

“We have focused on moving our market position continually higher to stay out of the commodity race,” Reader said.

The one area Precision Plus has avoided is the automotive industry. Reader said the company’s approach just doesn’t fit with the industry’s demands for parts at the lowest cost with the highest possible quality.

“We’re not going to be the cheapest on the planet,” he said, adding there have been opportunities to explore overseas joint partnerships that could bring prices down. “I’d rather that we focus on being the very best that we can right here in southeastern Wisconsin and hope that doesn’t come to bite me down the road.”

When Reader first began approaching area high schools to expose students to opportunities at the company, he sought out not just students for whom a four-year degree wasn’t a fit, but also the “best and the brightest.” It paid off and Precision Plus was able to attract a high school valedictorian and two of his friends for internships. Two of the students are now at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a third is at UW-Platteville.

“They’re going to go on to be engineers somewhere,” Reader said. “They’re probably not going to come back to me right out of school.”

Initially, Reader wanted to go after the top of the class, figuring it would be an investment in the industry and his company.

“I’ve had to throttle that back a little bit,” he said, noting waiting 10 to 20 years for a payoff doesn’t solve the immediate challenges. “I recognized I needed to have a more stratified approach.”

Precision Plus offers opportunities for high school students to work part-time, coming in before or after school.

Entry level positions start in the range of $10 to $12 per hour, with shop floor salaries stretching into the $60,000 to $80,000 range and in some cases, over $100,000.

“We are trying to set ourselves up as a destination, career employer, rather than just a place where you can work and collect a paycheck,” Reader said.

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BizTimes Media will host the 2017 M&A Forum on Friday, April 21, from 7:30 to 11 a.m. at the Milwaukee Marriott Downtown hotel, 625 N. Milwaukee St., Milwaukee. The annual event examines different business exit strategies, including recapitalizations, employee stock ownership plans, management buyouts, sales to private equity firms, mergers with strategic partners and more. Cost is $45. For more information or to register, visit biztimes.com/maforum.

BOOK REVIEW

‘Attitude: Develop a Winning Mindset on and Off the Court’ In “Attitude: Develop a Winning Mindset on and Off the Court,” Jay Wright shares lessons he has learned from his career as coach of the Villanova University men's basketball team to achieve personal success.

Written with Michael Sheridan and Mark Dagostino during his 20th season with the Villanova program, it details how Wright achieved a lifelong dream in 2016 when Villanova forward Kris Jenkins hit a three-pointer at the buzzer to win the 2016 NCAA Tournament.

In “Attitude,” Wright shares some of the leadership secrets that have enabled Villanova, a private university with an undergraduate enrollment of fewer than 6,500, to thrive in the hypercompetitive world of college athletics.

Wright says there are key principals that aspiring leaders can apply, not only on the basketball court but in the boardroom, the classroom and the living room. From learning to accept your role to remembering to honor those who came before us, core values provide a positive blueprint for transformational team-building based on the idea that anyone can be a leader when the moment demands it.

leading edge NON P RO F IT N E W S

THE GOOD LIFE

BrightStar has helped create 205 jobs

Capturing her travels

Milwaukee-based venture philanthropy investor BrightStar Wisconsin Foundation Inc. has helped Wisconsin companies create 205 jobs since it started investing in 2014.

The information was revealed in the nonprofit’s 2016 annual report. Of BrightStar’s 32 portfolio companies, seven have lost jobs since BrightStar invested in them, but the rest have held steady or added jobs.

BrightStar’s goal is to spur economic development in Shannon Wisconsin by funding early stage companies. It uses donations from state residents to invest in equity stakes in rapid-growth startups.

Of the southeastern Wisconsin companies in the portfolio, some fared better than others.

Milwaukee-based Access HealthNet, for example, in which BrightStar invested $200,000 in December, has created eight jobs and now has 17 full-time employees, with plans to add 33 more.

On the other end of the spectrum, Milwaukee-based 425 Inc., now known as Archangel Device, which received a $66,000 investment from BrightStar in 2014, has lost two jobs and now has zero employees.

BrightStar said none of the companies in its portfolio have failed.

Over the next two years, BrightStar expects a few of its portfolio companies to make successful exits, which will help it become financially selfsustaining.

When she’s not helping companies meet their recruitment needs as founder and chief executive officer of Brookfield-based Cielo Inc., Sue Marks is traveling the world taking photos.

Her amateur photography habit developed out of her desire to take better pictures of the things she saw on her trips, Marks said.

“My husband and I went to Easter Island to see the total eclipse of the sun and I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, we always go to all these great places and all I have is this little purse camera,’” she said.

Since that 2010 trip, Marks has obtained two Nikon cameras, a D700 and a D810, as well as a tripod, a monopod and about six lenses. She also took night classes to learn how to use them, and often takes photographic tours in her destinations to get help photographing that city’s famous sites.

“I love taking pictures of people, so I use my telephoto lenses quite a bit,” she said. “Whether it’s at a Stanford football game or I’m in Egypt in one of the markets taking a close-up of somebody shop-

——Molly Dill

Expand your perspectives.

Optimize your decisions.

Sue Marks’ photo of the Louvre at night. ping or an artisan working or a shopkeeper selling.

“I believe that the more we travel, the more we have foreign exchange students…the more we do business with each other, I think that promotes understanding, which is really great for the world. I just find photography can be a hobby that actually helps bring people together.”

Next up: Marks is heading out on an African safari, probably in July.

——Molly Dill

Friday, April 28, 2017 7:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

Exchange ideas with other CEOs and business leaders.

See renowned speaker and author Patrick Lencioni address the untapped advantage of organizational health. He’ll dive into the 4 steps to achieving long-term success with a special focus on executive team cohesion and alignment.

Limited Seating! Register now at tecmidwest.com/leadership

Hyatt Regency Milwaukee 333 W. Kilbourn Ave. Milwaukee, WI 53203

17_235_5000

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leading edge IN T HE NE I GH B OR H OOD

BR EA K ING G ROUN D

Mr. Dye’s Pies »» Address: 8103 W. Tower Ave., Milwaukee »» Neighborhood: Land Bank »» Founded: 2011 »» Owner: Johnathan Dye »» Employees: One year-round; six or seven during busy seasons, such as around Thanksgiving. »» Product: Homemade pies How did you decide to start a pie-making Johnathan Dye pours the brandy into the filling for a batch of Brandy Old Fashioned business?

Cherry pies.

“I sold investments for 10 years. I was actually fired; I was out of work for quite a while. Sometimes what you’re looking for is right under your nose. People would always encourage me to do it.”

How many different types of pie do you offer now?

“We have seven. Classic Sweet Potato Pie; a sweet potato with pecan topping we call the Pecan Delight; Purple Monster is a purple sweet potato pie; we offer (Purple Monster) with pecan topping as well; a regular pecan pie we call the ’Nawlins Pecan; a Key Lime Pie; and a Brandy Old Fashioned Cherry Pie. We make banana bread, too.”

Christopher Kidd and Associates Menomonee Falls-based architectural firm Christopher Kidd and Associates LLC is expanding to the Menomonee Valley. The firm’s owner, Christopher Kidd, has purchased a long-vacant three-story industrial building at North 15th Street and West St. Paul Avenue. His firm will occupy the second and third floors and he plans to lease out the remaining space.

Why did you recently move from the Washington Heights neighborhood to Land Bank?

“What we have here is we’ve got more ovens, we’ve got a larger kitchen in general. Before we only had access to a convection oven. There’s a huge commercial mixer here we didn’t have access to. Those two things, along with, there’s some synergies with Cash & Carry Catering (with which Mr. Dye’s shares space).”

——Corrinne Hess

Understands.

Choosing a law firm is no easy task. When you partner with us, you’ll quickly see that our industry experience is an invaluable asset – but our client relationships are our highest priority. Our deep knowledge of your industry helps us resolve day-to-day concerns and identify opportunities to provide the support you need.

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ON LIN E POLL CHRISTOPHER HALLORAN / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Re: President Trump’s budget “What this budget proposes could hamstring economic development here in Milwaukee and have very serious consequences for low-income and working-class people nationwide who are just trying to get by.

- Milwaukee Alderman Michael Murphy

Re: President Trump’s trade policy “Before he just slaps on unilateral tariffs that could cause a lot of damage to world commerce and rising prosperity, Trump needs to get innovative… We need a win-win strategy, not win-lose.”

- John Torinus, Serigraph Inc.

Re: Governor’s Business Plan Contest

The Pabst Milwaukee Brewery is preparing to open on April 14.

Located at 1037 W. Juneau Ave. in the building that housed the First German Methodist Church in the former Pabst brewery complex, the microbrewery, bar and restaurant has been renovated to resemble a modern German beer hall.

“Wisconsin is sometimes dinged for its lack of business startups, and the Governor’s Business Plan Contest is among resources committed to producing more. The real prize for most entrants doesn’t come at the end of the competition – but with the nudge it provides in turning plans into reality.”

Did you support the bill backed by Speaker Paul Ryan to repeal and replace Obamacare?

Yes: 36%

No: 64%

- Tom Still, Wisconsin Technology Council

For additional stories and daily updates, visit our website at...

www.biztimes.com

“Our onsite nurse saved us 25% to 30% on the average claim by being proactive with team members’ health care needs.”

Douglas Bergan, Vice President of People Goodwill Industries of North Central WI

Aurora Health Care helps businesses build healthier and happier workplaces. We offer more access to exceptional care including more locations closer to home, more care options and world-class doctors, all at a cost that fits your bottom line.

To hear the rest of Goodwill’s story and to learn how Aurora can help your company, visit aurora.org/WorkWell

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innovations Technology opens new pathways to growth for Master Lock

H

ave you ever found yourself staring down at a padlock, having completely forgotten the combination?

Maybe you’ve misplaced the keys to a lock or shared the code with one too many people, and now whatever the lock was guarding is missing.

Oak Creek-based Master Lock Co. believes its Bluetooth enabled padlock can solve many of these problems, while also transitioning the company ARTHUR THOMAS (414) 336-7123 arthur.thomas@biztimes.com Twitter: @arthur8823

into the digital age.

“What we’re focused on is what is the value proposition to the end user or the consumer; how is it going to enhance or improve what they do today,” said Mike Bauer, president of Master Lock.

With the Bluetooth padlock, the value comes from the ability to have remote access and to not need a key or combination. Combining it with a smartphone app allows an owner to give access to others, know when a lock is opened and have a record of the last person to open the lock. With the extra value comes an extra price. The indoor version of the Bluetooth lock has a list price of $70, almost 10 times the price of a traditional

combination dial lock.

“I call it an evolution. I don’t think it’s a revolution in our industry with the technology,” Bauer said. “Our core business is still mechanical padlocks. That is the majority of the company.”

He also doesn’t see the addition of Bluetooth impacting Master Lock’s manufacturing in Milwaukee. The technology is just activating a physical product, after all.

“There’s still a metal shackle; that shackle is still going to be made in Milwaukee. There’s parts of the lock body that will still be made in Milwaukee,” Bauer said.

At this point, Master Lock doesn’t have the volumes to justify producing the hardware portions of the technology itself, he said. There are segments of the market where remote access or an audit trail are attractive features and could continue to grow.

“I see that evolving; I don’t think we’re at a tipping point just yet,” he said.

The technology is at a point where Master Lock has transitioned from a company focused on mechanical engineering to one that incorporates software and electronics into its products. That transition, combined with ongoing growth and the acquisition of Sentry Safe, is what prompted Master Lock to move into a larger headquarters in Oak Creek.

Master Lock will hold an “unlocking”

Master Lock Co. Oak Creek Innovation: Bluetooth padlocks www.masterlock.com

Master Lock’s Bluetooth padlock eliminates the need for keys or combinations and comes in indoor and outdoor models.

ceremony in the coming days for its new headquarters, once occupied by Midwest Airlines, Bucyrus and then Caterpillar.

The company will move in with almost 400 employees, having added 142 posi-

tions since December 2015.

Many of the new positions have been added to support the growth of new technologies in the company.

“Obviously we have our brand safety

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and security expertise,” said Cris Smyczek, senior product manager, noting the company lacked expertise in the firmware and software development needed to make mechanical products into digital ones.

Bauer said the need for new talent extends into quality assurance, marketing and even legal support from parent company Fortune Home Brands & Security.

He said patents and trademarks in the mechanical space are “a little more black and white.”

“As you get into the software space, there’s a little bit more interpretation involved,” Bauer said.

The development of the Bluetooth padlock was several years in the making.

It started in 2014 with extensive consumer research.

“We tried to identify what those universal pain points were for padlocks,” Smyczek said, with lost keys and forgotten combinations among the culprits.

Research also quickly led to the need for indoor and outdoor models.

Smyczek also said it was important

to start with the idea that the security for electronic locks needed to be as robust as traditional padlocks. To achieve that, the company went with military-grade authentication and encryption.

The physical Bluetooth locks are still on their first generation of production, but the company is able to update the software in the app regularly. Smyczek said other forms of the technology are in the works, including a potential lock box that could work in real estate settings.

“As we continue to evolve the platform, all of these products will work within one app,” she said.

Bauer noted that the Master Lock brand is one customers could first interact with in middle school and continue to use for the rest of their lives, but Smyczek added that having an app through which to connect with consumers makes for a cultural shift within the company.

“It’s a significant cultural shift because we now have a relationship with the enduser of our product for a longer period of time,” she said. n

BIZ BR IEFS

Milwaukee economy improved in January The metro Milwaukee economy improved in January as more of the economic indicators tracked by the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce posted year-over-year gains than in December.

In January, 13 of the 23 indicators tracked by the MMAC posted year-over-year gains, compared to just nine positive indicators in December.

However, the area’s job market remains weak.

Nonfarm employment averaged 843,900 in January, down 0.2 percent from a year ago. Employment was down 0.9 percent in December, year-over-year.

Six of 10 major industry sectors posted January year-over-year job declines in the area. The information sector registered the steepest job decrease, down 4.2 percent.

Non-job-related economic indicators did better in January. Passenger air traffic at Mitchell International Airport was up 0.3 percent. Metro area homes sales were up 3.8 percent.

Production worker indicators in the manufac-

turing sector trended upward. Average weekly earnings (up 16.3 percent), average hourly earnings (up 14.4 percent) and the length of the workweek (up 1.6 percent) for such workers all posted year-over-year gains in January.

Haribo to build $242 million plant in Pleasant Prairie Haribo of America Inc. plans to build its first U.S. manufacturing facility in Pleasant Prairie, describing it as “one of the largest facilities in the confectionery industry.”

The Rosemont, Illinois-based subsidiary of German gummy bear maker Haribo announced the decision late last month. Gov. Scott Walker and other officials also discussed the project at a press conference in Madison. The $242 million project will support 400 jobs. The roughly 500,000-square-foot facility will be located in the Prairie Highlands Corporate Park, west of I-94 between Highways 165 and 50.

Construction is expected to begin in 2018, with production starting in 2020.

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Office

262-513-3750 11

cover story

General Mitchell International Airport

IZZY IS BUSY

BONILLA PLANS MAJOR UPGRADES AT MITCHELL

G

BY ANDREW WEILAND, staff writer

eneral Mitchell International Airport was riding high in 2010.

The airport served a record of more than 9.8 million passengers that year, up 24 percent from 2009. Milwaukee

travelers benefited from low fares offered on an abundance of flights as Southwest Airlines, AirTran Airways and Frontier Airlines battled for market share.

Southwest emerged as the clear winner of that battle. Southwest acquired AirTran in 2011. Republic Airways Holdings merged Oak Creek-based Midwest Airlines into the Frontier brand in 2010, but Frontier suffered heavy losses and within two years, dramatically cut its Milwaukee service.

The Southwest acquisition of AirTran and the Frontier cutbacks resulted in a significant reduction of service in Milwaukee and higher fares. The number of passengers using the airport fell to 6.5 million in 2013, a 33.7 percent decrease from the airport’s peak in 2010.

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Ismael “Izzy” Bonilla AGE: 58 TITLE: Executive director COMPANY: General Mitchell International Airport WEBSITE: www.mitchellairport.com PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE:

»» Chief business development officer for Hi-Lite Airfield Services LLC in Jacksonville, Florida. »» Chief operating officer for Aerostar Airport Holdings (the private operator of the San Juan, Puerto Rico airport) »» Deputy director of the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood (Florida) International Airport »» Director for aviation management for the Jacksonville, Florida airport »» Director of operations for Santiago International Airport in Santiago, Chile MILITARY SERVICE: U.S. Air Force, 20 years FAMILY: Married with one daughter. Lives in Franklin.

Then in 2014, airport director Barry Bateman retired, after leading the operations at Mitchell International for 31 years.

Terry Slaybaugh was named director of the airport in 2015, but he resigned after being on the job for fewer than three months. He returned to his previous job as director of the Dayton, Ohio airport.

Forced to regroup, Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele selected Ismael “Izzy” Bonilla to run Mitchell International and Lawrence J. Timmerman Airport.

Previously, Bonilla was chief business development officer for Hi-Lite Airfield Services LLC (a runway and taxiway marking contractor) in Jacksonville, Florida for 11 months. Before that, he had extensive airport management experience, including working for two years as chief operating officer for Aerostar Airport Holdings (the private operator of the San Juan, Puerto Rico airport), three years as the deputy director of the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood

(Florida) International Airport and nearly four years as director for aviation management for the Jacksonville, Florida airport.

He also worked for about two years as the director of operations for the Santiago International Airport in Santiago, Chile.

Bonilla said the Milwaukee job opportunity appealed to him because he wanted a chance hold the top job running an airport.

“Milwaukee was probably the right place at the right time with the right fit,” he said.

Because he held a major position for the private firm that operates the San Juan Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in Puerto Rico, some wondered if Bonilla’s hiring indicated Abele would push to privatize Mitchell International.

Bonilla shot down that speculation.

“That’s not going to happen,” he said.

“Not while I’m here.”

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cial problems and the airport needed to be privatized to get a cash influx for upgrades. That’s not the case in Milwaukee, Bonilla said.

“To privatize an airport like this, to me it would not be a good fit,” he said. “This is a successful airport, a financially viable airport. Yes, it went through a little bit of a hard time after the de-hubbing of the two airlines (AirTran and Frontier/Midwest).

But it is not an airport that is struggling and everybody is abandoning ship. We’ve come out of that small crisis.”

Bonilla started at Mitchell in February 2016. After a year on the job, he is planning numerous upgrades to the airport, where passenger traffic rose 3.2 percent in 2016, to 6.8 million.

Two major projects are on the front burner: a new international concourse and upgrades to the retail and restaurant offerings, which would include a new central security checkpoint.

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NEW INTERNATIONAL CONCOURSE The airport hired a Minnesota-based firm to do a feasibility study for the international concourse project. The airport’s current international arrivals terminal building is small, outdated and inadequate, Bonilla said.

“It is not very conducive to the type of operations, the airlines that we want to attract,” he said. “It is a facility that at its time met its purpose. But since then, most airports that want to attract international service have facilities that are more adequate to industry standards. We need to grow; we need to expand.”

Bonilla and his staff were able to attract Mexican airline Volaris, which recently began year-round service from Milwaukee to Guadalajara, Mexico. They hope to attract more international service, but need a better facility, he said.

“I don’t want to say that if we build it 13

cover story ed to each passenger ticket), concessions revenues that have been saved in an airport reserve fund and state funds.

The Federal Inspection Services facility, where passengers go through customs, will likely account for about 60 percent of the project cost, Bonilla said.

“One thing that’s not negotiable is the FIS (facility),” he said. “Whatever customs needs and requires, that’s what customs is going to get.”

The feasibility study for the international terminal is expected to be completed by the middle of April.

Bonilla is hoping to finish the project by the end of 2020.

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they will come,” Bonilla said. “But if we don’t build it, I know they are not going to come.”

The plan is to convert either part or all of Concourse E into an international concourse. Concourse E is underutilized and United Airlines, the only remaining 14

airline operating in the concourse, will be moved to other gates at the airport.

The cost of the project has yet to be determined, though last year Bonilla told BizTimes the cost probably will be about $40 million. Last year, the Milwaukee B i zT i m e s M i l w a u k e e

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County Department of Transportation’s Airport Division submitted a preliminary budget request for the project of nearly $42 million.

The project will be paid for with funds from passenger facility charges (a fee add-

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The county has issued a request for proposal for a master concessions operator.

The project also would create a centralized security checkpoint and improve the airport’s retail, food and beverage offerings.

Currently, passengers go through security when they enter one of the three concourses at the airport (currently named C, D and E, the concourses will be renamed A, B and C). Before going down a concourse to their gate, passengers can shop at stores or get something to eat at a restaurant in the airport’s main terminal. There are also stores and restaurants in the concourses, after the security checkpoints.

The problem is, many passengers are eager to get through security, so they don’t spend time at the stores or restaurants in the main terminal, Bonilla said.

“We have seen using our metrics that pretty much all of the stores, except for maybe one or two, are underperforming when it comes to what they are capable of doing, versus the post-security stores,” he said.

The design of the airport, with numerous stores and restaurants placed in a pre-security area, is based on a pre-Sept.

11, 2001 era of less intense security checks for passengers.

“Back in the pre-9/11 days, that was great,” Bonilla said. “But now most people, they just want to get through the security checkpoint, get that out of the way, and now I can relax. What we are doing (with this project) is right-sizing our facilities.”

Airport officials want a new central security checkpoint, rather than separate security checkpoints for each concourse, which passengers would clear before pass-

Part or all of Concourse E could be converted into an international concourse.

ing most of the retail and food and beverage vendors.

The cost of the project is yet to be determined and will be paid for by the concessions operator, which will operate all of the retail, food and beverage operations at the airport, under the county’s oversight.

Bonilla said he wants a significant upgrade in the retail and food and beverage offerings at Mitchell.

“By upgrade, I mean we are going to be mixing local flavors and local providers to give it a sense of place, a sense of, ‘You’re in Wisconsin. You’re in Milwaukee,’” Bonilla said.

Some national restaurants and retailers could also be present, he said.The retail and concessions operator must also reach out to local small and minorityowned businesses that are interested in having shops at the airport, Bonilla said.

“One of the things we are looking at is for this master concession provider to be an advocate for minority companies or companies that are smaller that would love to be at the airport, but they just don’t know how to do it, it’s too expensive or it’s too complicated,” he said.

The combination of a central security checkpoint project with a retail, food and beverage operation makes this a unique project for an airport.

“Normally, airports build the central security checkpoint and they give the space to the concession operator to build their restaurants and everything else,” Bonilla said. “In this case, we want the concession operator to build the central security checkpoint also, so this is something that has not been done that I know of. So, it’s kind of a game-changer.”

Responses to the RFP are due in late

May. The county held a pre-proposal meeting about a month ago and 60 people showed up representing airport concessions operators from around the world, Bonilla said.

“We had international companies from France all the way to Mexico come in,” he said. “We had a German-American company show up, a British-American company show up. We had a Mexican airport operator show up. And then we had all of the usual players, whether that be everything from food and beverage to retailers. They all showed up.”

Bonilla expects creative proposals for the unique project.

“Be creative. Be innovative,” he said.

“Does it have to be on the second floor? I don’t know. Could it be on the first floor?

I don’t know. That’s up to them to decide.

As long as they meet TSA federal guidelines for passenger flows, security protocols, all of that kind of stuff, then it’s really up to them to decide where to put it.

It’s going to be exciting when we open up those proposals, because it’s really up to them and their creativity.”

After the central security checkpoint is established, there still will be some retail, food and beverage services pre-security and the Mitchell Gallery of Flight museum also likely will be moved to the presecurity area, Bonilla said.

ADDING MORE AIRLINES, DESTINATIONS Bonilla and his team have been working to attract more airlines and more destinations at Mitchell. They have had some success. Last month, Volaris launched service from Milwaukee to Guadalajara, Mexico, and Delta added nonstop service to Seattle w w w.biztimes.com

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and will add an additional flight to Boston in June. Alaska Airlines will add service from Milwaukee to Portland, Oregon in June. Last year, Frontier added routes to Atlanta, Dallas, Philadelphia and Phoenix.

Southwest added a route to San Diego.

Airlines serving Mitchell International now offer flights to 39 destinations.

“For our size airport, we have a very good, robust, direct flight availability,” Bonilla said. “There are airports larger than us and communities that are larger than us that have fewer direct flights.”

Still, Bonilla knows Milwaukee-area business travelers want more destinations and more flights from the airport, and he says he and his staff actively are working to attract more.

“We just keep beating the drums with (the airlines),” he said. “Without mentioning any names, we do have airlines that are very, very interested in Milwaukee right now.”

In particular, Bonilla and his staff are working to get direct flight service from Milwaukee to Miami, Raleigh-Durham and Nashville.

Airlines are very sophisticated in how they analyze market data to determine where to add service, Bonilla said. The best thing Milwaukee-area travelers can do to help attract more service is to use Mitchell as much as possible, as opposed to driving down to Chicago to fly out of Chicago O’Hare International Airport or Chicago Midway International Airport.

“We keep emphasizing that the more the community of Milwaukee uses this airport, the greater the feasibility and the possibility of having one of these airlines start operations or increase frequency,” he said.

Airport officials have worked to attract more international flights and still would like to attract direct service to Europe. For Mitchell to gain a Milwaukee to Europe flight, it would have to offer the airline a minimum revenue guarantee, Bonilla said. The airport is not permitted to provide such a guarantee, but private and state funds could be put into an account to offer that incentive to an airline, he said.

Airport officials are in ongoing talks with business, tourism and state officials to create a minimum revenue guarantee fund to attract direct Milwaukee to Europe air service. Other cities have offered such incentives to attract international service.

“We have been approached by some European airlines, which I can’t mention right now, but they are very, very interested

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in offering flights from Milwaukee to, specifically, London and Germany,” Bonilla said. “But unfortunately, they ask us for this MRG and we have to tell them, ‘We are working on it.’ They tell us, ‘When you get it done, call us and we’ll see if we want to still entertain coming to Milwaukee.’”

It would take a $2 million to $3 million fund to offer a minimum revenue guarantee to attract a Milwaukee to Europe flight, Bonilla said.

“It’s not a very easy thing to do,” he said.

“But there have been other airports that have had to set aside a lot more than that.”

PARKING AMENITIES Starting in April, Interflight Parking Co. LLC will be the new operator for the parking facilities at Mitchell International. After the airlines, parking is the second largest revenue source for the airport (about $26 million to $28 million annually), so those operations are critical.

The airport competes with privately operated parking lots nearby. To make the parking facilities at the airport more attractive, Bonilla wants to add amenities for customers that park there.

“We want to offer a service to our users that is above and beyond what they would get anywhere else,” he said. “We want to offer stuff like rewards programs, incentives, possibly valet programs, and in those valet programs you can have car washes. We also can combine those types of programs with our concessions programs. If you park here for a certain amount of time you may get a discount in the stores, or vice versa.”

Airport officials also are looking for opportunities to lease land for commercial development or usage and are marketing several buildings and sites at the former U.S. Air Force Reserve 440th Airlift Wing site as the MKE Regional Business Park.

“We are going to give you a really good rate for the land. See if you can create opportunities,” Bonilla said.

Bonilla says the airport is working to improve the analysis of its performance and plan for its future.

“I’m a firm believer if you don’t know what you’re doing right now, you don’t know where you’re going to go,” he said.

One thing passengers consistently say is they like the ease of getting into and out of Mitchell, Bonilla said.

“We not only want to keep that, we want to improve that,” he said. n 15

MOLLY DILL

cover story

Gavin Leake of Spring City Aviation poses with one of the company’s charter aircraft at Lawrence J. Timmerman Airport.

MILWAUKEE BUSINESSES USE

CHARTER FLIGHTS TO MAXIMIZE PRODUCTIVITY W

BY MOLLY DILL, staff writer

hen you think of private business jets or charter flights, what do you picture? Big wigs at top tier companies with cash to burn?

Not so fast. Just 3 percent of U.S. business aircraft are flown by Fortune 500 companies, according to the National Busi-

ness Aviation Association. In many cases, it makes more economic sense for a small- or medium-sized business to book a charter flight to move people to a destination as efficiently as possible, without wasting valuable productivity or keeping a customer waiting. And usually, it’s not the CEO, but several specialized employees making the trip.

A number of companies operate charter flights out of southeastern Wisconsin’s regional airports, catering most frequently to business customers.

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DIRECT-TO-DESTINATION There are approximately 5,000 publicuse airports in the U.S. accessible to charter flight operators. That’s about 10 times the number of airports reached by commercial airlines, according to the NBAA. There is no direct commercial flight to Norfolk, Nebraska. In fact, the nearest major airport is about two hours away, in Omaha.

But John Uttech has to travel to Norfolk regularly for his work as senior vice president at Watertown-based Wis-Pak Inc., which itself is about an hour away from General Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee.

Wis-Pak, which has 240 employees in Watertown, manufactures and distributes Pepsi-Cola and other soft drinks.

The company has eight plants scattered throughout the central U.S. Its Watertown plant alone makes about 25 million cases of soft drinks per year.

In many cases, it makes sense for a group of Wis-Pak employees to book a charter flight from the nearby Watertown Municipal Airport directly to the Norfolk Regional Airport, which is so close to the Wis-Pak plant you can see it from the runway, Uttech said. It’s a three-and-ahalf hour flight, which costs about $5,676.

Wis-Pak books 10 to 12 charter flights per year.

“It’s not something we do on a regular basis, but we do have multiple plants and our business is spread out across a number of states,” Uttech said. “The charter offers a lot more convenience of travel. If we need to move a team of people, it gives us a lot more flexibility because many of our locations are located in small, rural areas.”

If a production line goes down, getting it back up and running is of critical importance to the business. A charter flight can also be helpful in this situation.

“We have used charter flights to move critical spare parts between facilities, things like that, but generally it’s to move people,” Uttech said.

Germantown-based Kesslers Diamonds opened its first out-of-state store in Grand Rapids, Michigan in November 2015. For half the year, employees can take the Lake Express ferry from Milwaukee to Michigan to check in on the store. During the winter months, employees often use charter flights to get there, said owner Richard Kessler.

“To drive there is a good four to five hours depending on Chicago traffic and it’s a pain in the rump and basically, you lose a

full day,” Kessler said. “There’s five of us in the plane, so I think it’s very cost efficient.

“I did look at commercial first, but for Grand Rapids you would have to go through Chicago or through Detroit, so it would still be the same amount of time as if I drove.”

With a direct flight through Spring City Aviation, the employees can get to Grand Rapids and back in the same day, eliminating the need for a hotel room for each of them. The 45-minute charter flight from the Waukesha County Airport to Gerald Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids costs about $1,700 round trip, and includes snacks, soft drinks and even wine.

Kessler is evaluating opening a second Grand Rapids store, so he recently took a charter flight with the builder and architect to inspect the site, and brought along his head jewelry buyer and chief diamond buyer.

“If it was just me going, I might be a little reluctant to just do it by myself. I would rather have some people I can amortize the cost over,” Kessler said.

Flying charter also means the employees have flexibility to arrive and leave when they’re ready, versus on a particular flight schedule. A few minutes after they drive up to the airport, they can be in the air.

“It’s just so much more convenient,” Kessler said. “You don’t have all the TSA stuff, you don’t have parking issues. You can go when you want to go. You have control of everything.”

Some charter services are on call 24 hours a day, for situations such as transporting organ transplant teams or helping insurance adjusters immediately reach the site of a tragedy such as a tornado.

“We’ve had cases where customers have called us up and said ‘Get your fastest airplane and stand next to it,’” said Jeff Baum, president of Wisconsin Aviation, which provides the charter flight service Wis-Pak uses in Watertown.

TIME SAVINGS One of the advantages of flying charter is time savings.

“People just don’t know what’s available to them and I think a lot of people have a misconception that it’s horribly expensive and it’s only for the rich and famous,” Baum said.

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Jeff Baum of Wisconsin Aviation sits in the cockpit of a plane the company uses for charter flights at the Watertown Municipal Airport.

The company has 20 charter planes and runs about 2,000 charter flights per year.

A trip to Rochester, Minnesota from Milwaukee would take four-plus hours by car. If there are five people from the same company in that car, the lost productivity of the trip adds up, Baum said.

On the other hand, the company could purchase a commercial plane ticket for each of those five people. The timing of the meeting may require travel to occur the day before and the day after the business event, which means two hotel nights and many meals and expenses, as well as two days of lost productivity.

But via charter flight, all five travelers can reach the destination in an hour-anda-half for about $2,000, and could fly back by dinner the same day, Baum said.

“We don’t try to compare ticket prices—we try to compare travel cost,” he said. “What is your personnel cost?”

Often, companies are not able to book a flight commercially and there is an important business need to travel anyway, said Dan Morrison, director of sales at SC Aviation, which is based out of Janesville and frequently flies from Milwaukee-area airports.

“Southwest (or another commercial airline) doesn’t service the city they need to go to or doesn’t offer the range of times and dates that they need to travel,” Morrison said. “It really just comes down to scheduling. They need to go somewhere and they need to get there now.”

Spring City Aviation, which is based out of Waukesha County Airport, took over the fixed-base operations at Lawrence J. Timmerman Airport in December. It has three airplanes it uses for charter flights. As a fixed-base operator, like many companies

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offering charter flights, it also maintains private planes owned by companies and individuals, runs a flight school and maintains and fuels all the aircraft on-site, said Gavin Leake, general manager at Spring City Aviation’s Timmerman location.

Most local charter operators have a few different options for travelers, from propeller-driven aircraft with two passenger seats to jets that seat nine or more passengers. They charge by the size of plane and the number of hours, and pilot flying and waiting time, as well as food, are sometimes added to that rate.

A charter flight can make it possible for a team of professionals to get to three in-person meetings around the country in one day, while also holding meetings during travel time, without worrying about discussing sensitive business information in a public place, Leake said.

“On the airplane, you’re in an environment where you can speak freely,” said Laurie Stein, who co-owns Stein’s Aircraft Services in Kenosha with her husband, Mike Stein.

Charter flights are about 10 percent of Stein’s business, but that is changing, Laurie said.

“We have seen as aviation continues to evolve, I do believe there is a growing demand for charter service,” she said. “As a whole, aviation tends to serve manufacturing probably more than any other industry just because they have the need to move people. The other reason I think charter is going to become much more of a player in business is because everybody keeps talking about the people shortage.

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special report

real estate

& development

Aerotropolis efforts continue with launch of new development plan

BY CORRINNE HESS, staff writer

I

n 2013, the Wyndham Milwaukee Airport Hotel & Convention Center was demolished to make way for the first phase of WallyPark, an off-site airport parking service.

Over the next three months, the 508room hotel that stood for 55 years across the street from General Mitchell International Airport on South Howell Avenue was turned into surface parking by WallyPark’s Los Angeles-based parent company, which bought the site in a sheriff’s auction after the hotel went into foreclosure.

The same year the WallyPark facility was created, Aerotropolis Milwaukee established a multi-jurisdictional partnership among the five communities that physically border the airport to further

strengthen their mission to improve the area around the airport.

The WallyPark development, at the key corner of Howell and Layton avenues, was an obvious loss in that effort, said Scott Yauck, Aerotropolis Milwaukee board president.

“That corner was a mistake, but the zoning allowed for parking. That property was acquired, and there was nothing that could have been done to stop it,” Yauck said. “If any area (near the airport) could support national retail, that corner was it. This would have been a good sell for a good catalytic project and this is a good example of why, going forward, we need a plan.”

Aerotropolis Milwaukee was original-

ly formed seven years ago as a 21-member public-private partnership to improve and attract development to the airport area. Its progress has been slow going.

The 2013 multi-jurisdictional partnership led the airport-bordering communities to adopt an “Interlocal Cooperation Agreement,” which was intended to foster growth. In February, Aerotropolis Milwaukee announced it had partnered with the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission to lead an effort to create a development plan.

This plan is intended to continue identifying where future growth and economic development should be occurring around the airport and suggest changes to each community’s comprehensive plan.

This is where the challenge lies: the area surrounding the airport physically touches the cities of Milwaukee, Oak Creek, South Milwaukee, Cudahy and St. Francis, each of which has different land use plans and priorities.

The airport is at the border of each of these communities, which is not where the focus of economic development has been, Yauck said.

“This is a huge challenge and it is very political, but if we could create an identity around the airport and its own planning district, we could think different about the whole area,” Yauck said.

Yauck, president and chief executive officer of Cobalt Partners LLC, a Milwaukee-based real estate development firm,

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has both a professional and a personal interest in seeing Aerotropolis succeed.

“I was born and raised five blocks from the airport, so I have a fondness for this area from that standpoint,” Yauck said. “But I am also concerned for the vibrancy of the city. I love the Milwaukee metro area. It’s exciting to see the changes, but it is going to come to a point where we say, ‘Now what?’ unless we are connected globally.”

Aerotropolis concepts have been implemented in 38 cities across the country.

A core principle of Aerotropolis implementation is that development can occur more efficiently if land use plans accommodate transportation and logistics uses around an airports.

In some cities, the concept has been a catalyst for incredible economic development. For example, the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, which is 17 miles from Dallas and Fort Worth, has turned into its own city, with three hotels, office space, a golf course and an Infiniti car dealership.

According to a 2013 University of

WallyPark on South Howell Avenue could have been the site of a large mixed-use development.

North Texas study, the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport is responsible for $31.6 billion in annual economic activity in the region.

Aerotropolis efforts in Atlanta also are paying off. In 2015, Porsche opened a $100 million, 27-acre headquarters complex that includes a 13,000-square-foot

conference center and driver development track at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

Yauck realizes the development done near airports in Dallas, Atlanta, Denver and other larger metropolitan cities will not likely be replicated in Milwaukee, which is smaller and has an airport that

serves far fewer passengers. But he said the cooperative approach those cities have taken to advance the areas around their airports can be.

“In today’s world of email and social networking, people could fly into an airport, stay at a hotel there and fly out,” Yauck said. “We certainly can do better than we

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The shuttered Motel 6 on South Howell Avenue was one of several discount hotels across from General Mitchell International Airport.

are. Can you imagine if the two blocks surrounding our area became an airport district? It could make a huge difference.”

Aerotropolis Milwaukee has been making the rounds at the surrounding communities’ board meetings looking for

additional buy in. The group is hoping to hold an event in June to connect elected officials with the real estate community to generate additional excitement for the development plan.

The plan identifies six growth areas:

Layton Town Center Area, Layton/Lake Parkway Area, Milwaukee South Industrial Area, 13th/27th Street Area, Oakwood Road Area and Loomis Road Area.

The plan also recommends transportation improvements designed to

maximize connectivity between Aerotropolis-supporting land uses, including: high-quality streets and highways; a greatly improved and expanded transit system; infrastructure improvements to quickly move freight to and from the Aerotropolis; and a well-connected bicycle and pedestrian network. Transportation funding mechanisms have not been identified.

Milwaukee Alderman Terry Witkowski, who represents the area bordering the airport and was instrumental in starting Aerotropolis Milwaukee, believes the airport area is improving.

“We just had a car repair shop come to (the Board of Zoning Appeals) that wanted to go where a restaurant used to be and we denied them because it is not what Aerotropolis is trying to do,” Witkowski said. “I think we’ll have several small wins. And because we are all separate communities, we won’t know we have a win because it will be an Aerotropolis win, but it will be for the good of everyone.” n

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real estate

& development

Blair is everywhere

Williams one of area’s most active developers

BY CORRINNE HESS, staff writer

F

rom his desk on the 12th floor of The CityCenter at 735 in downtown Milwaukee, developer Blair Williams has a clear view of City Hall, the Park East corridor and a 70-inch television that is mounted to the conference room wall and tuned exclusively to downhill skiing.

Williams, president of WiRED Properties, just moved into the office space last month, but he has had his eye on the Park East for at least a decade.

“I think the heartbeat of downtown is moving north,” Williams said, looking out the window. “I happen to think that little stretch from (Milwaukee School of Engineering) all the way to the Pabst (brewery complex), where we have educational institutions, places of worship, apartments, retail, bars and sporting events, will be a re-

markable collection of city-driven activity.”

Williams and Indianapolis-based Milhaus Development were one of two groups that submitted a plan for a mixeduse development on county-owned land in the western Park East corridor. The county selected the other proposal, by the owners of the Milwaukee Bucks, who plan to develop a mixed-use district in the Park East, anchored by the $524 million new arena that is under construction.

Williams not only didn’t harbor any ill will about the county’s selection, he also spoke in favor of the Bucks proposal shortly after the decision. The Bucks recently named Williams managing director of real estate to guide the team’s Park East development plans. In the consulting role, Williams will focus on the vacant blocks

from North Fifth to North Old World Third streets, which are bounded by West Juneau and West McKinley avenues. The Bucks’ “Live Block” entertainment area and the development plan for the BMO Harris Bradley Center site also fall under Williams’ purview.

“I’ve had incredible conversations with people expressing interest in what we’re doing and wondering how they can get involved,” Williams said. “Everyone seems fascinated by the scale and scope of this project. For so long, there was so much skepticism about the Park East.

Now everyone is paying attention.”

The same year Williams bid on the Park East site, he and Sean Phelan of Phelan Development purchased the nearby National Ace Hardware store building at

Blair Williams

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1303 N. Fourth St. They plan to redevelop a portion of the building and replace part of it with a four-story building. Williams is hoping for a large-scale office user on the upper floors and ground floor entertainment or retail.

Williams grew up in Whitefish Bay and is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison with an undergraduate degree in history. He considered going to medical school but didn’t think he had the patience, so instead opted for law school, an MBA, and a master’s of science in real estate. After graduating, he followed his wife, Stacy, as she began her career in Dallas.

They moved back to Milwaukee in 2000, when he was recruited by Milwaukee-based real estate development firm Mandel Group Inc. After five years there, Williams left and started his own firm, WiRED Properties.

Williams won a request for proposal from the Village of Shorewood to develop a condo project on Oakland Avenue just as the Great Recession was beginning. After tapping the brakes a bit, he put the project on hold, instead buying an abandoned gas station across the street in Whitefish Bay that he and his family used to frequent.

The land was annexed into Shorewood and the project became The Cornerstone, which now includes 24 luxury apartments and 11,000 square feet of retail, including Colectivo Coffee at 4500 N. Oakland Ave. Once the project was completed, Williams picked up the original project in Shorewood and created Ravenna, which has 20 apartments and 8,100 square feet of retail space. The village allowed Williams to give the Ravenna project an address. He chose 4523 N. Oakland Ave. – the same house number as his boyhood home, 4523 N. Murray Ave., just two blocks east.

“Shorewood was the first place I got to do a development that had a profound emotional attachment for me,” Williams said. “That abandoned gas station was an absolute blight. To be part of something that transformative was very compelling.”

The project also set the stage for the type of work Williams wanted to continue doing: Main Street development that enhances a community’s existing attributes.

His next major project was Mequon Town Center, a three-acre mixed-use development that includes 36,000 square feet of retail and 28 high-end apartments at 6006 W. Mequon Road.

While doing his passion projects, Wil22

The Cornerstone, 4500 N. Oakland Ave., Shorewood, was one of Williams’ first projects after starting his own company, WiRED Properties.

liams also has picked up what he calls opportunistic work, including a 76-unit apartment development in Brookfield, a 274-unit apartment development in Bay View with Milhaus and a 96-unit apartment project with Phelan in West Bend.

For Williams, one of the keys to his success has been collaborating with likeminded people. It also has been necessary at times, considering WiRED Properties has been just Williams until about two months ago, when he made his first hire.

“Every envelope that has ever left this office, I’ve licked,” he said. “There are nine (other) chairs here because I engage myself with smart, engaging, creative people.

But this is always just me.”

In addition to the large television tuned to Red Bull TV so Williams, an avid skier himself, can watch a steady stream of what he calls “ski porn,” the office houses “a couple of architects, a couple of real estate guys and another guy who I can’t figure out what he does.”

That other guy is Ian Abston, the cofounder of NEWaukee, who is now the president of Millenian LLC. Abston said Williams was the perfect choice by the Bucks because he understands how the typical Milwaukee resident will want to spend his or her time at the Live Block.

“Obviously, the Bucks and Marquette will fill the arena 80 days of the year, but B i zT i m e s M i l w a u k e e

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Main Street at Drexel Town Square, which Williams developed.

Blair has an eye for what businesses and programming belong there,” Abston said.

“The guy knows a little bit about everything and does an amazing job of weaving in the urban footprint that would ordinarily be left behind.”

Williams’ work at Mequon Town Center led him to one of his largest projects and probably his favorite, Drexel Town Square. He and Phelan teamed up again to develop the Main Street portion of the 80-acre mixed-use development in Oak Creek.

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Together, they are creating about 7 acres of a downtown at an abandoned manufacturing plant site.

“I had people tell me I was crazy for going down there, but I said, ‘There was never an opportunity like this in southeastern Wisconsin before,’” Williams said.

“This is a municipality with 100 percent buy-in on recrafting their identity and civic presence. Being involved from almost the beginning helping to transform this sleepy post-war town to what it has become today has been incredible.” n

real estate

& development

Game plan

CARW partnering with UW to recruit athletes

BY CORRINNE HESS, staff writer

L

ike most successful college athletes, Mike Kleber had dreams of going pro. But four knee surgeries in three years cut his football career at the University of Wisconsin-Madison short.

Kleber’s younger sister and Thomas Bernacchi’s daughter played basketball together, which led to an internship 11 years ago at Milwaukee-based Zilber Property Group, where Bernacchi is the managing director.

Kleber wasn’t sure he wanted a career in commercial real estate, but something clicked. He decided to study the craft, outwork the competition and learn from his mistakes – all things he did on the football field.

“When you get into real estate it is fast-paced, with constant highs and lows,”

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He said he can easily see how the skills needed on the playing field translate to the real estate industry, including resiliency, competiveness and reMcIntosh sourcefulness.

“We’re just beginning our conversations with CARW, but we would like to get something off the ground, possibly this fall,” McIntosh said.

CARW already has a relationship with the James A. Graaskamp Center for Real Estate at UW and also works with UWMilwaukee on a scholarship program each year for two students who plan to go into commercial real estate.

Being able to develop a program with

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“Our kids are used to high-pressure environments, they are comfortable in those environments, and we think it could translate very well into commercial real estate,” McIntosh said. “We’re excited to develop some programing that will educate our underclassmen about what the profession is all about.”

McIntosh played football for UW and starred on the offensive line for two Rose Bowl championship teams. Then he was a first round draft pick of the Seattle Seahawks in 2000. He played three seasons in the NFL before a series of neck injuries cut his career short.

Then he dabbled a bit in residential real estate before starting his own business. McIntosh returned to Madison in 2014 to work for UW.

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Kleber said. “You can’t bathe in self-pity because the next deal will pass you by.”

Kleber’s dedication worked. Today, he is the director of industrial leasing at Zilber.

He credits the skills he learned on the field for his success, and he’s not the only one who thinks college athletes could succeed at real estate.

The Commercial Association of Realtors Wisconsin is working with the University of Wisconsin athletic department to put together a program to attract more student-athletes to the real estate business.

Unlike many other professions, commercial real estate is not a career most students think about unless they are exposed to it, said Chris McIntosh, associate athletic director for business development at the University of Wisconsin.

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BR IEFS

The Mayfair Collection apartment development moves forward Milwaukee-based Fiduciary Real Estate Development Inc. purchased just under 4 acres of land on the north side of The Mayfair Collection in Wauwatosa and has started phase one of a residential development that is slated to eventually include up to 1,050 luxury apartments.

FRED-Synergy LLC, which is registered to Brett Miller, president and chief executive officer of Fiduciary Real Estate Development, bought the parcel from HSA Commercial Real Estate, the Chicagobased developer of The Mayfair Collection, for $3.2 million, according to state records.

The property, at 11220 and 11240 District Drive, is located just north of the Bartolotta restaurants and the 140-room Hilton Homewood Suites hotel that is currently under construction.

It will be the site for the first phase of the residential development, to be called, “Synergy at The District,” and will include 268 apartments with 50,000 square feet of ground level retail space, said Karl Schreiber, building and safety manager for the City of Wauwatosa.

The apartments will be built in two buildings, with apartments ranging from studio units to two bedrooms with dens that are 450 to 1,200 square feet. Rents will average $1,450 a month, said Craig Raddatz, partner and vice president of acquisitions with Fiduciary.

Mills Fleet Farm plans store at Pabst Farms in Oconomowoc Mills Fleet Farm plans to build a 218,628-squarefoot store at I-94 and Highway 67 in the Pabst Farms development in Oconomowoc, according to plans submitted to the city, and hopes to begin construction in June.

David Pudlosky, vice president of JLL’s Wisconsin office, playing baseball at UW-Milwaukee.

the athletic department would be another way to keep students in the area after graduation, said Tracy Johnson, president and chief executive officer Johnson of CARW. Johnson said it could be as simple as hosting an event to get the two organizations acquainted with each other, but she believes it will lead to something more.

“I don’t know what the program will look like, but when we got together we 24

couldn’t stop thinking of ideas,” Johnson said.

“They have the energy and entrepreneurial spirit that connects well with what we do and who our members Pudlosky are. This is a great opportunity and we are excited to take it a step further.”

David Pudlosky, vice president of JLL’s Wisconsin office, always knew he wanted to go into real estate. When he was a child, he would grab the sports and real estate B i zT i m e s M i l w a u k e e

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sections from his parents’ Sunday paper and pore over the two, unable to decide which he liked better.

Pudlosky believes his time playing baseball at UWM from 2000 to 2003 has helped immensely in his career.

“Being in commercial real estate, you hear ‘no’ a lot. You also work as a team with your colleagues, with your client. On a baseball team, it’s 30 guys and 30 personalities,” Pudlosky said. “It’s a grind all day, every day and you can’t do it right if you are half-hearted about it and don’t love it.”

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The proposal for the Mills Fleet Farm store includes the main store building, a covered outdoor materials yard and a 4,900-square-foot convenience store with three car wash bays and a gas station located on a 19-acre site. The parking lot would have spaces for 652 cars, according to plans submitted to the city.

If approved, this would be Mills Fleet Farm’s 18th location in Wisconsin. Other locations include Germantown and West Bend. In February 2016, New York-based investment firm KKR acquired Mills Fleet Farm, which has headquarters in Brainerd, Minnesota.

The project would be the first development at the Town Centre portion of Pabst Farms. A decade ago, developer Peter Bell’s 1,500-acre Pabst Farms development included plans for a 1 millionsquare-foot upscale regional shopping center, called the Pabst Farms Town Centre, northeast of I-94 and Highway 67.

Wisconsin Athletic Club to operate fitness center in U.S. Bank Center The Wisconsin Athletic Club has partnered with U.S. Bank to operate the fitness facility in the U.S. Bank Center in downtown Milwaukee, beginning April 3.

The fitness center, “Club 777,” is located in 12,000 square feet on the lower level of the office tower.

The gym is available to tenants in the U.S. Bank Center and U.S. Bank employees at Juneau Square North and South and the Lewis Center.

U.S. Bank hired the Wisconsin Athletic Club to operate the gym but will continue to own and develop the space, said Pat Swanson, assistant vice president for corporate communications for U.S. Bank.

Building tenants can pay $10 a month for locker room and shower access or $75 a month for full access to the building’s fitness center and all of the WAC’s seven facilities.

Kleber said when he first started in commercial real estate, he was counting commission checks before the deal was even signed and when they fell apart, it was tough, but he knew how to deal with it.

“College sports, no matter what you are playing, you are challenged mentally and physically,” Kleber said. “I am forever grateful for the things Coach (Barry) Alvarez taught me. Those guys prepared me for life lessons that at the time, when I was 18 or 19, I didn’t even know they were doing.” n

strategies Focus on the other bottom line Culture can drive organizational effectiveness

L

ongstanding BizTimes Milwaukee readers will recognize the great importance I place on culture.

Simplistically, culture might be described as “the way we do things around here.” Elements of culture that are visible within an organization include purpose, goals, processes, performance measures, corrective mechanisms, language, barriers, power/status, relationships, reward systems, ideology, etc. The extent to which intentional practices are pursued in these and other areas has a lot do with how effective an organization is.

Simon Sinek, in his powerful book, “Start with Why” wrote about the practical implications of paying attention to “the way we do things around here.” In the book, he highlighted three important questions organizations and the people who lead them need to ask and answer: “What?” (What goods, products or services do we provide?), “How?” (What mechanisms or processes do we use to carry out our work?) and “Why?” (What drives us to carry out our work?).

Let me share a story to illustrate the powerful implications of Sinek’s questions. Company A makes widgets (the “what”) by using primarily industrystandard but some proprietary methods (the “how”), in order to make as much

you think most people, including new entrants (i.e., young people) to the workforce, who tend to have broader expectations for their employers beyond merely providing them with a paycheck, would rather work?

If you are like most of the audiences of which I have asked this question over the past few years, Company B is your enthusiastic reply. Most people, I have learned, prefer to work for employers that not only are profit-oriented but also are people-oriented.

When leaders and organizations are mindful of culture, they pursue practices such as focusing on the “triple bottom line” (i.e., profit, people and planet), quality of work life (i.e., a values-based approach to organizational practices), multiple stakeholder perspective (i.e., concern for employees and their families, vendors, suppliers, the surrounding community, etc.), servant leadership (i.e., “leader as organizational steward”), etc.

Such leaders recognize that such practices send powerful messages about what matters, what is important and what kind of behavior is expected. Over time, such practices build powerful cultures that represent powerful frameworks for facilitating individual, team and organizational effectiveness.

S&P 500 and the FTSE 100.

Let me conclude with a favorite story of mine. I once interviewed one of my all-time leadership heroes, Dick Pilsner, founder of D&S Dental Laboratory Inc. in Waunakee. During our interview, I asked him to describe his leadership philosophy and he said, “Of course we need to work on numbers, we need accounting, but the financial element doesn’t dictate the choices that we have; the ‘other bottom line’ does. It’s all of the things that some people today might call ‘emotional intelligence,’ all the things that add up to ‘corporate culture’ – attitude, compassion, the spiritual – all those elements that are in the ‘other bottom line’ besides the financial one. What we’re trying to do is build a community here at work.”

“Accumulating research has demonstrated that by focusing on culture, leaders can realize gains relative to a host of organizational variables and key performance indicators.” money as possible for its shareholders (the “why”). Company B makes widgets (the “what”), by using primarily industrystandard but some proprietary methods (the “how”), in order to make a profit for its shareholders while making positive contributions to the multiple stakeholders with which the organization interacts (the “why”).

For which organization would you rather work? For which organization do

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DANIEL SCHROEDER HUMAN RESOURCES Leaders seeking a method by which they can catalyze their organizations are encouraged to delve into Pilsner’s concept of the “other bottom line.” By focusing on the other bottom line, or culture, they just might discover and unleash a powerful formula for affecting the traditional financial bottom line. n Daniel Schroeder, Ph.D., is president and chief executive officer of Brookfield-based Organization Development Consultants Inc. (www.od-consultants.com). He can be reached at (888) 827-1901 or Dan.Schroeder@OD-Consultants.com.

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One concrete example along these lines is the research done by the Ethisphere Institute (www.ethisphere.com) which researches and designates the world’s most ethical organizations. Among other things, this organization has documented that organizations that strive to build ethical cultures realize performance gains at the bottom line. Specifically, they have shown that organizations they have designated as “most ethical” outperform the w w w.biztimes.com

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strategies

The No. 1 reason we lose vital accounts It’s probably not what you think

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icole was just hired by XYZ Co. as its new vice president of sales.

She was brought on at a time when XYZ had one of its longest growth runs ever.

But she sensed that that run had, well, run its course.

Her instincts were proven correct.

Incredibly, just two weeks into her new position, one of Nicole’s regional sales managers, Mark, came to her with bad news. Alpha Corp. — one of XYZ’s longest-standing, largest and most profitable accounts, had defected to XYZ’s competitor, PDQ Corp.

Nicole asked Mark the obvious question: “Why?” Mark reported back to Nicole. “I talked to the ‘former’ Alpha account owner.

There’s no way to sugarcoat this, Nicole, but his response was: ‘I have no idea; I didn’t see it coming. I’ve been continuing to nurture all of my relationships, there were no service issues and they continue to be happy with our product.’”

So, Nicole penned an email to Mark and his four counterparts around the country: “As all of you know, we recently lost Alpha to PDQ. This should never have happened! And it WILL not happen again!! But before you issue any mandates to your teams, I want each of you to ‘reply all’ by EOD your answer to this question: ‘What is the No. 1 reason companies lose good, ongoing accounts?’”

Much to her disappointment — but not to her surprise — they all missed it.

She then instructed the five of them to ask the same question to their teams.

Goose egg. Nobody got it! “They just start taking them for granted,” “They let the relationships go stale,” “Service and responsiveness issue,” were pretty much the sum of everyone’s responses.

Nicole finally put the answer out to her team in an email with the subject line: “Why we lost Alpha and why we will lose more Alphas if we don’t do something about it.”

The body of her email had one word: “C-h-a-n-g-e!”

She didn’t have to say any more. Nicole knew everyone would get it. And they did!

Responses poured in: “Change in buying philosophy,” “Change in org structure and key players,” “Change in company ownership,” “Change in the type and amount of competitive inroads,” “Change in the company’s business challenges.”

But Nicole knew that simply issuing marching orders to “get out there and get to know your key customers” would only lead to exploding expense reports and give the team a false sense of security. Because she knew that customers don’t just start organically sharing info about what’s really happening at the account…no matter how strong the relationship.

Salespeople won’t learn key, strategic information by osmosis. That’s not because customers don’t want to share such info, it’s because they have no idea it even matters to the salesperson. Customers are

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Version A: “Al, as I said on the phone, what I’d like to do in today’s appointment is take a new approach. I’ve been calling on your account for a number of years now and you’ve always been an important contact for me. So what I’d like to do is, instead of talking about a lot of the things that we always talk about, I’d like to get some information about your company and ask you some questions about the business. We’re trying to do a better job of researching our customers, and I think the more I understand Beta’s needs and priorities, the better job XYZ can do of bringing unique solutions to Beta. So that’s what I’m hoping to do in today’s meeting. Would that be OK?”

Version B:

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so used to everyday conversations being limited to project management, service issues and technical discussions, if not family, football or fashion. In most cases, they’re actually quite happy to share. All we need to do is ask!

But that — asking — leads to Nicole’s next challenge. Her third challenge was more real and practical: getting customers’ heads in the right place to openly share strategic information. And Nicole knew this came down to how the salespeople framed up the conversation at the start of the meeting.

So she penned yet another email: “I’d like each of you to read these two sales conversations and select which approach, Version A or Version B, you would be more comfortable using to frame up your information-gathering meetings with key contacts.

n

“Al, as I said on the phone, what I’d like to do in today’s meeting is maybe go in a little bit different direction than we typically do. I mean, usually when we get together we’ve got a number of day-to-day project- and servicerelated things that we’ve got to address. And I don’t think there are any of those things necessarily pressing on us right now… I think that’s right, right? [Al acknowledges]. Yeah, okay great. So what I’d like to do is leave some of that day-to-day stuff at the door so that I can take a step back and kind of go

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JER RY S TA P LETO N SALES into homework mode just to make sure I’m keeping my arms around the bigger picture business issues here at XYZ. I mean, clearly the better we continue to understand how you guys tick as a business and what you’re trying to accomplish, I think the better job we can continue to do of making a contribution to the ongoing business relationship between our two companies. So that’s the direction I’m looking to go in this particular meeting.

Make sense?”

As the reps talked among themselves and with their managers, they admitted that while there were aspects of Version B they liked, there was just no way they could use words like “homework,” “dayto-day stuff,” “at the door” and “how you guys tick.” That all sounded just too corny and unprofessional, they said.

But Nicole went on to explain how Version A was filled with “sales trigger” words (e.g., “information,” “ask you some questions,” “needs”) and sounded like any other meeting the salesperson might position with the customer.

Statistically, the No. 1 reason for losing good accounts is that something changed and we weren’t aware of it. How we frame up the “information-gathering” meeting makes all the difference in its outcome and we salespeople are almost genetically predisposed to use comfortable (hyperprofessional) language that, regrettably, makes our meeting sound like any other sales meeting. n Jerry Stapleton, owner of Delafield-based Stapleton Resources, has spent most of his adult life looking at real customer interactions through the lens of a microscope and loves to share what he’s learned. He can be reached at jstapleton@stapletonresources.com.

strategies

Maximize your marketing budget Plan the ingredients for a successful campaign

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very good marketing program begins with a plan – a means of allocating the limited resources of your marketing budget.

Think of this plan as a big recipe. Into it go all the ingredients that influence customers to buy your product or service over somebody else’s.

Experts put these ingredients, these marketing variables, in four categories called the Four P’s: 1. Product (name, packaging, sizes, features) 2. Place (inventory levels, channels of distribution, locations, transport) 3. Promotion (advertising, publicity, sales promotion, personal selling) 4. Price (discounts, credit terms, warranties, returns) When you shop for your marketing variables, you have a limited budget. You can only spend so much on each ingredient. For instance, if you put all of your budget into packaging, you may have a product that really stands out on store shelves, but no money to promote it.

Meanwhile, your competitor may have used his budget to offer more features or more sizes. Or devoted some to advertising, some to promotions, some to discounts.

Ultimately, he attracts more customers.

The secret, then, is to balance the marketing variables and emphasize those that are most important to your customers.

This requires a plan.

The marketing plan What does a marketing plan look like?

Despite myriad variations, every good plan has certain basic elements: »» Executive summary »» Situation analysis »» Objectives »» Strategies »» Tactics »» Budget Executive summary One page summarizing the circumstances and principal recommendations contained in the plan. Allows everyone to grasp quickly the main thrust of the plan.

Usually written last.

Situation analysis Contains three basic elements: 1. Industry analysis (e.g., the government is about to slap a tariff on foreign-made gimcracks, or the cost of raw materials is expected to double over the next year).

2. Your company’s strengths and weaknesses versus the competition.

3. Recent sales and profit results.

Objectives Where you want to be and when you want to get there. »» Is the purpose of your marketing plan to launch a new product or line of products? If so, your objective might read: “Achieve 10 percent market share within the first 12 months of product launch.” »» Is the purpose of your marketing plan to boost revenue from existing products? Your objective then might read, “Increase revenue 12 percent from our line of products over the next six months while maintaining current profit margins.”

Tactics Specific actions. Your website is a tactic. A brochure is a tactic. An ad in the newspaper is a tactic. Promotional pens or t-shirts with your name and logo on them are tactics. While objectives and strategies are conceptual visions, tactics are the tangible fulfillment of those visions.

Budget Each tactic has a price. Add up all you plan to use and you know what your budget must be to achieve your goals.

What if your tactics are beyond your budget? How do you choose the right mix of ingredients to create the most profit?

Simple. You prioritize those tactics you

Notice that each objective is quantifiable and features a limited timeframe. It makes your objectives definable and measurable. It also lets everybody know how they’re doing along the way.

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Strategies Those things you need to do to accomplish your objectives. If your objective is where you want your company to be, the strategies are the route you need to take to get there. For example, if the objective is to increase sales revenue, your strategies might be: »» Increase promotion spending to buy market share »» Hunt new customers »» Harvest more sales from existing customers »» Introduce new products to attract new customers »» Merge or acquire another company

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RO B ERT GR EDE MARKETING

believe will have the greatest impact on your prospects, and on your bottom line.

Eliminate the others and you are left with the marketing ingredients in your recipe for success. n Robert Grede, author of “Naked Marketing - The Bare Essentials,” taught marketing and promotion at Marquette University for many years. He operates The Grede Co., a Milwaukee-area consulting firm specializing in marketing and strategic planning. He can be reached at: rg@ TheGredeCompany.com.

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biz connections CA L E NDAR

NONPROFIT DIRECTORY

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Continuing Education will host Advancing Education in the Milwaukee Public Schools on Wednesday, April 12, from 6 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. at the SCE, 161 W. Wisconsin Ave., #6000, Milwaukee. Darienne Driver, superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools, will talk about innovative initiatives that have advanced public education in Milwaukee. The event is free. For more information or to register, visit http://bit.ly/2nbgJ6Q.

SPOTLIGHT

CCB Technology will host its fourth annual TechShowcase on Thursday, April 13, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Miller Park, 1 Brewers Way in Milwaukee. Focused on business IT solutions, the TechShowcase gives local business and IT leaders an opportunity to enjoy breakout sessions, exhibits and direct interaction with more than 30 top IT companies. Eric O’Neill, former FBI cybersecurity operative, is the keynote speaker. To learn more or to register for the free event, visit www.ccbtechnology.com/techshowcase.

Business Health Care Group will host Spring Learning Event: Population Health, Population Health Management and Building Cultures of Wellbeing on Wednesday, April 26, from 8 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. at the Briggs & Stratton Auditorium, 12301 W. Wirth St. in Wauwatosa. This free event will feature a keynote address by Dr. Ray Fabius. Most recently, he co-founded HealthNEXT, the emerging leader in building corporate cultures of health and wellbeing. For more information or to register, visit http://bit.ly/2nbgUio. Walcheske & Luzi LLC will host the Third Annual Employment Law Conference on Thursday, April 27, from noon to 7 p.m. at the Embassy Suites Hotel, 1200 S. Moorland Road in Brookfield. The conference will cover workplace issues such as privacy, technology and social media; investigating and defending discrimination, harassment and retaliation complaints; business transactions and employment law; and new notable See the complete calendar of employment laws. Cost is $40 and includes lunch, conferupcoming events & meetings. ence materials and open bar networking reception. For more www.biztimes.com information or to register, visit http://bit.ly/2mGagNr.

BIZ NO T ES SBA names area award winners The U.S. Small Business Administration has honored several Milwaukee-area small businesses with its 2017 awards. The Small Business Exporter award goes to Excel Manufacturing, Rich Calderon and Karl Schindler, Waukesha. The Jody C. Raskind Lender of the Year Award goes to the Wisconsin Women’s Business Initiative Corp., Milwaukee. The Women’s Business Center of Excellence Award goes to the Wisconsin Women’s Business Initiative Corp., Milwaukee, Amber Miller.

The Young Entrepreneur award goes to MobCraft, Henry Schwartz, Milwaukee. SCORE Wisconsin Mentor of the Year goes to Dave Maaske, SE Wisconsin SCORE Chapter. The Emerging Small Business award goes to Scathain, John McWilliam, Milwaukee. The Minority Small Business Champion award goes to Ralph Hollmon, Milwaukee Urban League. The Women in Business award goes to Lynne Keckeisen, Wisconsin Women’s Business Initiative Corp., Milwaukee. And the Veteran Small Business Champion award goes to Saul Newton, Wisconsin Veterans Chamber of Commerce.

Ardent and Red Light Ramen Chef Justin Carlisle has made it through to the finalist round for the James Beard Foundation award for

Best Chef: Midwest. Carlisle is the chef at Ardent and Red Light Ramen on Milwaukee’s East Side. He is among a pool of five finalists in the 2017 Restaurant and Chef Awards Best Chef: Midwest category.

The others are: Jorge Guzman of Brewer’s Table at Surly Brewing Co. in Minneapolis; Steven Brown of Tilia in Minneapolis; Kevin Willmann of Farmhaus in St. Louis and Kevin Nashan of Sidney Street Café in St. Louis. Carlisle also was a finalist in the Best Chef: Midwest category in 2015 and 2016. In 2014, Ardent was a semifinalist for Best New Restaurant.

Karen Bell of Bavette La Boucherie in Milwaukee’s Historic Third Ward, Thomas Hauck of c.1880 in Milwaukee’s Walker’s Point neighborhood, Jonny Hunter of Forequarter in Madison, Dan Fox of Heritage Tavern in Madison, Luke Zahm of Driftless Café in Viroqua and Lisa Carlson of Chef Shack in Bay City also were semifinalists for Best Chef: Midwest.

Paul and Joe Bartolotta of Milwaukee-based The Bartolotta Restaurants also were named semifinalists, in the Outstanding Restaurateur category.

They did not make it through to the finalist round.

And L’Etoile in Madison was a semifinalist in the Outstanding Restaurant category. It did not continue to the finalist round. The winners will be announced at the 2017 James Beard Awards Gala at the Lyric Opera of Chicago on May 1.

To have your business briefs published in a future issue of BizTimes Milwaukee send announcements to briefs@biztimes.com.

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Pathfinders Milwaukee Inc. 4200 N. Holton St., Suite 400, Milwaukee (414) 964-2565 | www.pathfindersmke.org Facebook: facebook.com/pathfindersmke | Twitter: twitter.com/pathfindersmke LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/pathfinders_2 Year founded: Founded in 1970 and incorporated as a nonprofit 501(c)3 as the Counseling Center in 1973.

Mission statement: Empowering youth, changing lives Primary focus: Pathfinders brings safety, hope and healing to low-income youth and young adults dealing with homelessness, sex trafficking, sexual abuse, family problems and mental health issues, consistent with the organization’s mission of “Empowering youth, changing lives.”

Additionally, Pathfinders provides pregnancy prevention, youth empowerment education and family engagement services.

Employees at this location: 50 Key donors: Public grants from federal, state, county and city, as well as United Way, Aurora’s Better Together Fund, Bader Philanthropies, Greater Milwaukee Foundation, Northwestern Mutual Foundation and private contributions support our work.

Executive leadership: »» Tim Baack, president and chief executive officer »» Julie Bock, senior vice president of programs »» Cathy Arney, VP of community services »» Katie Hamm, VP of homeless services »» Darren Buckley, VP of educational services Board of directors: »» Thomas Koplin, Duquaine Melka & Koplin S.C, board chair »» Peter Zwiefelhofer, attorney, CPA, board vice-chair »» Eric Hurd, PyraMax Bank, treasurer »» Dena Fellows, Vision Forward Association, secretary »» Karen Christenson, community volunteer »» Michael Cockroft, Wangard Partners »» Lynn Heimbruch, Northwestern Mutual Foundation

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»» »» »» »» »» »»

Cheryl L. Hill, Aurora Health Care Mary Hinderliter, community volunteer Anne Kearney, Appellate Consulting Group Robert Petri, Thrivent Financial Charles Roedel, BMO Harris Bank Christine Stelzer, Alternatives in Psychological Consultation »» Sandie Talbot, community volunteer »» Maddy Tarbox, VJS Construction Services Inc. »» Andrew Warner, Plymouth UCC Is your organization actively seeking board members for the upcoming term? Pathfinders always seeks committee and/or board members for consideration.

What roles are you looking to fill?

Pathfinders seeks volunteers for its finance, fundraising & communications, and quality & safety committees.

Ways the business community can help your nonprofit: Pathfinders always needs financial and in-kind donations to support programs and services. In-kind includes cleaning and household supplies to help a young person stay in an apartment (garbage bags, paper towels, cleaning products, rags, toilet paper, paper towels), hygiene supplies (soap, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, lotion, etc.), socks and underwear.

Key fundraising events: Taking It Off the Streets Gala on Thursday, April 27: Pathfinders’ annual Gala heads “off” the streets and straight to our Drop-in Center, school and administrative headquarters at 4200 N. Holton on Thursday, April 27. Guests can experience firsthand the array of programs and services available to youth in crisis, with your support.

The event includes a food truck experience dining, a raffle, voice auction and honors Lynn Heimbruch as the Inaugural Trailblazer for Youth and Families Award recipient. For more information, contact Genise Lindner, development director, at (414) 810-1329.

biz connections PER SO NNE L F I L E

Submit new hire and promotion announcements to www.biztimes.com/submit/the-bubbler

L. Kauper as vice

■ Accounting BDO named Dan Kramer the assurance office managing partner, who will support both the Milwaukee and Madison offices. Kramer has been in public accounting for more than 15 years, with experience in the manufacturing and distribution, real estate and hospitality, and software industries.

■ Banking & Finance

recently the deputy chief of the civil division for the eastern district of Wisconsin, where she represented the government in significant civil enforcement matters.

president-director of retail banking. She joins the bank after spending nearly 10 years with U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo Bank.

■ Building & Construction Greenfire Management Services LLC, Milwaukee, announced the hiring of John Aperi as accountant. John comes to Greenfire with more than 15 years of accounting experience, primarily within the construction industry.

He has experience in construction accounting processes and procedure.

The Milwaukee-based personal injury law firm Hupy and Abraham added Ryan Truesdale to its legal team.

Truesdale joined Hupy and Abraham in 2013 as a law clerk, and was recently promoted to an associate attorney for the firm.

Yeikowski

Dahl

Prairie Financial Group, a division of Waukesha State Bank, promoted Nancy Schoenberg to vice president – senior trust administrator.

GRAEF, Milwaukee, has recently hired Evan Nisbet as a project and client manager of the newly formed Water Group. Nisbet moved to Milwaukee from Australia and has significant expertise in green infrastructure.

■ Health Care Karin Langsdorf joined Curative Care, Milwaukee, as director of information technology, leading the comprehensive technology strategy for the organization.

Langsdorf comes to Curative Care with more than 15 years of progressive leadership experience in the information technology field.

■ Insurance

Backaus

Lisowski

Naber

Gravity Marketing LLC, Milwaukee, hired seasoned technology executive Eric Lien as vice president, strategist.

Lien has more than 25 years of experience in B2B marketing, mainly with companies in the technology sector. In his new role at Gravity, he will leverage this experience to develop strategies that optimize the marketing, promotion and sales efforts of small and medium businesses, leading directly to revenue growth.

Capture Marketing, Pewaukee, promoted Michelle Bell to director of events. Bell will be responsible for overseeing all event planning needs on behalf of Capture

Port Washington State Bank has hired Amy

Schilling

HNI Risk Services, New Berlin, hired Monica Ramirez as a service support specialist and Talia Schilling as an account associate. clients.

■ Legal Stacy C. Gerber Ward joined von Briesen & Roper s.c., Milwaukee, as a shareholder.

Gerber Ward served as an assistant U.S. attorney for more than 14 years and was most w w w.biztimes.com

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chief operating officer for Froedtert Health, has been added to Lutheran Home & Harwood Place’s governing board of directors.

He will bring to the board his extensive health system leadership and strategic planning experience, including expertise in financial planning, business development, human resources, and organizational and facility development.

■ Real Estate

■ Marketing & Public Relations

Michael Backaus to Ramirez

Traber

Waukesha-based W.M. Sprinkman Corp. hired AJ Naber as director of engineering and Marcus Traber as a tech sales representative.

WaterStone Bank, Wauwatosa, hired

serve as the bank’s new vice president, compliance officer.

Kelly Lisowski has been hired to serve as Taylor WaterStone Bank’s new Oconomowoc branch community president, and Bill Taylor has been promoted to assistant vice president and business development officer.

■ Nonprofit Dennis Pollard, executive vice president and

■ Manufacturing

■ Engineering Waukesha State Bank hired Linda Yeikowski as a mortgage sales manager and announced the promotion of Trisha Dahl to bank manager of its Mukwonago office.

Waukesha State Bank is a full-service community bank with 14 locations in Waukesha County.

Vonderloh Murphy agency clients. Additionally, the firm added Callie Murphy as an account executive in its public relations/social media department.

Formerly with Branigan Communications and Company B Brand Marketing, Murphy has a diverse communications background in the hospitality, trade and entertainment industries.

Boelter + Lincoln Marketing Communications, Milwaukee, hired Erica Vonderloh as media supervisor. Vonderloh will handle planning and buying across all media for

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Wirth

Anderson

Wangard Partners Inc., Milwaukee, has hired Landon Wirth as director of mortgage financing. Wirth is responsible for directing and managing the debt financing process for the company. Additionally, Tim Anderson was recently hired as the development manager for Wangard Partners’ construction division. Anderson is responsible for assembling development teams, as well as managing the design and construction phases of each project for the company.

■ Technology Data Financial Inc., Mequon, announced the appointment of Paul Bruns as regional manager for the Western Wisconsin District. He has more than 25 years of experience in advising financial institutions in branch automation and cash management solutions.

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biz connections SB A L O AN S The U.S. Small Business Administration approved the following loan guarantees in February:

Jefferson County Crawfish Junction, W6376 County Road A, Johnson Creek, $231,000; Cruisin 16 LLC, W1168 W1170 American St., Ixonia, $131,000;

Kenosha County Frier Custom Manufacturing Inc., 258th Avenue, Trevor, $65,000; Petrifying Springs Beer Garden, 761 Green Bay Road, Kenosha, $115,000; Pleasant Prairie Fads Inc., 76th Street, Ste. B, Pleasant Prairie, $115,000; Silver Sales LLC, 614 S. Cogswell Drive, Silver Lake, $124,000;

Milwaukee County Blended Hearts LLC, 8565 W. Grantosa Drive, Milwaukee, $10,000;

Eighth Street, Sheboygan, $176,000;

LMS Sign & Electrical Service, 4811 W. Woolworth Ave., Milwaukee, $75,000;

Walworth County

LTL Service Inc., 330 E. Mahn Court, Ste. 200, Oak Creek, $350,000;

Lake-Ben Inc., 214 Broad St., Lake Geneva, $100,000;

Blue Moon Enterprises LLC, 12400 W. Beloit Road, New Berlin, $20,000;

Rak Fitness LLC, 747 N. 113th St., Milwaukee, $45,000;

Lake-Ben Inc., 214 Broad St., Lake Geneva, $350,000;

Butler Foods & Spices Inc., 4767-4769 N. 124th St., Butler, $325,500;

Screaming Tuna Restaurant LLC, 106 W. Seeboth St., Milwaukee, $90,000;

Nota3D Solutions Inc., 164 N. Water Crest Court, Elkhorn, $25,000;

Central Machine Inc., 1230 Pearl St., Waukesha, $150,000;

TNT Real Estate LLC, 9706 W. Greenfield Ave., West Allis, $150,000;

PolyPail Inc., 1615 Grebby St., Delavan, $406,600;

EWCWisconsin LLC, Whitestone Station, Menomonee Falls, $375,000;

UBIF Tosa LLC, 302 N. 112th St., Wauwatosa, $103,000;

PolyPail Inc., 1615 Grebby St., Delavan, $400,000;

Garden Of Grace LLC, W338 S4575 Drumlin Drive, Dousman, $80,000;

Villa of Greenfield LLC, 8765 W. Forest Home Ave., Milwaukee, $2.5 million;

PolyPail Inc., 1615 Grebby St., Delavan, $100,000;

Genesis Excavators Inc., W309 S4860 Commercial Drive, North Praire, $250,000;

Zelko Aesthetics LLC, 8585 W. Forest Home Ave., Milwaukee, $100,000;

Washington County

Zelko Aesthetics LLC, 8585 W. Forest Home Ave., Milwaukee, $250,000;

Happy Hounds LLC, N116 W18395 Morse Drive, Germantown, $261,000; Joseph C Valind LLC, 3700 W. Washington St., West Bend, $1.2 million;

Ozaukee County DBSO LLC, 1214 Bridge St., Grafton, $60,000;

Dogs by Donner LLC, 6228 W. State St., Wauwatosa, $555,000;

Shoot the Moon Photography LLC, 10532 N. Port Washington Road, Mequon, $150,000;

El Taco Riendo LLC, 1031 S. First St., Milwaukee, $105,000;

Racine County

Fairfield Inn and Suites of Glendale, 7065 N. Port Washington Road, Glendale, $2 million;

AJL Services LLC, 1416 55th Drive, Union Grove, $42,000;

Gallas Metalworks Inc., 3530 N. Palmer St., Milwaukee, $20,000;

Culinary Infusion Inc., 2219 Washington Ave., Racine, $612,000;

Hummingbird Storage LLC, 7635 W. Oklahoma Ave., Milwaukee, $5 million;

Global Thermoforming Inc., 3737 Douglas Ave., Racine, $350,000;

J&Z Real Estate LLC, 5308 W. Hampton Ave., Milwaukee, $600,000;

Global Thermoforming Inc., 3737 Douglas Ave., Racine, $1.8 million;

Jendrach, Dobogai, Lindseth Inc., 4811 S. 76th St., Milwaukee, $325,000; Jetmenmilwaukee LLC, 1857 E. Kenilworth Place, Milwaukee, $250,000;

Sheboygan County Seeboth Delicatessen Limited Liability, South

(414) 225-6220 iiwisconsin.org

The International Institute of Wisconsin is an organization dedicated to the promotion of international cooperation, understanding, and a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural perspective through education, arts, exchange, communication, social activities, and immigration and naturalization services. The Institute initiates, coordinates, and sponsors a variety of activities and programs appropriate to the fulfillment of this primary purpose.

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A.L. Schutzman Co. Inc., N21 W23560 Ridgeview Parkway, Waukesha, $677,000;

Genesis Excavators Inc., W309 S4860 Commercial Drive, North Prairie, $875,900; QLS LLC, 2833 N. University Drive, Waukesha, $775,000; Rossey Construction Inc., Madison Avenue, Oconomowoc, $41,500; SBR Law Group, 675 N. Barker Road, Brookfield, $444,000; Theia Vision Care S.C., 213 E. Capitol Drive, Hartland, $262,000;

BIZ BR IEFS

Techniplas names new president for Dickten Masch, Nyloncraft Nashotah-based Techniplas has named Bob Brzozowski president of Nyloncraft and Dickten Masch Plastics.

Brzozowski will focus on accelerating continuous improvement efforts in both companies. He has been with Techniplas since 2010, serving as chief operating officer of Nyloncraft for the past two years.

Milwaukee area trails counterparts in population growth Twelve of the 21 metro areas the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce chose as comparable to Milwaukee added more than

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Last Plumbing Inc., 4079 Blue Goose Road, West Bend, $75,000;

Nyloncraft has facilities in Indiana and Michigan and has expertise in tooling, design for manufacturing and creative use of materials, primarily for the transportation industry.

PHONE:

2017 GIVING GUIDE

Joseph C Valind LLC, 3700 W. Washington St., West Bend, $20,000;

Dickten Masch has facilities in Nashotah, Iowa and Mexico and provides sophisticated components for the transportation, power grid, electrical and medical industries.

International Institute of Wisconsin WEB:

Waukesha County

Joycie’s Angels Learning Center LLC, 8684 N. 76th Place, Milwaukee, $75,000;

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10,000 residents between 2015 and 2016.

New estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau suggest metro Milwaukee’s population dropped by 1,867 during that period.

The numbers point to an emerging problem for the Milwaukee area. As baby boomers retire and other residents move away, where will the region’s future workforce come from?

Bret Mayborne, MMAC director of economic research, said his organization estimates the region will add about 45,000 jobs in the coming years with, the labor force declining by 42,000, leaving a gap of nearly 90,000 workers.

The region’s declining population was driven

by Milwaukee County, which saw its population fall by 4,866 to 951,448, below its 2011 level.

The drop was the sixth largest of any county and the largest percentage drop among the 100 largest counties in the country. The rest of the metro area saw its population increase, led by a gain of 2,113 in Waukesha County, 481 in Washington County and 405 in Ozaukee County.

The top gaining metro areas during that period include Orlando, San Antonio, Charlotte, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Raleigh and Nashville.

MMAC identified comparable metro regions based on size and geographic proximity, along with those that could serve as models for change.

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n GLANCE AT YESTERYEAR VOLUME 23, NUMBER 1 APRIL 3 - 16, 2017 126 N. Jefferson St., Suite 403, Milwaukee, WI 53202-6120 PHONE: 414-277-8181 Fax: 414-277-8191 WEBSITE: www.biztimes.com CIRCULATION E-MAIL: circulation@biztimes.com ADVERTISING E-MAIL: ads@biztimes.com EDITORIAL E-MAIL: andrew.weiland@biztimes.com REPRINTS: reprints@biztimes.com PUBLISHER / OWNER

Dan Meyer dan.meyer@biztimes.com DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS

Mary Ernst mary.ernst@biztimes.com DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC INITIATIVES

SALES & MARKETING DIRECTOR OF SALES

Linda Crawford linda.crawford@biztimes.com ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE

Molly Lawrence molly.lawrence@biztimes.com

Jon Anne Willow jonanne.willow@biztimes.com

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE

EDITORIAL

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE

EDITOR

Andrew Weiland andrew.weiland@biztimes.com MANAGING EDITOR

Molly Dill molly.dill@biztimes.com REPORTER

Corrinne Hess corri.hess@biztimes.com REPORTER

Arthur Thomas arthur.thomas@biztimes.com INTERN REPORTER

Maredithe Meyer maredithe.meyer@biztimes.com

Maggie Pinnt maggie.pinnt@biztimes.com Christie Ubl christie.ubl@biztimes.com ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE

Lena Tomaszek lena.tomaszek@biztimes.com SALES INTERN

Salimah Muhammad salimah.muhammad@biztimes.com

PRODUCTION & DESIGN GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Alex Schneider alex.schneider@biztimes.com ART DIRECTOR

Shelly Tabor shelly.tabor@biztimes.com

Milwaukee view This photo, taken circa 1936, shows an aerial view of Milwaukee. In the foreground is Campbell Laundry Co., which was established around 1880 by Horace Campbell. It was located in the Wellauer building at what is now 712 W. Michigan St. and operated there until about 1949. The building now houses the 700 Lofts apartments.

— This photo is from the Milwaukee Public Museum’s Photo Archives collection.

Additional images can be viewed online at www.mpm.edu.

Independent & Locally Owned — Founded 1995 —

COMME NTA R Y

Alpine Valley won’t rock this year

O

ne day in the summer of 1992, I got a phone call from one of my best friends. He asked if I wanted to go to the Rush concert that night. My friend had two tickets and was planning to go to the show with someone else, who dropped out at the last minute.

My parents, assuming we were going to Summerfest, told me to bring a sweatshirt.

After all, it gets cool by the lake at night.

But the Rush concert was not at Summerfest on the lakefront, it was well inland at Alpine Valley Music Theatre near East Troy. It was my first, and still only, concert there. We had great seats, Neil Peart was incredible on the drums and my friend and I could barely hear each other afterward. As we waited in traffic to leave, my buddy and I laughed at other concertgoers who appeared to be dazed and confused as they wandered around trying to find their car.

Many other southeastern Wisconsin 32

residents have memories of attending concerts at Alpine Valley, which opened in 1977. In that first year it hosted 36 shows and had total attendance of more than 198,000.

But in recent years, the number of concerts at Alpine Valley has dwindled and the artists that do play there tend to be the same each year.

Still, Alpine Valley is an iconic Wisconsin venue and it was shocking to hear its operator, Live Nation Worldwide Inc., say it will host no concerts there this year.

Many of the artists that typically play at Alpine Valley are playing other venues this year or are not touring, according to Jon Reens, vice president of marketing for Midwest music for Live Nation.

For example, Jimmy Buffet, who has played at Alpine Valley nearly every year since 1995, instead will perform at Wrigley Field this year.

The once hapless Chicago Cubs have B i zT i m e s M i l w a u k e e

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become a much better organization since the team was acquired by the Ricketts family in 2009. In addition to building a championship team, the Ricketts are making numerous improvements to Wrigley Field and in recent years also have established it as a major concert venue.

Another Alpine Valley regular, Dave Matthews, is playing at Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island in Chicago this year. That venue was expanded in 2013 to a capacity of 30,000.

Alpine Valley is strategically located between Milwaukee, Chicago and Madison. Attracting concert-goers from Illinois has always been important to Alpine Valley, so the emergence of more venue competition in Chicago is a challenge.

The Chicago venues offer a more urban experience than the rural, bucolic Alpine Valley setting. Perhaps that’s what today’s audiences prefer. My wife and I, and some friends, attended the Billy Joel concert at

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ANDREW WEILAND Editor BizTimes Milwaukee

Wrigley last year. Joel, of course, was great.

But the historic venue, set in the cool Wrigleyville neighborhood around the ballpark, enhanced the experience.

Wrigley Field provides a “different kind of magic,” for concerts, Reens said.

But, he added, “Alpine Valley has its own magic. It’s a phenomenal property and a great amphitheater.”

Live Nation needs to convince different artists to come to Alpine Valley than its regulars. Someone besides Jimmy Buffett, Dave Matthews and Dead & Company would be refreshing.

Reens says the company is trying, and is working to book shows for 2018.

When asked if Alpine Valley could be revitalized, Reens said, “Absolutely.” Let’s hope he’s right. n

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biz connections

BizTimes Wellness Summit BizTimes Media hosted its 2017 Wellness Summit on Friday, March 17, at Potawatomi Hotel & Casino in Milwaukee. This year’s theme was “The Happiness Factor: Why employee wellbeing boosts the bottom line.” Attendees heard from three wellness experts, participated in roundtable discussions and met exhibitors at a wellness fair.

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Colleen McInerny, Katie Connolly and Tim Nikolai of American Heart Association.

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Sarah Stockel and Kevin Gaschk of M&M Office Interiors.

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Joan Kiely and Amber Kelel of RemedyNow.

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Craig Modell and John Weaver of Stress Management & Mental Health Clinics with Janet Gatlin of Rogers Memorial Hospital.

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Christy Engel, Amy O’Donnell and Marianne LutzCieslewicz of Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield.

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Linda Crawford of BizTimes Media kicks off the program.

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Dr. Michael Jaeger of Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield addresses the attendees.

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BizTimes editor Andrew Weiland moderates a panel discussion among Dr. Jerry Halverson of Rogers Memorial Hospital-Oconomowoc; Eliz Greene, motivational wellness speaker; and Dr. John Brill of The Aurora Network.

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Following the program, attendees participated in their choice of three 20-minute roundtable discussions about wellness topics.

Photos by Paul Gaertner of White Dog Photography

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ERICH SCHROEDER PHOTOGRAPHY

the last word

Why do we make everything so complicated?

Edward Schaefer

Edward Schaefer is the president and chief executive officer of Waukesha-based First Federal Bank. He advises keeping things simple to drive business success.

“We can make things in life and business as simple or complicated as we want. Having worked my way up through the ranks from a teller to president and CEO, I have experienced many business management styles over the last 30 years.

“I have seen managers who lead in a simple, straightforward manner and those who complicate every aspect of the business. My experience shows that clear and concise leadership has always driven the best financial results. It also creates a positive work environment, where the team is engaged and enjoys coming to work every day.

“There is a reason that the ‘KISS’ principle and sayings like, ‘It’s not rocket science,’ permeate business literature. It seems too many leaders complicate their busi34

nesses, to their own detriment.

“Here are a few examples of things that can make business more complicated: “The six-month budgeting process. Simplify budgeting by giving your team the desired end result and let them work backward to achieve a budget. You create buyin and a stronger team environment.

“The annual incentive plan with too many goals. Uncomplicate goal-setting by giving your direct reports no more than five clear and concise goals. You will be surprised by their performance. “‘I don’t know what I want, but I’ll know it when I see it.’ Replace this demotivating approach to solving your business problems. You need to clearly outline the objec-

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President and chief executive officer First Federal Bank 134 Wisconsin Ave., Waukesha Industry: Banking Employees: 42 www.firstfederalwisconsin.com

tives and results that need to be achieved.

“Business and leadership naturally come with complexity. You need to model the restraint it takes to turn away from the desire to make things more complex than they need to be.

“We should all step back, take a breath and ask ourselves, ‘Is there a simpler way to complete this task or to reach our goal?’

“Uncomplicate your business and success will follow.” n

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SEMINAR SCHEDULE MAY 24, 2017 | POTAWATOMI HOTEL & CASINO 18 business strategy seminars will be offered providing operational strategies to business owners and executives on a variety of subjects.

3:45 - 4:30

2:45 - 3:30

1:45 - 2:30

12:00 - 12:45

10:45 - 11:30

9:30 - 10:15

ROOM A

FREE REGISTRATION IN ADVANCE $20 AT THE DOOR ROOM B

ROOM C

WINNING NEGOTIATION STRATEGIES

WHY SHOULD I WORK HERE?

GROWING ON PURPOSE

Tom Myers, Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren & Tim Nettesheim, Husch Blackwell

Christine McMahon, McMahon & Associates LLC

Dave Molenda, founder, Positive Polarity

SO YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS A NEW WEBSITE...

SELLING THIN AIR

ARE YOU ‘JUST A LEADER’ OR ARE YOU A TRUE LEADER?

Chris Remington, director of client strategy, Ascedia

Rob Grede, president & founder, The Grede Company

DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGIES B2B COMPANIES MUST USE

OPEN

Christine Hill, executive director, Future Milwaukee

OPEN

Joe Martinez, senior manager, Granular

FIVE STRATEGIES TO MASTER THE ART OF COLD CALLING Paul Neuberger, The Cold Call Coach

BUSINESS GROWTH STRATEGIES Alonzo Kelly, CEO, Kelly Leadership Group

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE FOR LEADERS Bruce Kestelman, instructor, Center for Business Performance Solutions at WCTC

M&A STRATEGIES Ann Hanna, managing director, Schenck M&A Solutions

HOW TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS THROUGH CLEAR MESSAGING & DIGITAL MARKETING

THREE LOW COST STRATEGIES FOR EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT Andrew Marris, learning and development manager, MRA

Richie Burke, founder & president, GoGeddit

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND PERSONALITY

ENGAGE & GROW

Heather Mangold, owner, Mangold Creative

Rebecca Heidepriem, certified business coach, ACTION COACH of Elm Grove

MILWAUKEE DEVELOPMENT PANEL Andrew Weiland, editor, BizTimes Media

Seminar Room A Sponsor: See fill seminar details and discriptions at:

BIZTIMES.COM/SEMINAR

PRESENTS:

ALL THE RIGHT MOVES Keys to a smart sale, purchase or hold REGISTER TODAY:

biztimes.com/maforum

Friday, April 21, 2017 | Milwaukee Marriott Downtown | 7:00 - 11:00AM The time comes when company owners and executives need to prepare for that next big move. Whether selling, buying or keeping your business, you need the right tools and knowledge to make this critical decision and maximize your outcome.

Join BizTimes Media and our experts for this valuable session that addresses the key concerns of deciding your company’s future.

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Keynote: Ajita Rajendra Chairman and Chief Executive Officer A. O. Smith

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Panel 1:

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Concurrent breakout sessions:

The Uncertainties of Selling and Life after a Sale

The Nuts and Bolts of Buying a Business

A focus on the emotional aspects that business owners encounter when selling a company and changes they may face post sale.

Panelists: • Tom Campion, managing director, Merit Capital Partners (1) • Scott Happ, chief executive officer, Optimal Blue (2) • Jim McCormack, chairman, Diversified Insurance Solutions (3) Moderator: • Andrea Wolf, vice president - commercial banking, Bank Mutual (4)

Run it to sell it

Panel 2: The Exit Universe – Know your options A case study look at a seller’s options including strategic buyers, PEG buyers, MBO and ESOP. Panelists: • Steve Heinen, managing director, First Capital Partners (5) • Tom Myers, shareholder, Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren s.c. (6) • Dave Rolston, president & CEO, Hatco Corporation (7) Moderator: • Ann Hanna, managing director, Schenck M&A Solutions (8)

SPONSORS:

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A look at the various considerations involved in acquiring a business, including the stages of an acquisition.

Moderators: • Nate Neuberger, shareholder, Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren s.c (9) • Mike Wirth, director, Mason Wells (10)

What if the time was right and a buyer approached you? A look at the strategies that business owners should employ daily in order to be ready should the market come to them.

Moderators: • Mark Bruss, vice president, Bank Mutual (11) • Tom Myers, shareholder, Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren s.c. (6)

Driving Value through Price and Structure A discussion on closing the gap between buyers and sellers - 2017 trends Moderators: • Ann Hanna, managing director, Schenck M&A Solutions (8) • Corey Vanderpoel, managing director, Schenck M&A Solutions (12)

EVENT PARTNERS: