BizTimes Milwaukee | April 29, 2019

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Milwaukee’s crumbling cultural assets

Funding solution needed for regional attractions

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» APR 29 - MAY 12, 2019

Milwaukee’s crumbling cultural assets

Funding solution needed for regional attractions

biztimes.com

BizTimes Milwaukee (ISSN 1095-936X & USPS # 017813) Volume 25, Number 3, April 29, 2019 – May 12, 2019. BizTimes Milwaukee is published bi-weekly, except monthly in January, July and December by BizTimes Media LLC at 126 N. Jefferson St., Suite 403, Milwaukee, WI 53202-6120, USA. Basic annual subscription rate is $42. Single copy price is $3.25. Back issues are $5 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 2019 by BizTimes Media LLC. All rights reserved.

Contents

4 Leading Edge NOW

BY THE NUMBERS ON THE JOB WITH… PUBLIC RECORD JUMP START BIZ POLL WHO’S ON THE BOARD FROM CONCEPT TO COMPLETION 10 QUOTE/UNQUOTE 4

5 6 7 8

9

15 Biz News 15 MILWAUKEE APPAREL FUNDRAISER PLATFORM HAS GLOBAL REACH. 17 THE INTERVIEW

18 Real Estate 42 Strategies 42 FAMILY BUSINESS David Borst 43 ENTREPRENEURSHIP Kathleen Gallagher 44 A BRIEF CASE

COVER STORY

22

46 Biz Connections 46 PAY IT FORWARD 48 GLANCE AT YESTERYEAR COMMENTARY 49 AROUND TOWN 50 MY TOUGHEST CHALLENGE

Special Report

28 Business in Waukesha County Coverage includes an update on Brookfield Square’s big changes, a report on the new city hall and courthouse projects in Waukesha, and insights from BizTimes’ recent future-looking event, Waukesha County 2035.

WE’RE PROUD TO BE

WISCONSIN’S BANK FOR BUSINESS ™

414-273-3507 | townbank.us JAY MACK President & CEO

JOHN JOHANNES Executive Vice President, Commercial Real Estate

DENNIS KRAKAU Executive Vice President, Commercial Banking

biztimes.com / 3

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BIZTIMES DAILY – The day’s most significant news → biztimes.com/subscribe

ALEX ZANK

NOW

City orders former Northridge Mall to be razed

By Alex Zank, staff writer The long-vacant former Northridge Mall on Milwaukee’s northwest side may finally be coming down.

City officials recently announced that the Department of Neighborhood Services has ordered large portions of the mall be demolished. The 900,000-square-foot building, owned by China-based U.S. Black

Spruce Enterprise Group Inc., is beyond the point of repair, city officials said in making their case for the raze order.

Speaking at a news conference at the mall property, Mayor Tom Barrett said the department has determined the repairs required to bring the buildings up to code would cost more than 50% of the assessed value of the property itself,

BY THE NUMBERS Walmart Inc. plans to spend about

$

61

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4 / BizTimes Milwaukee APRIL 29, 2019

the threshold at which such demolition orders can be handed down.

In fact, preliminary estimates by the city put the cost of repairs at around $6 million, far beyond the $81,000 in assessed value for the properties, noted DNS commissioner Tom Mishefske.

Mishefske added the owners can appeal the raze order, which would be heard by the city’s Standards and Appeals Commission.

If the city prevails in that scenario, the order would stand and the owners would have to take action.

The owners could also decide to take the case to circuit court.

“It’s really going to depend on what the ownership’s response to our order is,” Mishefske said.

If the order is not appealed, yet the owners do not move to raze the property within 20 days, the city could then seek an injunction in court to pursue demolition itself.

Mishefske said in that scenario, demolition costs would be added to the property tax bill, and the city attorney’s office would make attempts to collect those taxes. The demolition is estimated to cost between $10 million and $12 million. Jeff Fleming, spokesman for the Department of City Development, said city leaders have discussed how it would finance the demolition upfront, but nothing has been finalized.

DNS workers have not been inside the mall building owned

by Black Spruce Enterprise since around mid-2018. Even so, the department has a long list of repairs that would need to be made to the property in order to bring it back up to code compliance.

This includes work on mechanical systems, repairing the distressed building exterior, replacing the roof in its entirety, and abating environmental hazards. What those hazards could all entail is still not fully known by the department.

Meanwhile, the city is moving forward with plans to demolish the former Boston Store building that it already owns at the Northridge Mall site. The city recently applied for a loan from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. to help finance the project, with the city putting up $250,000 to cover a portion of that cost.

Alderwoman Chantia Lewis, who represents the Northridge Mall property and surrounding areas, praised the move by DNS. “Today, I am proud to say that we are officially taking steps to say we are not tolerating this anymore,” she said. “This (property) is a hazard, a nuisance, and we deserve better and we are not going to stand here and take this anymore.”

Lewis cited the property as a reason development activity along the West Brown Deer Road corridor has remained stagnant in recent years. n

1

The Wisconsin Humane Society

ARTHUR THOMAS

ON THE JOB WITH…

By Arthur Thomas, staff writer Stand outside the laundry room at the Wisconsin Humane Society’s Milwaukee campus and before long you will see a stream of employees tossing leashes, toys and blankets in to be washed.

While laundry may not be the first task that comes to mind during an animal shelter visit, it is a key part of keeping animals healthy and ready for adoption. Volunteers run 30 to 40 loads per day at the Mil-

waukee location alone and items exposed to certain diseases are thrown away instead of taking on additional risk.

There are around 4,000 volunteers across the Wisconsin Humane Society’s five locations, but there is also a staff of 250 employees. Their work includes rehabilitating wildlife, vaccinations, spay or neuter surgeries, dog training, managing foster care and more. n

2

3

4

5

1

2

Wildlife rehabilitator Lex Rivera feeds a red-tailed hawk that was brought to the Wisconsin Humane Society.

A specially designed syringe makes it easier to feed squirrels.

3 Veterinary care specialist Laura Stretz and Dr. Mary Calhoun, a veterinarian, look on as Molly explores the Wisconsin Humane Society.

6

4 Vet assistant Nichole Desrosiers draws blood as Stretz holds Molly.

5 Vet assistant Nichole Desrosiers weights a neonatal kitten brought in for a checkup.

6 Foster coordinator Memo Fachino manages more than 1,000 foster families and 3,500 foster animals annually. biztimes.com / 5

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By Arthur Thomas, staff writer Foxconn Technology Group announced in January that it would not seek any of the $9.5 million in payroll tax credits it could have earned in 2018. Having added 178 qualifying jobs, the company fell short of the minimum for credit eligibility. Still, Foxconn was required to file annual reports on its performance with the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. Those reports provided new details into the company’s hiring and investments during its first full year in Wisconsin.

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Total wages paid out across 192 employment instances, including 131 exempt and 60 non-exempt employees. One instance is not categorized.

The report does not indicate if employees were employed at multiple different points and requires reporting multiple entries if an employee’s base of operations changes.

$16.61 per hour The average hourly wage of all non-exempt employment instances. Nonexempt employees worked more than 38,273 hours and received more than $635,000 in wages. Pay for exempt employees ranged from $865 to $302,769.

Distribution of non-exempt employees 34

Less than $15 per hour

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$15-$20 per hour More than $20 per hour

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$99.2 million in capital investments Most of Foxconn’s capital investments – $92.7 million – went toward land and buildings, but the company also spent $2.2 million on machinery and equipment and another $350,000 on furniture and fixtures. The company spent more in the first half of the year. Other purchases included $1.45 million on a lease for a facility on Globe Drive in Mount Pleasant and more than $1 million on clean room systems.

Capital investment (in millions)* $1.94

Q1

FREE Admission Online ElectricalWireShow.com Questions? Contact Cheryl Luck at 262-367-5500 or Cheryl@EpiShows.com 6 / BizTimes Milwaukee APRIL 29, 2019

Q2 Q3 Q4

$1.64 $0.68 $0.60

*Excludes $92.7 million for land and buildings

LOCATION: Waukesha

LILA ARYANPHOTOGRAPHY

PART ANALYTICS INC. FOUNDERS: Jithendra Palasagaram and Jesil Pujara FOUNDED: February 2019 SERVICE: SaaS solution for procurement analytics of electronic components WEBSITE: partanalytics.com EMPLOYEES: 2 GOAL: Obtain pilots with two large OEMs. EXPERIENCE: Palasagaram worked for 13 years at GE Healthcare, where he was most recently senior manager of global sourcing. Pujara worked for eight years at GE Healthcare, where he was most recently electro-mechanical component standardization and library leader, and previously was a senior mechanical engineer at Square D/Schneider Electric.

GE Healthcare alumni solve sourcing problems

By Molly Dill, staff writer

Jesil Pujara and Jithendra Palasagaram

JITHENDRA PALASAGARAM AND JESIL PUJARA took a big leap when they recently left their secure corporate jobs at GE Healthcare to run their Waukesha startup, Part Analytics.

Founded in 2017, Part Analytics is a cloudbased SaaS solution for procurement analytics of electronic components. Procurement specialists at Fortune 200-size manufacturing corporations use it to identify suppliers, negotiate contracts and price materials.

The co-founders, both 39, recently completed a $625,000 seed funding round for the company, which they plan to use for full-scale product development and for sales and marketing.

An electronic board that is part of an MRI scanner, for example, could have thousands of different components, all coming from different suppliers, Palasagaram said.

“These parts come from all over the globe,” he said. “Even if one small part that costs $1 doesn’t come in to the factory on time, we can’t assemble it and we cannot ship it out to our customers.”

Palasagaram and Pujara met when they teamed up on a New Venture Challenge while

Palasagaram was studying for his MBA at the University of Chicago. Part Analytics received a funding grant from the university in 2017 and used it to build a prototype and get customer feedback. They have since completed the gBETA program in Milwaukee.

“This actually came from my experience in sourcing,” with data spread across multiple systems and spreadsheets, Palasagaram said.

“What our platform does is bring all that data into one place and generate insights.”

Now, the pair has conducted a pilot of the platform for a Fortune 200 company, and is in discussions with another Fortune 200 OEM, he said. “(The pilot company) had a key customer installation going on and they couldn’t find a part that goes into one of the products for the installation and that part was not available anywhere and they reached out to us: ‘Can you help us?’” Palasagaram said. “Within 24 hours we actually found a part…to mitigate the issue that they had.”

They hope to hire two more employees this year as they work to bring on two major customers to pilot the platform. n biztimes.com / 7

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from

CONCEPT

Sprecher Freezer Brews to

COMPLETION Mid-2017: Linnea Harrington, owner of Milwaukee-based Linnea’s Pops & Liqkers, approaches Sprecher with the idea of using the brewery’s sodas and beers as ingredients for handcrafted frozen treats. Linnea’s produces and sells alcoholic and nonalcoholic popsicles using fresh fruit, liquor and bitters.

5

4 March 2019: After Sprecher introduces Freezer Brews to the Milwaukee Brewers’ concessionaire, Delaware North, it agrees to sell them as vended products in the Miller Park seats.

Because they’re frozen, vendors don’t carry Freezer Brews like they carry soda or beer.

Instead, they make a trip to the nearest storage freezer each time the frozen treats are ordered.

Milwaukee-based Sprecher Brewing Co. recently rolled out a product that puts a cool twist on craft beer. Sprecher Freezer Brews are frozen, spiked treats made with beer and fruit, “kind of like an adult freeze pop,” said president Jeff Hamilton. After experimenting with about 20 different beers and various fruits, Sprecher settled on three flavors: Mango, using its Mango Radler wheat ale; Lime & Sea Salt, using its Acapulco Golden Mexican-style ale; and pineapple, using its Pineapple Express Belgian Tripel.

Currently, the 6-ounce popsicles can only be enjoyed in the seats at Miller Park, but starting in late May, they will be available in six-packs at grocery and liquor stores.

1 2

Late May 2019: Sprecher Freezer Brews are expected to be sold in packs of six at grocery stores and liquor stores throughout the state.

August 2017: Sprecher works with Harrington to create an early version of Freezer Brews that are first sold during the Wisconsin State Fair.

Branded as “Beer Icey” or “Beer Frostie,” they are available in three flavors – Pineapple Express, Mocha Stout and Lemon Hefe Weiss.

3

February 2019: The product and its packaging are further developed to become shelf-stable, meaning they can be stored at room temperature in a sealed container for long periods of time before consumption.

Sprecher pilots the new and improved Freezer Brews at the Pittsburgh Pirates’ spring training facility in Bradenton, Florida.

biztimes.com / 9

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@BIZTIMESMEDIA – Real-time news

“ QUOTE

unQUOTE

RO B E RT T H O M P S O N

”

FO U N DER A N D CEO, PU N CH BOW L SO CI A L Robert Thompson, founder and chief executive officer of national “eatertainment” chain Punch Bowl Social, was a keynote speaker at the Commercial Association of Realtors Wisconsin Retail Conference, which was recently held at Potawatomi Hotel & Casino in Milwaukee. Under Thompson’s leadership, Denver-based Punch Bowl Social first launched in 2012 and has since grown to 16 locations throughout the U.S., the most recent being its new restaurant in downtown Milwaukee, near Fiserv Forum. He discussed the brand behind the fast-growing concept and its position within the ever-evolving retail and food and beverage markets. n

“You need to be able to walk in to a food and beverage establishment and have an activity, a social activation, that you can document and share digitally on your social media channels.”

“A lot of legacy brands try to pivot into authenticity, they try to manufacture synthetic authenticity – millennials never buy it.

(Millennials) are more adept than any generation we’ve ever seen at sniffing that out, and they will make sure to alert everybody that there’s an inauthentic experience waiting for them and they’ll tell them not to come.”

“We don’t just capture a guest for a 45-minute experience, we can get someone to come through a Punch Bowl Social that had 30 minutes in mind and they leave three hours later.”

“We are 89 percent food and beverage, which absolutely differentiates us from 100 percent of everybody else in the experiential F&B category (they live closer to 50 percent gaming ratio). What that means is we are a restaurant and a bar. We just use the gaming activations as the gravity to get folks in.”

“People come (to Punch Bowl Social) for the first time to have a drink and bowl, the next 10 times they come in and they just eat and drink and hang out and have a good time – maybe they make their way back into bowling.”

“These large-box experiential F&B centers are the new anchors of mixed-use retail – they’re not 100,000-square-foot Macy’s, but we all know the days of writing your pro forma based on a Macy’s are things of the past.”

10 / BizTimes Milwaukee APRIL 29, 2019

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SPECIAL SECTION

One Woman’s Incredible Story of Survival

CPR Saves Lives Why Learn Hands-Only CPR? Cardiac arrest—an electrical malfunction in the heart that causes irregular heartbeat and disrupts the flow of blood to the brain, lungs and other organs — is a leading cause of death. Each year, more than 350,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests occur in the U.S, and unfortunately, only 10% of those victims, survive because many do not receive CPR. Performing CPR in the first few minutes of the cardiac arrest is crucial and can double or even triple a person’s chance of survival.

Be the Difference for Someone You Love Because nearly 70% of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests happen at home, if you are called upon to perform CPR, you will most likely be trying to save the life of someone you love: your mother, your sister, your friend…someone like Nicole.

12 / BizTimes Milwaukee APRIL 29, 2019

Nicole Grehn, a local Milwaukee woman, has been through more in her young life than most have been through in a lifetime. But she has faced every single obstacle with a relentless spirit and a tenacity that is unmatched. She has risen to every occasion, when so many would have given up.

At twenty-four years old, Nicole took a trip to Northern Wisconsin with her family, not knowing that this road trip would change her life forever.

Nicole and her family stopped at a gas station in Minocqua to take a break and get some snacks, when she collapsed and went into sudden cardiac arrest. Luckily, the gas station attendant called 911 immediately and EMS arrived on the scene quickly to begin CPR, shock her heart back into rhythm with an AED, and take her to a nearby hospital.

The next 48 hours and the chain of events that followed, are what made all the difference for Nicole still being here with us today.

She was airlifted to a hospital in Wausau where she coded nearly forty times. “As a nurse now, I can’t even fathom what it must have been like to take care of someone who was in that condition” says Nicole. At this point, her heart was functioning at only 10%, and doctors determined that they needed to transport her to Milwaukee so that they could put her on an ECMO machine that would assist her weakened heart in pumping blood to the rest of her body.

She was driven by ambulance to a hospital in Milwaukee where doctors still couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her heart, even after performing an open-heart operation and numerous other tests and scans.

Nicole coded an additional thirty-eight times after arriving in Milwaukee, causing her organs to begin shutting down.

Because her body was experiencing poor blood circulation throughout the whole ordeal, doctors and family members, made the difficult decision to amputate her legs, above the knee, in order to prevent septic shock. After Nicole woke up from her coma, she had to come to terms with her new reality: life with a defibrillator implanted in her chest and life without her legs.

Initially, Nicole was devastated, but through the hardships, she found inner peace and fully embraces her new life. “If someone came to me now and said ‘Nicole, I will give you your legs

back, but you have to sacrifice all that you’ve had over the last three years.’ I would say, ‘ No, I would never take my legs back for what I have gained’” said Nicole during an interview with NBC Nightly News.

In the past three years since her cardiac arrest,

Nicole has graduated from nursing school, is studying to become a nurse practitioner, recently traveled to Haiti to help children who have experienced limb loss and has gotten involved with the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women movement. She will be sharing her story at the Go Red for Women

Celebration on Thursday, April 25. For more information, please visit: www.heart.org/goredmilwaukee.

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biztimes.com / 13

SPECIAL SECTION

Just Two Easy Steps In 2008, the American Heart Association changed its recommended guidelines for bystander CPR: to promote hands-only CPR in the event of a cardiac emergency and to eliminate the breaths.

Hands-only CPR requires just two easy steps, performed in this order: 1. Call 911 if you see a teen or adult suddenly

collapse or send someone to do so

2. Push hard and fast in the center of the chest (to

the beat of a familiar song that has 100 to 120 beats per minute, such as “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees)

GO RED FOR WOMEN PRESENTS

MOTHER. SISTER. FRIEND. Thank you to all of our 2019 Sponsors!

Local Sponsors:

Table Sponsors AO Smith Foundation | Badger Meter | Deloitte | Froedtert & the Medical College | GE Healthcare | JP Morgan Private Bank | ManpowerGroup | Marsh & McLennan | Pfizer | PNC Bank | ProHealth Care | Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren s.c. | Swick Technologies | Town Bank | Wipfli Friend of Heart Sponsors Baker Tilly | CG Schmidt | Horizon Home Care & Hospice | JH Findorff & Sons, Inc. | Kapur & Associates | Miron Construction | MHS Health Wisconsin | Mueller QAAS | Ovation Communities | UW-Milwaukee Alumni Association

14 / BizTimes Milwaukee APRIL 29, 2019

When you call 911, you need to stay on the phone until the 911 dispatcher tells you to hang up. The dispatcher will ask you about the emergency. They will also ask for details like your location. It is important to be specific, especially if you’re calling from a mobile phone because it is not associated with a fixed location or address.

Remember that answering the dispatcher’s questions will not delay the arrival of help.

Take 60 Seconds to Learn Visit handsonlycpr.org to watch an instructional video and share it with the important people in your life. Hands-Only CPR is a natural introduction to conventional CPR, and the American Heart Association encourages everyone to become certified in CPR as a next step. You can find local CPR classes, here in Milwaukee at heart.org/findacourse.

BizNews

the

Interview

NO STUDIOS, a project of Oscar-winning filmmaker and Milwaukee native

John Ridley and Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele, opened in October 2018. Designed as a creative arts hub, the 40,000-square-foot building at 1037 W. McKinley Ave. includes offices, shared working spaces, a gallery lounge and cocktail bar, a screening room and a performance space. It offers memberships to filmmakers, artists and musicians, which gives them access to those spaces. Reporter Lauren Anderson recently spoke with chief operating officer Lisa Caesar about building the arts hub.

What does a day or night here look like these days?

“I would answer first by saying there is no typical night. It’s amazing how different each event is. We have a book signing series. We curate art quarterly and (the artists) come in and do a talk in the screening room.

We’ve had rock bands; we’ve had chamber music. Northwestern Mutual has a series of Ted Talk-style events here with the startup community.

People are really intent on socializing with purpose here. People are coming here to not be on their phones. They’re coming to enjoy the art, get to know people, actually engage.”

How much time do you spend here versus New York?

“I’ve found the cadence that works best for me is every other week. I find it’s important for me to kind of linger here for a week; spending time in this space has been really productive for me. I meet people, we can have longer conversations, and I think most importantly, I can witness the events. It’s also important to spend time away from here because, being in New York and traveling around, I get really inspired by things that I can bring back to Milwaukee.”

Has the vision for this place evolved as you’ve gone along?

“I would say our vision has largely manifested, but we have found new avenues to explore and enhance our vision. When you have a startup, you get challenged in different ways. One of the challenges is we had great events people weren’t coming to because they didn’t know about them.

We tried to address it by onboarding an internal marketing mechanism so what we do now is, if someone puts an event on our calendar, we really try to help them market it. That was something we hadn’t anticipated but it’s worked out well. We’re also onboarding technology and tailoring it to our needs so we will have a fairly sophisticated membership directory and way for members to talk to each other. That creates a more vibrant community, and that’s the piece that will allow us to connect internationally.”

Is the vision for No Studios to incubate arts here or export Milwaukee’s arts scene?

“I don’t think they are mutually exclusive. We definitely want to showcase Milwaukee, and we’ll have a fantastic opportunity to do that with the (2020 Democratic National Convention). It will give Milwaukee a national platform.

I think in small and big ways, John (Ridley) is going to leverage his network to showcase Milwaukee, but also bring his network into Milwaukee.” n

Chief operating officer No Studios 1037 W. McKinley Ave., Milwaukee nostudios.com

JAKE HILL PHOTOGRAPHY

Lisa Caesar

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BizNews FEATURE

Milwaukee apparel fundraiser platform has global reach

By Lauren Anderson, staff writer FROM SUPPORTING Boston Marathon bombing victims to providing clean water in Uganda, Milwaukee-based Ink to the People’s platform has played a role in raising funds for altruistic causes across the globe.

The custom shirt ordering and crowdfunding platform emerged in response to a problem identified at its sister company, apparel decorator Visual Impressions Inc. In 1990, Todd Richheimer and his brother-in-law Jay Berman founded Visual Impressions, which today is a 125-employee operation that runs out of a 100,000-square-foot facility on Milwaukee’s northwest side.

While operating that business, Richheimer and Berman discovered the need for a different approach to the custom-designed T-shirt ordering business, one that would mitigate some of the logistical hurdles that stand in the way of customers making a profit when selling their apparel.

Customers often purchased their custom T-shirts in bulk, but sometimes the shirts wouldn’t sell or they would end up with too many of the wrong size. The result: an excess of inventory and little to no profit.

“We came up with this idea of instead of just building a site where people can come and buy what they think they need, we should develop a site that allows them to sell the T-shirt before they make a commitment, and collect the orders for them,” Richheimer said.

They developed Ink to the People, an online platform that allows users to design and market their T-shirts for free, while allowing individuals to order their own T-shirts. Eliminating the guesswork of bulk ordering, Ink to the People takes on the burden of transactions, inventory and distribution.

The site went live in April 2012, which happened to be the same month that Teespring, its much 16 / BizTimes Milwaukee APRIL 29, 2019

larger competitor, launched.

“Basically for the first year, we sat and twiddled our thumbs,” Richheimer said. “We tweaked it and fine-tuned the site, fixing bugs and enhancing the site, never thinking it was good enough.”

Activity sped up in April 2013, when the terror attack at the Boston Marathon prompted unexpected demand for Ink to the People’s services.

On the night of the attack, two students from Emerson College, looking to help the victims, found Ink to the People’s website and launched a campaign selling blue-and-gold “Boston Strong” T-shirts for $20 per shirt. Ink to the People agreed to charge $5 per shirt, allowing a net profit of $15 for the cause.

Within hours, traffic to the site, which had remained largely dormant until that point, skyrocketed.

“The traffic was insane; it was like our lives were turned upside down,” Richheimer said. “They thought they would raise a couple thousand dollars. After the first week, they had raised $583,000.

They had sold 32,500 shirts.”

To date, the campaign has raised more than $1 million for the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Exposure from the Boston Strong campaign led to hundreds more T-shirt campaigns launching on Ink to the People. It carved out a new – more altruistic – lane for the company: helping organizations and individuals fundraise.

How it works Most customers develop their own designs for the T-shirts – although Ink to the People offers that service free of charge – and upload them to the website.

Customers can then choose the color and style of their products, from options including hoodies, crewneck Ts, tank tops and

A other apparel. Customers price their items however they choose above a certain threshold, which covers production and shipping costs. If the T-shirt costs, for example, $16 to make and it’s priced at $25, the net $9 will go directly to the cause.

“As they sell more, prices come down quite a bit,” Richheimer said.

“In the end, the price might come down to the $9, $10, $11 range.

They net the difference on every item sold, if they’ve priced everything equally.”

Customers set a timeframe, up to 30 days, during which people can place orders on the item.

After orders are collected and the window closes, production begins on the apparel.

Referrals drive a lot of Ink’s business, and many are repeat customers.

Georgia-based Faithful Adoption Consultants regularly uses Ink to the People for the adoption

agency’s T-shirt fundraisers, which raise money for hopeful adoptive families who experience financial losses after a failed match.

Through T-shirt campaigns, the agency has raised about $40,000, with its first campaign alone bringing in nearly $10,000.

“Typically when an organization does a campaign on their own, if it’s not a huge organization, a good fundraiser is probably about $1,000,” said Emily Caldwell, director of marketing and social media for Faithful Adoption Consultants. “We’ll typically make between $3,000 to $4,000 per shirt. We’ve had some up in the $8,000 range and the one that was almost $10,000.”

Last year, 2,000 campaigns launched on Ink to the People, raising more than $300,000. At the current pace, the company is on track to exceed those totals in 2019.

Recently, Ink to the People worked with Zack Snyder, director

B

C

of “Justice League” and producer of “Wonder Woman,” to design a shirt for an American Foundation for Suicide Prevention fundraiser, prompted by the death of Snyder’s daughter to suicide in May 2017.

More than 4,200 shirts have been sold since the shirt went up for sale on Jan. 10, raising $82,365.

“People from all over the world have bought the shirt,” Richheimer said.

On the whole, the results of the T-shirt campaigns are mixed, Richheimer said. Because it’s free, some users will launch a cam-

paign, not follow up and never sell a T-shirt. A campaign needs six orders before Ink will fulfill it.

The most successful are typically driven by heavy social media promotion.

Ink to the People largely runs as a two-employee operation – including Richheimer and a recent Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design graduate – although it is able to lean on the resources of Visual Impressions.

After running Ink to the People largely as a side job for the past seven years, Richheimer said he plans to invest in growing the business this year. One of his

A: An Ink to the People tote bag.

D

future goals is to build a Facebook application that would allow customers to launch campaigns from the social networking site.

Richheimer also envisions adding embroidery services to further distinguish Ink to the People from its competitors. n

B: Ink to the People produced T-shirts for a campaign launched by nonprofit organization TrapKing Humane Cat Solutions.

C: Ink to the People produced T-shirts for a campaign supporting Paradise, California fire victims.

D: Ink to the People produced T-shirts for a campaign launched by Zack Snyder, Marvel film director, producer and screenwriter, to raise funds for suicide prevention.

Photos by Ink to the People

I

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Real Estate

REAL ESTATE WEEKLY – The week’s most significant real estate news → biztimes.com/subscribe

ILLUSTRATION COURTESY COLLIERS

An outline of the Delafield Street site in Waukesha that has been identified for redevelopment.

Waukesha aims to further revitalize downtown with transformation of northern ‘gateway’ site

THINGS ARE LOOKING BRIGHT in downtown Waukesha, according to local business owner Susie Taylor.

A co-owner of Taylor’s People’s Park, located at the southeast corner of Clinton and West Main streets, Taylor is also involved with the Waukesha Downtown Business Association.

“I think it’s an exciting time for downtown,” Taylor said.

She said the downtown renaissance is due to a number of factors, such as events like the farmer’s market and the Friday Night Live music and entertainment events she helps organize, a shift in preferences from indoor shopping malls to specialty shops in walkable areas, and recent residential developments in the area.

A 5-acre site along Delafield Street just north of downtown, described as one of its gateways, promises to be the next development to further revitalize the area.

The city owns 5 acres of vacant land and buildings across the street from Waukesha City Hall.

City leaders recently selected a pair of developers that will work with the city to develop a mix of uses there, such as senior housing and retail. Other possibilities include a medical office building, a

JON ELLIOTT OF MKE DRONES LLC

BIRD’S EYE VIEW: ZO O I N T E R C H A N G E

18 / BizTimes Milwaukee APRIL 29, 2019

Traffic runs into and out of the northern leg of the Zoo Interchange in Milwaukee County on a recent weekday afternoon. Wisconsin Department of Transportation traffic counts show an average of 156,000 vehicles travel through this portion of the interchange daily.

Work related to the $1.3 billion reconstruction and expansion of the core of the interchange wrapped up recently. However, there is more work to be done. The DOT’s budget proposal requests another $175 million toward finishing work on the northern section of the interchange.

If the funding is approved, construction activity could begin by late summer 2020. The remaining work includes adding lanes to the freeway in each direction between North Swan Boulevard and West Burleigh Street, as well as rebuilding the interchanges with West North Avenue and West Burleigh Street.

The interchange was first built in the 1960s and has reached the end of its useful life, according to the DOT.

WHO REALLY OWNS IT?

hotel or even more retail offerings.

City officials have long thought of the site as a prime location for a mixed-use or residential development project. In 2012, Waukesha adopted its Central City Master Plan, which looked at the downtown area more broadly to include the surrounding neighborhoods, said Jeff Fortin, Waukesha senior planner.

The idea, he said, was that if the surrounding neighborhoods weren’t doing well then downtown would also suffer. In that plan, the city specifically identified the Delafield Street site and envisioned there a multi-story, mixed-use development. The idea was to build up more density, which would in turn create a larger base of customers for downtown area businesses, Fortin said.

“We see it as an extension of downtown,” he said. “It’s one of the main gateways to downtown.”

But before the city began actively seeking developers through a formal request-for-proposals process, it had only seen plans to use the site for materials storage or warehousing, Fortin said.

Last summer, the city issued a Request for Expressions of Interest for the site and followed up with an RFP earlier this year.

According to the RFP, the development site is separated into two zones. Zone A is nearly 3.4 acres located at 318 and 200 Delafield St., and currently consists of a former automotive repair facility and vacant land. Before that, the site was home to a strip mall.

The roughly 1.5-acre Zone B is the current location of the City Hall Annex building, just south of Zone A. The city’s Department of Public Works plans to vacate this building upon completion of the new city hall building, which is anticipated to be in 2021.

After receiving three responses to the RFP, aldermen selected the proposal submitted by Madison-based Horizon Development Group Inc. and Elm Grove-based Luther Group LLC. Although the plans submitted to the city are just conceptual, they call for a four-story, 80-unit building consisting of senior apart-

ments, along with 7,500 square feet of first-floor commercial space. That building would go up in Zone A. As for Zone B, the development team presented a number of possibilities, including hospitality, medical, additional retail, or even more residential.

Scott Kwiecinski, development manager with Horizon, said his firm and Luther Group agreed to partner on the project shortly after seeing the RFEI last summer.

“We called each other and said, ‘It sounds like a cool development opportunity,’ and it’s in a community that we thought could use a mixed-use development like this,” he said.

Horizon has a track record of developing residential projects like this one, while Luther Group’s expertise lies in the commercial side.

Jason Luther, president of Luther Group, noted the two firms recently finished working together on the Harmonee Square mixed-use project in Wauwatosa, so this proposal seemed like a similarly good fit.

The city will now work with the team to come up with a timeline and more formalized development plans, Fortin said. The development will be phased, especially given that the annex building won’t be vacated until DPW can move in to the new city hall.

Taylor said she is on board with efforts to redevelop the site.

“I think that would definitely enhance the downtown,” she said, noting the more residents in the immediate area — and the more potential foot traffic — the better. n

WEST ALLIS CHEESE & SAUSAGE SHOPPE The building that houses the West Allis Cheese & Sausage Shoppe has been a place for food since its construction in 1926.

Owner Mark Lutz said before the building was used as a cheese shop, it was home to a grocery store.

Sometime in the 1960s, Merkts Cheese Co. bought that property. Then in the 1980s, a couple bought it from Merkts and kept it running as a cheese shop. Lutz purchased the business in 2002, after he heard the couple was closing it down. “Next thing I knew I was in the cheese business,” he said.

Lutz added on to the building in 2013, where he opened a restaurant.

ADDRESS: 6832 W. Becher St., West Allis OWNER: Lutz Land Management LLC ASSESSED: $322,300

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STORY COVER

Milwaukee’s

F

Mitchell Park Domes

eum

Milwaukee Public Mus

ueled by a booming local economy, the mid-20th century brought a flurry of civic building activity for Milwaukee County.

In 1957, the Milwaukee County War Memorial – an Eero Saarinen cast-concrete structure overlooking the shores of Lake Michigan – was completed. The following year, the county zoo moved from Washington Park to a much larger home, its current 200-acre park on Milwaukee’s far west side.

Construction on the Milwaukee Public Museum’s current facility, the large concrete structure on West Wells Street in the city’s downtown, was completed in 1962. The county took over the Villa Terrace in 1966, the same year work began on the county-owned Marcus Performing Arts Center.

22 / BizTimes Milwaukee APRIL 29, 2019

And throughout that era, the Mitchell Park Horticultural Conservatory’s iconic glass domes were constructed, with the trio’s completion in 1967.

In the decades since, the buildings have served as popular regional attractions, hosting streams of students, families and out-of-towners. But funding constraints have led to deferred capital maintenance needs at many of the institutions, and what was once a building boom has, a half century later, left the cash-strapped county with a building burden.

Facing a host of facility issues, MPM is at risk of losing its accreditation when it is up for review next year, which would make it the largest museum in the U.S. to let that designation slip.

The future of the dilapidated Mitchell Park Domes remains uncertain amid continuing debate over whether to demolish, rebuild or repair them.

And the backlog of repair and replacement needs across Milwaukee County’s facilities, including its cultural institutions and parks, has been

deemed “seemingly insurmountable” by a recent Wisconsin Policy Forum report.

These challenges aren’t new. But, amid an intensifying talent war and the momentum of the recent downtown building boom, decisions about the cultural assets are now at a critical juncture. To be competitive, the region needs to invest in the institutions that make it distinctive, local leaders say.

“You’re not going to look around the world at any great thriving, successful metropolis and not recognize it has a vibrant cultural arts and entertainment scene,” said Tim Sheehy, president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce. “You can’t find a vibrant community that doesn’t have vibrant culture.”

Mounting needs The mounting capital needs of Milwaukee County’s cultural assets have been well document-

crumbling c

ultural asse

s n io t c a r t t a l a n io g e r r o f d e d e e n n io t u l o s g in d Fun

ts

BY LAUREN A NDERSON, st aff writer

ed and publicized for years.

The Public Policy Forum released a report in 2008 that highlighted the problem of declining public funding and tallied Milwaukee County parks and cultural institutions’ need for capital improvement spending at $277 million.

The issue again came into the spotlight in 2015, when an MMAC task force, made up of 50 key community and business leaders, concluded that more government money was needed to protect the region’s signature cultural and entertainment assets.

“That part of the task force was to establish a vision for what Milwaukee could look like with a strategy to invest in these assets as we go forward,” Sheehy said. “The flip side of that is, what would Milwaukee look like without these assets?”

But those conversations were eclipsed by another challenge: funding a new NBA arena to replace the BMO Harris Bradley Center. That challenge presented the community with an imminent

threat: without a funding solution, the Milwaukee Bucks could leave town.

“In that case, the math was easier to wrap your head around,” Sheehy said. “The (state income taxes paid by) the team and visiting players was around $10 million a year. If we lost the team, the state would lose $10 million in income tax revenue. If you kept the team by building a new arena, payroll would grow (and state income taxes paid by NBA players was projected to increase to) somewhere between $10 million and $18 million (annually).

And if you use incremental new revenue from the income tax to support the bonds, the state isn’t really losing anything.”

Ultimately, that led to a public-private financing plan for the arena, with state and local taxpayers kicking in $250 million for construction of what would become Fiserv Forum.

Milwaukee Co

unty Zoo

While most agree cultural assets play an important role in the community, the urgency related to their financing needs presents a more challenging public messaging strategy than for a venue for popular sports teams.

“It’s harder to make that connection because the zoo isn’t going to move to Cincinnati,” Sheehy said. “The threat is less evident and obvious.”

In 2016, Sheehy floated the idea of a 0.5 percent sales tax to help fund the region’s cultural and arts institutions, but the proposal didn’t find much traction beyond Milwaukee County’s borders. Officials in its neighboring counties generally found the idea unpalatable.

Today, a financing strategy for the region’s biztimes.com / 23

HENRYK SADURA / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

STORY COVER

Mitchell Park Do

mes

Milwaukee Public Museum cultural institutions remains at a standstill.

“Where we sit today is with the same challenge,” Sheehy said. “We’re disinvesting or underinvesting in critical assets, and they need to be part of any new funding solution going forward.”

The Domes The need for a solution to the aging Mitchell Park Domes has loomed for years. But when concrete chunks began to crumble in 2016, it prompted immediate safety concerns, along with more serious discussions about the fate of the structures.

Today, their future remains uncertain.

A county task force charged with helping determine the Domes’ future has named several options, ranging from keeping them on hospice care until they expire in about five years, to investing as much as $90 million to give them new life.

That task force is currently considering the use of historic tax credits to address deferred maintenance, which is estimated to cost between $20 million and $30 million.

Meanwhile, a separate proposal has been floated that would link the Domes’ future with that of another high-priority project: a new Milwaukee Public Museum.

National design firm Gallagher Museum Services recently recommended that the county demolish the Domes and integrate the horticultural experience into a new 284,000-square-foot Milwaukee Public Museum building on the site of the current Domes, to the tune of about $267 million. Factoring in an endowment, the project would require an estimated total capital raise of $300 million.

However, based on the Gallagher study, interim MPM president and chief executive officer Ellen Censky recently said that co-locating the Domes and MPM “is not feasible” because it would require demolition of the Domes.

“To us, that’s something that won’t work,” Censky said.

24 / BizTimes Milwaukee APRIL 29, 2019

Meanwhile, MPM is still in the process of identifying a location for its planned new downtown home.

When it opened in 1884 as a free public museum, MPM was innovative for its time, Censky said.

The museum stood apart from many of its contemporaries, which enjoyed the backing of wealthy benefactors, such as Marshall Field’s support for the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.

“This museum and others have helped to shape this community,” Censky said. “We’re not just something that’s nice to have; I think we have been integral to how this community has developed. It became something that was for everybody and, because of that, we all got trained on going to museums. We actually are a much more museum-going community than a lot of communities because this community takes ownership of this museum.”

The second most-visited cultural institution in the county (behind the zoo), MPM last year saw about 535,000 visitors, about 14 percent of whom were from out-of-state.

But the building that MPM has called home for nearly six decades faces serious challenges. Old pipes have burst, causing damage to collections.

Rainstorms lead to leaks. The basement has mold issues. The outdated elevators need costly repairs.

In all, the museum faces an estimated $87 million in deferred maintenance projected over the next 20 years, Censky said.

“That’s just to keep the doors open so people can safely walk into the building,” Censky said.

“We spend about $1.5 million in utilities and most of it goes out the windows. It’s a building that has not aged gracefully, so to put that kind of money into this building, that’s money we can’t spend on new exhibits, updated technology, research and education programs. Every time we spend money on this building to fix something, we spend time away from what we should be doing.”

Leaders plan to build a considerably smaller facility than the museum’s current 400,000-squarefoot building at 800 W. Wells St., one that is more

energy efficient and able to accommodate changes in exhibits. Several sites remain under consideration, Censky said. An estimate of $100 million for a new facility has been floated in the past, but museum officials declined to discuss cost estimates at this point. The launch of a capital campaign to support the new home, Censky said, is also far off.

Building for the future Meanwhile, other county-owned institutions with less pressing capital needs are undergoing renovations to ensure their long-term sustainability.

Marcus Center leaders unveiled in late 2018 a new campus master plan in an effort to “secure its vitality for the next 50 years.” The revamp, expected to be completed over the next five years, includes creating a park-like setting in front of the Peck Pavilion, an expanded plaza, and a flexible-use lawn for outdoor events, along with a host of interior renovations and theater upgrades.

Marcus Center president and chief executive officer Paul Mathews said the renovations – paired with The Marcus Corp.’s new Saint Kate Arts Hotel concept across the street – will help create a multi-block “cultural arts center” in Milwaukee’s downtown.

Mathews has also proposed that MPM and Betty Brinn Children’s Museum relocate to the site of the center’s parking structure northwest of East State and North Water streets. That idea, among others, is “under consideration,” Censky said.

Underway at the Milwaukee County Zoo is a project that, when completed, will be the largest-ever physical change to its current location.

The multi-year Adventure Africa project includes an elephant exhibit, set to open in May, along with future improvements to the hippo and rhino exhibits. Zoo leaders expect the new elephant home to draw more visitors to the area, with Indianapolis being the next-closest accredited zoo exhibiting elephants.

The zoo supplements public funding with matching contributions from private sources, aided

ama in the Th

ird Planet exhi bit at the Milwaukee Pu blic Museum.

PHOTOS CONTRIBUTED BY: THE REFINERY

A dinosaur dior

amun’s tomb in found in King Tutankh A replica of a chariot rlds of the Wo nt cie Civilization: An MPM’s Crossroads of it, hib ex n erranea Near East and Medit which opened in 2015.

by nonprofit fundraising organization Zoological Society of Milwaukee County. The Zoo Society has committed to raising $25 million to fund the project.

To date, $18.3 million has been raised for the campaign.

Among several corporate supporters of the project is the We Energies Foundation, the charitable arm of Milwaukee-based WEC Energy Group Inc., which gave $750,000 for a second-floor viewing terrace at the new elephant and hoofstock

exhibits. The gift was one of the foundation’s several recent gifts, including gifts to the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the Milwaukee Ballet, Discovery World and MPM. Beth Straka, vice president of the foundation, said arts and culture have consistently been a high priority for the foundation’s investments.

“We’re one of largest employers in the region; we know how important it is to attract and retain a high-quality workforce,” Straka said. “Having a thriving and diverse cultural scene plays an im-

The oldest exhibit at the Milw aukee Public Museum, the Streets of Old Milwauk ee, opened in 1965. It underwent renova tions that were completed role in in 2015.

portant creating a community where people want to work and live and raise their families.”

Success stories Some cultural organizations in the region have proven that bold projects, with heavy fundraising lifts, can be done successfully.

The Quadracci Pavilion, the Milwaukee Art biztimes.com / 25

STORY COVER Museum’s 142,000-square-foot addition in 2001, and the outstretched wings of the Burke Brise Soleil sculpture, stand as a testament to the philanthropic community rallying behind an ambitious project.

The project grew from a planned modest addition, with a $10 million lead – at the time, anonymous – gift from Betty and Harry Quadracci, to a much larger and more expensive undertaking when Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava was chosen for the project.

When it opened, the expansion cost a reported $122 million, far exceeding the original estimate of $38 million.

The key to that project’s success was the invested involvement of the MAM board, philanthropists and Calatrava throughout the process, said Amanda Peterson, senior director of audience engagement for the Milwaukee Art Museum.

“When Calatrava would come back with revisions, he would say, ‘Well, it will be X more dollars, but I can make it do this,’” Peterson said.

“So it went over the original budget, but it never went over the donors’ budget. The board always had that guiding star of this is what we’re doing and want to accomplish … It wasn’t a museum demanding we do this or the donors demanding that we do this, but the board served as a steering committee of what could be.”

The project’s ability to inspire the community helped drive it forward and ultimately receive the philanthropic support it needed, Peterson said.

“The Quadracci Pavillion and Burke Brise Soleil are so iconic, not just for the city, but as a symbol of the growth and revitalization of Milwaukee,” Peterson said. “…Knowing what it’s done for us, we’re really excited to see our partners turn things around.”

Today, one of MAM’s partners, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, is well on its way to completing its fundraising goal for its new home. Like the art museum, the project was kickstarted by an anonymous patron donor, who led the MSO’s initiative to buy the vacant Warner Grand Theatre and convert it into its new concert hall.

To date, MSO has raised more than $115 million toward its $139 million campaign goal to restore the 87-year-old Art Deco-style theater, along with the building’s 12-story office tower.

Leaders said work is on schedule to open the Milwaukee Symphony Center for its first concert in September 2020.

A funding crisis While philanthropy will certainly play an important role in funding the region’s cultural assets, it won’t completely fill the gap, leaders say.

According to a 2018 Wisconsin Policy Forum report, Milwaukee County would need to more than double its spending on cultural institutions, 26 / BizTimes Milwaukee APRIL 29, 2019

Marcus Perform

ing Ar ts Center

from $6.2 million to $13.9 million, and increase spending nearly tenfold on parks, from $2.4 million to $23 million, in 2019 alone to fund existing capital requests.

Amid daunting infrastructure needs and stagnant revenue streams, local leaders argue their hands are tied, in large part because of the imbalance between what the county sends to Madison in tax revenue and what the county receives in state support for its mandated services.

As county expenses have increased, reimbursement payments to the county – including general transportation aids, basic community aids, shared revenue and mass transit operating assistance – have remained stagnant since 2010, according to documents provided by Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele’s office.

“It won’t matter who’s in this office or who’s downstairs (on the county board), it’s just math,” said Abele. “With declining resources and growing costs, it’s going to get ugly … Until we solve this issue as a state, we’ll have a lot more than our cultural assets to worry about.”

After cutting county parks positions, moving out of “1 million square feet of office space,” and adding new revenue streams like the county beer gardens, Abele said the county is left with few financial options. Milwaukee already relies heavily on property taxes, compared with its peers nationally; any proposal to raise them would likely be a nonstarter. A sales tax, while on the table as an option for the county, can’t be imposed without the approval of the state Legislature.

“There has been some discussion around this,” Sheehy said. “But we would need to partner with the city and county. We’d need to make a convincing case to the Legislature. We would need a referendum and need to make a convincing case on the referendum. There are a lot of steps to this theoretical exercise of adding a sales tax in Milwaukee County. There’s no firm proposal to do that right now, but clearly it’s one of the options that the

community should consider.”

Several suburban Republican state lawmakers declined to comment for this story.

Even if the county were to address the shared revenue issue, Abele said, cultural assets are lower on the queue of funding priorities, behind mandated services like public safety and building a new courthouse.

But, after ringing the alarm for years, Abele said he is optimistic, noting that Gov. Tony Evers is the first governor in recent memory that he’s heard mention the funding issues in Milwaukee County.

“I think there is more awareness now among the right, left, advocacy and business community – people see this as an issue,” Abele said. “There has been discussion in the past about a cultural sales tax, but what’s different is you haven’t had as much buy-in as you do now from, in particular, the business community.”

Abele – who also wears hats as a local startup supporter, philanthropist and former board member for the MSO, Marcus Center, United Performing Arts Fund and Milwaukee Art Museum – said businesses have drawn the connection between their battle for talent and having a thriving cultural and entertainment scene. Big employers, he said, leverage those assets to attract employees here.

“That doesn’t work if we can’t even fund what essentially makes it vibrant,” Abele said.

While the MMAC’s previous campaign didn’t result in a funding solution for cultural assets, Sheey said he knew they were long-term challenges when they took them on. He didn’t expect them to be solved immediately.

But, he added, the successful arena financing effort did showcase the region’s ability to coalesce around a goal.

“We’ve clearly demonstrated that, when we have a crisis, we can act,” he said. n

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Special Report BUSINESS IN WAUKESHA COUNTY

Renderings of the new Waukesha City Hall.

County courthouse, city hall projects move forward in Waukesha

By Lauren Anderson, staff writer TWO LONG-PLANNED projects aimed at addressing aging city and county government facilities in Waukesha are moving forward.

Demolition of Waukesha County’s 60-yearold intake court building at 515 W. Moreland Blvd. began in late March, paving the way for the construction of a new 62,000-squarefoot, four-story addition, designed by Milwaukee-based Zimmerman Architectural Studios.

It’s the first in a two-phase planned upgrade to the Waukesha County Courthouse campus, including the $35.8 million building addition and a $58.6 million renovation of the existing courthouse. Gilbane Building Co. is leading the construction project.

The project emerged from planning that began in 2012, when county board members and department heads identified the need to address capacity constraints and the outdated layout of the county courthouse.

When the building was completed in 1959, there were three judges sitting on the bench, serving the county’s population of about 150,000. Today, the county has 12 sitting judges and a population of more than 400,000.

“The biggest thing is capacity; when you look at our population, we know it’s going to grow,” said Paul Farrow, Waukesha County executive.

“We needed to make sure we had a facility that could handle the needs of the community and ensure the safety of those individuals when they come in to the courthouse.”

The project involves tearing down a 28 / BizTimes Milwaukee APRIL 29, 2019

52,000-square-foot structure, which includes an intake courtroom and unused jail space.

The addition, which will include eight new courtrooms, will be designed with “three-way separation,” among inmates, court staff and visitors.

“It will meet all of today’s standards for security, for safety for personnel and public coming through,” Farrow said.

Construction on the addition is expected to be complete in 2021.

In late 2022, renovations on the existing courthouse are expected to begin. The project will involve updating aging mechanical systems, creating a more efficient layout and increasing public accessibility, Farrow said.

“When you think about this building being built and finished in 1959, we’ve made a significant change in how we deal with security after 9/11 in 2001, so we had to retrofit what we had,” Farrow said. “It really isn’t conducive to a good, effective flow of people coming into the building.”

The entire project is expected to be completed in 2023 or 2024.

CITY HALL

Meanwhile, plans are moving forward to replace Waukesha City Hall, a 1965 structure that was built on top of what was originally a bomb shelter.

Various facilities and space needs studies tracing back nearly 12 years have raised concerns regarding safety, maintenance and operational concerns with the 45,180-square-foot

building at 201 Delafield St. “The roof system needs to be replaced, the HVAC system, and some of our electrical systems need to be replaced,” said Kevin Lahner, city administrator. “We have a water infiltration issue. The basement houses our IT and it just so happens that the water leaks into our IT department, our boilers and electrical systems.”

Over the years, city leaders have debated whether to repair the current structure or construct a new building altogether. During the 2018 budgeting process, the city council decided on new construction.

Plans call for a new $27.3 million building to be built next to the current city hall, which will be demolished. The city is working with St. Paul, Minnesota-based BWBR Architects Inc. on conceptual plans for the project. A general contractor has not been selected yet.

“One of the biggest priorities is we wanted to create a work environment that encourages collaboration and communication among the different members of our staff, so we’ve tried to do that through design,” Lahner said. “It won’t be a completely open office design, but it’s more of a hybrid between an open office and a traditional closed office design.”

Other plans include secure entryways for staff members, improved public meeting spaces, and sustainability features, including a green roof. Another improvement, Lahner said, will be the re-configuration of the council chambers, which will allow council members to face the audience, rather than have their back to them, as they do in the current building.

Earlier plans included an employee fitness center and rooftop terrace, both of which have been scrapped after residents and some council members raised concerns with the optics of those features.

Construction is expected to begin by September, with the project being completed by February 2021.

One of the goals of the project, Lahner said, is to spur more development in the area around

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Special Report

ZIMMERMAN ARCHITECTURAL STUDIOS

BUSINESS IN WAUKESHA COUNTY

A rendering of the public corridor in the new Waukesha County Courthouse building.

A rendering of a new courtroom in the Waukesha County Courthouse.

the new city hall.

Already in the works is a proposal from Madison-based Horizon Development Group Inc. and Elm Grove-based Luther Group LLC to redevelop the site along Delafield Street across from the current city hall. Those plans include a mixed-use, 80unit building consisting of senior apartments and 7,500 square feet of first-floor commercial space.

Once the current building is demolished, there will be an additional developable lot on top of the hill to market to developers, Lahner said.

“We feel we’re creating a catalyst project to spur some redevelopment just north of our downtown,” Lahner said. “Connecting our neighborhoods with the downtown area will be a nice transition for everyone.” n

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Special Report BUSINESS IN WAUKESHA COUNTY

A rendering of the Movie Tavern by Marcus being built at Brookfield Square.

Brookfield Square seeks to redefine area retail offerings

By Maredithe Meyer, staff writer AS STRUGGLING BIG-BOX department stores like Boston Store, Sears and JCPenney gradually disappear from area shopping centers, property owners and managers are left with the challenge of deciding what do with thousands of square feet of vacant space.

For Chattanooga, Tennessee-based CBL Properties, which owns Brookfield Square in Brookfield, that meant razing the former Sears store at the southeast side of the mall to make way for what today’s experiential-driven retail market considers to be bigger and better things: dining and entertainment.

This fall, construction will be complete on the two centerpieces of Brookfield Square’s multimillion-dollar redevelopment – Chicago-based restaurant and entertainment center WhirlyBall and Marcus Theatres’ newly acquired cinema eatery concept, Movie Tavern.

The Marcus Corp. had originally planned to fill the 40,000-square-foot building with its sec32 / BizTimes Milwaukee APRIL 29, 2019

ond BistroPlex location, but in early April, the company announced it had changed course in an effort to introduce its own version of the Movie Tavern brand to the market, which already is home to multiple Marcus cinemas including its first-ever BistroPlex at Southridge Mall.

“This is our hometown and in our hometown, we want our customers to see everything we have to offer,” said Rolando Rodriguez, Marcus Theatres’ president and chief executive officer.

While other Marcus concepts, such as the nearby Majestic Cinema, are destinations for families, Movie Tavern by Marcus will target millennial adult consumers with its food and beverage offerings and “technological elements,” Rodriguez said.

WhirlyBall and Movie Tavern by Marcus will be situated near other restaurant concepts, including Texas-based Uncle Julio’s Mexican from Scratch, which opened in December as the company’s first Wisconsin location; Texas-based

Bar Louie, which opened in late February in the former Blackfinn Ameripub space; and Florida-based Outback Steakhouse, which is expected to break ground in the coming months, projecting to open in fall.

The project is part of CBL’s greater vision of transforming traditional enclosed malls into suburban town centers that offer more than just retail, but the recent and yet-to-be-announced additions to Brookfield Square’s tenant list directly reflect the specific demands of the surrounding market, said Stacey Keating, director of public relations and corporate communications for CBL Properties.

“When malls were first built, it was a relatively cookie cutter approach – three to five fashion anchor stores and a primarily retail mix in the middle – and that’s really changing a lot,” Keating said. “Part of it is the demand in the market, part of it is the transition in the retail industry itself and the other part is what

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Special Report BUSINESS IN WAUKESHA COUNTY consumers are looking to gain from coming to a mall, and it’s kind of redefining what that traditional mall experience looks like.”

Also in December, Willowbrook, Illinois-based high-end golf club retailer Club Champion opened a 3,000-square-foot store on the former Sears site. It’s the first Wisconsin location for the company, which offers custom fittings to build more than 35,000 club, shaft and grip combinations.

Club Champion’s high-touch, personalized services place the business in a category of brick-and-mortar retailers that are able to draw customers, largely because of the experience they provide, Keating said.

Fast-growing, experience-driven retailers like Club Champion are in demand among mall developers looking for more foot traffic, she said.

“We’ve found that retailers that offer their customers an unparalleled experience are going to succeed far more than those that don’t,” Keating said.

That trend includes online-only retailers that are starting to open brick-and-mortar locations. She said CBL is in talks with several such companies, with plans to broker retail

“

We’ve found that retailers that offer their customers an unparalleled experience are going to succeed far more than those that don’t.

— Stacey Keating, CBL Properties

space for them as they expand into CBL’s market areas.

But attracting these newer, trendier retail concepts requires mall owners to be more flexible than they had to be in the past, Keating said.

“These newer concepts don’t necessarily want to sign a 10-year lease,” she said.

In today’s retail market, typical lease deals usually range from one to five years, depending on the retailer, Keating said.

At some of its other properties, CBL has rolled out a pop-up shop concept, which takes over an available tenant space for only one week at a time, she said, making for a low-cost and low-barrier-to-entry method to test out a new product or expand a business. And it keeps tenant offerings

fresh and exciting for customers.

Although Brookfield Square has not yet housed a traditional pop-up shop, its management is open to the idea, said Melissa Cavanagh, marketing director at Brookfield Square.

Plus, Cavanagh said, the mall already offers temporary retail opportunities with carts and kiosks. Those are operated by both national tenants, such as Sunglass Hut and Starbucks, and local tenants, such as Grassroots Salad Co. and Divino Gelato Café.

“Carts and kiosks really open up the opportunity to start a business or have a small local business,” she said. “It adds to that experience that shoppers have because it gives them so many choices for shopping.” n

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SPONSORED CONTENT

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Meet the modern apprenticeships

The state of Wisconsin is expanding the apprenticeship model to new frontiers.

by Karen Morgan If the word “apprentice” conjures images of medieval masons or colonial cobblers, you may need to reacquaint yourself with the concept. Although the large majority of Wisconsin apprentices enter what one might classify as a traditional occupation, such as plumber, electrician, machinist and barber, the state is expanding the apprenticeship model to new frontiers.

Two of the latest additions to Wisconsin apprenticeship’s 200 or so occupations come from the fields of finance and information technology. These business sectors might seem a far cry from apprenticeship’s blue-collar roots, yet they benefit greatly from the tried-and-true training model.

Demand for IT services is ubiquitous in today’s business climate, yet Wisconsin businesses compete for a limited pool of IT professionals, sometimes with out-of-state companies that offer Wisconsin workers the benefit of working remotely from home. Organizations like Delta Dental, Footlocker and Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin decided to take a proactive approach to addressing the IT skills gap.

They collaborated with the Bureau of Apprenticeship Standards and, with funding from the federal WAGES grant, helped develop the state’s IT apprenticeship curriculum. In 2018, BAS registered its first IT apprentices and currently offers apprenticeships in three IT occupations: service desk technician, data analyst and software developer, with a fourth, broadband service technician, under development.

Delta Dental, whose 80-person IT department is based in Stevens Point, used the software developer curriculum to provide a promotional opportunity to one of its employees.

Mike Upright, director of IT applications for Delta Dental, stated that enterprises which employ IT staff in Wisconsin may have a lot to gain by exploring an apprenticeship model, but might not readily associate the two.

“Most people, when you think about traditional apprenticeship, you think about manufacturing and skilled trades.

So, most folks and organizations are going to struggle with that concept at first,” Upright said.

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One of the primary functions of BAS is to identify industries and occupations that are conducive to the apprenticeship model. They then work with experts and the business community to create a training and education blueprint.

This process is industry driven and oftentimes begins when interested parties contact BAS. That recently happened in the finance sector, when Principal Financial Group, MassMutual and Equity Bank identified the need for a uniform, on-the-job training program and related instruction for its financial service professionals. In 2018, Wisconsin became the first state in the nation to register an apprenticeship program for that occupation; it was also the first foray into the financial arena for the state’s apprenticeship program.

Though challenges presented themselves, such as adapting the apprenticeship to a largely commission-based employment model, BAS worked closely with the business community and Employ Milwaukee to design curriculum and implement the program. Currently, the year-long training program has four active apprentices in the Milwaukee area, with the potential to grow as financial sector employers learn about the program and with the concept of apprenticeship.

Whether it’s finance, IT or a new sector entirely, employers facing skilled worker shortages may consider registered apprenticeship to address their recruitment, training and retention needs. Once you are able to think outside the historical confines of the apprenticeship model, the sky is the limit.

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Special Report BUSINESS IN WAUKESHA COUNTY

Talent and data are two major pieces of Waukesha County’s future

By Arthur Thomas, staff writer THE TRANSFORMATION of industries by digital technologies has defined the last few decades, disrupting business models and increasing productivity. While those changes will continue, experts say advancements in material sciences and genomics, and new ways of computing, will define the coming decades.

“What’s coming next is going to be far, far bigger than digital,” said renowned business author Greg Satell.

Satell was the keynote speaker at Waukesha County 2035, a new BizTimes Media event held April 26 at The Ingleside Hotel in Waukesha. He said businesses need to do double duty, continuing to move quickly to implement the advancements of digital technology while also developing an understanding of what advancements will shape their industry in the future.

“If you’re a manufacturer and you have no idea what’s going on in material science, you

might well wake up one day and find that you’re completely out of the game,” Satell said. “That’s not about moving fast, that’s about getting in early, learning, discovering and preparing.”

New technologies and innovations come with plenty of excitement, but with an aging workforce and increased competition for talent, the same things that limit them today will challenge many businesses.

“We’re going to be limited by talent,” said Jay Hill Jr., chief technology officer and chief operating officer for imaging at GE Healthcare, which has a significant presence in Waukesha County. “We’ve got to get our act together as individual companies, educational systems, as an industry.”

Hill and W. Kent Lorenz, retired chairman and chief executive officer of Waukesha-based Acieta LLC, joined Satell as presenters at the Waukesha County 2035 event.

For Hill and GE Healthcare, the next 15-plus years hold plenty of promise. The vast majority of the world’s population – around 5 billion people – does not have good access to quality medical imaging.

“There’s a constraint of supply in most of the world that we couldn’t recognize here,” Hill said.

He added that beyond expanding access, there is opportunity in reducing the error rates in medical imaging, while also working to reduce costs. Taking advantage of these opportunities requires a precision medicine approach that combines imaging, diagnostics and therapies with data and insights from devices.

“More and more we’re going to need to understand deep learning techniques, data science,” Hill said. “These become inextricable to our future and to the industry’s future.”

The possibilities are exciting but realizing them requires finding the best talent in what is now a global competition, Hill said. Winning that competition locally starts with having a presence in high school STEM programs and continues through increased interaction at the state’s universities.

But Hill said there are not enough students

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graduating from the local universities in fields like deep learning and data analytics, even though the schools are setting up quality programs in those areas.

“They’re really working hard to get good graduates out there, but it’s a field that’s exploding so fast,” he said.

Innovation hot spots like Boston or Silicon Valley are also a draw for top talent. Hill said that while Wisconsin “for good reason” empha-

sizes its quality of life benefits like affordability or shorter commutes, those ideas are often “abstract problems” for new graduates.

“In many cases they want to know, ‘Hey, if this company doesn’t work out, is there another company?’” Hill said. “It’s kind of the intent of the economy (in Silicon Valley) that the churn is part of what makes it interesting.”

“We have the ability for people to come to this area and get into an industry like this and grow

a career and they have options,” he added. “We think that’s a message that’s been under served.”

Hill said GE Healthcare has found success when it can get potential employees excited about the work it’s doing. Medical imaging, after all, is about finding, diagnosing and treating injuries, disease and illness, so there is a pretty clear connection to helping people live healthier lives.

“It’s always easier when you have a mission and the mission here is really clear,” Hill said.

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Special Report BUSINESS IN WAUKESHA COUNTY “The challenge is letting everybody know you’re here with the mission.”

Not every manufacturer is GE Healthcare, with the size and scale to lead an industry in innovation. Waukesha County is full of small- to medium-sized manufacturers who make up the supply chains of industry giants like GE. Lorenz said those smaller companies also stand to benefit from advances in AI, 5G connectivity and greater adoption of robotics.

They’re also at risk of being left behind if they do not take steps to embrace new technologies.

Some projections suggest 30% to 40% of manufacturers will go out of business by 2035 because of disruptive technologies, he said.

Waukesha County has around 980 manufacturers, suggesting close to 300 to 400 factories could shut their doors if the projections hold true.

Lorenz said many smaller manufacturers are hesitant to embrace newer technologies because they do not see an immediate return on investment, feel it is too expensive or are not sure which approach to take.

“Honestly, those are all excuses,” Lorenz said.

“If you don’t get on the train now, recognizing you may have to change train cars in the jour-

ney, you’re going to get left behind because your customers are going to demand this and they won’t have to look far to find somebody who is already doing it.

He pointed to Pindel Global Precision Inc., a New Berlin-based manufacturer of precision machined components. The company currently pays around $100 per month per machine to have data from all of its CNC machines uploaded to the cloud. Bill Berrien, the company’s CEO, is able to access from anywhere information on how the machines are performing.

While the process for analyzing the data is primarily manual now, as AI advances it will enable even more detailed evaluation and better insights.

On the factory floor, the AI technology could be applied to detect increased vibrations or temperature changes in a machine’s gear box, allowing a company to schedule maintenance instead of fixing it in an emergency when the part fails.

AI could also be applied to create more efficient movements for CNC machines, cutting cycle times by as much as 30% in some cases, Lorenz said.

“Basically anything moving in your factory is going to get a superhuman look at how effi-

cient it’s running,” he said.

Beyond AI, Lorenz said robotic adoption would continue to increase as demographic trends continue to limit the number of available workers. The U.S. currently has an estimated 200 industrial robots per 10,000 manufacturing workers, according to the latest International Federation of Robotics data. Japan has 308, Germany has 322 and Korea has 710.

“We are behind the curve in robotic adoption in the United States and in the next 15 years we’re going to have to figure that out in order to be competitive, or we’re going to be left behind by countries like China, Korea, Germany and Japan,” Lorenz said.

He added that while the potential attrition of manufacturers is a negative when it comes to job loss, there is reason for optimism.

“I’m pretty bullish about the new industries and businesses that crop up that will do this type of work, from software companies to implementation companies. I think there’s a whole other wave out there,” he said. “So the 30% to 40% attrition, while that’s a bad thing, there will be at least that created in new jobs around automation, around AI, around 5G and connectivity.” n

ThankYou! SPONSORS AND ATTENDEES

Attendees of BizTimes Media’s annual M&A Forum gained valuable insights about buying or selling a business. The Dohman Company CEO, Cynthia LaConte gave the keynote address sharing her perspectives and lessons learned from experiences in M&A. Panel discussions focused on both buying and selling companies. There were also a series of informative breakout sessions. BizTimes Media would like to thank all who attended, LaConte, the panelists, moderators, event sponsors and the breakout session leaders.

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We need to rethink agility for a new era of innovation

By Greg Satell, for BizTimes Editor’s note: Greg Satell, a renowned business book author, was the keynote speaker at the recent event Waukesha County 2035, presented by BizTimes Media.

THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION has favored the quick and agile over the large and encumbered.

New business models disrupt industry giants with such metronomic regularity that we aren’t even surprised by it anymore. It just seems like the normal state of things.

With the end of Moore’s Law, however, we are entering a new era of innovation and we’re going to have to rethink agility for a post digital age. More specifically, we’re going to have to manage four shifts that will force us to think about widening and deepening connections rather than just moving fast and breaking things.

Shift 1: From transistor-based computers to new computing architectures At first the end of Moore’s law, which posited computing power would double every two years, seems scary, because faster computer chips are what’s driven technological advancement over the past few decades. There’s little cause for alarm, though. It’s not as if there’s some 11th Commandment that says, “Thou shalt compute in ones and zeros.” There are other ways to compute things.

The two most promising candidates are quantum computing and neuromorphic chips, both of which are vastly different from digital computing, utilizing different logic and requiring different computer languages and algorithmic approaches than classical computers. The transition to these architectures won’t be seamless or easy. It’s important to start early.

“

Shift 2: From bits to atoms The 20th century saw two major waves of innovation. The first, dominated by electricity and internal combustion, revolutionized how we could manipulate the physical world. The second, driven by quantum physics, microbial science and computing, transformed how we could work with the microscopic and the virtual.

The past few decades have been dominated by the digital revolution and it seems like things have been moving very fast, but looks can be deceiving. The impact from the first wave of innovation far surpassed what digital technologies have achieved.

The next era will combine aspects of both waves, essentially using bits to drive atoms. New techniques such as CRISPR help us edit genes at will. There is also an emerging revolution in materials science that will transform areas like

Instead of looking to disrupt markets, we will need to pursue grand challenges to solve fundamental problems.

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Special Report BUSINESS IN WAUKESHA COUNTY energy and manufacturing. These trends are still somewhat nascent, but have truly transformative potential.

Shift 3: From rapid iteration to exploration Over the past 30 years, we’ve had the luxury of working with technologies we understand extremely well. So it shouldn’t be surprising that rapid prototyping and iteration have emerged as key strategies.

Over the next decade or two, however, the challenge will be to learn to work with technologies we don’t understand well at all. There are also ethical issues involved with artificial intelligence and genomics that will require us to tread carefully.

So in the future, we will need to put greater emphasis on exploration to understand these new technologies and how they relate to our business. Instead of looking to disrupt markets, we will need to pursue grand challenges to solve fundamental problems.

4. From hypercompetition to mass collaboration The competitive environment we’ve become used to has been relatively simple. For each par-

ticular industry, there have been distinct ecosystems based on established fields of expertise.

Competing firms raced to transform fairly undifferentiated inputs into highly differentiated products and services. You needed to move fast to get an edge.

This new era, on the other hand, will be one of mass collaboration in which government partners with academia and industry to explore new technologies in the pre-competitive phase of technologies.

For example, the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research combines the work of five national labs, a dozen or so academic institutions and hundreds of companies to develop advanced batteries. Or, consider the manufacturing institutes set up under the Obama administration.

Focusing on everything from advanced fabrics to composite materials to biopharmaceuticals, these institutes allow companies to collaborate with government labs and top academics to develop the next generation of technologies.

Over the past few decades, agility has largely meant moving faster and faster down a predetermined path. Over the next few decades, however, agility will take on a new meaning: the

ability to explore multiple domains at once and combine them into something that produces value. We’ll need to learn how to go slower and collaborate more effectively to deliver much larger impacts. n

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Strategies FAMILY BUSINESS

The lake house Like a business, it’s a legacy ASK ANY NATIVE WISCONSINITE and they will tell you about their family lake home in Eagle River, Rhinelander, Lake Country… It is a part of our culture in this state – rich or poor – to have family with a lake home.

April 1 marked the 75th year my family has owned a lake home on Silver Lake. Portage, Wautoma, Salem and West Bend are all home to a Silver Lake in Wisconsin, but our home happens to be on the latter.

The home was purchased during the Second World War as an escape in the event of a Nazi attack. Yes, they really worried about things like that back then. My family was German, and even changed its name to Sommers from the more Teutonic equivalent back in World War I out of concerns for prejudice and conscription.

I am the fourth generation, followed by three children who are the fifth and one grandson who is the sixth, to reside at the lake. Each member of the fifth generation has been baptized in that lake. To say it means something to us as a family is an understatement.

So why do I write about this in a business magazine? What is the lesson for the family business owner?

The lake home, much like the family business, is the legacy. Long after my great-grandmother Barbara passed, her descendants are talking about her contribution to the family.

The lake home, affectionately known as Sommer Schloss, has been the gathering place for all these years for our family. We have recreated there, celebrated birthdays and holidays, and even shed a tear or two, along with an occasion42 / BizTimes Milwaukee APRIL 29, 2019

al fight. The fights usually happened around the time when the piers and the boatlifts went in, which are particularly high-tension days around the house. These are what we call “all-hands on deck” days, even for the in-laws (or outlaws, if you prefer).

Up to the fourth generation, we have been lucky there are not fights about who gets the lake home, as the previous three generations were only children. My wife and I had to go and break the string and now three children, all adults, are in the picture. Much like the family business, a tough decision is ahead. Somebody is going to get the lake home and two are going to be unhappy, unless they don’t want it, which isn’t the case. Or unless they all get the house and share it, which doesn’t work – trust me.

I am aware of a family business with multiple children and the father just walked away. They decided to rotate the management of the company – two years on and four years off. Then there was the family that decided to give the company to one child and exclude the other two, despite their interest.

Lake homes and family businesses share a common challenge…who gets them when we are gone?

The common best practice of the day says family businesses should not be given, but earned and paid for. Perhaps lake homes should follow the same fate? None of the kids get the home, and the first one to buy it who pays the most gets it.

But is this fair? If you have read my articles before, you know that I do not equate fair with equal. Being equal does not create fairness, either in business or life. Another common wisdom of the day is to make them earn it, be it the family business or the firm. Who helps with the maintenance? Who spends the most time there?

Who cares the most?

A lake home is a legacy to be left for generations to come. As a business owner, it is the type of thing we talk about when discussing your legacy. The legacy doesn’t always have to be something tangible or of worth. Time spent is often considered of more value than money,

which is again why a lake home makes sense as it offers a place to recreate and share stories of the family while making memories. Providing a place where generations can gather and recreate is priceless and a legacy that will pay dividends long after someone is gone. The financial dividends are not too bad, either. Great-grandma bought the home for $4,000 and today the home is more than 100 times that value. Perhaps when adjusted for inflation the stock market would return more, but when adjusted for emotions, the lake home keeps giving for eternity.

So to 75 years at the lake – Prost! n

DAVID BORST David Borst E.D., is executive director and chief operating officer of Family Business Leadership Partners, a regional resource hub for family business. He can be reached at david.borst@cuw.edu.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Harnessing the strength of the Great Lakes region Five reasons to attend the 5 LAKES Forum Editor’s note: This column was co-authored by Kathleen Gallagher, executive director of the Milwaukee Institute, and Matt Cordio, founder of Skills Pipeline, Startup Milwaukee and Startup Wisconsin.

HOW, we asked, could we help do the important work of forging tighter connections across the Great Lakes region among investors, startups and technologists?

After much consideration we’ve launched our first answer: 5 LAKES Forum.

It’s a one-day technology and entrepreneurship conference that’s happening on Tuesday, May 14 at Northwestern Mutual Tower and Commons. For this first effort, Milwaukee is the center of gravity. Our vision is to create an experience that attracts a diverse network of people in the Great Lakes region who want to make their big dreams happen here.

We could give you a whole host of reasons to join us. But we’ve decided to focus on some of the most important. Here are five reasons to attend the 5 LAKES Forum.

1. Better connecting the Great Lakes region ecosystem is critical to our economy’s ability to compete globally. We can’t say this enough. There are 40 million people in California. That state competes well.

To mount a similar effort with the same number of people would take Wisconsin plus approximately four other Midwestern states. 5 LAKES Forum is a unique, unprecedented event aimed at helping make that happen.

2. Founders first is our motto. We know that taking a day away from company-building is a big decision for founders. So we’ve created a no pain, no nonsense, no financial outlay experience for them. Every startup team that applies to pitch in front of investors at the 5 LAKES Forum will receive complimentary admission, whether they’re chosen to pitch or not.

3. We give you a very modern format. Quickhit fireside chats that put more great speakers on stage and engage more stakeholders. Cordio went to Utah in January to check out the Silicon Slopes Summit, a two-day tech conference in Salt Lake City that attracts some 20,000 attendees. He came home with a lot of great ideas. One of them highly influenced the way we organized 5 LAKES Forum. Unlike traditional, stale conference formats, 5 LAKES Forum delivers rapid, engaging content sessions that promise to help tech and startup leaders create meaningful connections and navigate high-level business and technology topics.

4. Speaking of content sessions, it’s the speakers that make them sing. We’re thrilled to feature founders from top startups such as Ionic, G2 Crowd and Clearcover and leaders from organizations such as American Family Ventures, Medical College of Wisconsin, Rexnord, Rockwell Automation, UW Health and more. To do a little name-dropping, you’ll hear from Roy Bahat, future-ofwork thought leader and head of Bloomberg Beta, a $150 million venture capital fund; Craig Dickman, founder of Breakthrough Fuel and Managing Director of TitletownTech, the innovation partnership between the Green Bay Packers and Microsoft; and Becky Lang, editor-in-chief of Discover

Magazine. Call us biased. Our speakers all are from, or have connections with, the Great Lakes region.

5. Future focused, that’s the way we approach programming. If the Great Lakes region were a country, it would have the third-largest GDP in the world, said John Austin, a non-resident senior fellow for the Brookings Institution, at an event about the Great Lakes region’s potential.

We have the necessary assets; we need to connect them better. Among all of the other amazing speakers, you’ll experience a not-to-miss discussion from Erik Iverson (Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation) and other technology transfer leaders about the future of innovation in the Great Lakes region.

There you have it. Five of the many reasons for joining us at 5 LAKES Forum. Hope to see you on May 14!

To register for 5 LAKES Forum, go to 5LakesForum.org. If you’d like more information, or if you’re a startup that wants to apply to pitch, email us at Kathleen@mkei.org or Matt@skillspipeline.com. n

KATHLEEN GALLAGHER Kathleen Gallagher is a Pulitzer Prizewinning writer and executive director of the Milwaukee Institute, a nonprofit that supports advanced technologies and highgrowth businesses to help the region thrive.

She can be reached at Kathleen@mkei.org. biztimes.com / 43

Strategies A BRIEF CASE

How do I reward my employees for great performance?

Christine Specht

Jim Sajdak

Mat Lignel

Chief executive officer Cousins Submarines Inc.

President and CEO Stan’s Fit For Your Feet

President and CEO Laughlin/Constable Inc.

“At Cousins, a career is a belief in better, an opportunity for growth and a place where teammates become family – franchise and corporate alike. We have chosen to focus on a culture of recognition, including the celebration of employee performance, birthdays and any major milestones our employees undergo.

“Additionally, Cousins offers a tenure program that celebrates our employees for their ongoing dedication to our brand. We recognize and award employees for their commitment to Cousins after one year, three years, five years and after every additional five years. Recently, we recognized a general manager for her 35 years at Cousins with a surprise limo ride to a champagne lunch in recognition of her hard work and devotion to our brand.

“Not only does Cousins offer a rewarding career for those who are part of our family, but we foster endless opportunities for those who are in pursuit of their dreams through an annual Employee Legacy Scholarship. Cousins awards four $2,500 scholarships to corporate or franchise employees who provide 100% guest service from the sandwich board and are following their goals of secondary education. Lastly, it’s important that our employees are celebrated by one another throughout all facets and that each team member becomes a part of our Cousins family.”

44 / BizTimes Milwaukee APRIL 29, 2019

“As a local family business, it’s important to give back to our internal Stan’s family and recognize employee and team accomplishments.

“At Stan’s, we care about fun. It is important to keep employees engaged, goal-oriented and passionate. Stan’s hosts monthly all-store meetings with employees from all locations to offer educational opportunities and to recognize top performers and quality customer service stories.

It is important to celebrate successes and learn from one another. Each individual who is recognized is allowed one ‘Spin of the Wheel’ on Stan’s Wheel of Fortune to receive prizes.

“In addition, each store participates in monthly sales contests with different themes, such as ‘March Pot of Gold’ or ‘Stanlympics,’ which is popular when the Olympics are airing. Those contests have individual and team rewards to promote individual goal-setting and teamwork.

Employees can win a cookout where I cook lunch for the entire store. Stan’s also has a monetary performance-based rewards system, in which employees receive bonuses upon meeting and exceeding goals.

“Stan’s further incentivizes employees with generous employee discounts, health care benefits, 401(k) opportunities and being closed on all major holidays, as well as an Annual Family Picnic and Annual Employee Appreciation Party.”

“At Laughlin Constable, our mission is to produce award-winning creative work that takes our clients from now to next. To do this, we need to hire and retain the best of the best in terms of talent. Our goal in creating the Griffin Award was to reward one Laughlin Constable employee a year who has demonstrated that they exemplify our core values: working with pride, acting with integrity, always seeking better, thinking creatively and embracing change. The Griffin Award winners are rewarded for going above and beyond, not only within LC but with their clients, as well.

“When we first came up with the Griffin Award for our 40th anniversary in 2016, we didn’t just want to give out an ordinary trophy, we also wanted to provide a monetary reward.

At LC, we want our employees to know that their hard work is recognized, appreciated and valued.

In addition to the prestigious iron Griffin trophy and a MacBook engraved with the LC logo, we chose to give $10,000 to the Griffin Award recipient each year. Of that money, $5,000 is designated for personal and professional development and the other $5,000 goes towards a trip of his or her choice. There’s definitely a work hard, play hard balance at LC, which means making sure that the winning Griffin enjoys a well-earned vacation. Thus far, we’ve awarded $30,000 to three deserving employees.”

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BizConnections PAY IT FORWARD

Paula Verboomen supports new ACE mentorship program Paula Verboomen Office director HGA

LILA ARYAN PHOTOGRAPHY

Nonprofit served: ACE Mentor Program Service: Founding board member

46 / BizTimes Milwaukee APRIL 29, 2019

PAULA VERBOOMEN, office director of Milwaukee-based architecture and engineering firm HGA, has always been drawn to helping students.

When she was fresh out of college, she served as an instructor with an architecture summer camp program. Later, she volunteered with University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s College for Kids & Teens program and Wisconsin Lutheran College’s Pre-College Academy program for first-generation college students.

“Throughout your career, you get many opportunities to do different things, and I’ve always said yes to opportunities that have helped students become better students and more informed about my career path,” Verboomen said.

When Adam Jelen, senior vice president of Gilbane Building Co., spearheaded the effort to bring the ACE Mentor Program – a national initiative that introduces youth to careers in architecture, construction, management and engineering – to the Milwaukee area, Verboomen jumped at the opportunity to become a founding board member.

The weekly after-school program launched in 2018 at Bay View High School, St. Anthony High School and Carmen Schools of Science & Technology’s southeast campus. In its second year, participation among the three schools has tripled.

ACE exposes students to the foundations of architecture, construction and engineering, and challenges them to take on real-life design and construction projects. It culminates in a formal presentation of their solutions to their parents

and program supporters.

As a board member, Verboomen has recruited mentors to work with the students.

“It’s a multiplying effect,” Verboomen said. “I’m just one person, but I found three mentors and they have been doing a spectacular job. Through the ACE mentoring program, I’ve been able to take my passion for mentoring people and spread it out so it’s got tentacles deeper into the community.”

The organization, still in its startup stage, is now planning to launch a formal fundraising effort to support transportation, insurance costs and scholarships.

Verboomen sees her role as helping larger regional efforts to develop and retain local talent.

“We’re all going to have crises of recruitment and this certainly helps the pipeline for each of our design professions,” she said. “And I think we’re also realizing that we can’t continue to do the status quo with how people enter school. We need to have more diversity or we’ll die. We need people and we want our workforce to look like the world at large.” n

LAUREN ANDERSON Reporter

P / 414-336-7121 E / lauren.anderson@biztimes.com T / @Biz_Lauren

BIZ PEOPLE

Advertising Section: New Hires, Promotions, Accolades and Board Appointments

LAW M. Scott McBride, Ph.D., joins Quarles & Brady LLP’s Intellectual Property Group.

McBride, partner and registered patent attorney, joins the Quarles & Brady Milwaukee office. His hire, along with three other recent patent attorneys hires, is part of the firm’s continued expansion of its IP Group.

INSURANCE Erin Kelly joins Network Health as Vice President of Sales and Marketing.

Wisconsin-based health insurer Network Health announced the addition of Erin Kelly as vice president of sales and marketing.

Kelly brings more than 18 years of experience in sales and marketing in the health insurance industry to Network Health.

LAW

SECURITY Dennis Snider brings 25 years of experience in the commercial security technology industry to Engineered Security Solutions, Inc. and joins ESS at a time of unprecedented growth. Dennis began his career in security on the technical side and has held various positions in service and management. Prior to that, he served our country in the United States Air Force. Dennis will be an integral part of the leadership team as Operations Manager.

ESS is a Wisconsin security leader providing cutting-edge solutions for commercial, industrial, municipal, law enforcement, education, financial customers and more for nearly 20 years.

David Luettgen has been named chairman of the Intellectual Property Dept. in the Milwaukee office of Foley & Lardner LLP.

LAW Jeff Costakos has been named chairman of the Intellectual Property Litigation Dept. at Foley & Lardner, LLP. He previously served as vice chairman of the practice group.

LAW Kadie Jelenchick, a partner at Foley & Lardner LLP, has been named vice chairperson of the firm’s IP Litigation Practice Group.

She previously served as chair of the IP Department in Foley’s Milwaukee office.

To place your listing, or for more information, please visit biztimes.com/connect

New Hire?

Share the news with the business community!

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BizConnections VOLUME 25, NUMBER 3 | APR 29, 2019

GLANCE AT YESTERYEAR

126 N. Jefferson St., Suite 403, Milwaukee, WI 53202-6120 PHONE: 414-277-8181 FAX: 414-277-8191 WEBSITE: www.biztimes.com CIRCULATION: 414-336-7100 | circulation@biztimes.com ADVERTISING: 414-336-7112 | advertising@biztimes.com EDITORIAL: 414-336-7120 | andrew.weiland@biztimes.com REPRINTS: 414-336-7100 | reprints@biztimes.com PUBLISHER / OWNER Dan Meyer dan.meyer@biztimes.com

SALES & MARKETING

DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS Mary Ernst mary.ernst@biztimes.com

EDITORIAL EDITOR Andrew Weiland andrew.weiland@biztimes.com MANAGING EDITOR Molly Dill molly.dill@biztimes.com REPORTER Lauren Anderson lauren.anderson@biztimes.com REPORTER Maredithe Meyer maredithe.meyer@biztimes.com REPORTER Arthur Thomas arthur.thomas@biztimes.com

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

COMMENTARY

More big events are coming here IT CERTAINLY LOOKS LIKE 2020 is going to be a big year for southeastern Wisconsin.

Of course the Democratic National Convention will be held in Milwaukee, bringing 50,000 visitors, a $200 million economic impact, plus international media attention to the region.

But that’s not all. The Ryder Cup, one of the biggest events in professional golf, will be held at Whistling Straits in Sheboygan County from Sept. 22 to 27, 2020. More than 250,000 attended the 2016 Ryder Cup in Chaska, Minnesota.

Expect another huge crowd for the Ryder Cup next year and an economic impact that reaches well beyond Sheboygan County.

The Ryder Cup is a biennial men’s golf tournament between teams from Europe and the United States, so it will bring more international attention to our region and all it has to offer.

Ticket demand for the Ryder Cup is so significant that golf fans have to register for 48 / BizTimes Milwaukee APRIL 29, 2019

a lottery in hopes of being selected for the opportunity to buy tickets.

Southeastern Wisconsin has hosted numerous championship golf tournaments. Whistling Straits was the site of the PGA Championship in 2004, 2010 and 2015. Blackwolf Run in Kohler hosted the U.S. Women’s Open in 1998 and 2012. Erin Hills in Washington County was the site of the 2017 U.S. Open.

What’s next? The United States Golf Association recently announced that Erin Hills will host the 2025 U.S. Women’s Open and the 2022 U.S. Mid-Amateur. That prompted Chicago Tribune columnist Teddy Greenstein to speculate that the USGA plans to eventually award Erin Hills with another U.S. Open. I hope so.

Kohler Co. wants to build another championship-caliber golf course along Lake Michigan in Sheboygan County. But unfortunately, the project has been delayed by a legal battle over environmental concerns.

Meanwhile, the Milwaukee Bucks remain ambitious about attracting major events to Fiserv Forum. Bucks senior vice president Alex Lasry led Milwaukee’s stunning bid to get the DNC, which will be held at the arena. The Bucks have also made it known they hope to host an NBA All-Star game, perhaps in 2023.

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Molly Lawrence molly.lawrence@biztimes.com ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Maggie Pinnt maggie.pinnt@biztimes.com ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Christie Ubl christie.ubl@biztimes.com SALES INTERN Tess Romans tess.romans@biztimes.com

ADMINISTRATIVE COORDINATOR Sue Herzog sue.herzog@biztimes.com

PRODUCTION & DESIGN

INTERN REPORTER Madison Goldbeck madison.goldbeck@biztimes.com

This photo, taken by James Conklin in about 1937, shows the sun room at Muirdale Tuberculosis Sanatorium in Wauwatosa. Built in 1915, the hospital stopped treating tuberculosis patients in 1970 and closed in 1978. The complex, located at 10437 Innovation Drive, now houses the Technology Innovation Center, part of the Milwaukee County Research Park.

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Paddy Kieckhefer paddy.kieckhefer@biztimes.com

ADMINISTRATION

REPORTER Alex Zank alex.zank@biztimes.com

Muirdale Sanatorium

DIRECTOR OF SALES Linda Crawford linda.crawford@biztimes.com

GRAPHIC DESIGNER Alex Schneider alex.schneider@biztimes.com ART DIRECTOR Shelly Tabor shelly.tabor@biztimes.com

Independent & Locally Owned — Founded 1995 —

Coincidentally, 2023 is also the year that Harley-Davidson Inc. presumably would hold its next big reunion bash, its 120th, in Milwaukee. The 115th, held last year, attracted about 150,000 motorcyclists to the region, making an estimated economic impact of $95 million.

And don’t forget the many big events held annually in Milwaukee, including Summerfest, the Wisconsin State Fair and Northwestern Mutual’s Annual Meeting of the Association of Agents. Usually held in July, the Northwestern Mutual event for 2020 was pushed back to August to accommodate the DNC. It brings 12,000 people to Milwaukee each year.

With so much success attracting and hosting major events, local leaders need to keep thinking about ways to bring in even more.

Hopefully, that sparks discussion to finally move forward with long-delayed plans to expand the Wisconsin Center downtown. n

ANDREW WEILAND EDITOR

P / 414-336-7120 E / andrew.weiland@biztimes.com T / @AndrewWeiland

AROUND TOWN

BizTimes M&A Forum BizTimes Media recently held its annual M&A Forum at The Pfister Hotel in downtown Milwaukee. The event featured a keynote address by Cynthia LaConte, chief executive officer of The Dohmen Co., and panel discussions focused on buying and selling businesses.

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MIKE JOHNSON, JUSTIN BROUCHOUD and STEVE RODBERG, all of Associated Bank.

2.

PETE ENSCH of Mendota Group, TAMMY HALFMANN of Taureau Group LLC and BOB HARTLINE of Xymox Technologies.

3.

DUSTIN VAN PEURSEM of First Business Bank and CARLOS SAVA of Clarendon Capital Management.

4.

PETER SMITH of Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren s.c., ANDY NARRAI of Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren s.c. and PAUL SACKMANN of Old National Bank.

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PAT BURKE of Burke Capital LLC and MATTHEW DEMET of Spectrum Investment Advisors.

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DAVID ANDERSON and DEBORAH ROESNER, both of BMO Harris Bank.

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ROBYN VAUPEL of Trester Hoist & Equipment and MARK MELZER of Nassco Inc.

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Attendees at the 2019 BizTimes Media M&A Forum.

Photos by Alex Zank and Arthur Thomas

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Vistage Member Excellence Awards reception

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Vistage Worldwide Inc., a peer mentoring organization for leaders of small to mid-sized businesses, recently recognized three of its Wisconsin members as recipients of its Member Excellence Awards during a reception event at the Hyatt Regency Milwaukee. Awards were presented on the eve of the 2019 Wisconsin Vistage Executive Summit.

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MARK BALSOM of The Presser Law Firm and DANIEL SMITH of Vistage.

10. DAN LOICHINGER and MIKE MALLWITZ, both of Vistage.

11. LIZA LECLAIRE of Vistage and KARL FRITCHEN of SafanDarley.

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12. LISA REARDON of OwnersEdge Inc. and JOHN HOWMAN of Vistage.

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13. KAREN RAFN, JEFF RAFN of Northeast Wisconsin Technical College, JEN SWEENEY of Vistage, KITTY HAUCK and PHIL HAUCK of Vistage.

14. JENNIFER SHEEHY of Bank of America Merrill Lynch and AMY HUGHES of Bank of America.

15. JEN SWEENEY and JOE GALVIN, both of Vistage.

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16. MATT MIELKE of Vistage, JOE GEHRKE of Kesslers Diamonds, PHIL HAUCK of Vistage, JEFF RAFN of Northeast Wisconsin Technical College, LISA REARDON of OwnersEdge Inc. and JOHN HOWMAN of Vistage.

Photos by Alex Zank biztimes.com / 49

BizConnections

my TOUGHEST

Challenge

BRION COLLINS Position: Managing director of Delafield office Company: Bronfman E.L. Rothschild L.P.

What it does: Rockville, Maryland-based Bronfman Rothschild is an independent wealth management firm that provides financial planning and advisory services for affluent individuals and families.

Career: Collins previously founded Integrated Financial Solutions LLC, which he later renamed Lake Country Wealth Management. He joined BR in 2015 when it acquired Lake Country. Earlier in his career, he managed a manufacturing operation for Procter & Gamble Co.

THE CHALLENGE “The biggest challenge that we face is how to communicate with C-suite executives, and I can think of one in particular, where we are competing with somebody who has direct access to what we would generally view as the best and the brightest in the financial services industry.”

Collins was seeking ways to differentiate Bronfman and set it apart from the competition, he said. One of his biggest clients is a private corporation that has gone public.

“What sets one apart when they’re a smaller, closely-held corporation without the scale of some of these larger enterprises?”

THE RESOLUTION The key was demonstrating his integrity, both in business ethics and in proving his office could handle the technical aspects of a particular challenge, Collins said.

“On the technical side of the equation, there are a significant number of technical challenges that particularly public companies, C-suite executives, have, which is how do you manage your equity plan,” he said.

He worked to strengthen his office’s background in equity plan administration and knowledge of the tax code, Collins said.

“All of us need to be lifelong learners and there is a certain amount that, of course, we can learn,” he said.

About a month later, Collins had demonstrated he could handle the complexity the client demanded.

JAKE HILL PHOTOGRAPHY

THE TAKEAWAY

50 / BizTimes Milwaukee APRIL 29, 2019

“We have to be courageous in seeking out relationships and opportunities that we might view as just out of arm’s reach because we don’t know what will happen if we seek out those opportunities,” he said.

But, he cautioned, you don’t get invited to these conversations unless you can demonstrate to other professionals that your knowledge of the subject is sound.

“As professionals, we are obligated to make certain that we invest heavily in what it is we do,” Collins said. “We should constantly strive to be the best we can be and we do that through lifelong learning.” n

2020 EDITION

Reserve your space in the 2020 Giving Guide!

MACC FUND, MIDWEST ATHLETES AGAINST CHILDHOOD CANCER, INC.

MISSION The MACC Fund raises funds for research in Wisconsin for childhood cancer and related blood disorders like sickle cell disease and aplastic anemia providing a Gift of Hope Through Research.

A Gift of Hope Through Research

10000 W. Innovation Dr., Suite 135 Milwaukee, WI 53226 (414) 955-5830

Your involvement in this annual publication includes an in-depth

maccfund.org facebook.com/MACCFund @maccfund TOTAL EMPLOYEES: ANNUAL REVENUE:

6 $4,854,837 1976

profile, plus several advertising elements in BizTimes Milwaukee

YEAR ESTABLISHED:

SERVICE AREA Research is supported at The Medical College of Wisconsin, Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, the UW Carbone Cancer Center and Marshfield Clinic.

FUNDING SOURCES

GOALS

FUNDRAISING/EVENTS

The goal of the MACC Fund is to find a cure by providing funding for research. The MACC Fund raises money and benefits from a number of exciting events throughout the course of the year. Please visit www.maccfund.org as well as the MACC Fund Facebook page and the MACC Fund Twitter and Instagram accounts to keep up to date on what the MACC Fund is doing!

The MACC Fund benefits from a number of exciting events throughout the year. Please visit www.maccfund.org and follow the MACC Fund on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES Trek 100 volunteers manage rest stops, help on the routes and serve food to appreciative riders. Milwaukee Brewers Mini Marathon, 5K and 10K volunteers help in a number of ways. Volunteers play key roles soliciting items for events which they stage working with MACC Fund staff. Whatever the volunteer role, it has a common goal of helping the MACC Fund help children.

n Special Events .......................................................... 75% n Memorial Donations ..................................................9% n General Donations ..................................................... 7% n Foundations..................................................................6% n Major Gifts ....................................................................3%

EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP

Scott Falk (Treasurer) ★ Robert W. Baird & Co.

Kevin Steiner (Vice Chair) ★ West Bend Mutual Insurance Company

Junior Bridgeman

Heartland Coca-Cola Bottling Company

Jon McGlocklin (President and Co-Founder) ★ Milwaukee Bucks and MACC Fund

Al Costigan

Costigan Family Foundation

Wm. O. Steinberg (Chair Emeritus) ★ Strategic Leverage Partners Eddie Doucette (Honorary VP and Co-Founder) Doucette Promotions, Inc. Jan Lennon (Secretary) ★ Community Volunteer

70

magazine, BizTimes Nonprofit Weekly enewsletter and BizTimes.com.

The MACC Fund supports research for childhood cancer and related blood disorders like sickle cell disease and aplastic anemia.

Thanks to generous supporters, the MACC Fund has contributed over $63 million to research in Wisconsin benefiting children throughout the world and helping the overall cure rate for childhood cancer to increase from 20% to 80% since the MACC Fund began in 1976, yet children can relapse and have “late effect” issues that require additional research. MACC Fund supported research impacts the treatment of children throughout the state, the nation and the world.

★ DENOTES EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP

Knoebel and Associates

Chair

GIVING OPPORTUNITIES The MACC Fund affords many giving opportunities whether as a volunteer, event participant, sponsor or generous donor.

Donors can remember a loved one or honor a friend with a donation in their name. Donations can be made through company sponsored events corporate or individual giving.

Gifts of securities and insurance as well as planned giving and estate planning are all vehicles that can be part of a Gift of Hope Through Research.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Paul Knoebel (Chairman) ★

Paul Knoebel

Publication Date: November 11, 2019

Paul Griepentrog Godfrey & Kahn, S.C. ★

Greg Klimek

Kenan Advantage Group

T.J. Marini

Wells Fargo Private Bank

Tim Michels

Tammie Miller TKO Miller

Lindsay Schweikert Fiserv

John F. Steinmiller

info@maccfund.org ★ www.maccfund.org Phone: 414.955.5830 ★ Fax: 414.955.6170 10000 W. Innovation Drive, Suite 135 ★ Milwaukee, WI 53226

Milwaukee Bucks

Aldo Madrigrano

Retired, Beer Capitol Distributing

2019 GIVING GUIDE | biztimes.com/giving

Take advantage of the opportunity for your organization to be seen

Michels Corporation

by the Region’s Business and Philanthropic Leaders all year long.

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REINVENTING YOURSELF Choosing a new vision for your future

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You’ll hear about the drive, curiosity and leadership skills they leveraged to choose new roles that have allowed them to continue to grow and have fulfilling careers.

From corporate to entrepreneur to nonprofit, each of the panelists made a conscious decision to change her career path. Listen as they discuss the opportunities, setbacks and lessons learned from changing industries and careers.

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Panelists: Deborah Allen, President & CEO, DNA Network LLC (1) Maggie Fernandes, Software Developer, MacGregor Partners (2) Kathy Thornton-Bias, President & CEO, Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee (3) Julie Waterman, Owner, Indulgence Chocolatiers (4)

Moderator: Molly Dill - Managing editor, BizTimes Milwaukee (5) Price: $45/person or $360/table of 8

Woman Executive of the Year: Mary Lou Young, retired CEO of United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukesha County Sponsor:

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