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PUBLISHER’SLETTER

TO THE THIRD EDITION OF INNOVATE WISCONSIN. In this year’s publication, we’ve chosen to not only highlight innovative businesses and organizations throughout the state, but also provide leaders with insights to help them fuel their own innovative ambitions.

This year’s edition is also different because we’ve put an emphasis on manufacturing, an industry that is central to Wisconsin’s economy and a source of job creation as well. It is also an industry where a strong history in one area can translate to new growth in another market. You’ll see that shine through in Generac’s entry into clean energy, Briggs & Stratton’s development of battery power and the NEW Manufacturing Alliance’s collaborations to bring Industry 4.0 to the northeast part of the state.

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our economy in recent months. When we started planning for this issue, the economy was strong and the future looked bright. Despite the hundreds of deaths, thousands of illnesses and hundreds of thousands of jobs lost in the state, we’ve seen the capacity of Wisconsin companies to rally to help their neighbors and their communities.

In these pages, you’ll find the story of how GE Healthcare ramped up production of ventilators in Madison, how companies helped the state test and trace for the virus’ spread, a collaboration to develop new masks and much more. We also asked these companies to share lessons learned from acting quickly and collaboratively.

We hope you find all these stories inspiring and maybe they’ll help fuel your next innovative breakthrough. Times are tough, but the creativity and resiliency shown by Wisconsin companies in the past few months gives me confidence in a bright future for our state.

While manufacturing is an important part of Wisconsin’s economy, it is just a part. That’s why we also tell the stories of innovation coming from partnerships between business and higher education and those of companies pursuing profitable sustainability.

Enjoy this issue of Innovate Wisconsin: Manufacturing and Beyond.

Finally, Innovate Wisconsin is different this year because of how the coronavirus has reshaped

DAN MEYER Publisher, BizTimes Media INNOVATEWI.COM / 3

INNOVATIONTRENDS TABLEOFCONTENTS

W I S C O N S I N 2 0 2 0

Letter from the publisher.............................3 Letter from the governor.............................6

PARTNERING FOR SUCCESS Industry and higher education partner on data science initiatives.................................8 10 Startups to Watch have ties to higher education....................................................12 Q&A with Mary Bunzel of UWM’s Connected Systems Institute....................16



BEYOND

Mercury Marine sees benefits to sustainable use of aluminum in manufacturing............................................34 Kohler Co.’s trash is WasteLab’s treasure ..................................34

Sendik’s Grind2Energy system reduces company’s carbon footprint......................36

EDITORIAL: 414-336-7120 | andrew.weiland@biztimes.com

Profitability and sustainability can coexist................................................. 38.

CHANGING WITH CORONAVIRUS

REINVENTING YOUR LEGACY

Ramping up GE Healthcare ventilator production was no small task....................42

Johnsonville Sausage finds innovation in venture capital............................................24 Central Office Systems and Exciting Events create kiosk for temperature scans.....................................25 Whether you build, buy or partner, innovation requires the right leadership..........................................26 Northeastern Wisconsin manufacturers tackle Industry 4.0 through collaboration................................28

PRESERVING A BETTER TOMORROW Companies see the economic case for solar power...........................................30

PHONE: 414-277-8181 FAX: 414-277-8191 WEBSITE: www.biztimes.com

With many student internships canceled, The Commons is helping fill the gap........40

Known for internal combustion engines, Briggs & Stratton also betting on batteries................................................22

126 N. Jefferson St., Suite 403, Milwaukee, WI 53202-6120

Wisconsin farm first to meet water standard...........................................36

Keys to strong partnerships between higher education and industry..................18

Generac’s jump into energy storage.........20

VOLUME 26, NUMBER 4 | JUN 15, 2020

EmbedTek develops device contact tracing technology...................... 44 Epic provided project management, software to help state’s COVID-19 response.................................................... 44 Exact Sciences reprogrammed labs to boost state’s COVID-19 testing capacity..........................................45 Potential COVID-19 vaccine being produced at Catalent’s Madison facility......................................... 46 UW-Milwaukee sewage research could better predict coronavirus outbreaks....... 46

CIRCULATION: 414-336-7100 | circulation@biztimes.com ADVERTISING: 414-336-7112 | advertising@biztimes.com REPRINTS: 414-336-7100 | reprints@biztimes.com

PUBLISHER / OWNER Dan Meyer dan.meyer@biztimes.com DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS Mary Ernst mary.ernst@biztimes.com COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT / OWNER Kate Meyer kate.meyer@biztimes.com

EDITORIAL EDITOR Andrew Weiland andrew.weiland@biztimes.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR Lauren Anderson lauren.anderson@biztimes.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR Arthur Thomas arthur.thomas@biztimes.com REPORTER Brandon Anderegg brandon.anderegg@biztimes.com REPORTER Maredithe Meyer maredithe.meyer@biztimes.com REPORTER Alex Zank alex.zank@biztimes.com

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Paddy Kieckhefer paddy.kieckhefer@biztimes.com ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Molly Lawrence molly.lawrence@biztimes.com ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Maggie Pinnt maggie.pinnt@biztimes.com ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Christie Ubl christie.ubl@biztimes.com INSIDE SALES ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Dylan Dobson dylan.dobson@biztimes.com SALES ADMINISTRATOR Meggan Hau meggan.hau@biztimes.com

ADMINISTRATION ADMINISTRATIVE COORDINATOR Sue Herzog sue.herzog@biztimes.com

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

Lessons learned in acting fast...................48

4 / BizTimes Milwaukee – INNOVATE WISCONSIN | JUNE 15, 2020

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

PRODUCTION & DESIGN

Coronavirus has reshaped the labor market and how businesses meet their workforce needs.........................................47 MaskForce leaders share lessons in collaboration..............................................50

SALES & MARKETING

Independent & Locally Owned — Founded 1995 —

BizTimes Milwaukee (ISSN 1095-936X & USPS # 017813) Volume 26, Number 4, June 15, 2020 – June 28, 2020. BizTimes Milwaukee is published bi-weekly, except monthly in January, April, May, July, August 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 2020 by BizTimes Media LLC. All rights reserved.

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INNOVATIONTRENDS FROMTHEGOVERNOR A LETTER FROM

THE GOVERNOR HERE IN WISCONSIN, we are a resilient people. When times get tough, Wisconsinites roll up their sleeves and get to work, together, and the COVID-19 pandemic is no different. Whether it’s protecting public health or rebuilding our economy, Wisconsinites are ready and willing to help, and that includes the folks at the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC).

G OV. TO N Y E V E RS

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, WEDC has been providing critical support to Wisconsin businesses, helping them establish strategies to protect the health and safety of consumers and workers, and connecting business owners with available financial resources. This includes several initiatives designed to help get small businesses back on their feet, including the We’re All In grant program that utilizes federal CARES funding, the Small Business 20/20 grant initiative, and the Ethnic Minority Emergency grant program targeted to minority-owned businesses.

And speaking of small businesses, in order for Wisconsin’s economy to thrive, we must foster a culture that supports entrepreneurship and innovation and invests in the survival of Wisconsin’s main street businesses. That’s why in 2019 I directed WEDC to establish the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Committee to ensure that this vital sector has access to the resources needed to grow and thrive, which will be more important than ever as we work to rebuild main street Wisconsin in the months ahead.

Despite the challenges ahead of us as we tackle the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, Wisconsin continues to attract major biotech investments, including the construction of the first sterile injectables plant built in the US in 30 years with Nexus Pharmaceuticals, and major expansions of such industry giants as Catalent and Fujifilm Cellular Dynamics. This success is a direct result of the strategic, close partnerships between these industries, our University of Wis-

6 / BizTimes Milwaukee – INNOVATE WISCONSIN | JUNE 15, 2020

consin (UW) System and Wisconsin Technical College System, local communities, and the state.

One way the state has continued to build upon these relationships is by making major investments in water technology through the creation of the Freshwater Collaborative which spans all 13 UW System institutions, developing the workforce Wisconsin’s water technology sector needs and solidifying Wisconsin’s leadership in the field.

These partnerships are also critical to the continued cultivation of our manufacturing industry. Manufacturing has played -- and continues to play -- a vital role in our economy. It produces more than $60 billion of annual economic output, but the bottom line is that manufacturing is not only a critical part of Wisconsin’s heritage—it is also a critical part of our state’s future.

Investing in education and training opportunities, as well as our infrastructure and transportation system, are critical steps to supporting and growing our homegrown talent and helping us attract new workers to our state, so we can provide the skilled workforce that manufacturers and many other industries need to be successful in Wisconsin.

We are working to build a Wisconsin that works for everyone by ensuring we have a good quality of life here in Wisconsin and that means strong communities where businesses thrive and where our workers want to live, work, and raise a family. The state must be a leader in supporting small business owners, manufacturers, farmers, and workers in each one of Wisconsin’s 72 counties by connecting the dots to ensure businesses and workers across our state have the opportunity to thrive.

TONY EVERS Governor

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PARTNERINGFORSUCCESS

The Nvidia GPU-accelerated supercomputer in MSOE’s Diercks Hall.

INDUSTRY AND HIGHER EDUCATION

PARTNER ON DATA SCIENCE INITIATIVES

By Lauren Anderson, staff writer WHEN THE Milwaukee School of Engineering opened its new $34 million Dwight and Dian Diercks Computational Science Hall in the fall of 2019, it was intended to not only provide students with hands-on learning opportunities, but to also foster collaboration with area companies.

Both for businesses that already rely on data science to inform their business decisions and those that are newer to exploring its potential, the artificial intelligence hall – equipped with a Nvidia GPU-accelerated supercomputer – invites companies to take advantage of its computing power and student manpower.

8 / BizTimes Milwaukee – INNOVATE WISCONSIN | JUNE 15, 2020

“The massive amount of resources that MSOE is bringing to bear in these areas, it has generated a tremendous amount of interest from a wide variety of constituents,” said Steve Williams, professor and chairperson of MSOE’s Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department. “And I’ve observed that in industry and folks who are monetizing data science, there’s a great deal of variation in the maturity of those organizations. We have established fruitful working relationships with organizations that already have in-house talent that they’re looking to augment with our talent and some of our

hardware resources.”

MSOE’s AI effort is one of several recently-forged partnerships between higher education and industry aimed at advancing data science in the state.

Last year, the American Family Insurance Data Science Institute opened on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus as part of a $20 million commitment from the Madison-based insurance company. The investment included $10 million for research over the next decade and a $10 million endowment to establish the institute at UW’s McArdle Building, with the goal of accelerating studies in various fields, including artificial intelligence, genetics, drug development, material science and business.

Also last year, the Northwestern Mutual Data Science Institute – a nearly $40 million collaboration of the Milwaukee-based life insurance company, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Marquette University – opened on the company’s downtown Milwaukee headquarters.

Tim Whitefish Bay, WI Marketing major

PARTNERINGFORSUCCESS Since launching, the institute has initiated its first three research projects. They are focused on leveraging data science to address inequities in a Milwaukee neighborhood, the opioid crisis and 2020 voter Glenn Fung sentiment.

From offering new insight into societal issues to optimizing business operations, companies are recognizing the competitive advantage of using data science to make decisions, solve problems and create new products. In response, higher education and industry are partnering to prepare a pipeline of workers who are trained to mine for meaning in massive data sets.

In contrast to other science fields, data science has largely evolved out of those partnerships, said Glenn Fung, chief research scientist, AI and machine learning research director at American Family.

“The technology is showing so much promise, so much value in applications,” he said. “It’s one of the first times in the history of science, I think, where there is a modality of science that has been driven by companies and especially by universities.”

While the insurance industry isn’t necessarily associated with pushing the envelope on innovation, it has relied on data-driven decisions for a long time, he said.

“Traditional insurance, it’s been thought of as very conservative,” said Fung, who worked for Siemens and Amazon before joining American Family. “... But insurance actually was one of the first … kinds of models of business that has used data from the beginning … We in insurance had to understand what was the frequency of accidents in order to see what was the best way to provide coverage … It’s actually the foundation of data science.”

But, to remain competitive, it’s important for the company to stay on the forefront of data-driven innovation, Fung said.

Before committing $20 million to UW last year, American Family had invested in multiple research projects at the university. Under the new partnership, the company is now solidifying that partnership by awarding $1 million in research grants annually.

“We wanted to get a process because, before, … I knew professors, I knew the cool things that they were doing and I talked to them and 10 / BizTimes Milwaukee – INNOVATE WISCONSIN | JUNE 15, 2020

we came into these research partnership agreements and they were resulting in interesting stuff for us and also for the professors, but it was kind of an informal process,” Fung said.

The institute recently selected its first round of 10 research projects from a pool of 37 proposals across the university.

One of the projects directly applies to American Family’s work. UW-Madison experts within the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and the UW Space Science and Engineering Center are creating wind-related weather models to more accurately predict natural events like hailstorms, hurricanes, wildfires and tornadoes.

These models could help the company prepare for insurance claims and more quickly mobilize resources and claims adjusters to serve customers, Fung said.

DEVELOPING AN ECOSYSTEM OF INNOVATION MSOE sees its AI initiative as part of a larger ecosystem that’s developing in the region.

“IT (information technology) moved us in the direction of a knowledge-based economy and this is the next phase of evolution of that,” Williams said. “And as we start graduating students with the skill sets … we’re going to see a feedback loop where more and more companies will have some of this talent and they’ll come back to us and we’ll work on more interesting projects that will end up making them more money and the economy will grow from that.”

A core component of MSOE’s computer science program is offering students real-world projects with industry partners. So far, the program has attracted interest from area companies, including those that are just dipping their toes in data science.

“Like any burgeoning industry, there are some companies that have been doing this for a long time and have a plan together and are really interested in the emerging fronts that exist in this space because it’s a very fast-moving area,” said Derek Riley, program director of MSOE’s computer science program. “... And then there are a lot of companies that realize there’s an opportunity here; it’s not uncommon that a company says, ‘Hey, we have a data set. We know there’s potential there. Can your students work on a project?’”

Sometimes, it’s a good fit, and other times, a business’s pitch isn’t conducive to a student project, Riley said. One issue, he said, is the company might not have the infrastructure in place to fully support the project.

“There are a lot of organizations that have the data, they have a problem they really want to solve with the data, but even if we delivered a solution to them, these things are not static systems; they have to be updated and maintained,” Riley said.

Among industry partners that have approached MSOE, Williams said health care organizations tend to be ahead of the manufacturing sector in taking advantage of data.

“If you’re looking at a manufacturing process, where, to put these tools in place, they have to have this huge investment in better sensing capacity and better processing, the investment can be a pretty big barrier to the automation or AI implementation,” he said. “There are always ways to improve things, it’s just that cost-benefit factor that ends up being a barrier for a lot of (companies).”

He added that some manufacturers are also playing catch up to the health care and other industries when it comes to talent development.

Providing talent for industry is MSOE’s goal.

In less than two years since MSOE launched its computer science degree, it has become the second-highest-enrolled degree program at the college.

“Demand for the skill set is understood by the students who are choosing majors,” Riley said. “It’s pretty clear that AI, data science, it’s an in-demand field that’s not going away.”

And for students who want to stay in the area after graduation, there are plenty of career opportunities in data science locally, Riley said.

“Milwaukee and Madison together, they have a huge number of companies looking for people with these skill sets,” he said. “There are really large companies hiring these folks, companies like Northwestern Mutual and Kohl’s, Milwaukee Tool … Epic, Rockwell Automation, but there’s also a surprising number of startup companies, consulting companies and other smaller companies that are getting into this space and have a large demand.”

While COVID-19 has changed the workforce landscape, Riley said he sees companies continuing to invest in future workers.

“Companies are hiring interns as a feeder recruitment pipeline,” Riley said. “They give the students really interesting and exciting problems to try to sell themselves as a future employer. Students are working on really interesting stuff as this kind of recruitment strategy. I think companies are keeping that alive because they see the demand for the skill set is so strong, if they don’t go out there and compete for students now, they’ll miss out.” v

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PARTNERINGFORSUCCESS

Holos provides students with learning experiences using virtual and augmented reality, including this ancient Egypt exhibit.

10 STARTUPS

TO WATCH HAVE TIES TO HIGHER ED

By Brandon Anderegg, staff writer

WHETHER IT BE a faculty member with a patentable concept or an ambitious student with a unique idea, universities help lay the foundation for up-and-coming business owners, fostering their entrepreneurial mindset and building connections with the broader startup ecosystem.

Wisconsin’s startup companies are solving problems in new ways and, for many of them, their innovative horsepower stems from programming and mentorship found at academic research institutions and universities around the state.

BizTimes Milwaukee reached out to area accelerators, professors and venture capitalists to build a list of “10 startups to watch” with ties to Wisconsin’s academic institutions. The list is not exhaustive, but features a mix of both ear12 / BizTimes Milwaukee – INNOVATE WISCONSIN | JUNE 15, 2020

ly-stage and flourishing startups to highlight the critical role universities play in Wisconsin’s burgeoning startup ecosystem.

VASOGNOSIS INC. Milwaukee-based VasoGnosis offers a software as a service platform that automates the diagnosis and analysis of brain aneurysms. VasoGnosis measures the dilation of brain vasculature and analyzes the risk of rupture.

The startup uses deep learning algorithms, allowing the VasoGnosis’s diagnosis and analysis to continuously improve. As a secondary service, VasoGnosis provides “what-if” scenario simulations to neurosurgeons to assist with surgical planning.

VasoGnosis is the product of founder Dr. Ali Bakhshinejad’s research in patient-specific simulation for brain aneurysm surgery. Bakhshinejad relied on his research and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Lubar Entrepreneurship Center programming to launch his startup.

SAFELI LLC SafeLi LLC is a UW-Milwaukee-incubated startup founded by physics professors Carol

Hirschmugl and Marija Gajdardziska-Josifovska.

Through their research, the duo discovered a graphene-based material capable of disrupting the lithium-ion battery market.

With its patented material, SafeLi can boost the storage capacity of li-ion batteries that exceeds current graphite-based li-ion batteries on the market.

SafeLi was incubated at the Milwaukee I-Corps program, a partnership of five area universities that allows academic participants to explore commercializing their research ideas.

Milwaukee I-Corps is administered by UWM and funded by the National Science Foundation.

The Shorewood-based startup recently received a $1 million federal grant to further commercialize their discovery.

NOVOMOTO Based in Madison, NovoMoto is a for-profit social enterprise that implements clean electricity systems in villages in sub-Saharan Africa. The company developed rent-to-own electrical systems with plans to bring their product into other remote locations around the world.

NovoMoto recently earned $10,000 in the

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PARTNERINGFORSUCCESS third episode of “Project Pitch It” season 4 on WISN-TV Channel 12. The startup was also the winner of the 2018 Governor’s Business Plan Contest, taking home a cash prize of $190,000.

NovoMoto was founded by Aaron Olson and Mehrdad Arjmand. Olson has a doctorate from UW-Madison’s Fusion Technology Institute as a NASA Space Technology Research Fellow. Arjmand has a doctorate from UW-Madison’s Materials Research Science and Engineering Center in the field of semiconductor thin films.

HOLOS Holos is a Madison-based startup that leverages developmental software and virtual reality to provide teachers and students with immersive learning experiences.

The startup is focused on the K-12 and defense markets, applying their virtual and augmented reality platform to classrooms and the U.S. Air Force.

The company was founded by UW-Madison graduates Dan Borkus and Tyler Waite. Holos was incubated in UW-Madison’s HyperX program, a multi-disciplinary, student-run organization for hands-on experience with new technologies and innovation.

GENOPALATE INC. Milwaukee-based genomic testing startup GenoPalate Inc. provides personalized nutrition recommendations based on DNA analysis. The startup’s team, which includes bioinformatic scientists, dieticians and analysts, uses that information to profile 38 biomarkers to provide actionable data for the customer, such as caffeine sensitivity or lactose intolerance.

Chief executive officer Sherry Zhang, who has a doctorate in molecular biology and was formerly an assistant professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin, founded GenoPalate in 2016.

GenoPalate recently raised $1 million in funding and moved its headquarters to the Technology Innovation Center at the Milwaukee County Research Park in Wauwatosa. The startup was also a member of gener8tor’s 2017 Milwaukee accelerator program.

PYRAN LLC Pyran is a UW-Madison spinoff that developed a renewable process to manufacture 1,5-pentanediol, a key chemical used to make paints and plastics. The startup’s patented process uses renewable wood and crop waste resources to make 1,5-pentanediol at lower prices than competing oil-based products.

Pyran’s technology was developed over the 14 / BizTimes Milwaukee – INNOVATE WISCONSIN | JUNE 15, 2020

course of three years at UW-Madison under the supervision of professor George Huber as part of a $3.3 million U.S. Department of Energy grant.

The startup was formally established in 2017 as part of gener8tor’s gBETA program. In 2019, Pyran received $120,000 from an angel investor group. It has also received a total of $675,000 in funding from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. and the Small Business Innovation Research program since its inception.

ELEKTRIFI Elektrifi is a UW-Madison spinoff and student-led startup developing microgrid solutions for energy resilience and rural electrification applications. The company develops small-scale microgrids for infrastructure to reduce outages during disasters and man-made events.

Elektrifi was founded by Ashray Manur, a UW-Madison PhD student in the electrical and computer engineering department. Manur is studying how to improve microgrid stability via “smart” microgrids, which integrate communication and computing systems with traditional electricity infrastructure.

Last year, the early-stage startup was accepted into the Midwest Energy Research Consortium WERCBench Labs Accelerator program.

PROMENTIS PHARMACEUTICALS, INC. Milwaukee-based Promentis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company developing innovative therapies for neuropsychiatric disorders.

Promentis’ lead compound, SXC-2023, is used to address glutamatergic imbalance and oxidative stress – two factors that exacerbate trichotillomania.

The lead compound also has the potential to treat a wide range of adult impulse control diseases, including obsessive compulsive disorder and substance-related and addictive disorders.

The startup was founded in 2007 by David Baker, Marquette University professor and associate chair of the biomedical sciences department, and John Mantsch, associate professor and chair of the biomedical sciences department.

The company recently raised $2.5 million in funding for the continued research of a cure for trichotillomania. Promentis has now raised more than $26 million through investor funding since its Phase 1 clinical trial in December of 2018.

PREXO Prexo is a UW-Oshkosh-incubated early-stage startup that developed a mobile app to keep track of political events. The app allows

NovoMoto supplies and installs rent-to-own electrical systems in remote locations, including villages in sub-Saharan Africa.

people to stay current on changes in politics by sending users notifications when the president signs executive orders, for example.

Prexo was founded by UW-Oshkosh students Abbie Merrill and Ian McDonald. Last year, the startup won a $50,000 cash prize through the annual Culver’s Business Model Competition, which was hosted by the Alta Resources Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at UW-Oshkosh.

Merrill and McDonald recently completed the accelerator program at UW-Oshkosh and have been accepted into the university’s summer accelerator program. Prexo was also accepted into the Ideadvance Seed Fund, a program funded by the UW System and the WEDC. RENT COLLEGE PADS Rent College Pads developed an online platform to help students find off-campus housing.

In 2013, chief executive officer Dominic Anzalone founded Rent College Pads in an entrepreneurship class as a college student at UW-Whitewater. One of the company’s first partnerships was with Marquette University.

In 2019, Rent College pads expanded its market reach by 50%, adding 35 colleges to its website and mobile app, for a total of 106 universities across the U.S. The startup recently partnered with more universities, adding the Milwaukee School of Engineering and UW-Milwaukee to its roster.

For students, that means searching for housing on a university-branded website but using Rent College Pad’s platform and database. v

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LEADERS IN INNOVATION

PARTNERINGFORSUCCESS Mary Bunzel

THE UNIVERSITY of Wisconsin-Milwaukee established its Connected Systems Institute in 2017 as a higher education-industry consortium with the goal of helping area manufacturers take advantage of Industrial Internet of Things technology. It launched with the help of a $1.7 million donation from Rockwell Automation, and in 2019 received a $1.5 million gift from Microsoft Corp.

Mary Bunzel recently joined the CSI as its executive director. A Wisconsin native and Marquette University alum, Bunzel has spent more than 30 years in asset management, most recently at Intel and IBM, where she managed global teams responsible for advancing the adoption of IoT. BizTimes Milwaukee associate editor Lauren Andrson recently caught up with Bunzel about her new role.

MARY BUNZEL

OF UWM’S CONNECTED SYSTEMS INSTITUTE

WHAT DREW YOU TO THE CSI? “I was planning to retire in another year or so, but then I learned about this role at the CSI. It really spoke to my heart because it was coming home to Milwaukee and working in a really important place – that translation between academia and what manufacturing needs. Not only that, but we’re setting up a test bed, a piece of equipment that’s designed to be able to train students on all those things that I was teaching and learning with IBM and Intel.”

“You can imagine, working in the kind of roles that I have for the amount of time that I have, I’m kind of considered the grandmother of asset management in manufacturing. ... We have an active network connection so I’m able to call on (industry connections) to help me. And they’re very interested in helping because it’s an important mission to help create the workforce of the future and accelerate the adoption of IoT in small and medium (sized) businesses. Everybody wants to get behind that.”

IT’S BEEN THREE YEARS SINCE THE CSI WAS FOUNDED. WHAT’S HAPPENED SINCE THEN? “When the chancellor first came together with Satya Nadella (CEO of Microsoft) and Blake Moret (CEO of Rockwell) and came up with this idea to create the CSI, they got their teams involved, which is really a fantastic blending of all the resources necessary to bring the CSI to fruition. There was the business plan writing, the mapping of the test bed requirements and facility requirements to that plan, and then facility construction occurred and lots of engineering has taken place on the building of the facility and the equipment that’s going to go in there.

16 / BizTimes Milwaukee – INNOVATE WISCONSIN | JUNE 15, 2020

“Manufacturing isn’t like your father’s manufacturing anymore. It’s cool.”

— Mary Bunzel

It’s a compact piece of equipment, but we’re going to be able to train on so many things – supply chain track and trace, machine vision and artificial intelligence on four different kinds of robots. … Next door (there will be) a digital twin lab, where students will be able to go in and learn about mechatronic connections to PLCs in a simulated environment and create programs in that simulated digital twin environment and then port the program over to the production line where they’ll be able to see it running in real time on the line.”

HOW WILL COVID-19 AFFECT THE CSI’S WORK? “It’s very much a challenge and lots of people have lost their jobs from the service industry and some of those jobs won’t come back. So how do we help those people? We can provide training. We can provide training on OT security, on machine learning and AI. And some of the professors that are teaching these courses are from companies that need people to do the implementation of this work … Manufacturing isn’t like your father’s manufacturing anymore.

It’s cool. There’s widgets and gadgets and programming and robots and computers. It’s cool to work in manufacturing and unlimited opportunities for anyone who wants to step into it.”

HOW IS MILWAUKEE’S MANUFACTURING SECTOR DOING IN TERMS OF ADOPTING IOT? “I think there are pockets of real innovation, amazing innovation. There are some very large enterprises that are leveraging IoT, but it’s not to the extent that I feel we have the potential for. I think there are still several business leaders who could take advantage of innovation but are holding back.” v

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INNOVATEWI.COM / 17

PARTNERINGFORSUCCESS

KEYS TO STRONG PARTNERSHIPS

BETWEEN HIGHER EDUCATION AND INDUSTRY

By Brandon Anderegg, staff writer COMPANIES around the state are expanding the ideation process beyond corporate walls, pitching partnership value to local universities, and forging long-term relationships in the process.

Johnsonville Sausage is one of many companies seeing value in seeking out the fresh perspectives of the next generation of leaders by collaborating with the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Kevin Ladwig, president of Johnsonville’s corporate venture firm MSAB Capital, LLC, calls it “brain sharing.”

“It’s quite valuable to get other people thinking hard about your business,” Ladwig said.

“Spend some time getting your company in front of students and organizations to up your visibility and awareness.”

Companies will typically mine for innovative ideas in the same places, engaging mature companies, suppliers, vendors or attending trade shows, for example. While these watering holes still offer value, accessing the knowledge base of a university could bring new capabilities to a business, Ladwig said.

“The ideas you get from those two places are quite different,” Ladwig said. “You’re not going 18 / BizTimes Milwaukee – INNOVATE WISCONSIN | JUNE 15, 2020

to hear about the startup idea that could be disruptive, or critical to your core business to grow in a new market or be more productive in your operation.”

Johnsonville has engaged with UW-Madison’s food sciences and biomedical engineering departments. A big part of Ladwig’s role at Johnsonville is surveying the company’s leadership team for challenges, and at times, conveying that data to university faculty.

“You begin getting these responses and ideas back that help build your capabilities,” Ladwig said. “You’d be surprised how many professors call up and say, ‘Hey, I thought about your challenge, what do you think if we did this?’”

Through collaboration with universities, Johnsonville has discovered novel ways to utilize raw materials or byproducts from its manufacturing processes. New opportunities may not always be apparent to businesses, but universities, professors, and students are well-equipped problem-solvers, Ladwig added.

“A lot of times this leads to sponsored research where we get a little smarter about the material and maybe its chemical composition

or material science,” Ladwig said. “That’s quite useful because you can patent that or maybe it’s intellectual property you can hold onto or co-own with universities.”

The UW-Green Bay Austin E. Cofrin School Dianne Murphy of Business is finding similar success fostering relationships with businesses in the region.

The business school’s assistant professor of management, Dianne Murphy, has spent her tenure at the university converting these partnerships into symbiotic relationships.

One of Murphy’s courses focuses on organizational behavior, which includes motivation, leadership and team building. In a semester-long consultancy project, students visit local businesses and conduct surveys or interviews to discover new opportunities, Murphy said.

“They would maybe study a turnover problem and then look at the theories, motivation and try to apply that theory to that situation to identify and problem solve,” Murphy said.

Students are supplied with deep learning experiences, making them a more effective employee in the workforce, she said. Businesses walk away with the benefit of new perspectives and perhaps solutions to internal challenges.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, unemployment was low in Wisconsin, leading to high competition for skilled labor. Through university and industry collaboration, businesses gained access to a pool of prospective employees.

While the employment landscape has changed in recent months, a factor that remains unchanged is that businesses will continue to look for the best and the brightest, Murphy said.

“The goal is to have mutual benefits when you build these partnerships,” Murphy said. “The company gets to preview our students first-hand.

So, whether it’s the internship, the tours, the team consulting project, they’re able to see those students and see them in action.”

But when it comes to building relationships, it’s more than just a phone call, Murphy said.

The process of building partnerships starts with meeting professors in a particular subject, finding common interests and expanding that relationship into an internship or even a special research project for a student, Ladwig said.

“Universities, professors, faculty, I think they’re problem solvers, that’s what they do,” Ladwig said. “You want to supply them with problems and have an open-door policy.” v

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LEADERS IN INNOVATION

REINVENTINGYOURLEGACY

The PWRcell system shown in a garage

AARON JAGDFELD ON

GENERAC’S JUMP INTO ENERGY STORAGE

By Arthur Thomas, staff writer WHEN WAUKESHA-BASED Generac Holdings Inc. in late 2019 launched PWRcell and PWRview – a clean energy system that includes batteries, an inverter, power electronic controls, and energy monitoring hardware and software – it was years in the making.

The company long had at least a passing interest in batteries and energy storage technology. While the company’s main product, a home standby generator, relies on an internal combustion engine to provide backup power, Generac chairman, president and chief executive officer Aaron Jagdfeld said it is also important to stay on top of other technologies.

A few years ago, Generac’s interest started to get more serious. The company’s engineers began working with different products in labs and exploring how batteries interacted with different power sources like solar, geothermal and even gas generators.

Jagdfeld said Generac could see that battery technology would be good for storing power, but it didn’t necessarily apply to the company’s main market, backup power.

“If you get a power outage that lasts anything more than four to eight hours … you really can’t, at least cost effectively, you can’t use batteries to protect your home or your business at

20 / BizTimes Milwaukee – INNOVATE WISCONSIN | JUNE 15, 2020

this stage of the game,” Jagdfeld said.

The company did, however, see a chance to pair batteries with other power sources, like solar, to make clean energy options more cost effective.

“Our look at batteries really turned up another market opportunity,” Jagdfeld said.

Initially, Generac planned to build a new business around that opportunity internally. Jagdfeld said the company had a product in mind, plans on the drawing board and was about a year into its efforts when executives noticed a shift.

“We saw some signs in the marketplace around the acceleration of the adoption of storage systems alongside solar,” Jagfeld said, explaining that as more consumers adopted solar, utilities couldn’t afford to pay for the additional energy at retail rates and began paying wholesale rates instead. The shift took what might have been a 10-year payback and stretched it out to 20 or 30 years.

“It changed the economics almost overnight

in some cases because of the decisions utilities made,” Jagdfeld said.

Batteries and energy storage, however, allowed homeowners to swing the economics back in their favor. With the Aaron Jagdfeld market shifting, Generac executives felt they could accelerate their entry into energy storage through acquisition instead of building an offering organically.

Jagdfeld said the market is still small and is mostly filled with startups, plus a few established companies like Tesla.

“Obviously we’re not going to buy Tesla, so we set out to look for a startup that had the kind of technology we felt was befitting of where the market was going,” he said. “Really, we chose (the M&A path) simply for speed. Especially in a market like that that is quickly developing, the cost of speed or the cost of the lack of speed can be huge one way or the other, so we made a pretty big bet.”

In the spring of 2019, the company spent more than $108 million on two acquisitions. The first was Vancouver-based Neurio Technology Inc., which offered metering technology and analytics to optimize energy use in a home or business. The second was Maine-based Pika Energy Inc., which designed and manufactured battery storage technology along with software and controls for energy storage and management.

“It was a solid system,” Jagdfeld said of the Pika offering. “It was high-cost, but we thought we could help with that with some of our sourcing and manufacturing capabilities.”

It wasn’t just manufacturing capabilities that Generac added to the Pika offering. While the company needed to add capabilities in battery technology, it already had expertise in electrical products, understanding electrical codes and working with a product that ties into a home’s electrical system.

“It’s definitely, I don’t want to say an easy putt, but we’re not trying to sink a 50-footer here,” Jagdfeld said.

Beyond the manufacturing capability and technical familiarity, the more important asset Generac brought to its new business was more than two decades of experience with its home standby generators.

When Generac started with home standbys, there was no market. The company had to not biztimes.com

only educate consumers on what the offering was, but also build its brand and establish a distribution network.

“In effect, we had to make a market,” Jagdfeld said. “We saw energy storage as a proxy for the same kind of thing.”

He pointed out that innovation does not need to be restricted to only creating new products.

“Real, pure, new innovation, novel innovation, is rare. People have been working on solving pain points for customers with different products for a long time now and so everything you see is a bit incremental in terms of the product level,” Jagdfeld said.

The go-to-market process Generac used was more than simply having the best home standby offering.

“We weren’t going to be able to sell them if people didn’t understand what they were or how to acquire the system or if it was such a burdensome project that they just would give up,” Jagdfeld said.

In addition to replicating its success in home standby, Jagdfeld said there also are opportunities to bring its existing manufacturing scale to the new energy storage offering.

“When we acquired those companies, the supply chains they had acquired early on, these were small, kind of local suppliers … really not very well developed and so what we’ve had to do in these two instances is essentially re-source much of the component supply for the product those two companies were making as we put it together into the new Generac PWRcell,” Jagdfeld said.

He noted the company has existing suppliers for things like power electronics and printed circuit boards.

“The last thing you want to do is work with a partner and then two or three years into it figure out, boy, this is not the right partner for us,” he said.

Jagdfeld added it is important to have suppliers who lean forward into innovation while also hitting cost targets and delivery metrics.

“You want to make sure that you’re partnered with somebody who is thinking about the future,” he said, adding the best suppliers help companies make improvements to the design or to save money or improve quality. “Those are the kinds of supply relationships we want.”

Jagdfeld said Generac has no designs on converting raw materials into battery cells, but he could see the company eventually moving to make the battery packs itself.

“I think in the next year or two, our attention from a manufacturing standpoint is going to

“... we chose (the M&A path) simply for speed. Especially in a market like that that is quickly developing, the cost of speed or the cost of the lack of speed can be huge one way or the other, so we made a pretty big bet.”

— Aaron Jagdfeld, Generac Holdings Inc.

shift,” he said, adding the company has started exploring what production equipment would be needed. “We’re comfortable with that because if you were to look at the way they get manufactured, it’s a lot of the same type of automated manufacturing equipment that we’re used to on our production lines today.”

Incorporating a new and growing product line into an existing business requires a balancing act, Jagdfeld acknowledged. It starts with more reliance on contract manufacturers. While some items, like sheet metal fabrication, are in the company’s wheelhouse, adding battery pack production might take a little longer and require higher product volumes.

“You just kind of grow it and you’ve got to be smart about when you make the decision points,” Jagdfeld said.

Even if the company reaches a point of bringing more production in-house, it will take time to fully integrate it into production.

“We’ll want to make sure we segregate it appropriately from the rest of our operations. It will probably need a lot more care and feeding, as we refer to it, as it ramps,” he said. v INNOVATEWI.COM / 21

REINVENTINGYOURLEGACY

An example of Briggs & Stratton’s Vanguard lithium ion batteries.

KNOWN FOR INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINES,

BRIGGS & STRATTON IS ALSO BETTING ON BATTERIES

By Arthur Thomas, staff writer AFTER INTRODUCING its Vanguard commercial battery system last fall, Wauwatosa-based Briggs & Stratton Corp. expects the new product line to generate $30 million in revenue in its next fiscal year and potentially 10% of sales by fiscal 2023.

As Briggs works to refocus its portfolio, the 2023 target would represent more than $100 million in battery revenue for a company historically known for making internal combustion engines.

“There’s no doubt we’ll be a different company from where we’ve been over the last two decades. However, in a sense, we’ll be embracing our roots as a focused power application company,” Todd Teske, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Briggs & Stratton, said during a call with analysts in early March.

In addition to the battery strategy, Briggs & Stratton announced a plan to refocus the company on growing its commercial engine and standby power businesses while improving the profitability of its traditional residential engine line. In the process, Briggs will exit most of its products business and is actively looking to sell its U.S.-based turf care business and power washer and portable generator lines.

The commercial engine, standby power 22 / BizTimes Milwaukee – INNOVATE WISCONSIN | JUNE 15, 2020

and residential plans all seem like natural shifts within Briggs’ traditional business, but executives said the battery strategy is also an extension of the company’s expertise.

“We understand the parameters, characteristics and algorithms around the most efficient use of power in a piece of equipment with the best user experience,” Teske said.

Teske pointed to applications like cutting grass, in which understanding how much power is needed from a lawnmower engine requires understanding how different types of terrain, turf and conditions will alter the equipment’s performance.

“We understand these types of variables and are the best in the world at solving for these variables in the power range in which we play,” he said.

The company has already announced an agreement with Ontario-based Argo to power its extreme terrain electric unmanned ground vehicles and another deal with Georgia-based Club Car. Briggs says there is a $12 billion addressable market for batteries to be used in commercial turf, government and municipal vehicles, construction and outdoor power equipment, with adoption of the technology varying by

segment.

The company also believes it is uniquely positioned to serve those markets, arguing that large battery cell manufacturers and other battery pack providers lack the application knowledge to compete. New entrants don’t have the customer relationships that Briggs has built up over time and OEM customers lack the scale internally to develop their own products.

The product itself is a lithium ion battery with configurations that span from 1kWh to 40kWh. Jeff Zeiler, vice president of innovation at Briggs, said the company has incorporated a modular design to the battery pack that allows it to be customized and fine-tuned for specific customer applications.

“Our strategic focus from the beginning has been on making a battery system that can be applied across many industries and applications,” Zeiler said, noting that battery packs for power tools and walk-behind mowers are too small for the applications Briggs is targeting while batteries used in electric automobiles are too big.

Briggs has been investing in the development of the battery technology over the past several years, adding around 60 battery-oriented jobs in the Milwaukee area since 2018.

As a result, Teske said the new strategy doesn’t require significant additional investment in research and development going forward. Instead, the battery line should be a boost to the margins of Briggs’ remaining engine business.

Investing in manufacturing capacity for the battery business is also less expensive. Teske said a traditional internal combustion engine plant would be 250,000 to 300,000 square feet and require upwards of an $80 million capital investment.

The battery plant in Tucker, Georgia that Briggs announced in March is 78,000 square feet and will require less than $10 million in capital expenditures.

“Ultimately, as we scale the business, we will need to make incremental investments, but again, those investments are substantially smaller than we would have traditionally done,” Teske said.

He added that Briggs likely won’t have large facilities for the business, in part because transportation costs for the battery packs can be expensive.

“What we’ll do is have the opportunity to have more distributed plants, closer to the center of where these applications would be produced, which then further drives down costs,” Teske said. v

P R O U D LY P R E S E N T S

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Innovate Wisconsin highlights how the state’s industries are changing and offers readers ideas to propel their own companies to greater heights.

PUBLICATION INCLUDES (PARTIAL LIST): • Companies/People/Projects to Watch • Best practices and operational insights • Partnering for Success: How companies and higher education are working together to do more than they could on their own, plus keys to a successful partnership • Company transformations: utilizing a strong foundation and new thinking to grow a business.

• Companies leveraging sustainability for environmental good and sales and profit • Workforce creativity: Finding the employees who will take you to the next level

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REINVENTINGYOURLEGACY

Johnsonville Sausage headquarters in Sheboygan County.

JOHNSONVILLE SAUSAGE FINDS INNOVATION IN VENTURE CAPITAL

By Brandon Anderegg, staff writer

AFTER 75 YEARS, Johnsonville Sausage continues to evolve, refining its brand while keeping tabs on industry disruptors through its growing involvement in venture capital.

In a little more than two years, the sausage manufacturer’s parent company, Johnsonville Holdings, created three corporate venture funds. Although each of the three funds has a separate thesis, each one aims to keep the family-owned company relevant in the industry’s changing environment.

Johnsonville started its first corporate venture fund, MSAB Capital, LLC, in 2018. The company was looking for new ways to keep Johnsonville Sausage competitive, said Kevin Ladwig, MSAB Capital president.

“That was really the impetus for us to start looking at corporate venturing and really using our proceeds in different ways, rather than the tried-and-true way,” Ladwig said.

Ladwig, who has been with Johnsonville for over 30 years, engages with company leadership to find challenges and soft spots within the company.

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to then go into the outside world and begin looking for possible solutions to help Johnsonville,” he said.

MSAB Capital was created to not only invest in early-stage companies, but also to build partnerships in the life sciences space.

In a studio model, MSAB Capital supports small businesses, using its own expertise to accelerate a startup’s product to use it in-house with the goal of commercialization.

“We perfect the technology and once we’ve done that, we use that application within Johnsonville,” Ladwig said.

Johnsonville Ventures, the company’s second venture fund, focuses on making investments in the food and beverage space.

In April, Johnsonville created its third corporate venture fund, which Ladwig describes as more of an “agnostic fund,” or a vehicle to invest in areas that seem compelling but don’t necessarily have to do with Johnsonville’s operations.

Between its three venture funds, Johnsonville has invested in 12 separate companies. The size of each venture fund as well as the dollar amount of each investment made was not disclosed. v

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The pyrexia scanner kiosk developed by Central Office Systems and Exciting Events Inc.

CENTRAL OFFICE SYSTEMS AND EXCITING EVENTS CREATE KIOSK FOR TEMPERATURE SCANS

By Andrew Weiland, staff writer

PEWAUKEE-BASED Central Office Systems is known by many of its customers as a provider of printing and copying machines. But since its 2018 acquisition of Attivo Technologies, the company has evolved into more of an IT company.

Central Office Systems recently partnered with New Berlin-based Exciting Events Inc. to create a new IT product, a pyrexia scanner kiosk that can scan people’s faces, with the ability to quickly identify them and determine their temperature.

As businesses develop protocols to safely bring employees into the workplace while the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic continues, Central Office Systems principal Art Flater said he wanted to have temperature scanning devices in stock to offer its customers.

The company looked for hand-held temperature scanners that users point and “shoot” at subjects to determine their temperature. But their accuracy was poor.

“We shot it at the employees and we would get a different reading every time and it would be off like a degree and a half, two degrees at a time,” said Todd Scheel, president and CEO of Exciting Events.

One to two degrees can be the difference between an employee being determined to be healthy enough to work or being considered sick and having to go home.

Eventually Central Office Systems found a German technology that could do facial recognition scans and determine temperature within 0.3 degrees, in just seconds.

“So, at that point we said, ‘Let’s say we got one, what would we even do with it?’ It’s no good unless the person is standing in the right spot, and they understand the instructions,” Flater said. “We need a whole kiosk.”

Central Office Systems tapped into its long-established relationship with Exciting Events, which created the kiosk for the pyrexia scanner.

Exciting Events makes the kiosk stand, its graphics and assembles the electronic components for the system. Central Office Systems provides IT support.

The scans can also be used in lieu of an ID badge to enter a facility and the system could be set up to require healthy temperature scans to gain entry. The system costs $5,000 with installation. v

Great ideas can come from anywhere.

And out of nowhere.

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3/11/19 9:47/ AM INNOVATEWI.COM 25

REINVENTINGYOURLEGACY

WHETHER YOU BUILD, BUY OR PARTNER,

INNOVATION REQUIRES THE RIGHT LEADERSHIP

By Arthur Thomas, staff writer COMPANIES DO NOT magically transform.

They do not go from lagging behind in technology and products to disrupting an industry with innovation overnight. It takes time.

Business leaders also face a variety of choices as they pursue a new identity for their company. Should the business build a new capability internally? Will an acquisition at the right time alter the company’s path? Can an outside partner provide a boost where internal efforts fall short?

The answers to questions like these often depend on the specific situation.

“It’s kind of cliché, but it all really starts with a plan and what a company is looking to address,” said Lee House, a partner in the technology practice at Illinois-based Sikich LLP. House said what a company is looking to accomplish could include revenue growth, 26 / BizTimes Milwaukee – INNOVATE WISCONSIN | JUNE 15, 2020

diversification, cutting expenses, an improved customer experience or a positive impact on employee lives.

“Obviously, with technology, you can do a lot of different things,” he added. “You can do something that’s really, really small that can have a major impact on a business.”

Chuck Swoboda, innovator-in-residence at Marquette University, says a company and its leaders need to be willing to change internally to have success through innovation.

“In my experience, to be successful with innovation, a company has to have a reason it needs to innovate,” said Swoboda, who was chief executive officer of Durham, North Carolina-based Cree Inc. from 2001 to 2017. “There has to be some compelling problem that’s motivating them to feel like they’re prepared to disrupt their current business to get some-

where new. That’s the challenge.”

Swoboda also draws a distinction between invention, creating something new, and innovation, creating something new that not only solves a problem, but also creates value.

“Frankly, in my experience over the years at Cree, the hard part was convincing people to embrace the new idea, not coming up with the idea itself,” he said. “It starts with perspective. Most of us think about our idea and look outwards. I think the great innovators see problems and work backwards.”

Creating a culture that embraces innovation isn’t as simple as putting inspiring words on the wall or in a mission statement. It requires reinforcing behavior that allows people to take some risks and make mistakes along the way.

“That’s very tough in most organizations because most businesses reward people that are good at doing what you do today and yet innovation is being good at doing something you don’t do today,” Swoboda said. “You can see how the two are inherently in conflict.”

House said projects often go sideways because companies “try to build their dream house day one.”

“What happens there is, projects will go longer than they really need to a lot of times,

their business will evolve during the project, all the employees that are going to be using the system will go, ‘Well, golly, this project has lasted forever, how hard is this system going to be to use?’”

Lee House House said.

Even with the right mindset, a company is left with the decision of how to execute on innovative ideas. Build capabilities internally? Make an acquisition?

Find a partner?

Swoboda said he favors building internally over looking to an external partner.

“At some point you’ve got to get some internal champions to make this happen,” he said.

“You can’t just say, ‘We’re going to innovate’ and put it in the machine. It doesn’t work that way.”

House pointed out that it can be useful to have a guide the first time a company tackles a new challenge.

“I think so much of it just depends on, again, a company’s awareness of who they are, what their skillset is, (and) the timeliness associated with addressing the goals and aspirations,” he said.

Finding internal champions requires looking in the right places.

“You have to put people on the team that have a mindset that’s biased to this innovative behavior. In some companies, they might exist,” Swoboda said, suggesting it is best to look “on the edges of the distribution.”

“I would look at the employees that are not as good at what you currently do,” he said.

“If you think about how you do performance management, you reward a set of behaviors for all the things you try to do today.”

Swoboda said high performers who are frustrated with the current system or even those at the other end who seem to be always fighting the current approach are often good candidates. Companies might also need to change how they hire to promote innovation.

“I wanted people that were unafraid of failure. I wanted people that were very comfortable with uncertainty and I wanted people that were willing to take ownership for things that they couldn’t actually control,” Swoboda said.

Of course, an acquisition has the potential to transform the makeup of an organization with the stroke of a pen.

“What gets hard is it is impossible to really biztimes.com

quantify the value of a going concern,” said Ann Hanna, managing director and owner of Taureau Group, a Milwaukee-based investment bank.

She said the cost of buying real estate, building a plant or Chuck Swoboda hiring people can be easily quantified.

“To have immediate cash flow, to have immediate customers, to have a brand, to have a reputation, those are all things that are super hard to quantify,” she said.

Hanna also said the COVID-19 coronavirus may have created opportunities for companies to acquire innovative businesses in need of capital.

“Depending on what you believe is going to happen in the future, if you are willing to start your growth strategy now … if you’re willing to act boldly and be the first one at the table on some of these companies, you may come out of this with an accelerated growth opportunity,” she said.

Of course, acquiring a company and not losing what made it attractive are two separate matters.

Swoboda said that without any action, an acquiring company’s culture will eventually take over and even if a leader hopes to blend the two company cultures, the innovative aspects will likely be lost.

“If you want it to remain innovative, it will have to operate with a different culture than the one you have today,” Swoboda said. “This idea you’re going to marry the two and end up with some happy medium, usually the person with the biggest budget wins and in a traditional company, the people that have been there the longest end up being in charge and if they weren’t innovative before the acquisition, they’re not going to be innovative after the acquisition.”

Tapping into the potential of an acquired innovative company requires a balancing act.

An acquiring company with great brands and sales channels might be able to use its existing relationships to sell an innovative product. At the same time, an innovative company may go to market in a different way.

“If you’re not careful, you think you’re helping them by giving them all this expertise and really what you’re doing is you’re killing what makes them unique,” Swoboda said. “It’s

their ability to serve the customer in a different way that is typically half the innovation value.”

At Cree, Swoboda said his goal was to use the company’s manufacturing and back office expertise Ann Hanna to help acquired business while leaving the newly acquired company to determine what products to pursue or how to interact with customers.

“What we were trying to do is take what the new company brought and inject those ideas in the old way of doing things, not the other way around,” he said.

The potential to erode the acquired company’s culture can come from innocuous sources, Swoboda said. A chief financial officer might want the new company to change a process to line up with the rest of the business, but that change could indirectly alter something that makes the acquired company innovative.

In one case, Swoboda said he dealt with a situation in which the company was training everyone how to create their own purchase orders.

It required research and development engineers to go to training classes for something they would use so infrequently they would need to relearn it when it came time to submit a purchase order.

Swoboda said it was done with the goal of making a department more efficient, but the company’s ultimate goal was to be the best.

“When something is the best, you actually are OK with other things being deoptimized, yet most organizations really struggle with this idea,” he said, adding at Cree he focused on having sales and marketing teams spend as much time as possible learning about and solving problems for customers, research and development work focused on creating innovative offerings and manufacturing done efficiently to help the company make money.

“Every other function in the organization was essentially deoptimized for those, including the CEO,” Swoboda said.

He added that it is then up to a company’s leaders to communicate how each function fits into the larger mission.

“People are really good at adapting,” he said. “Most people want to win, right? And you’ve just got to help them understand how they (are) part of winning and too often we just don’t go far enough to explain that.” v INNOVATEWI.COM / 27

REINVENTINGYOURLEGACY Members of the NEW Manufacturing Alliance Industry 4.0 task force listen to a presentation from Todd McLees of Pendio Group.

NORTHEASTERN WISCONSIN

MANUFACTURERS TACKLE INDUSTRY 4.0 THROUGH COLLABORATION

By Arthur Thomas, for staff writer

MICROSOFT CORP. approached NEW Manufacturing Alliance executive director Ann Franz a few years ago with a question.

“If we gave you some money, what would you do with it?” Franz recalled representatives of the tech giant asking.

Microsoft has made several investments in Green Bay, including in the Titletown Tech innovation center near Lambeau Field. The company was familiar with the NEW Manufacturing Alliance and its work. The organization has grown from 12 companies when it started in 2006 to more than 300 today, including 190 manufacturers from across the 18 counties in northeastern Wisconsin.

Along the way, NEWMA has awarded more than $300,000 in scholarships to students at colleges in the region, developed curriculum 28 / BizTimes Milwaukee – INNOVATE WISCONSIN | JUNE 15, 2020

and videos showing real-world applications of math and helped boost the number of students in welding programs from fewer than 200 in 2005 to nearly 1,000 last year.

Franz had an idea when Microsoft asked for her plan. She’d heard a lot about Industry 4.0, the convergence of technologies like automation, analytics, 3D printing, connected devices and digitization, among other things. She wanted to know how companies in the region were adapting to these new technologies that many believe will dramatically alter the future of manufacturing.

The money from Microsoft went to help fund a survey by St. Norbert College in 2019 on how companies were preparing for Industry 4.0. Of the 104 businesses surveyed, more than 90% did not have a complete plan to handle the

shift and more than a third had no plan at all.

“We realized there was a lot of learning that needed to be done,” Franz said.

To accomplish that learning, NEWMA turned to a model it has developed over more than a decade helping manufacturers solve their talent needs. The organizations started with task forces focused on talent and K-12 education, each established to be action-oriented.

“We decided early on that we weren’t going to have any committees because I’ve been on too many committees and a lot of times they focus on the problem and not the solution,” Franz said.

The task forces now meet once per month, provided there are specific tasks to discuss. As the original groups grew, they split into new task forces focused more narrowly on specific areas. Each task force has two or three key initiatives with an end result each year.

“I think when you are results-driven, you get a lot of people who are interested,” Franz said.

She added that meeting regularly helps task force members develop more meaningful relationships.

“In order to foster that collaboration, you really need to have consistency,” she said.

Following the initial study, the Industry 4.0 group grew to around 60 people with significant initial interest in cybersecurity and automation and robotics. Some of the initial efforts have included larger companies giving presentations on their use cases of new technologies and a joint project with Michigan Technological University on data analytics.

Franz said larger companies are willing to share with smaller ones because they’re still figuring out Industry 4.0 themselves and many of the smaller firms are in their supply chain.

“They realize in order for the big company to be successful, they have to have their suppliers be successful too,” she said.

The joint project on analytics is an opportunity for smaller firms to tackle something that might otherwise be too costly.

“If we can bring six to eight companies to come together to work on a joint project, that offsets the cost significantly and makes that ROI where they’re going to see the benefit,” Franz said.

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NEW Manufacturing Alliance hosted around 100 professors and deans from Wisconsin and Upper Michigan colleges recently to discuss the results of the Industry 4.0 Survey.

She added that even though companies are busy, they see the value in employees taking a couple hours each month to work with other businesses.

“It helps further professional development of their staff. Plus, we know that two heads are better than one,” Franz said. “These companies, I think they’ve realized, ‘Hey, we’ve been doing it on our own and we’ve only moved the needle this far,’ where ‘Hey, I participated in this task force with other people where I was able to share in these learnings and I’m able to solve problems much more efficiently and effectively because I got more input than just my own four walls.’” v

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“I think when you are results-driven, you get a lot of people who are interested.”

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262-437-8080 INNOVATEWI.COM / 29

PRESERVINGABETTERTOMORROW

COMPANIES SEE THE ECONOMIC CASE FOR

SOLAR POWER

By Alex Zank, staff writer

WISCONSIN COMPANIES adopting solar energy aren’t just doing it for bragging rights. Some say the economic case has become stronger for solar.

These economic nudges come in various forms, ranging from clear energy savings to higher environmental standards set by customers.

Smart Motors Toyota in Madison installed 940 solar panels in 2017 to power a significant portion of its business.

Rob Jordan, Smart Motors operations manager, said doing so matched the values of the community and of the energy-efficient cars that Toyota produces.

But solar energy also made sound financial sense.

“It’s extremely fulfilling to see the results on a monthly and annual basis of what we’re able to produce,” Jordan said. “Especially in terms of this was power that didn’t have to be generated (elsewhere) in order to support our business.”

Sam Dunaiski works with companies to help them adopt solar energy as a program manager with RENEW Wisconsin, a nonprofit group that promotes renewable energy. Dunaiski said when he talks to businesses, he’s mostly making an economic case as opposed to an environmental one.

30 / BizTimes Milwaukee – INNOVATE WISCONSIN | JUNE 15, 2020

“We certainly think those (environmental benefits) are good, too,” he said. “But we talk about the economic benefits more because it tends to entice people from all walks of life.”

Dunaiski said solar is rising in popularity among businesses and building owners. In 2019, new Wisconsin commercial solar installations totaled 10,755 kilowatts, he said. This represents all non-residential, non-utility installed solar, but also includes some governmental buildings or those occupied by organizations or nonprofit groups.

He added that 2019 was the last year businesses could receive a 30% federal Investment Tax Credit for installing solar energy systems.

The tax credit decreased to 26% in 2020, and will eventually reduce in 2022 to 10% for businesses and 0% for home solar arrays.

According to information provided by RENEW Wisconsin, the initial cost to install a 10-kilowatt solar system is about $26,000, which can be reduced to $14,307 with state and federal incentives. A 20-kilowatt system costs about $48,000, reduced to $26,550 with incentives. A 100-kilowatt system costs $200,000, reduced to $110,330 with incentives.

Utility companies are clearly paying attention to solar as well. In May, Madison Gas and Electric

Solar panels atop Smart Motors Toyota dealership building in Madison.

announced it filed an application with the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin for a 20-megawatt solar array to be built in Fitchburg.

About a week later, Alliant Energy announced plans for 675 megawatts of solar in mostly rural areas in Grant, Jefferson, Richland, Rock, Sheboygan and Wood counties. Once operational, the project would make Alliant the largest owner-operator of solar in Wisconsin, according to the utility.

Dunaiski said he spends a lot of time educating companies on current solar power technology and benefits.

“The nice thing about solar is it can be sized up or sized down depending on the project type,” he said. “Solar is great, because it’s a one-size-fits-all type of electric generation.”

He said that many assume Wisconsin isn’t a good place for a solar array, especially compared to desert regions. Another misconception among businesses, he said, is that it is too expensive to install solar panels, and the energy generated would not be worth the cost.

On the contrary, he said, costs have come down in recent years and the technology has improved.

For instance, as recently as five years ago, a biztimes.com

directly east- or west-facing solar array wasn’t possible.

“Now because of improvements in technology and policy changes as well, a lot of businesses have put up arrays that face directly east or face directly west,” Dunaiski said. “So, a lot of it is giving them the current information.”

Smart Motors’ solar panels can generate enough energy in a year to power 50 homes annually, according to the dealer. Each year the panels generate about 37% of the energy needed to run the building, and that increases to about 50% in the summer months.

As of the end of 2019, the panel system has saved more than 1 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions, the same as planting more than 24,700 trees, according to Smart Motors.

There’s also the benefit of little to no maintenance. Jordan said Smart Motors was told to expect almost nothing in maintenance costs the first 20 years, which has proven true so far roughly three years in.

Germantown-based packaging distributor Illing Co. Inc. is constructing a new 248,000-square-foot corporate headquarters, production facility and warehouse that will be 100% solar powered.

According to the company, the 389-kilowatt-hour photovoltaic installation includes engineering, design and interconnection application with WE Energies.

Keith Hemmig, Illing director of marketing and business development, said the new headquarters combines company operations currently performed in three separate buildings.

Illing expects to move into the new facility in mid-July, he said.

Hemmig said the use of solar energy made sense because of the company’s values of being good stewards of its resources.

But, similar to Smart Motors’ decision to retrofit its building in 2017 with solar panels, a solar installation on this new building for Illing comes with various financial benefits.

Hemmig said the company projects it will cost 2 cents per kilowatt hour to generate energy itself through the solar array. This is compared to paying the utility company 12 cents for each hour. The return on investment for the solar installation is less than five years, and Illing estimates net zero energy consumption in less than 12 months of operations, he said.

Beyond that, there’s the pressure from customers to adopt sustainable practices, Hemmig said.

He said retailers such as Walmart have “scorecards,” or sustainability targets they wish

to achieve through things like source reductions, recycling and greater reliance on renewable energy.

A relatively easy way to meet retailers’ scorecards is to reduce the amount of packaging used for products, Hemmig said. What’s more difficult is adopting renewable energy, which requires the appropriate infrastructure that supports it.

Part of that challenge is the fact that not all existing buildings can be retrofitted for solar energy.

For Illing Co., it wasn’t feasible to install solar panels on its existing facilities, Hemmig said.

The company had to wait until it was ready to put up a new one.

“New construction gave us a unique window to take advantage of sustainable energy,” he said.

Smart Motors dealt with similar issues.

Its 13-year-old building is completely covered in solar panels. However, the dealership could not install panels on some of its other smaller buildings due to the presence of HVAC systems on the roof, Jordan said.

Dunaiski said another challenge for solar power is the lack of uniformity in rules and regulations across the state. He said solar power might be financially feasible for businesses in the territory of one utility, but not in another.

He mentioned a Madison-area housing developer that was able to use solar power for residents at one of his locations, but not the other.

This was due to the different utility companies serving the developments.

“It’s not necessarily that we favor Utility A’s policies over Utility B; we just want some uniformity across the state so everyone kind of understands how it works,” Dunaiski said. “It just makes sense to level the playing field for everyone in the state.”

Jordan suggested that businesses incorporate the possibility of solar power in their building plans, even if they aren’t planning to invest in solar immediately.

“If you’re building something new, even if you’re not considering it today, your building is going to live for 40 or 50 years, so plan ahead and spend a little of your money now, so that way, if solar becomes obvious in the future, that your buildings are ready for it,” he said.

And for those on the fence of whether to incorporate solar with existing facilities, he suggested doing some research on an initial building to make sure it can handle the added load of the panels.

“If we were to do it over again, I’d say it’s been worth it to us,” Jordan said. v INNOVATEWI.COM / 31

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PRESERVINGABETTERTOMORROW

Mercury Marine uses recycled aluminum in manufacturing its outboard marine engine blocks. Photo courtesy of Mercury Marine

MERCURY MARINE SEES BENEFITS TO SUSTAINABLE USE OF ALUMINUM IN MANUFACTURING

By Alex Zank, staff writer

Ann Sacks Crackle Collection’s amber tile on the wall of a bathroom.

KOHLER CO.’S TRASH IS WASTELAB’S TREASURE

By Maredithe Meyer, for BizTimes

FOND DU LAC-BASED Mercury Marine has received industry recognition for its sustainable uses of aluminum for manufacturing outboard marine engine blocks.

But the marine engine manufacturer doesn’t do it for the accolades. Its practices, which include use of recycled aluminum and techniques that cut down on the use of energy and raw material, matches the company’s values and benefits its bottom line, company leaders say.

“Sustainability really is hitting an economic as well as a social and environmentally-driven aspect,” said Scott Louks, Mercury sustainability manager. “We want to make sure then that it’s not just financial but environmental and social, that we’re doing the right things.”

The aluminum material comes from discarded vehicle wheels, wiring and scrap from parent company Brunswick Corp., among other sources. This is an alternative to using prime aluminum derived from mined bauxite ore.

Louks said Mercury Marine last year processed more than 16,000 tons, or approximately 32 million pounds, of aluminum.

The recycled aluminum is melted and purified for use in the company’s castings. Louks said the aluminum can be recycled over and over again without degradation of its inherent

properties.

Using recycled aluminum saves energy and emits less Earth-warming gas, Louks said. The energy required to melt aluminum scrap is only about 5% of that used to make new material.

Recycling aluminum also emits only 5% of the greenhouse gas emitted in primary aluminum production, he said.

In reusing aluminum, Mercury Marine employs an innovative technique that redirects heat exhaust generated from the melting process to preheat other aluminum scrap waiting its turn to be melted. This saves the company 20% of the natural gas it would otherwise use to melt aluminum, which equates to approximately 9 billion BTUs of energy saved each year, Louks said.

Mercury Marine also uses patented alloys and a die casting process to create engine blocks that weigh less and use less raw material.

“By doing this, it’s an energy reduction, it’s a carbon reduction, we’re improving our product by using this, we’re … improving recycling, less waste,” Louks said. “And it’s really then trying to enter a circular economy by working with our parent companies and then taking that back and using it through our product stream. So, it really works for them, (and) it works for us.”v

KOHLER CO. broke the mold last year when it went to market with a new line of interior wall tiles made from almost 100% dust, powder and scraps bound for landfills.

The hand-cut, ceramic Crackle Collection under Kohler’s Ann Sacks brand marks the first product to launch out of the Kohler WasteLab, an offshoot of the company’s innovation startup Innovation for Good.

Working from a corner of the company’s enamel shop, WasteLab reuses landfill-destined materials from the company’s Sheboygan County campus to create new products such as ceramic tiles for kitchen and bathrooms, tabletops, and other projects still in development – all in the name of improving productivity and reducing waste.

“As our manufacturing plants drive efficiencies, they generate less waste,” said Theresa Millard, sustainability and stewardship project manager at Kohler and co-founder of Kohler WasteLab. “This challenges us to continuously innovate processing of new production waste streams.”

Since 2008, Kohler’s waste-to-landfill rate has reduced by 48%, and the company is working toward big goals of achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions and solid waste sent

to landfills by 2035.

WasteLab’s role is changing the way people think about waste streams when they’re designing new products. And those efforts haven’t gone unnoticed externally.

“Since its debut, the Crackle Collection has been lauded by both the design and sustainability community,” said Millard.

The Crackle Collection is named after the tiles’ shattered visual effect, which occurs when glaze breaks over its clay face during the firing process. And its palette of mahogany, amber, emerald, bone, turquoise and lake keep up with bold color trends.

Millard said innovation around reuse could be “game changing” for companies that currently generate high-value waste materials and have to pay to send them away to a landfill.

A good place to start is exploring opportunities with the highest value – not only monetarily, but also related to branding, learning, innovation or R&D, she said.

“The world cannot continue as is in regard to material use, so the work we’re doing at WasteLab is also about risk reduction, which uses one of Kohler’s core competencies of innovation and product development,” Millard said. v

34 / BizTimes Milwaukee – INNOVATE WISCONSIN | JUNE 15, 2020

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PRESERVINGABETTERTOMORROW

WISCONSIN FARM FIRST TO MEET WATER STANDARD

By Arthur Thomas, staff writer

David Sorensen, deli manager at Sendik’s in Franklin, loads food waste into the store’s Grind2Energy system.

SENDIK’S GRIND2ENERGY SYSTEM REDUCES COMPANY’S CARBON FOOTPRINT

By Maredithe Meyer, staff writer

IN MOST CASES, every gallon of water that comes into Miltrim Farms, located near the Marathon County village of Athens, will get used at least three times.

The first use is generally to cool the milk from the farm’s 2,500 cows before being used as drinking water for cows or to wash the milking parlor. The parlor water is then used to wash sand used for cow bedding and is then used to flush the channels used to remove manure from the barn.

“Basically, we’re trying to use as little water as possible,” said David Trimner, general manager of Miltrim.

Founded in 1988, the farm was the first in the country to certify its on-site water practices using the International Water Stewardship Standard from the Alliance for Water Stewardship.

Major corporations like MillerCoors had adopted it, but it had not been applied to individual farming operations previously.

“Our water table is relatively shallow,” Trimner said. “We have quite a bit of water in our area, but because it’s shallow, we just want to make sure we utilize that resource properly so we always have it.”

The AWS standard pushes farms and other companies to continuously improve their practices. Among the improvements Trimner has made are high-efficiency nozzles on a system used to cool cows, cutting usage from 2 gallons per minute to a half-gallon.

One benefit of the robotic milking system Miltrim recently installed was a 25% reduction in water usage compared to a conventional parlor, and Trimner said he set it up to use as little water as possible.

“Obviously, if it’s really something that doesn’t pay off, you just can’t do it, but for the most part, all the things I mentioned, it’s actually relatively easy to find a payoff for those,” he said, noting that it costs money to pump water out of the ground and to haul manure away. Less water going into manure pits means less volume to take out.

Beyond saving money, focusing on water usage is about being good community members, Trimner said.

“Some people are just not going to like us no matter what, but we do our best to be really good neighbors and to help enrich the community and not make it worse,” he added. v

AMERICANS IN 2017 threw away 41 million tons of food, with grocery stores representing a substantial portion of the country’s total waste, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Aside from the act itself, food waste is a problem because it’s responsible for approximately 6% of total global greenhouse gas emissions, according to Our World in Data.

In 2015, Milwaukee-based Sendik’s Food Market set out to reduce its environmental footprint by installing Grind2Energy systems at 13 of its store locations and one support center.

The food recycling system, produced by Racine-based InSinkErator, converts organic waste – ranging from produce trimmings to animal fat – into renewable energy and nutrient-rich fertilizer. Food is grinded and stored in tanks at the stores before being transported to the Forest County Potawatomi Community Biodigester facility in Milwaukee’s Menomonee River Valley, where it is converted.

Last year, the grocer’s Grind2Energy systems generated the amount of energy it would take to heat 420 homes for a month and eliminated carbon emissions equal to 3.5 million miles of car driving. It also produced 119 tons of fertilizer that was distributed to local farms.

“The biggest impact isn’t just what we’re turning around and turning into energy; it’s what we’re saving from going into landfills,” said Mark Kahl, executive vice president of operations at Sendik’s.

Before the grocer started using Grind2Energy, it composted its food scraps. Still, waste from one location alone filled eight 30-yard trash compactor trucks each month. After the Grind2Energy system was installed, monthly trash pickups were reduced to one compactor truck.

Over the past five years, trash pickup across the grocer’s entire store footprint has decreased by more than 80%, said Kahl.

From a financial standpoint, standard trash collection and the Grind2Energy system are both substantial expenses. However, for Sendik’s, sustainability was the priority.

“Our goal is to produce as little waste as possible,” Kahl said. “I think we’re very proud of trying to make sure we’re a responsible neighbor for communities we operate in.”

And it’s not just company leadership backing efforts to reduce food waste. Kahl said Sendik’s employees embrace the Grind2Energy system, too.

“Rather than associates looking at it as one more step to their workday, they really rallied around it,” said Kahl. v

36 / BizTimes Milwaukee – INNOVATE WISCONSIN | JUNE 15, 2020

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Following the keynote, local CEOs will discuss how upheavals like COVID-19, technology trends, and innovation are changing the face of Washington County and what you can do to remain relevant and competitive for the next two decades.

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PROFITABILITY AND SUSTAINABILITY CAN COEXIST

Jesse Servi Ortiz

A

s managing director of the Wisconsin Sustainable Business Council, Jessy Servi Or-

tiz’s work focuses on helping companies lessen their environmental impact. Beyond recommending the book “Sustainability: A Guide for Boards and C-Suites”

by Gilbert Hedstrom, she shared best practices in sustainability with BizTimes associate editor Arthur Thomas during a recent interview.

DO PROFITABILITY AND SUSTAINABILITY HAVE TO BE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE? “No, I think it’s a misconception that sustainability costs money. … Sustainability is kind of like the iceberg analogy – that a lot of value around sustainability is sometimes below the surface or not immediately apparent to the untrained eye, so a lot of the value is sometimes vastly underestimated.”

is often overlooked and forgotten about in terms of both brand reputation and recruitment and retention. The younger workforce that’s rising up, they really want to work for companies that have values, that walk their talk, that are having a positive impact in the world, so even listening to their ideas and weaving that thinking into the organization can reduce your turnover costs.”

WHERE SHOULD I START IF MY COMPANY HAS NO FORMAL APPROACH TO SUSTAINABILITY? “I’d be remiss not to send people to our program, the Green Masters program, because it really is a great tool for businesses that are just getting started. … There’s also so much that businesses can do with efficiency that goes just beyond changing a lightbulb. … There is a lot of room for innovation in product and product design and redesign these days. … Really, I think it’s a lot of determining the metrics that matter to the particular business. A lot of sustainability is having a good sense of data and ... not wasting time on things that aren’t important or aren’t relevant to the businesses themselves.”

HOW DO YOU BETTER TAP INTO THE IDEAS OF EMPLOYEES? “I think these easy things of asking your employees get overlooked because it creates more work, but it doesn’t necessarily have to.

If there’s an engaged process or you instill a thoughtful and idea-generating culture and that kind of becomes the norm, it’s much easier to explore those ideas. You can always make the idea-generator the person responsible for exploring the feasibility of the idea; it doesn’t have to become your work. If they have a great idea, let them take an hour or a lunch break or whatever it is to put a proposal together, research that idea.”

HOW CAN COMPANIES CONTINUE TO BUILD MOMENTUM IN SUSTAINABILITY? “Definitely finding a champion. Someone that is willing and interested in owning parts of sustainability. Having a diverse team that’s willing to work on sustainability, so a cross-functional team, somebody from finance, somebody from operations, somebody from HR that understands the human side of it that can incorporate what you’re doing into recruitment, retention, those sorts of initiatives as well. I think sustainability means so many different things to so many different people that sometimes they forget the basic step of just defining what it means for their organization and having a sustainability statement that can be the guidepost.”

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE CHALLENGES OF SUSTAINABILITY, ESPECIALLY IN A CHALLENGING ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT? “One of the biggest challenges right now is just the mindset of a business has returned to usual. There can be a lot to be learned from using sustainability as a framework for resiliency and rebuilding inside of businesses. … I think the new normal will create new opportunities and so businesses should not rely on what has always worked for them to be what works for them in the future. ... Taking the time to reinvent, reimagine, go back to the core values of who you are and think about how all of the systems are intertwined and consider putting somebody in charge of understanding what sustainability is and bringing that back to the C-suite. Explore the opportunity.”

WHAT ARE SOME UNDERAPPRECIATED OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT? “I will reiterate product design and development. … There’s tremendous opportunity to redesign the take-make-waste culture that manufacturers are sort of a part of to a more circular model. ... Aside from that I think the workforce and the people part of the equation

ANYTHING ELSE TO ADD? “What I’ve seen on the market in terms of innovation and sustainability today is leaders actually going to their employees and being transparent and saying, ‘This is our situation and how can we help?’ The companies that have done that are in a much better position than those that haven’t right now.” v

38 / BizTimes Milwaukee – INNOVATE WISCONSIN | JUNE 15, 2020

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CHANGINGWITHCORONAVIRUS

The Commons in Milwaukee ordinarily offers in-person entrepreneurship programs for college students. This summer, it’s hosting a virtual internship program for students whose internship plans were disrupted by COVID-19.

WITH MANY STUDENT INTERNSHIPS CANCELED, THE COMMONS IS HELPING FILL THE GAP

By Lauren Andreson, staff writer

U

niversity of Wisconsin-Madison

talk with clients about what their needs

senior Thaddeus Gue had lined

are before relaying that to design staff.”

up his summer internship at a

Chicago architecture firm.

“I was going to be a junior strategist intern,” said Gue, who studies interior ar-

But about two weeks into Illinois’ stay-at-home order, Gue found out his internship offer was revoked due to the shutdown.

chitecture. “That really focuses on design

Gue is among many college students

strategy, verifying construction sites and

this spring whose summer plans were

all the details there, and we also would

canceled amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

40 / BizTimes Milwaukee – INNOVATE WISCONSIN | JUNE 15, 2020

After hearing similar stories from several alumni in its network, The Commons, a Milwaukee-based accelerator program for entrepreneurial college students, decided to help fill the gap.

“Many of our alumni emailed us, saying, ‘I lost my internship. Is there anything on your radar?’ That was more frequently coming back to us, so we decided let’s gauge the market here,” said Joe Poeschl, program director and co-founder of The Commons. “We did a simple LinkedIn post, asking if you had had your internship disrupted, and made a simple form on our website. Within a week, we had 180 students fill out the form, and we realized this is a bigger issue than we even knew.”

By not offering internships, the region is at risk of letting the current talent pipeline “grow cold,” Poeschl said.

In response, The Commons began connecting with industry partners to design a 10-week virtual, part-time internship program that area companies can utilize.

The timing of the pandemic required the organization to use the skills it tries to instill in its students – gathering customer feedback, using design thinking and delivering a product quickly – to get the program off the ground. It kicked off June 8.

“We did this in four weeks,” Poeschl said of the planning process. “We said, we’re going to do this really high quality, using customer feedback, and do it quickly.”

More than 160 students applied within 48 hours of the program application being launched.

It netted more than 650 applications altogether.

The program is open to any college student studying in Wisconsin, or any Wisconsin high school graduate who is currently in college.

The first two weeks will focus on orienting students to “what it takes to develop a new idea,” Poeschl said. Participating companies will have the opportunity to submit innovation challenges for the program and serve as virtual mentors to the interns.

“They’ll be open-ended innovation-based challenges,” Poeschl said. “We’ll say, ‘Hey, here’s a trend in the market, here’s the market segment we would like to deliver value to. How do you put these things together to create some sort of software app, physical product or new service?’”

Project management, communication with students and professional development sessions will all be offered in-house by The Commons.

The Milwaukee Tech Hub Coalition provided $75,000 in initial seed money for the program, enough to fund 25 internships. The Tech

biztimes.com

Hub – a collaboration of more than 20 employers in the region – is also providing support to source technical projects and tools, along with access to technical mentors.

“In addition to the obvious goal of helping these Thaddeus Gue students gain critical skills and stay on track toward their learning goal, we also want to share with these students more about the Milwaukee tech community and showcase how they can help solve real issues in some of the world’s most essential industries,” Kathy Henrich, chief executive officer for the Milwaukee Tech Hub Coalition, said in a statement.

Other funding has come from philanthropic and business partners, Poeschl said.

“We’ve got a lot of irons in the fire, trying to find as much funding to support these students as we can,” he said.

Gue heard about The Commons’ program from his career mentor through the Posse Foundation scholarship program.

While his initial plans fell through, Gue sees the silver lining in the new opportunity.

“I’m an aspiring design strategist, and design strategy focuses on stepping back from the design process and ensuring we get the steps correct – the questioning, prototyping, content refinement,” he said. “When I saw (The Commons’) projects, it reminded me of the process of design thinking, which focuses on identifying end users and prototyping and ideating and making as many ideas as possible to get the right idea.”

Abbie Papka, a Marquette University student who’s preparing to enter her final semester of college, was also left scrambling in early May when, in a matter of four days, she learned she had landed a summer software development internship at a Madison company and later that the internship had been canceled.

“Once the virus started shutting things down, (the firm) decided to go on a hiring freeze because of the unpredictability and not knowing what the future looked like,” she said. “It was sort of like having the rug pulled out from you.

Going into my last semester, not having a summer internship was quite scary.”

Papka, who is studying bioinformatics and Spanish, learned about The Commons intern-

ship program in an email, and applied the same day. She sees it as a good opportunity to work with students and professionals from different industries and backgrounds.

Papka said she’s been struck by how other parJoe Poeschl ticipating students are volunteering to give up their internship stipends to make more room for other students.

“It’s really cool. They’re trying to get as many students involved as they can,” she said. “Everyone is pitching in to help.”

After spending a large part of their semester doing classwork online, Papka and Gue said they are better prepared to do an internship virtually.

Papka said it requires an extra level of proactivity to stay on top of work and get the most out of the experience.

“I did three years of high school online, so I’m a little more accustomed to holding yourself accountable and those things that are crucial to the online learning experience, but it’s definitely been a challenge to stay motivated,” she said. “(The internship) will be different than being in the office and having mentorship without having to reach out. I’ll have to be a little more proactive.”

Gue said he expects the virtual internship will grow his communication skills.

“For my field … we do a lot of hands-on work,” he said. We draw, we make diagrams and get in-person feedback from professors. It was really difficult to do that online, although we made it work. This internship is going to be different because now that I’ve adjusted to that online process, I know what I need to work on to portray my ideas to others. I think it’s going to really push me.”

Poeschl said providing these types of experiences for students in Milwaukee is important in attracting and retaining future workers in the state.

“The macro view of this is how do you engage this young talent so they understand what it’s like doing quality work and doing that work locally?” he said. “We’re really convinced it requires a high touch to make mentorship relationships and network relationships to gain a deeper appreciation for what it’s like to work here in southeast Wisconsin.” v

INNOVATEWI.COM / 41

CHANGINGWITHCORONAVIRUS

GE Healthcare is aiming to quadruple production capacity of ventilators at its Madison manufacturing plant by the end of June.

RAMPING UP GE HEALTHCARE VENTILATOR PRODUCTION WAS NO SMALL TASK

by Maredithe Meyer, staff writer

T

he scene at GE Healthcare’s Madison manufacturing plant since late March is something that Mark

Goyette, general manager for its Life Care Solutions operations, would have thought impossible several months ago.

The facility is on a mission to quadruple production capacity of ventilators by the end of June as part of larger efforts by the Chicago-based manufacturer to help combat the coronavirus.

42 / BizTimes Milwaukee – INNOVATE WISCONSIN | JUNE 15, 2020

As of mid-May, ventilator production in Madison had more than doubled and is well on its way to its goal of doubling again, said Goyette, who has worked for the company for 22 years.

“We continue to work very hard to even exceed that,” he said.

As COVID-19 began to spread in other parts of the world, GE Healthcare’s Madison facility began working to double the capacity of its ventilator production. The plant is the sole production site of GE’s ventilator machines, which are being used by hospitals to help critically ill COVID-19 patients breathe, and in some cases, keep them alive.

By the time the pandemic was declared a national emergency in the U.S. in March, GE Healthcare announced plans to ramp up output of other critical medical equipment, including CTs, ultrasound devices, mobile X-ray systems and patient monitors.

By then, GE’s Madison facility had already met its first benchmark. But as global demand for ventilators only increased, it decided to double capacity once again. Since then, it’s been all hands on deck.

“This massive spike in demand, as we are all experiencing, was nothing that any of us had

planned for,” Goyette said. “To the degree that the demand went up, you could say almost instantaneously, it’s been a full team effort.”

The plant has added 200 manufacturing workers to its existing 500-employee base to get the job done. Those hires are union members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, District 10.

Volunteers from other GE Healthcare plants and divisions of the company have made their way to Madison to receive training and be put to work on the ventilator production line, including 40 employees from a GE Aviation plant in Indiana, said Goyette.

Thanks to increased labor and shifts, the production line has become a 24/7 operation.

“We were able to quickly bring in resources so that we did not have an adverse impact on the output of other production lines in Madison,” Goyette said. “It’s something that the team has been very proud of, and it’s just a tremendous amount of teamwork.”

The facility also produces maternal infant care equipment, including warmers and incubators for newborn babies. The pandemic hasn’t increased demand for those products like it did ventilators, but that doesn’t mean production can fall behind.

Meanwhile, there has been a significant increase in demand for GE’s anesthesia delivery systems, which are also manufactured in Madison. It’s likely a result of a global ventilator shortage caused by the pandemic, said Goyette.

In March, the Food and Drug Administration issued guidance that anesthesia machines, which have a ventilation capability, could be used to treat patients who are respiratory-compromised from COVID-19 or other disorders. GE currently has supplied more than 100,000 anesthesia systems around the world.

While onboarding an army of new employees helped make GE’s ramp-up efforts possible, doing it during a pandemic comes with its own set of challenges.

“We want our employees to be safe at work and we want them to be safe outside of work and we’ve put in many different protocols, from temperature screening at the gate when people are coming in to providing additional space for social distancing,” he said.

Training for new employees is conducted in a tent that now takes up a portion of GE’s parking lot. It works well for the classroom portion, where social distancing is easy, but when it comes to hands-on training, there’s a learning curve.

“As human beings, if I’m going to show you how to do something, our natural tendency is biztimes.com

‘Come on over here and let me show you how to do it,’” Goyette said.

Instead, employees learn from detailed, high-resolution videos of the assembly processes and other new digital training methods that don’t require contact.

“Necessity is the mother of invention and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” he said.

GE hasn’t been alone in its efforts to supercharge production in the fight against COVID-19.

In March, the company landed a partnership with Ford for the production of ventilators.

The collaboration focused on expanding production of a simplified version of GE’s existing design to support patients with respiratory failure or difficulty breathing because of COVID-19.

At the time, Ford said it planned to produce 50,000 of the ventilators within the following 100 days, with the ability to produce 30,000 per month thereafter as needed.

General Motors is another vehicle manufacturer that made the pivot, securing a contract with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to produce 30,000 Ventec Life Systems V+Pro critical care ventilators.

Germantown-based plastics manufacturer MGS had a tier 1 automotive supplier get in touch after being approached by GM about work on the GM/Ventec partnership.

The goal was to take a previously machined component and convert it to injection molded plastic to be able to ramp up the scale of production.

“This wasn’t a significant piece of business, but our people knew we could leverage our knowhow, our expertise, to help,” said Paul Manley, president of MGS. The tooling for the part would normally take around 12 weeks to build.

“The tool shop saw that as a challenge,” Manley said.

The company had the tooling built in seven days.

“They did it, again, because they knew they could leverage their talents to help fight the disease. It’s incredible to see,” Manley said. “I wish I could take more credit for it. ... The truth is I feel we have the best people in plastics. … My job becomes very easy.”

New Berlin-based Pindel Global Precision had no experience producing ventilator parts prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Responding to heightened demand for the life-saving medical device, the contract manufacturer volunteered via LinkedIn to make parts at cost during the outbreak.

That led to emergency purchase orders with tight turnarounds for four ventilator parts, which were produced and shipped off to a West Coast manufacturer in a week’s time.

“Usually lead times are around three to six weeks and here they needed it in one week,” said Pindel’s chief executive officer Bill Berrien, who shared the experience during a recent Rotary Club of Milwaukee virtual event.

“We had to think very differently about removing bottlenecks in the process to turn around, reaching out to a tight network of suppliers for material and outside services,” he said.

In the weeks that followed, Pindel received purchase orders from another ventilator manufacturer and one of the national joint ventures mass producing the device.

Berrien said the nationwide effort around ventilator production in response to the pandemic shows the potential of advanced manufacturing in the U.S. and across the region.

“It is digitally enabled, it is technology enabled, and hopefully speaks to a different future,” he said.

Foxconn had announced plans to work with Medtronic to produce ventilators at its Wisconsin facilities, but it’s not clear if that partnership ever came to fruition.

GE Healthcare’s suppliers, particularly its Wisconsin-based suppliers, have played a crucial role in the company’s ventilator production initiatives, said Goyette.

Ramping up an entire supply chain is nothing short of a challenge. But GE’s Madison facility hasn’t been impacted by line shutdowns at any of its Wisconsin supplier plants, he said.

With no way of knowing how long the need for ventilators will last, GE has turned its focus to keeping the momentum going.

“The majority of our efforts right now are going into ramping up our entire supply chain and our production output,” Goyette said. “We’re now several months into this and we still see very strong demand.”

Goyette said one thing he has learned, as a leader, from these past few months is the power of a group working toward one common goal.

“There’s definitely a sense of purpose of what we’re doing at GE Healthcare; we’re working to save lives,” he said. “But also, when you set a goal of ‘let’s double production and double it again,’ and you start clearing obstacles out of the way and, let’s say, distractions in the form of trying to have people multitask and work on multiple things at the same time. When you can focus, it is amazing what you can see happen that you never thought was possible.” v INNOVATEWI.COM / 43

CHANGINGWITHCORONAVIRUS

A PariRange prototype embedded in a typical ID badge that employees carry at work.

EMBEDTEK DEVELOPS DEVICE CONTACT TRACING TECHNOLOGY

By Brandon Anderegg, staff writer

Epic Systems’ headquarters in Verona.

EPIC PROVIDED PROJECT MANAGEMENT, SOFTWARE TO HELP STATE’S COVID-19 RESPONSE

By Lauren Anderson, staff writer

WAUKESHA-BASED INTERNET OF THINGS COMPANY EMBEDTEK, LLC is developing a wearable contact tracing device that allows businesses to enforce social distancing rules within their facilities.

The new device, called PariRange, is a peerto-peer contact tracking device that can be embedded into protective equipment and work accessories, such as a face shield, hardhat, ID badge or wristband.

PariRange collects and communicates data in a peer-to-peer fashion between each contact tracking device, delivering a cell phone-like vibration to an individual who is in close proximity to another employee. The end user can set distance limits, such as the current six-foot rule recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

Beyond enforcing social distancing, employers can use data collected by the device to understand how communicable diseases are passing through a facility and which individuals could be at risk to prevent further spread. The company is sprinting to scale the product with plans to bring PariRange to market in August.

EmbedTek, which specializes in embedded computer systems, software, sensors and integrated displays, identified a demand for PariRange in

part because of local food processors and manufacturers who were unable to contain the initial spread of COVID-19 within their facilities, said Dan Aicher, EmbedTek chief executive officer.

“For food processors and manufacturers, for example, initial infections that were not contained have spread throughout facilities, endangering employees and shutting down essential portions of the supply chain,” Aicher said in a statement. “It is critical that these facilities are able to open safely and respond quickly and effectively to future COVID-19 cases that occur within their work community.”

EmbedTek chief technology officer Kent Tabor and his creative team were also already working on ultra-wideband technology for another application and were able to leverage their research to develop PariRange.

Ultra-wideband technology is used in radar imaging and is known for being more precise and accurate than peer technologies.

Another benefit of PariRange is that it does not track an employee’s location, movements, or productivity throughout the day. Although infrastructure could be deployed to enable geographic tracking, some companies prefer the ability to maintain privacy while still having the benefits of contact tracing. v

VERONA-BASED MEDICAL RECORDS GIANT EPIC SYSTEMS CORP. has used its experience with deploying complex projects quickly to aid in the state’s COVID-19 response.

As early cases in the state were reported, Gov. Tony Evers personally recruited the health care software company to help the State Emergency Operations Center by providing implementation expertise and project management.

An Epic team worked onsite at the SEOC command center to help in several areas, including identifying additional lab capacity in the state to meet increased demand for COVID-19 testing, helping facilities increase available isolation capacity for those who can’t isolate at home and helping health care systems analyze and increase their bed availability.

“Our work with health care organizations around the world prepared us to help coordinate this effort with the state,” said Danessa Sandmann, implementation director and lead for Epic’s state response team. “We’ve been able to translate the work we do every day to support our customers and their patients to help with the COVID-19 response right here at home.”

Epic has also donated software and staff to help set up field hospitals across the country, in-

cluding the alternate care facility at Wisconsin State Fair Park in West Allis, and those in large metros such as New York, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, Dallas and St. Louis. In those cities, Epic’s teams have helped officials determine how to either add beds in existing hospital areas or create new hospitals at alternative facilities.

Epic is also part of a coalition of Wisconsin medical and biotech companies that have contributed to bolstering the state’s testing capacity. Partnering with Madison-based cancer diagnostics company Exact Sciences, Epic provided interoperability to connect health care providers with Exact to transfer test results from its lab to state officials and health care providers.

In addition, when childcare centers and schools shut down under Evers’ “Safer at Home” order, the company partnered with UW Health and UnityPoint Health–Meriter to convert its old headquarters building on Tokay Boulevard in Madison into a temporary daycare center for children of essential health care workers. Epic also provided meals cooked by the company’s culinary team to feed the children. Meriter licensed and operated the facility as an expansion of its childcare program, while UW Health provided furniture and other items for the daycare. v

44 / BizTimes Milwaukee – INNOVATE WISCONSIN | JUNE 15, 2020

Madison-based Exact Sciences reprogrammed its equipment that ordinarily looks for DNA associated with colorectal cancer to instead look for novel coronavirus.

EXACT SCIENCES REPROGRAMMED LABS TO BOOST STATE’S COVID-19 TESTING CAPACITY

By Lauren Anderson, staff writer

AT THE OUTSET of the state’s coronavirus response, just a handful of Wisconsin labs were running COVID-19 tests, averaging about 1,500 to 2,000 tests per day.

As the state Department of Health Services worked to ramp up its capacity in the early weeks of the pandemic’s spread, three Madison-area executives put their heads together to help the cause.

In March, Kevin Conroy, chairman and chief executive officer of Madison-based cancer diagnostics company Exact Sciences; Judy Faulkner, CEO of Verona-based electronic medical records company Epic Systems; and Bill Linton, chairman and CEO of Fitchburg-based life sciences supplier Promega, strategized about how they could turn around more testing – a key component of the state’s effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

At Exact Sciences, that meant reprogramming equipment that ordinarily looks for DNA associated with colorectal cancer to instead look for novel coronavirus. The company produces and runs tests for Cologuard, a noninvasive, at-home screening that detects the presence of colon cancer in stool samples.

By reconfiguring its lab, the company created capacity to process roughly 20,000 COVID-19 tests weekly.

Meanwhile, Promega has supplied the reagents, ingredients that have been in short supply and are needed to run COVID-19 tests on Exact Sciences’ machines. Epic layered on software capabilities needed to transfer test results from the lab to state officials and health care providers.

For each of the companies, the rapid response meant completing tasks that normally would take months in a matter of weeks.

In early May, Gov. Tony Evers said Wisconsin’s capacity for COVID-19 testing had reached 85,000 tests per week – the threshold included in his Badger Bounce Back plan to reopen the state – and credited the state’s public-private partnerships.

“None of this would have been possible without leadership from the state of Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Clinical Lab Network, and the herculean efforts of each company’s teams,” said Conroy. “Our employees worked around the clock, knowing the long hours they put in could be the difference between life and death for our friends, neighbors and family members.” v

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INNOVATEWI.COM / 45

CHANGINGWITHCORONAVIRUS

Catalent, Inc.’s biomanufacturing facility in Madison.

POTENTIAL COVID-19 VACCINE PRODUCED AT CATALENT’S MADISON FACILITY

By Lauren Anderson, staff writer

Jones Island Water Reclamation Facility.

UW-MILWAUKEE SEWAGE RESEARCH COULD BETTER PREDICT CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAKS

By Alex Zank, staff writer

AS RESEARCHERS RACE to develop a vaccine for COVID-19, production on one potential single-shot vaccine is underway at Catalent, Inc.’s biomanufacturing facility in Madison.

Somerset, New Jersey-based Catalent and San Diego-based Arcturus Therapeutics Holdings Inc. are partnering to manufacture a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine candidate at Catalent Biologics’ 103,000-square-foot facility, located at 726 Heartland Trail in Madison.

The vaccine utilizes Arcturus’ self-transcribing and replicating mRNA technology and its lipid-mediated delivery to produce an “extraordinarily low dose” vaccine, according to the companies.

It is just one of several COVID-19 vaccine development projects happening around the world. There is no guarantee that any of them will be proven to be effective at protecting people from the virus and safe for human use. But some vaccine developers, including Catalent and Arcturus, are working to mass produce the vaccine that they are developing in hopes that it will be proven to be effective and safe, will be approved by the government for use and can then be made available to the public as soon as possible.

The first batches of the COVID-19 mRNA vac-

cine are expected to be completed this month.

The companies said they plan to produce millions of doses of LUNAR-COV19 mRNA in 2020 and potentially hundreds of millions of doses annually for worldwide use.

The vaccine program is taking advantage of the Catalent facility’s flex-suite, a cGMP manufacturing suite that can produce batches at multiple scales and support Arcturus’ mRNA manufacturing process, the companies said.

“Catalent is proud to partner with Arcturus in the pursuit of a vaccine that could protect people against the coronavirus pandemic,” said John Chiminski, chair and chief executive officer of Catalent. “Our unique experience and flexsuite cGMP capacity will enable rapid scale-up of Arcturus’ proprietary manufacturing process to make the vaccine available as soon as possible.”

In January 2019, Catalent announced a $75 million investment in its Madison facility over the next three years that will more than double its commercial biomanufacturing capacity. The company opened the facility – which specializes in development, manufacturing and analytical services for new biological entities and biosimilars – in 2013. Work on the expansion is expected to be completed by mid-2021. v

RESEARCHERS AT THE University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Freshwater Sciences are studying sewage as a means of tracking COVID-19 infections.

Sandra McLellan, a professor at the School of Freshwater Sciences, said her team is gathering samples from sewerage districts in high population areas, such as Milwaukee, Racine and Green Bay. The research could spot an uptick in COVID-19 in these areas sooner than currently possible, and be used to alert communities of pending outbreaks days or weeks sooner than current models.

Ryan Newton, assistant professor with the School of Freshwater Sciences, who is also involved in the research, said samples are being taken from the water flowing in from treatment plants. They are also receiving sludge samples from the Metropolitan Milwaukee Sewerage District, he said.

Studying the samples can reveal information not being picked up by live testing, especially when considering the number of people who are asymptomatic and not getting tested, McLellan said.

“That’s where I think the sewage surveillance … really fills that gap on early warning, where with all these asymptomatic people, really the only indication we have is a downstream response with

these hospitalizations and deaths,” she said.

There’s more work to be done before the team can definitively say what the sewage sample trends say about a coronavirus outbreak, but researchers say the findings could be significant.

“What we hope is we could provide additional information to all the other information people are gathering,” Newton said. “Even if it gives us a couple days’ warning, that’s still better than they would have had.”

The Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene could also get involved in the research to monitor the rest of the state.

McLellan also noted the potential economic impacts. The research would help determine whether reopening businesses causes another spike in cases, she said.

“That has a huge impact on our economy, that we can have some confidence that reopening is going OK,” she said. “And of course, you could get an indication that reopening is not going OK, but having an early indication of that so we can put the breaks on and don’t have to go into total shutdown, I think the surveillance has great health implications but definitely is tied to the economic health of the state, too.” v

46 / BizTimes Milwaukee – INNOVATE WISCONSIN | JUNE 15, 2020

strengths; it’s not about trying to change who someone is at their core. We used to spend a lot of time as an industry on performance improvement plans and talking about weaknesses, but the future is really more about understanding people’s natural abilities and then aligning them to the right work.”

Does COVID-19 change anything about the longer-term workforce challenges?

“We’re hearing significantly increased requests for fully remote roles or maybe remote first. … We’ve talked to candidates who have said, ‘Now that I’m home, I’d like to stay home and so if this role is going to require me to come back to an office full time in the future, I’m not interested in it.’ I think that is going to be a big management shift for some companies.”

How can companies balance long-term needs with short-term business concerns?

Amanda Daering

CORONAVIRUS HAS RESHAPED THE LABOR MARKET AND HOW BUSINESSES MEET THEIR

WORKFORCE NEEDS

A

manda Daering is chief executive officer of Milwaukee-based talent consultancy Newance

LLC, which helps companies with talent and attraction and individuals with career pathing. She talked with BizTimes associate editor Arthur Thomas recently about some of the best practices for companies in addressing their workforce needs fol-

What innovative approaches have you seen from companies during COVID-19?

“I’ll start with what’s maybe less innovative but very critical, and easier said than done, is really communicating effectively with their teams. … From an innovation standpoint, I think the best employers are those that really are able to align their talent strategy to their business strategy. I think those employers are ones that are taking a look at what they need now, which might be a pivot, and what they might need in the next 18, 24, 36 months.”

What challenges are there for companies in hiring in the new normal?

“A lot of the challenges are in fine-tuning a selection process to be effective virtually. I think many people are finding that some of the old methods that they relied on in the past are less effective in a virtual format, so I do think we’ll see more work with things like assessments. …

I think those are things companies will come to rely more on as they might be screening through more applicants, or even thinking … about how they could repurpose or resource internal applicants or internal employees into new roles.”

lowing the disruption of the labor market

Tapping into the talent already in their company?

by the coronavirus pandemic.

“Absolutely. Modern performance management is about doubling down on people’s

biztimes.com

“I don’t think that being an exceptional employer means that you never make tough decisions. I think there are exceptional employers who are or have been making tough calls like layoffs or furloughs. … A big part of it is you’re being really thoughtful about being respectful to your workforce, being as transparent as possible and really handling the situation with a lot of care and dignity.”

How will social distancing and safety measures change and shape company cultures?

“I think the culture will still exist, but I think it increases the importance around things like clarity of purposes, it increases the need for ongoing, constant communication for leadership. … There’s so much that happens when people sort of have the chance to interact without an agenda and so you have to balance that with not having everyone sitting in a Zoom call eight hours a day. I think one of the biggest mistakes companies make is trying to exactly replicate their in-person online, like we’ll have all the same meetings and all the same process and all the same everything, we’ll just do it via Zoom.”

What else should employers be thinking about?

“My advice would be two-fold, the first part being to really invest time, energy, resources into resiliency. Resiliency will serve you well through all sorts of changes. ... The other thing I would say is the companies who are embracing some of these changes will be better served in the long run. I think assuming that things will snap back into the way that they used to be and planning for that is going to be a miss, is going to create a disconnect between those employers and the future workforce.” v INNOVATEWI.COM / 47

CHANGINGWITHCORONAVIRUS

Milwaukee-based online clothing retailer Wantable has used its crowd-sourcing technology and 75,000-square-foot fulfillment center to distribute 20,000 hand-sewn face masks since mid-March.

LESSONS LEARNED IN ACTING FAST

By Maredithe Meyer, staff writer

EDITOR’S NOTE: The onslaught of the COVID-19 crisis has forced Wisconsin businesses to think on their feet, quickly shifting operations to meet new demand or simply to survive. Some have made temporary adjustments, while others took drastic steps that will alter the structure and the future of their companies, for better or for worse.

As stay-at-home restrictions lifted and businesses reopened, BizTimes reporter Maredithe Meyer caught up with a few business leaders about the operational decisions they made and initiatives they launched in response to the coronavirus pandemic and what they learned in the process.

48 / BizTimes Milwaukee – INNOVATE WISCONSIN | JUNE 15, 2020

As the coronavirus outbreak spread across the U.S., the majority of Hartland-based Batteries Plus Bulbs’ 720 retail stores remained open as essential businesses – a decision that was made not for financial reasons, but because both retail and commercial customers demanded it. Hospitals needed to power ventilators and EKG machines, while families needed help finding the right batteries for their thermometers.

Company leadership responded quickly, stocking up on high-demand items, rolling out contactless curbside pickup and installing contactless points-of-sale systems across its entire store footprint. Franchise locations adopted Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sanitation guidelines and took extra steps to let customers know stores were open and ensure in-store shoppers felt safe.

From a corporate standpoint, carrying out business as usual across 47 states during a public health crisis requires all hands on deck. But small format stores and an emphasis on local ownership helped the company keep up with rapid change, said Jon Sica, vice president of franchise development, project management and chief strategy officer at Batteries Plus Bulbs.

Sica: “Nothing can wait; everything has to be done right away to respond to the situation and that’s certainly raised our collective game here in this interesting environment.

“When customers’ expectations change, especially during this, you can’t wait to meet them.

You have to make the changes and we’re very lucky to have customer feedback infrastructure in place where we can do something and we’ll hear from our owners or customers very quickly what’s working and what’s not and we can reissue, we can re-engineer, we can change on the fly and be agile to make the best experience possible for our customers.”

Responding to a short supply of personal protective equipment for frontline workers, Milwaukee-based online clothing retailer Wantable has used its crowd-sourcing technology and 75,000-square-foot fulfillment center to distribute 20,000 hand-sewn face masks to more than 50 hospitals, clinics and health care organizations since mid-March.

As of late May, 170 volunteers had contributed to the “Sew Good” initiative, sometimes sending hundreds of masks at a time. Distribution started locally, but thanks to supply and Wantable’s existing shipping platform, the effort has reached as far as New Jersey, Georgia and New Hampshire.

Although “Sew Good” was launched to address what Wantable founder and chief executive officer Jalem Getz hopes is a temporary shortage, the concept behind mobilizing a crowd to meet a community need is here to stay.

Getz: “If I look back at a pre-COVID world, I think a lot of our giving campaigns focused around taking our employees and volunteering company money or company time. … I think what has clicked with us now is lots of companies have built very diverse businesses with incredible technology or infrastructure, and those can be used and reused to help on a frontline effort.

“It’s one thing to donate $10,000, but someone has to then turn that $10,000 into the mass that’s needed, as opposed to saying ‘We are going to use a platform right now to either make masks because we’re a factory or we’re going to make hand sanitizer because we’re a distillery or, in the case of Wantable, we’re going to leverage our very unique infrastructure to crowdsource masks.’ I think that’s a lesson for us: we built things here that can be used every day to grow our company, but when needed, can be modified and should be modified to help us volunteer in new and unique ways.”

After its two taprooms closed for in-house service due to COVID-19, Milwaukee-based Good City Brewing turned to curbside beer and biztimes.com

food service at its East Side location to keep some revenue flowing. But with virtually no access to a major part of the business – its customers – the brewer had to get creative.

In May, Good City took over a drive-thru at the former Bank Mutual building at Mayfair Mall in Wauwatosa and converted it into a curbside pick-up location for packs and growlers of its craft beer as well as hats and other merchandise.

Demand was strongest the first week, and has remained steady enough to remain open, allowing employees to come back to work. It’s also given Good City the opportunity to step into a new market, which has helped attract firsttime customers as well as engage with existing customers who live on the west side of town, said co-founder and CEO Dan Katt.

Katt: “One of our values for our people is to be adaptable, so that’s come in handy, but I think the big thing is that there are no guarantees. You kind of think that you know what’s going to happen next week or you know your business is going to bring in X amount of revenue, or you’re going to sell so much beer or so much food based upon historical data, but we don’t really know.

“Nothing is certain and I think that gives us greater appreciation for how hard it is to do what we do and how uncertain it is. As we open we’ll have increased focus on customer retention and attraction and being really grateful for every single person who walks through our door and purchases beer from us, and making sure our processes and systems for that are really good, just because nothing is guaranteed.”

Business for Milwaukee-based Leader Paper Products was down 75% at its lowest point

The majority of Hartland-based Batteries Plus Bulbs’ 720 retail stores remained open as essential businesses during the COVID-19 shutdown.

during the COVID-19 shutdown in April.

Fortunately for the specialty paper and envelope supplier, a loan from the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program allowed the business to keep all 90 of its employees.

The only problem was there wasn’t enough work for them to do.

Leader Paper Products took advantage of that downtime to show appreciation for those on the frontline of the pandemic. Through its “A Million Thanks” initiative, the company produced one million cards and envelopes that were distributed free of charge to customers, vendors, partners and others who wanted to write thank you notes to frontline workers.

The donated product was worth a retail value of $1.2 million – a demonstration of how invested the 119-year-old company is in the local community, said president and CEO Steve Hipp.

Hipp: “The biggest takeaway that I have is the employees here have just been fantastic about (“A Million Thanks”). They have really chipped in. They go do their regular job for a few hours and they jump right in any spare moment that they have.

“What we’re working on right now, the takeaway with myself and the leadership team here, is let’s keep looking into the future. Let’s not just dwell in the present. What can we do to invest in the business and retool our machinery to anticipate the future needs? As a leader, what I’m trying to get everyone to focus on is ‘What does the future look like?’ versus dwelling in the present, which isn’t so nice to dwell on right now.” v INNOVATEWI.COM / 49

CHANGINGWITHCORONAVIRUS

MaskForce team members assembled the N95-style masks made of injection molded components at Husco International in Waukesha.

MASKFORCE LEADERS SHARE LESSONS IN COLLABORATION

By Brandon Anderegg, staff writer

T

he MaskForce reached a scalable

Husco leaders say could not have been

solution in 40 days to provide N95-

achieved alone.

style masks to Wisconsin health

“No one person really has the full

care workers on the frontlines of the coro-

scope of being able to take a product like

navirus pandemic.

this and launch it by themselves success-

As the pandemic unfolded, a group of

fully with all the different variables and

southeastern Wisconsin manufacturers,

considerations that need to come togeth-

first responders, health care professionals

er,” said Austin Schmitt, Husco vice pres-

and universities united to form the Mask-

ident of Advanced Automotive Systems.

Force, which to date has shipped more than 10,000 masks across the state.

Husco now plans to ramp up production to 10,000 masks a day, funneling all

Husco International, which led the ef-

proceeds from mask sales back to the

fort, now produces 1,200 masks a day at

community via the Ramirez Family Foun-

its Waukesha headquarters – a feat that

dation through the year.

50 / BizTimes Milwaukee – INNOVATE WISCONSIN | JUNE 15, 2020

Behind the MaskForce was a sense of urgency and contribution to the community, reminiscent of war-time efforts of the past, said James Schneberger, New Berlin Plastics president and MaskForce member.

“I have to think that in times of great need in this country, whether it be World War II or when people needed to step up to a cause that was bigger than the collective group, it maybe had a little flavor of that peppered in there,” Schneberger said.

From start to production, 40 days is an aggressive schedule for a project of this scale, especially amid the disruptive nature of the pandemic, leaders said.

The MaskForce team turned an idea into a design, which turned into a part, and returned to ideation within a 24-hour period, a process that took place several times throughout the project, Schmitt said.

The MaskForce began as a collaborative effort among 50 different organizations whose members met virtually on a daily basis. The professional expertise on those calls ranged from doctors to manufacturers, professors, material experts and others.

Although Husco has decades of experience designing manufacturing components for the automotive industry, the company, and several manufacturers who participated, had little to no experience producing medical equipment.

From a design standpoint, Husco cast a wide net to capture as many opinions as possible to define the design and make sure their injection-molded solution was viable, said Pat Masterson, Husco vice president of corporate manufacturing.

Husco then broke the MaskForce into several groups, designating a series of smaller projects to teams led by Wauwatosa-based Briggs & Stratton, Fitchburg-based Master Graphics, New Berlin Plastics, Hartland-based Midwest Composite Technologies and Milwaukee-based Quarles & Brady.

“The plan we put together had to be a pretty small execution team and I think that’s the key for me when it comes to innovation,” Masterson said. “The difference between a good idea and a true breakthrough is that execution element.”

The various teams navigated the challenges of not being able to meet in-person, and instead having to compare designs, share input, and manage teams virtually. Without the luxury of in-person communications, each team was expected to be especially detailed in their communication, said Karl Held, New Berlin Plastics business development manager.

“Oddly enough, it lent itself to creating a biztimes.com

“When you trust the people you’re working with, regardless of whether (they are) in the same company or not, it tears down barriers and opens the kimono.”

— James Schneberger, New Berlin Plastics

faster-moving environment because it forced everyone to be precise in their directives and what the next steps were going to be,” Held said.

Held, whose team contributed molding expertise to the mask’s final design, said the process validated the importance of getting suppliers involved early on in design phases.

“Don’t hold your design so close to your chest that you make it as perfect as you can only to find out that it’s imperfect when it gets to the supply base,” Held said.

Schneberger also noted that MaskForce team members collaborated without an underlying sense of competition, the root of which is often commercial in nature or can be ego-driven, he added. Instead, communication lines remained open, which drove the tempo of the team’s execution.

“When you trust the people you’re working with, regardless of whether (they are) in the same company or not, it tears down barriers and opens the kimono,” Schneberger said. “It’s something

that we should really reflect on and see if we can get at least a seed of that planted somewhere in our business culture.”

MaskForce leaders said their collaboration in a time of need accelerated the relationship building among organizations.

“The relationships we developed because of it, we probably wouldn’t have, or it would have taken longer to develop those,” said Ryan Martin, Midwest Composite Technologies chief executive officer. “And so, it was just a much better understanding of the landscape and building stronger partnerships with manufacturers, customers and suppliers.”

In fact, the cross-section of industries required those involved to gain a better understanding of processes and challenges they were not privy to, said Dan Sem, professor of pharmaceutical sciences at Concordia University in Mequon.

Before MaskForce, Sem, who is also a biochemistry professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Wauwatosa, was not familiar with the numerous injection molding and plastics companies in the state. Throughout the process, Sem and MaskForce members gained insight on new processes, pushing manufacturers, for example, to explore injection molding silicones with a flexibility suitable for the mask.

“I think we’re each pushing each other out of our comfort zones to innovate and I think these relationships are going to continue,” Sem said.

“Why can’t we use that now going forward to innovate in health care and beyond COVID-19?” v

The unique MFP01 face mask is sanitizable and includes replaceable components.

Photo courtesy of Husco.

INNOVATEWI.COM / 51

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