BizTimes Milwaukee | October 12, 2020

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OCT 12 - 25, 2020 » $3.25

SUPPORTING

BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH

Thursday, November 19, 2020 | Virtual Program – Free | 12:30 - 1:00PM Networking, 1:00 - 2:45PM Program

LOOKING BEYOND THE TUMULT OF 2020 WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? The dramatic news events of 2020 have been felt everywhere, including the southeastern Wisconsin commercial real estate industry. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many businesses to adapt to having many of their employees working remotely. At the same time, civil unrest across the country has drawn increased attention to the issue of racial inequality in communities across America, including Milwaukee, Kenosha and the rest of southeastern Wisconsin.

Join us as the 2020 BizTimes Media Commercial Real Estate and Development Conference will feature a pair of panel discussions diving into two key issues that have been front and center this year: 1) How will work at home practices adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic impact the future of the Milwaukee office market? 2) What opportunities exist, and what challenges are in place, to attract economic development to Milwaukee’s lower income neighborhoods?

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PANELISTS:

• Kevin L. Newell, MBA, President & CEO, Royal Capital Group LLC (5)

• John Coury, Founder, Crestlight Capital (1)

• Ryan Pattee, President, Pattee Group (6)

• Josh Jeffers, President & CEO, J. Jeffers & Co. (2)

• James Phelps, President, JCP Construction (7)

• Lyle Landowski, Managing Director & Partner, Colliers International|Wisconsin (3)

MODERATOR:

• Barry Mandel, Chairman & CEO, Mandel Group (4)

• Andy Hunt, Director, Marquette University Center for Real Estate (8)

Register Now: biztimes.com/creconference Sponsors:

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Exhibit Sponsors:

COUSTECH S U P PLY

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Event Partners:

BIG PROJECTS TO IMPROVE MILWAUKEE-AREA LOGISTICS

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THE INTERVIEW WITH ACUITY CEO BEN SALZMANN 16 PANDEMIC DRIVES BUSY SUMMER FOR LUXURY HOME SALES 18 NOTABLE WOMEN IN MANUFACTURING 36

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OCT 12 - 25, 2020 » $3.25

On the move

2020

PRESENTS:

CORPORATE CITIZENSHIP

Friday, November 6th, 2020 | Virtual Program - Free | 7:00AM Networking, Program 7:30 - 9:30AM

Creating collaborations Partnerships that confront Milwaukee’s biggest challenges Health inequities, education disparities, generational trauma and social isolation are among the deep-rooted issues that Milwaukee has faced for years. The COVID-19 pandemic this year has only exacerbated those challenges, while also taking a toll on the nonprofit organizations that work to confront them. But amid the tumult and tightening budgets, several community leaders are forging new partnerships and innovating to tackle these longstanding problems.

Make plans to attend BizTimes Media’s annual Nonprofit Excellence Awards which will feature a panel discussion of nonprofit leaders who are collaborating to move the needle toward a healthier and more equitable Milwaukee.

Panelists • Greg Wesley, Senior Vice President, Strategic Alliances and Business Development, Medical College of Wisconsin (1) • Carrie Wall, President and CEO, YMCA of Metropolitan Milwaukee (2) • Amy Lovell, Steering Committee Member, Scaling Wellness in Milwaukee (SWIM) (3) • Anne Bastings, Founder and President, TimeSlips (4) 1

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Moderator: Lauren Anderson, Associate Editor, BizTimes Milwaukee

Following the panel discussion, we will recognize BizTimes Media’s Nonprofit Excellence & Corporate Citizenship awards.

2020 Nonprofit Award Finalists Nonprofit Collaboration of the Year: • Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers, American Cancer Society and Kohl’s Healthy Families program • Next Step Clinic • The Kellogg PEAK Initiative Nonprofit Executive of the Year: • Laurie Winters, Museum of Wisconsin Art • Maureen Atwell, Hebron Housing Services • Tom Schneider, COA Youth & Family Centers Large Nonprofit (Organization) of the Year: • Easterseals Southeast Wisconsin • Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center • Milwaukee Center for Independence Small Nonprofit (Organization) of the Year: • Artists Working In Education • Florentine Opera • Riverwest Food Pantry Social Enterprise: • Mission Fuel

2020 Lifetime Achievement Award Winner The Ramirez Family, Husco International 2020 Corporate Citizenship Award Finalists Corporate Citizen of the Year: • Belman Homes • CG Schmidt • Kohl’s • The Lueder Financial Group Corporate Volunteer of the Year: • Dan Davis • Jennifer Ott

Register Today!

biztimes.com/npawards PLATINUM SPONSOR:

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» OCT 12 - 25, 2020

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BizTimes Milwaukee (ISSN 1095-936X & USPS # 017813) Volume 26, Number 10, October 12, 2020 – October 25, 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 $96. 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.

Contents

6 Leading Edge 6 NOW

BY THE NUMBERS 7 FRESH DIGS 8 JUMP START 9 FROM CONCEPT TO COMPLETION 10 THE FRANCHISEE 11 MY TAKE 12 “QUOTE UNQUOTE” 13 BIZ POLL

16 Biz News 16 T HE INTERVIEW WITH ACUITY CEO BEN SALZMANN

18 Real Estate 36 Notable Women in Manufacturing 39 Strategies

COVER STORY

22

39 INNOVATION Dan Steininger 40 MANAGEMENT Beth Ridley

On the move Big projects to improve Milwaukee-area logistics

41 LEADERSHIP Susan Marshall

44 Biz Connections 44 NONPROFIT

Special Report

45 AROUND TOWN

In addition to the cover story, coverage includes a report on the growth of automation in the manufacturing sector and a report about opportunities created for manufacturers by the COVID-19 pandemic.

47 MY BEST ADVICE

46 G LANCE AT YESTERYEAR COMMENTARY

22 Manufacturing & Logistics

PARTNER WITH

WISCONSIN’S BANK FOR BUSINESS ® $70,000,000

$2,000,000

Working capital financing MANUFACTURER

Working capital financing MANUFACTURER

townbank.us

biztimes.com / 5

Leading Edge

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

NOW

Road America

NASCAR’s top series bringing race to Road America next year

By Maredithe Meyer, staff writer

BY THE NUMBERS Private equity firm KPS Capital Partners recently closed on its

550 MILLION $

purchase of Briggs & Stratton Corp. in a deal approved by a federal bankruptcy court judge.

6 / BizTimes Milwaukee OCTOBER 12, 2020

The highest level of professional stock car racing competition is coming to Sheboygan County next year.

NASCAR recently announced it will add a race at Road America to its top-division Cup Series in 2021. The historic road course near Elkhart Lake will host a July 4 race as one of 36 stops on the Cup Series schedule.

Since it opened in 1955, Road America has hosted elite racing competitions and some of the biggest names in auto racing, but mostly in the open-wheel Indy car competition. The top stock car racing circuit only competed once at the track, in 1956 when it was known as the Grand National Series.

However, the four-mile-long, 14-turn track has been an annual stop on NASCAR’s Xfinity Series, its second highest level of competition, for the past 11 years.

Now with NASCAR bringing a Cup Series race to Road America, area auto racing fans will have a chance to see the top drivers in stock car racing compete locally.

“Since we welcomed the

NASCAR Xfinity Series in 2010, our fans have been asking for the NASCAR Cup Series, and we are very proud to make it happen on the Fourth of July,” said Mike Kertscher, president and general manager at Road America.

Kertscher encouraged fans to purchase tickets and campsites early for four full days of motor racing events. Tickets are now available through Road America’s website.

Road America’s track is the longest of the 36-race Cup Series.

The 640-acre venue attracts 800,000 visitors annually with hundreds of events each year, generating more than $100 million in economic impact to the area, according to Road America’s website.

Races and other events have brought fans to Road America all summer despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Road America has implemented a number of health and safety protocols throughout the facility, such as increased cleaning and hand sanitizing stations, sneeze guards and staff training, according to its website. n

FRESH DIGS

CONTRIBUTED

FRESH DIGS

BADGER MUTUAL INSURANCE CO. OW N E R / DE V E LOPE R : The 42 A RC H I T E C T: Rinka C ON T R AC TOR : Greenfire Management Services C O S T S : Undisclosed Y E A R C OM PL E T E D : 2020

WHEN MILWAUKEE-BASED Badger Mutual Insurance Co. moved from the city’s south side to its new headquarters in The Brewery District in downtown this summer, it transitioned to a smaller footprint but gained a host of new amenities.

The company downsized from its 30,000-square-foot office at 635 W. National Ave. to occupy 17,000 square feet at The Factory Office Suites in The 42, at 1134 N. 9th St. The new office space features an open-concept layout, a training dock lounge area that includes gaming devices and a golf simulator, “campfire areas” that include couches and TVs, and mobile work options for employees such as a social staircase and treadmill desk.

The company also has access to The 42’s rooftop deck for socially-distant gatherings.

“It’s a very open concept so departments could work together more, employees could work together more and socialize more, and just have a much more vibrant feeling in the office without employees having to go up an elevator to see anybody else,” said Kathy Bubeck, vice president of claims.

Transitioning away from fivefoot cubicles to sit-stand workstations and a more open concept has allowed for more collaboration among departments, said president Dan Nigro.

“You can see the knowledge sharing is just so much better,” he said. “The space allows for the employees to collaborate and talk with each other. Before, we were kind of isolated in that cubicle and you didn’t really have to get out of (it).” n biztimes.com / 7

ANDREW FILLER PHOTOGRAPHY

Leading Edge

TALIMER LOCATION: Milwaukee FOUNDERS: Erica Conway and Ken Ostermann FOUNDED: 2020 PRODUCT: A digital marketplace that connects freelance tech professionals with employers.

WEBSITE: talimer.com TOTAL EMPLOYEES: Eight GOAL: Scale Talimer for a national audience.

EXPERIENCE: Conway owns staffing agency C2. Ostermann worked in marketing and product development at Harley-Davidson.

Milwaukee startup connects tech freelancers to employers

By Brandon Anderegg, staff writer

8 / BizTimes Milwaukee OCTOBER 12, 2020

Erica Conway and Ken Ostermann, co-founders of Talimer.

MILWAUKEE-BASED startup Talimer has launched a digital marketplace to connect freelance tech professionals with jobs at a time when the city is placing a greater emphasis on its tech workforce.

Erica Conway, who also owns a local staffing company called C2, co-founded Talimer with Ken Ostermann, who worked for Harley-Davidson before launching the startup in August.

While the COVID-19 pandemic has generated a greater demand for remote and freelance work, Talimer was also motivated by the MKE Tech Hub’s progress in building the local tech workforce, Conway said.

“It’s time for businesses to be able to consider freelance as a competitive weapon and more easily connect with difficult-to-access, highly skilled and in-demand professionals,” Conway said. “Just as important, Talimer’s platform reduces hiring bias and intentionally increases inclusivity, diversity and access to underrepresented freelancers.”

What differentiates Talimer’s approach to hiring from traditional staffing agencies is that it places a greater focus on freelancers, rather than the employer seeking talent, Conway said.

Many freelancers may not be taken seriously as entrepreneurs, and in some cases do not have

control over their rates, she said.

Freelancers are also often subject to a corporate pay structure, which means getting paid up to 30, 60 or even 90 days after they complete a project for a company. With Talimer, freelancers will have access to a more consistent cashflow by being paid on a weekly basis, Conway said.

Talimer also seeks to address other uncertainties freelancers face, including a lack of health care, retirement plans and the ability to access consistent and reliable work. With Talimer’s “freelancer first” mentality, the company will provide its clients with access to health care and the ability to set their own pay rates, Conway said.

“To combat these concerns, we applied our decades of experience in career matching and technical platform development to create a unique process to best match freelancers with businesses,” she said.

Talimer is currently in the pilot phase of its programming but has plans to implement proprietary strategies developed through Conway’s staffing firm C2, she said. The startup’s services will be free for freelancers and Talimer plans to generate revenue by charging a fee to the company seeking to fill a position. n

from

Light the Hoan

CONCEPT

to

COMPLETION April 2016: Hostad and Abston reached out to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, which owns the Hoan Bridge, to learn more about the original plans for aesthetic lighting and what privatizing the project would require.

5

On Oct. 22, a coalition of local business and civic leaders will officially flip the switch to illuminate the west side of the Daniel Hoan Memorial Bridge. It will mark the completion of phase one of the $4.6 million Light the Hoan fundraising project, which dates back to 2016 when the initial idea fell into the hands of the group’s co-founders, Michael Hostad and Ian Abston. The pair approached Dan Steininger, president and founder of BizStarts and grandson of the former Milwaukee mayor for whom the bridge is named, about using the Hoan moniker to name an emerging leaders group. He suggested resurrecting a failed effort to light the iconic tied-arch bridge during its 2014 reconstruction.

1

May 2018: Once WisDOT approved the project, a public crowdfunding campaign was launched to raise $1.5 million. Soon after, Light the Hoan had its first meeting with Signify (formerly Philips Lighting), which was later awarded the project contract.

2

September 2020: Milwaukee gets a taste of the final product during a week-long test run. The lighting system can be programmed to change color, automate and even use audio and video feed to sync with live concerts at Summerfest or big plays at Fiserv Forum and Miller Park. Hostad said it’s “totally surreal” to see the project finally come to fruition.

4

August 2020: Crews began a three-month installation of more than 2,000 computer-controlled LED light bulbs that people had donated in dedication to loved ones or special causes. While the COVID-19 outbreak caused some delays, the group forged ahead with the project. “We decided that Milwaukee may need a moment of light in what was shaping up to be a very difficult 2020,” said Hostad.

3

October 2019: Light the Hoan received the first of what would be two $1.2 million gifts from the same anonymous donor, helping to fund engineering work and renderings. The second gift, granted four months later, allowed the group to move forward with lighting one side of the bridge.

biztimes.com / 9

Leading Edge

the

FRAN C H I S E E Holly Miller and her daughter, Londyn, who has inspired Holly’s ambition as a female entrepreneur.

HOLLY MILLER LUNCHBOXWAX While LunchboxWax’s clientele is largely female, its waxologists are specifically trained to service all demographics, including the transgender community.

“I think everybody who is starting their own company has some level of excitement and nervousness,” Miller said. “… Certainly, it’s a unique time, but I believe the opportunities are always now.”

THE FRANCHISE: Boise, Idaho-based LunchboxWax Holdings LLC is a full-service speed-waxing salon that was founded in 2010 by chief executive officer Debi Lane.

Since the company started franchising in 2013, it has grown to 48 locations in 14 states. Local franchisee Holly Miller, who has a background in technology leadership at local companies, plans to open at least three Milwaukee-area locations over the next three to five years.

“I loved the concept,” said Miller.

“It was fresh, it was clean, it was very easy to make a reservation, the technology was fantastic, and it was in and out.”

FEBRUARY 2020: Miller made her first foray into LunchboxWax while vacationing in Scottsdale, Arizona. The business popped up on a Google search for nearby waxing salons, and she decided to give it a try.

APRIL 2020 : After connecting with LunchboxWax founder Debi Lane, Miller begins the franchising process. The COVID-19 pandemic had rocked salons and other retailers across the country, but Miller didn’t lose sight of the opportunity to launch the business.

AUGUST 2020: Miller officially purchased the franchise, and has since set out to secure a site for the first of three locations planned for the area. Its location has yet to be chosen, but Brookfield, Mequon, Wauwatosa and Milwaukee proper are in the running. Wherever the business lands, Miller hopes to make a mark on the surrounding community by partnering with local nonprofits.

SPRING 2021: Wisconsin’s first LunchboxWax studio is expected to open in May 2021.

Miller plans to open at least three studios in the Milwaukee area.

10 / BizTimes Milwaukee OCTOBER 12, 2020

THE FRANCHISE FEE $45,000

Once salons were allowed to reopen across the country this spring, LunchboxWax saw an increase in business as customers focused on self-care and felt comfortable at the studios, Miller said.

MY TA K E

Supreme Court vacancy

President Donald Trump nominated U.S. Court of Appeals judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill the Supreme Court seat vacated by the recent death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Democrats say a new Supreme Court justice should not be appointed until after the presidential election, pointing out Republicans declined to consider President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland in 2016. But Senate Republicans say they have the majority and will move ahead with the confirmation process. Quotes below taken from Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and Wispolitics.com reports. n

Three Key Questions During Covid-19 After more than six months dealing with the COViD-19, we seem to have an endless supply of questions. During the August Biz Times webinar, “You’re Informed of a Positive test - Now What?,” experts on the testing, insurance and legal issues of associated with doing business during the pandemic (Maureen Joy, OTR, Health Care Specialist for R&R Insurance Services; David Metzger CEO/President of Accelerated Analytical Laboratories Inc. and Brittany Lopez Naleid, a Shareholder at Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren, s.c.) answered many of these questions.

Here are three of the most crucial ones covered in the webinar: 1. What are your options for COVID testing for employees? You and your employees can be tested at a number of public facilities — Walgreens, CVS, drive-through test sites or local healthcare.

Or the National Guard can come to your facility (usually after a problem has been identified) and test your employees. Another option — you can arrange for onsite testing, that can be scheduled at your convenience and comes with 48- to 72-hour turnaround for results.

SEN. TAMMY BALDWIN SEN. RON JOHNSON D-Madison

R-Oshkosh

NOW OR L ATER? “Voters across America should be allowed to cast their ballots first, before a Supreme Court nomination and confirmation process moves forward.”

“President Trump was elected for a term that runs into January. Republicans have control of the Senate until the end of this Congress. We should fulfill that constitutional duty.”

COMPARISON TO 2016 “Majority Leader (Mitch) McConnell and the Senate majority put in place the standard that Supreme Court nominations would not move forward in an election year. That was the standard imposed on President Obama and the same standard should apply now to President Trump.”

“We had divided government (in 2016).

That’s a valid argument when you have divided government (saying) ‘Let’s let the American people decide.’ Right now, we don’t have divided government. That makes all the difference in the world.”

“The lab was able to process results within two days for over 140 tests and ensured there was a service available for immediate pick-up of kits,” according to Alison Hanold of Cargill, which used Accelerated Analytical Labs testing capabilities.

Another benefit of onsite private testing is, not surprisingly, privacy.

“When the National Guard come out, they’re going to be out front and center of your building and everybody’s going to be able to see it, so it can be a bit of a PR nightmare,” said Metzger.

2. How often do you need to test? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends testing every 14 days. When deciding on a protocol, compare your workplace’s positive percentages to the community percentages and compare the cost of testing to that of a partial or full shutdown.

“I absolutely believe regular testing provides a “peace-of-mind” to the employees that their employer cares about them and is doing everything they can to keep them safe at work.

I think there is also a comfort factor provided to the employees that they are not bringing COVID home to their families from work,” said Robert Cigale, owner of Endpoint Solutions Corp.

To read this story in its entirety, visit biztimes.com/category/sponsored

THE ELECTION FACTOR “It’s not only an election year. We are weeks away from an election for president and control of the Senate, and people are voting right now. After the voters have spoken in the election, and the elected president and new Senate have taken office, we can then move forward on a Supreme Court nomination.”

“It’s just the reality of the situation. The norm is, if you have a president of one party and Senate of the same party, (election year) vacancies are filled. And if you have a president of one party and Senate of the other party, the vacancies are not filled.”

9075 West Heather Avenue Milwaukee, WI 53224 (888) 770-6896 • acceleratedlabs.com biztimes.com / 11

Leading Edge

“ QUOTE

unQUOTE

NICK EGELANIAN

”

PR E S I D EN T, S I T E WO R K S R E TA I L R E A L E S TAT E S ER V I C E S Nick Egelanian, president of SiteWorks Retail Real Estate Services, recently led a session focused on the future of malls during the Commercial Association of Realtors Wisconsin’s virtual Retail Conference. In a conversation with CARW president and chief executive officer Tracy Johnson, Egelanian discussed his outlook for regional malls locally and nationally as specialty retail continues to evolve. n

“We think that somewhere in the range of 300 to 500 regional malls in the United States will exit productive life over the next three to five years and they will not return to retail use. They will go to other uses. And this may be the best time in the history of real estate in America for those types of sites.”

“I believe that 80% of the remaining malls in the United States are going to collapse in the coming two to three years. … That’s going to leave Milwaukee probably with only one regional mall when it’s all said and done.”

“If you’re in the specialty retail business and you’re not embracing technology, you are way behind already.”

“We are social beings, so entertainment and restaurants, particularly, are a huge part of specialty retail going forward.”

“Malls like Mayfair are going to have a lot of extra square footage and they’re going to have some pathways that don’t really work going forward, so they may require as much as a billion, a billion and a half of additional new investment over the next 10 to 15 years.

In order for it to maintain its status as having the best retail selection as it loses department stores, it’s going to have to repurpose in some ways and then it’s going to have to fight whatever competition comes.”

“So many people think that e-commerce is what is responsible for the demise of the mall, and e-commerce has almost nothing to do with it. As of quarter one this year, e-commerce only represented 10.7% of U.S. retail sales. … So many places in the U.S. that are not urban use the internet very little. They use dollar stores, though. There are 35,000 dollar stores in the U.S.”

Now more than ever, we’re in this

for our community.

262-363-6500 www.citizenbank.bank 12 / BizTimes Milwaukee OCTOBER 12, 2020

Follow | Like | Review Citizens Bank – WI Member FDIC | Equal Housing Lender

BIZ POLL When should a new justice be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court to fill the seat vacated by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg?

As soon as possible:

53.5%

Only after the presidential election and inauguration:

46.5%

Advertise in these upcoming special reports and get your message in front of area business executives.

Banking & Finance

November 9, 2020 Space Reservation: October 21, 2020

Business in Kenosha County

November 9, 2020 Space Reservation: October 21, 2020

Share your opinion! Visit biztimes.com/bizpoll to cast your vote in the next Biz Poll.

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biztimes.com / 13

SPONSORED CONTENT

Coping with Cancer in Today’s Workplace While the COVID-19 pandemic continues, people are still being diagnosed with cancer.

That means understanding how to support an employee or co-worker with cancer remains important, even in today’s virtual workplace.

Making Strides Against Breast Cancer of Milwaukee

Annette Adams, chief human resources officer at MGIC and a breast cancer survivor, recalls what she valued from her then employer when diagnosed. “They gave me the flexibility I needed ADAMS to manage numerous medical appointments and the ability to work a schedule that accommodated caring for myself and my responsibilities as a leader.”

In addition to the policies and benefits managed through HR, co-workers can be a key support network for cancer patients. The American Cancer Society recommends a few ways to support a co-worker with cancer whether in-person or virtually: • Help your co-worker feel “normal” at work – many patients find continuing to work while in treatment can offer a muchneeded distraction. Reach out about workrelated topics, as well as to lend support and a listening ear.

• Help your co-worker prioritize getting well – cancer treatment can require many appointments over several weeks or months. Being flexible and ready to take on additional tasks can help your co-worker focus on getting well.

• Ask your co-worker how you can help – when talking with your co-worker, do so in a way that’s comfortable for you, expressing empathy, encouragement, and support.

“I know how meaningful it is to have your company support you through cancer.

Employers can do some simple things such as reviewing benefit programs to ensure coverage is adequate and encourages preventive care, and having policies to support time off or the flexibility so the patient or a family member can receive care,” Adams added.

Employers can also take steps to stop cancer before it starts by encouraging behaviors that can help lower cancer risk like eating healthy, being active, and promoting cancer screening.

The American Cancer Society has resources and programs to support companies in meeting their wellness goals. To learn how we can partner to foster a healthy workforce, contact Andrew Moser, corporate relations director, at andrew.moser@cancer.org.

14 / BizTimes Milwaukee OCTOBER 12, 2020

10.17.2020 Walk anytime, anywhere We envision future generations living without the threat of breast cancer.

But with breast cancer research funding at risk like never before, their futures are in our hands.

Join the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer movement and fund the future – yours and theirs.

OUR COMMITMENT TO CANCER RESEARCH

SIGN UP OR DONATE

MakingStridesWalk.org/MilwaukeeWI

Our Commitment to Research More than 1.8 million new cancer cases are expected to be diagnosed in the United States in 2020. Without the American Cancer Society’s nearly 75 years of investments in research, patients wouldn’t have as many treatment strategies, screening tools and preventative measures. As the largest private not-for-profit, non-governmental funder of cancer research in the US, we’ve played a role in many of the major cancer research breakthroughs in the last century.

We can’t stop now. We are committed to ensuring that life-saving research continues, and innovative ideas are not lost.

WHAT SETS THE AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY APART? We fund research into all cancers and foster implementation of evidence based research to improve cancer care.

Each grant application goes through our extensive, independent, and competitive scientific peer-review process to ensure we are funding the best ideas across the US.

We have no vested interest in any specific institution. We are able to fund the BEST science no matter where it is being done.

We focus on providing funds to earlycareer investigators to foster the next generation of cancer research.

AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY RESEARCH BY THE NUMBERS

$4.9B invested in research since 1946

49

Nobel Prize winners funded by the American Cancer Society

WE ARE CURRENTLY SUPPORTING MORE THAN

650

grants at institutions across the country

65

full-time researchers on staff at the American Cancer Society

APPROXIMATELY

1/3

of all beginning cancer researchers are funded by the American Cancer Society

2/3

of all directors of National Cancer Institute-designated cancer centers were once ACS grantees

An important part of our efforts has long been to better understand health disparities.

We have active grants at nearly 200 institutions– and we have reach into many institutions across the country.

32K+ grants since 1946

85% 73%

of researchers funded by the American Cancer Society stay in research likelihood of receiving National Institutes of Health funding as a past grantee of the American Cancer Society

SPONSORED CONTENT

• Funding the first successful chemotherapy treatment • Demonstrating the efficacy of mammograms for the early detection of breast cancer • Confirming the link between smoking and lung cancer • Establishing the link between obesity and death from breast, colorectal, and other cancers

And while cancer can affect anyone, it doesn’t affect everyone equally. The Society also conducts and supports research to investigate factors that lead to cancer inequalities and develops strategies to overcome them. We can save and improve more lives by better understanding the barriers faced and the risk factors that affect underserved communities, including those in Milwaukee.

Research is the cornerstone of our work in fighting cancer. But progress like this is at serious risk.

A RESEARCH FUNDING CRISIS JENNIFER, ETHAN AND CHRIS OTT

AT RISK: Cancer Research, Progress to Defeat Cancer Jennifer Ott is a breast cancer survivor. But when she was diagnosed in 2011 and her son was only nine months old, her doctor gave her a 1% chance of survival. The idea of leaving him and her husband behind was frightening.

Ott credits the American Cancer Society with saving her life. She takes the breast cancer drug tamoxifen every day to help protect her from a recurrence. It was the American Cancer Society that funded the early research that eventually led to this lifesaving discovery.

“After multiple surgeries, chemotherapy, radiation, and eight years on tamoxifen, I’m still in remission.

That’s thanks to the American Cancer Society.

Because of their ongoing pledge to funding cancer research, I have peace of mind that I’ll see my son grow up,” Ott said.

BUILDING A LEGACY Dismayed to learn the American Cancer Society wasn’t allocating enough to cancer research, philanthropist Mary Lasker staged a successful fundraising campaign in the mid-1940s that established our hallmark research program.

Today, the American Cancer Society is the largest private, nonprofit funder of cancer research in the U.S. and second only to the federal government in overall dollars LASKER provided. Since 1946, the Society has invested more than $4.9 billion in cancer research and supported 49 scientists who have won the Nobel Prize.

Research funded and conducted by the American Cancer Society has led to groundbreaking milestones that have significantly advanced the fight against cancer such as:

COVID-19 is causing considerable revenue declines for the American Cancer Society, threating the future of our investment in cancer research that could impact progress against the disease for years to come.

Right now, the American Cancer Society is projecting a 50% decline in funding for cancer research – our lowest investment this century. Failing to invest in cancer research now means fewer preventative tools and treatments, lost progress and, ultimately, more suffering and death from cancer in the future.

Several years ago, Christian Capitini, MD, associate professor and scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was on the verge of closing his lab when the American Cancer Society provided critical funds so his innovative CAR-T research to treat childhood cancers could continue.

“The American Cancer Society provides critical research support for laboratories like mine to develop ideas that are on the cutting edge,” Capitini said.

“Support for research is at its highest need. We’re on the brink of a variety of breakthroughs. Only support through the American Cancer Society [research] program will allow these ideas to come to fruition.”

$100 MILLION GOAL The American Cancer Society has a goal to raise $100 million this year to protect the future of our cancer research program.

Michael Hupy, president of Hupy and Abraham s.c. and one of the first in Wisconsin to support the Society’s research funding campaign, said: “As someone who had a sister and uncle who died from cancer, I know cancer research can’t just stop. Cancer certainly won’t. The treatments of tomorrow require our continued efforts in labs and universities today.”

We’re at a tipping point – a crossroads of science and technology that’s enabled us to know more about the disease than ever before. Your support is critically needed to continue our pace of discovery and advance breakthroughs in treatment, care, and prevention.

To learn how you or your company can join us in sustaining cancer research, contact Carl Lockrem, philanthropy director, at carl.lockrem@cancer.org or 262-523-5549.

Wisconsin Community Leaders Harness the Power of Pink Breast cancer affects everyone. Not only are more than 2,500 men in the U.S. diagnosed with breast cancer every year, but so are more than 276,000 of their daughters, wives, mothers, sisters, and friends.

To engage more male corporate and community leaders in the American Cancer Society’s mission to end breast cancer, we launched Real Men Wear Pink. It’s a unique way for men to take a leadership role in the fight against breast cancer and show support for the women they know who’ve faced a breast cancer diagnosis.

Real Men Wear Pink ambassadors commit to: • Raising a minimum of $2,500 for the American Cancer Society • Wearing pink throughout October • Promoting the campaign through their professional and social media networks We have a goal to recruit 25 men across Wisconsin for this year’s campaign.

The critical funds raised by Real Men Wear Pink ambassadors help us invest in breast cancer research, provide education about breast cancer screening and risk, and offer comprehensive patient support so no one faces breast cancer alone.

Join the movement. Visit RealMenWearPinkACS.org/Wisconsin for more information, to become a Real Men Wear Pink ambassador, or to donate. biztimes.com / 15

BizNews

the

Interview

IN SEPTEMBER, Sheboygan-based property and casualty insurer Acuity announced it

plans to hire more than 120 employees in 2021, continuing its growth trajectory in recent years. The company has increased its staff by nearly 50% over the past seven years, hiring nearly 200 employees in 2019 alone. BizTimes reporter Brandon Anderegg recently spoke with Acuity chief executive officer Ben Salzmann about the drivers of growth for the company and the challenges facing the insurance industry this year.

Where is Acuity seeing the most growth and why?

“During the COVID pandemic, the insurance industry is shrinking somewhere between 5% and 7%. Fortunately, right now, Acuity is growing 7%. So, that’s quite a delta. We’re seeing a lot of growth in trucking insurance. Acuity is the largest insurer of trucks in Wisconsin and you didn’t hear any truckers saying we can’t get insurance. We insured the truckers that were bringing the medical supplies and food without skipping a beat. We’re seeing a lot of growth in trucking and a lot of growth in construction. Acuity insures a lot of contractors. We also love insuring retail and restaurants, it’s just they’re not getting as much traffic as they used to, so that’s slowing down growth there.”

Why is the insurance industry shrinking?

“There are so many restaurants that are closed that they are not being insured. Where restaurants have laid off or furloughed their waiters and cooks, that means they’re buying less workers’ compensation insurance. Where retailers have reduced hours, you see fewer employees and quite often, the owner is working instead and buying less workers’ compensation insurance for their clerks.”

“With less miles being driven, insurance companies are giving refunds or providing discounts on insurance. By and large, that’s why the insurance industry is shrinking. But again, where we’re growing, we’re insuring a lot more truckers who are driving supplies to you and we’re insuring a lot more contractors who kept building during this pandemic.”

What is the industry facing in the age of COVID-19?

“Well, it’s COVID and the pandemic, it’s also hurricanes and one of the most active years. It’s also wildfires with hundreds of thousands of acres burning down and it’s also your tornados and inland storms taking a new proportion with derecho. That event in Iowa was bigger than most hurricanes. And then there is social unrest. Minneapolis had more than $1 billion in losses just in that one event, setting an all-time record. It creates unprecedented volatility in the insurance industry.”

Are we going to see pandemic insurance for businesses or individuals?

“It’s being discussed by our industry’s associations. They are proposing ways that government could partner with insurers in the future. Not a lot of progress is being made even though our trade groups are trying to make progress because it’s just so big. How do you wrap your arms around this?”

Are insurance companies concerned by the lack of progress on that front?

“You’ve got this tradeoff of, if the insurance industry was going to provide full coverage for something like the COVID pandemic, they would last a very short time. The industry itself is much smaller than people realize and COVID or a pandemic is obviously about as big as you can get. It’s sort of like writing insurance for World War III. If you don’t have federal backing or a mutual agreement, it’s an uninsurable event.

This has to be a joint effort with insurance and the government.” n 16 / BizTimes Milwaukee OCTOBER 12, 2020

Ben Salzmann Chief executive officer Acuity Insurance 2800 S. Taylor Drive, Sheboygan Employees: 1,450 acuity.com

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Real Estate

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

SUZANNE POWERS, POWERS REALTY GROUP

A home for sale on Lake Michigan in Mequon.

JON ELLIOTT OF MKE DRONES LLC

Pandemic drives busy summer for luxury home sales

18 / BizTimes Milwaukee OCTOBER 12, 2020

STEVE BEERS, who resides in Fontana, said it felt like he had more neighbors this April than the previous July. This was peculiar, he said, given the area around Geneva Lake is always busiest in the summer months, when homeowners who primarily live in Chicago

stay at their second homes near the lake.

“It was like the summer,” Beers, a real estate agent and board chairman with Keefe & Associates, said of the spring.

The influx of interest from Illinois to Walworth County is just one sign of the busy year — and specifically a busy summer — for the luxury home market in southeastern Wisconsin. Real estate agents and industry experts say it is very much a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We have a hard time keeping up some days,” said Suzanne Powers, broker owner of Powers Realty Group, which sells luxury homes primarily in the North Shore area.

Powers noted that, compared to 2019, Powers Realty’s dollar volume for closed transactions is up, its sales price average is up about $75,000, and the number of homes sold with values $800,000 or higher have increased by 25%.

It’s not just Powers Realty experiencing this uptick.

Luxury home (priced $800,000 or higher) sales throughout the region totaled more than $504 million for the period of Jan. 1 through Aug. 31, according to data provided by the Greater Milwau-

BIRD’S EYE VIEW: W E S T E R N B U I L D I N G P R O D U C T S’ N E W M I LWAU K E E H Q Western Building Products will soon move into its new headquarters facility on Milwaukee’s far northwest side. The nearly finished 326,600-square-foot warehouse and office building stands on the Joy Farms site southwest of where I-41 meets Good Hope Road.

Bill Zacher, recovery manager with Western Building Products, said in late September that construction was slated to finish in mid-October, and the company would begin its move in early November.

The distributor of millwork products revealed in 2019 it would move its operations to the 28-acre site from its existing location in Wauwatosa. The project was made possible in part through a $2.54 million contribution by the city through tax incremental financing, which paid for the installation of sewer and water mains.

kee Association of Realtors. Meanwhile, sales in the summer months of June through August totaled more than $318.8 million.

Through August, 378 luxury homes were sold in the region, with 227 of those being sold since June.

These numbers exceed the region’s averages over the past five years. From 2016-‘20, luxury home sales between January and August totaled $347.3 million on average per year. Sales volumes averaged $192 million for the summer months each year.

An average of 273 luxury homes were sold between January and August over that five-year period. And on average, 148 homes were sold in the summertime.

Regional sales data includes Kenosha, Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Racine, Walworth, Washington and Waukesha counties.

Mike Ruzicka, president of GMAR, said the housing market has been strong in “almost every category” following the Great Recession. However, demand for $1 million-plus homes isn’t as robust as the more affordable categories due to the small number of prospective buyers, he said.

COVID-19 has changed things for that most expensive category.

“There’s been more demand for nicer properties that have lake access,” he said. “Along the lakes the values have gone way up because people want to live somewhere (nice) but they don’t want to go on an airplane, so rather than spend a week Up North they say, ‘Why don’t we just buy a property at a lake? I can hang out there all the time.’ So, that has been a real growth area.”

Beers said much of the demand in Walworth County comes from Illinois. In a way, this is typical of the market — wealthy Chicago-area residents purchasing luxurious lake houses as a second home.

But the pandemic, and the mandated shutdowns in Illinois, caused many to take up more permanent residence across the border, he said. Beers called COVID-19 the “tipping point” for that group, as it only added to what some consider drawbacks in

Illinois, such as its higher property taxes compared to its northern neighbor.

“This is what has helped take off this dramatic rise in interest here,” he said.

Low interest rates make buying a home more feasible as well, helping offset the rising values associated with increased demand, Beers said.

Powers said the increase is driven by more people working from home due to the pandemic.

People now have more freedom to choose where they want to live, and many of them are choosing medium-sized cities as opposed to metropolises like Chicago and New York, Powers said.

And since people are spending more time at home, many are in need of additional space.

“People are staying home more, which means they need an at-home office to work in,” Powers said. “That requires upsizing.”

The only thing going against the market segment right now appears to be available supply.

Take the lakefront properties in Walworth County for instance.

Beers said under normal conditions, roughly 30-35 homes would be available at any time on Geneva Lake. As of late September, 16 were for sale, with six of those having offers in.

That’s a conundrum virtually all segments of the market face, Ruzicka said.

“There’s such a deficiency in supply right now to begin with,” he said. “We’ve seen it really hit all the price points this year.” n

UGLY BUILDING: FORMER VENTURE PL A Z A IN M E N O M O N E E FA L L S The owner of this ugly duckling of a building says it will soon be transformed into a beautiful swan.

Formerly known as Venture Plaza, the nearly 20,000-square-foot office building sits at the southwest corner of Appleton Avenue and Pilgrim Road in Menomonee Falls. The oddly shaped eyesore is undergoing a $500,000 renovation, said building owner Jeffrey Martin.

The work should be completed by November.

Martin said the building had lots of deferred maintenance when he bought it this summer. What surprised him was its notoriety in the community. He said everyone he spoke with had a different nickname for the building, such as the “White Elephant.” Martin decided to keep one of the local landmark’s key features – its porthole windows – to “leave some remembrance of what it was like.”

Martin plans to move ePlatinumHealth, an insurance agency he co-owns, into the building once renovations are complete. It will be renamed Martin Plaza.

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SPONSORED CONTENT

Lessons from the health crisis

by Jim Mueller When the Coronavirus pandemic reached Wisconsin and the Governor issued his statewide shutdown order of non-essential business in late March, most businesses and individuals were not adequately prepared for this historic crisis.

More than six months later, businesses have reopened and we are all adjusting to this “new normal” in our own ways. Looking back on this period of transition provides a unique opportunity to take stock of how our lives, our businesses, and our healthcare system have adapted to the challenges of the day and identify lessons that can help us going forward.

Perhaps the most apparent lesson is that we all need to interact with others for material, social, and emotional support. Isolation increases stress levels and hurts our physical and mental health. Financial uncertainties and additional family care responsibilities make isolation even more difficult to bear.

We also learned that although technology allows us to communicate from almost anywhere, it is an imperfect replacement for personal contact. Some individuals transitioned to working from home with little difficulty.

Many others had to adapt to juggle remote work with new tasks like helping with shopping for an elderly parent or acting as substitute teacher and daycare provider for a young child. The question of how remote work affects productivity will not be answered anytime soon, but it clearly requires a high level of independence and personal responsibility for individuals to both take care of themselves and their families and get their work done.

Jim Mueller President and CEO mueller QAAS Web: myQAAS.com Social: linkedin.com/in/jim-mueller Contact: (262) 696-3610

Personal responsibility is also critical for remote medicine, or telehealth, to be effective. Doctors can do a lot by seeing and talking to a patient via phone or video, but some conditions will require the patient to visit a healthcare facility for testing or imaging. In a traditional office visit this is often done immediately on-site. Virtual visits may require an inperson follow-up, which requires more commitment from the patient than simply walking down the hall.

Healthcare facilities in our community have done a marvelous job of maintaining access to care. Rather than being overwhelmed as was feared, health systems saw a tremendous drop in patient volume and revenue due to the suspension of elective procedures.

The shutdown strained or busted the budgets of countless businesses, nonprofits, and governments, and the scale of the pandemic has led many to expect large increases in health benefit premiums.

However, although testing and treatment for COVID-19 was an unexpected expense, the overall reduction in patient volume created enormous surpluses for many insurers. Some even granted premium holidays to balance revenues with expected expenditures. Those that don’t may be forced to issue rebates to policyholders under the Affordable Care Act’s Medical Loss Ratio requirement.

Taking time to reflect on how life has changed this year presents an opportunity to reconsider what we value and how we achieve our goals. This may lead to more calls for government intervention in the healthcare system to ensure equitable access to quality, affordable care. Supply chains for critical items like personal protective equipment and pharmaceuticals may be re-shored, and bulk purchasing may create efficiencies by removing intermediaries who do not create value. No matter what policy choices are made as a result of this crisis, I am optimistic that the experience will leave us stronger, wiser, and more resilient.

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PRESENTING SPONSOR:

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SPONSOR MESSAGES

WMEP Manufacturing Solutions is proud to sponsor the 2020 Next Generation Manufacturing Summit, an event that celebrates the vital role manufacturing plays in Wisconsin.

We’ve been inside thousands of companies. We’ve helped manufacturers reduce waste, improve efficiencies, grow their business, achieve certifications, find and develop talent, and increase profits.

WMEP has been helping manufacturers succeed for over 25 years.

Go to WMEP.ORG to find out how WMEP Manufacturing Solutions can help your organization solve its biggest challenges.

As a private, non-profit organization our focus is on your bottom line, not ours.

WMEP recognizes that manufactures face many challenges including: increasing competition, continually evolving technology, demanding customers, and a shortage of workers. We help manufacturers solve these challenges to take their companies to the next level.

BMO Harris Bank strongly supports the Wisconsin manufacturing community and we’re proud to sponsor the 2020 Next Generation Manufacturing Summit.

At BMO Harris we understand the industry complexities that manufacturers face whether it’s managing a supply chain, procuring raw materials or planning for growth. Our teams of experienced, local relationship managers will work closely with you to understand the issues and opportunities unique to your business and will offer strategic advice and solutions to help keep your business moving forward.

To learn more, visit bmoharris.com/ manufacturing or contact: DAVE ANDERSON, Managing Director david.a.anderson@bmo.com (414) 765-7671 Banking products and services are subject to bank and credit approval. BMO Harris Bank N.A. Member FDIC.

In the midst of challenge, opportunity exists. At CLA, our purpose is to focus on creating opportunities. The companies presenting today embody the same purpose and make Wisconsin a great place to live and work.

We make it our business to understand the motivations and goals in our relationships.

Each day, we help our clients, people, and communities by getting to know them. We believe when we get to know someone well, we’re in a better position to help them.

Our major service lines are wealth advisory, outsourcing, audit, tax, and consulting.

We serve more than 8,000 manufacturing clients from 120+ locations across the country. Our Wisconsin footprint includes 2,000 manufacturing companies served from our 18 locations across the state.

Enjoy an energizing and inspiring day. We hope you uncover an opportunity or two along the way.

SAMANTHA METCALF, CPA, Managing Principal of Manufacturing and Distribution, CLA

TIM WIORA Executive Director/CEO, WMEP Manufacturing Solutions

At Davis|Kuelthau, we are passionate about partnering with our clients to achieve their legal and business objectives. Since our firm’s origin, our attorneys have helped hundreds of local and national manufacturers grow and thrive in even the most challenging times. As one of the Wisconsin’s leading business law firms, and proudly headquartered here in Milwaukee, we have had the honor of advising a wide array of manufacturers producing the latest products in areas such as adhesives, electronics, food and beverage, furniture, lighting, machinery, plastics, steel and transportation. Our team of business, employment and litigation attorneys is uniquely positioned to help businesses and their owners navigate their legal challenges every day. We bring real-world experience, understanding, and a results-oriented mindset to help clients achieve their objectives.

When the time is right, we would be delighted to speak with you about your needs. To learn more about our services, please visit www.dkattorneys.com. In the interim, we hope you enjoy the summit.

For nearly 100 years, CG Schmidt has partnered with Wisconsin’s top manufacturers to build innovative facilities and to build trusted relationships. A fourth-generation, family-owned company based in Milwaukee, CG Schmidt is one of Wisconsin’s largest construction managers.

We look forward to learning about your needs and how we can work to become your valued partner.

RICHARD NIERZWICKI, Managing Director, CG Schmidt Rick.nierzwicki@cgschmidt.com | 414.577.1058 | www.cgschmidt.com

SUPPORTING:

biztimes.com / 21

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22 / BizTimes Milwaukee OCTOBER 12, 2020

y a s s r e d a e l y t i n u m e m b o l c l i s w s Busine way projects e e r f e r u e c r fut e m m o c o t n a boo AFTER YEARS OF DELAY, the state’s transportation department under Gov. Tony Evers’ administration is looking to plow ahead with a pair of massive road projects in the Milwaukee area.

But looming on the horizon could be another legal battle over one of the projects – the expansion of the I-94 east-west corridor – that business leaders say is critical to the state’s economy.

It’s no secret the Wisconsin Department of Transportation does not have the money it needs to fund all of the transportation projects on its wish list, but Evers announced this summer he would seek federal approval to revive the I-94 expansion project.

The approximately 3.5-mile project would add a lane in each direction to I-94 between the Marquette and Zoo interchanges, and would also reconfigure the interchanges in between those two.

Separately, Evers included a proposed I-43 expansion project in his 2019-’21 state budget proposal, which would, among other things, add lanes to the freeway between Silver Spring Drive in Glendale to State Highway 60 in Grafton.

The interstate corridors are vital to the state’s overall economy, said Steve Baas, senior vice president of governmental affairs with the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce.

“People have to realize the critical importance of the I-94/43 corridor here in Wisconsin to the overall economy in southeast Wisconsin,” he said.

“One in five jobs in the state are located within 10 minutes of that corridor. This is the economic powerhouse of the state, and the ability to move goods in and out of this region is critical to the entire economy of the state.”

Due to where each project stands, there are more tangible dates to look forward to with the I-43 upgrade. WisDOT spokesman Dan Sellers said the $550 million project is in the final design phase.

This spring, WisDOT and the Federal Highway Administration approved and signed the re-evaluation of an environmental impact study on the project, Sellers said.

“This approval means that the original environmental decision from 2014 is still valid and the project can proceed to final design and construction,” he wrote in an email.

While financial commitments are in place for the full project cost, not all of the required money

ARTHUR THOMAS/BIZTIMES MEDIA

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m e Stadiu eas t of th uld be t s ju r o that co t corrid eas t-wes is one of several the I-94 e n g o n t. a ic c h ff Tra proje interc xpansion n g e. T h e Intercha r the proposed e e nd rebuilt u

has been put toward it yet. It will come in increments over the next couple of two-year state fiscal budgets, Sellers said.

Utility relocation work is expected to begin next year, he said. WisDOT expects to begin seeking bidders for work-zone preparations in late summer 2021.

The rest of the bid letting schedule includes: » Construction between Highland Road and Highway 60, late fall 2021 » County Line Road interchange and Port Washington Road, late fall 2021 » Glendale segment of Port Washington Road, late 2021 » Union Pacific Railroad bridge work, late 2022 » Work from Good Hope Road to Brown Deer Road, late fall 2022 » Mequon Road interchange, late 2022 The work-zone prep work will begin in late 2021, with major construction starting in spring 2022.

The project is anticipated to finish by early 2025.

The I-94 project is much further from the

construction stages than the I-43 project. In fact, WisDOT was not prepared to give estimates on when the work would actually take place.

WisDOT spokesman Michael Pyritz said the department is working on a reassessment document for the I-94 project, which it will submit to FHWA. This work will take place over the next couple of months. Pyritz said that the reassessment document will “serve as our roadmap for getting the Record of Decision established.”

“So, until we get that done there’s not a lot of clarity yet,” Pyritz said. “As far as when construction can begin, I think a lot of that depends on the next couple of months and where we come from that. At the moment the process is just re-beginning, and once we get that reassessment document done and agreed to, we will know the path forward.”

Evers’ decision to enumerate the I-43 project in his budget over the I-94 project was a matter of practicality. The process for its re-approval by the federal government was simpler than I-94, which had its Record of Decision rescinded by FHWA, Baas said.

Even so, the I-94 project has the backing of biztimes.com / 23

STORY COVER business leaders beyond the confines of Milwaukee County, who argue its implications for commerce reach far beyond that 3.5-mile stretch.

“Carrying $23 billion in freight each year, the I-94 east-west corridor is the heart and soul of the region and the state’s economy; almost half of Wisconsin’s exports leave the state through the southeast,” Suzanne Kelley, president and chief executive officer of the Waukesha County Business Alliance, said in a statement. “An efficient, safe transportation network is key to economic growth. Now more than ever, we believe this is a vital economic development issue for our region and the state.”

But the expansion projects aren’t universally supported. And projects along the I-94 corridor in particular have been subject to legal battles.

In 2017, when I-94 east-west was on track for construction, a trio of groups including the NAACP Milwaukee branch, the Sierra Club John Muir Chapter and Milwaukee Inner-City Congregations Allied for Hope filed a lawsuit challenging the planning involved with the project. The groups alleged that officials failed to follow federal laws in approving it.

Dennis Grzezinski is a lawyer who represented the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which was withdrawn

after the I-94 project stalled. He also represented plaintiffs in a similar lawsuit filed in 2012 over the $1.7 billion Zoo Interchange project.

The I-94 plaintiffs argued that state and federal leaders didn’t factor in a number of things when reviewing the I-94 project, such as its potential impact on suburban sprawl, racial segregation and the environment. They also questioned the accuracy of the traffic projections used as justification for adding lanes.

“There were all sorts of reasons to expect that projections of significant increase in traffic volume, and the demand for highway space year after year after year, was not going to happen,” Grzezinski said. “Some of those were related to the changing interests and behavior of younger people. … Millennials did not grow up in a car-craved society.”

Grzezinski argued that expanding the freeway would not ultimately fix congestion. Traffic would be better for a few years but would again worsen as people began taking more trips they otherwise wouldn’t have, or more people began using the freeway as opposed to other routes or methods of transportation, due to the added convenience. This would wipe away the benefits from the expansion, he said.

He also pointed to the disparities between the amount spent on road projects versus transit projects, such as rail or bus lines.

Baas said much of this argument is based on

the “false choice” that investment in one area has to happen at the expense of the other.

“You obviously need a network of all of them, and you can invest in all of them,” he said.

Baas also pointed out there’s only so much commercial benefit to investing in public transit, since many businesses simply need the freeway. Those businesses provide jobs to local residents, he said.

“MillerCoors isn’t moving its beer to market on the bus,” he said. “Harley-Davidson isn’t moving bikes all over the world on the streetcar. If you don’t have a highway infrastructure capable of supporting a manufacturing-based economy, the people who eventually are the biggest losers are the people who work in those manufacturing industries.”

In response to that argument, Grzezinski noted the unequal levels of spending on highway expansion versus public transit.

“If one looks at the state transportation budgets over the last several decades, the amount of money going into adding lanes to existing highways has been going up and up, almost steadily, consuming a larger part of the transportation budget,” he said.

“Meanwhile, spending on maintaining existing highways was substantially level or declining slightly, and spending on public transit was vastly smaller than either of those other two, but also declining.”

Grzezinski declined to say whether the plaintiffs in the original I-94 lawsuit would again bring the project to court if it was put back on track. But, he said, their chief complaints remain. n

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*Vistage CEO member companies who joined in 2006-2008 and were active members in Feb, 2010. CAGR for Vistage member companies calculated for period covering year prior to joining Vistage through 2009. CAGR for D&B U.S. companies based on 2005-2009 revenues, weighted to match Vistage company distribution per year during same period. All companies had >=$1M annual revenue, >=5 employees.

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STORY COVER

WHEN IT COMES TO exporting grain, the container shipping business of The DeLong Co. Inc. is well positioned to do business with Asian countries.

“We’re a backhaul,” said Bo DeLong, vice president of grain for the Clinton, Wisconsin-based company. “Products are imported into this country by container and in order to get those containers back to Asia they want to fill them with something and to fill them up they give us attractive rates.”

Of course, trade across the Atlantic Ocean is different, and DeLong noted container rates do not work the same way bulk vessels do for shipments headed to Europe, northern Africa or the Middle East. As a result, the company did little business in those markets.

Seeking to change that, The DeLong Co. identified dried distillers grain as a potential commodity. A byproduct of the ethanol industry, DDGs are

often fed to livestock on farms. The U.S. exported $2.2 billion in brewing or distilling dregs and waste, the category that includes DDGs, in 2019, including more than $367 million to Europe, Africa and the near east portion of Asia, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

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Enter Port Milwaukee and a new $31 million ag

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STORY COVER export facility that will be built with support from DeLong, state and federal money and port funds.

Designed to handle a variety of agricultural products via truck and railroad, DeLong will initially focus on DDGs. DeLong said that freight rates on the Great Lakes are competitive even though vessels are smaller than those leaving from New Orleans.

“By the time you add in the barge freight and take the vessel freight versus just the vessel freight out of Milwaukee, it’s actually a little lower cost coming out of Milwaukee,” he said.

DeLong said Milwaukee’s proximity to ethanol plants in Wisconsin made it an attractive place for the facility and the port had a piece of property available that fit the company’s needs.

“In fact, it couldn’t have been more perfect,” he said, adding that the port has rail service from two railroads and has committed to adding more track for the project.

To make room for the export facility, the port will demolish an out-of-date building that hasn’t been used in at least a decade. The installation and construction of the facility would then take place from 2021 to 2023.

“This showcases that we are flipping the paradigm,” said Adam Tindall-Schlicht, the director

of Port Milwaukee, explaining the port is primarily thought of for imports in the supply chain and freight forwarder communities.

The announcement of the new export facility is a bright spot for the port in what has been a challenging year. Port Milwaukee suffered around $2 million in damage in January during a storm that caused significant flooding on its property.

The COVID-19 pandemic has also hurt activity at the port, but Tindall-Schlicht said he is pleased with the port’s economic resiliency. Total volumes were down around 3% as of Sept. 1, even in comparison to 2019, which bested the port’s five-year tonnage average by almost 8.6%. Tindall-Schlicht said some other Great Lakes ports are down 20% to 30% this year.

But the goal for Port Milwaukee is to thrive and grow, not just be resilient.

“When I look to the supply chain, I think it has to be a diverse supply chain,” Tindall-Schlicht said.

“The port 50 years from now is not just going to be a port where we see a lot of salt piles. It has to be a port where there are dry bulk, liquid bulk and break bulk commodities being imported and exported on an ongoing, daily basis through robust activity and I think we are primed to realize that future.”

The port has invested in its infrastructure in recent years and in its marketing, adding Great Lakes cruises and seeking to attract more custom-

ers for products and commodities. Port Milwaukee is also embarking on a planning process to address its future infrastructure needs.

“The feedback that we’re receiving from new customers, both domestically and worldwide, is ‘We are giving Milwaukee and its port a second look. We haven’t thought about Milwaukee as a destination for our freight because it had just sort of fallen off the map,’” Tindall-Schlicht said.

In addition to the ag export facility, Port Milwaukee has also landed a long-term lease for parcels on the grand trunk site in the inner harbor with Michels Corp., which is already a tenant at the site. As of late September, Michels hasn’t announced specific plans but Tindall-Schlicht described it as a light industrial use.

“That parcel has gone underutilized for decades,” he said.

A major goal for the port also remains the return of intermodal container service, which left in 2012. The service could save Wisconsin companies from having to transport products to Illinois, but Tindall-Schlicht expressed concern that the pandemic has hurt momentum for demonstrating the need to railroads.

“It is up to us as the Milwaukee business community to say to the Class I (railroads), Canadian Pacific, Union Pacific, we have the tonnage, we have the need, we want to grow our business in connection with your work, and we have to continue to evidence that in good times and bad,” he said. n

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BRANDON ANDEREGG/BIZTIMES MEDIA

STORY COVER

ff writer GG, sta E R E D AN NDON

BY BRA

ANNUAL REVENUES OF more than $280 billion make clear that Amazon is an e-commerce giant, but it’s the online retailer’s two- and even one-day shipping period that shows it’s more than an online retail powerhouse; it’s a guru of logistics.

Timing was on Amazon’s side when it established more than 5 million square feet in distribution centers across southern and southeastern Wisconsin in recent years (including the recently completed four-story, 2.5 million-square-foot fulfillment center in Oak Creek), as the coronavirus pandemic has only heightened consumers’ online purchasing habits, which tilt heavily in Amazon’s favor.

“The analytics that (Amazon) uses to help them understand workforce and logistics are among the most advanced that we’ve ever seen,” said Jim Paetsch, vice president of corporate relocation, expansion and attraction for Milwaukee 7. “I can re-

Amazon

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Early Exposure to Technical Careers is Key to Future of the Workforce In years past, career and technical education was often viewed as an alternative pathway to college; the courses were often taken by students who eschewed traditional classroom settings and weren’t exactly perceived as “college material.” And they didn’t necessarily have to. Many students were able to walk out of school and right into a factory job.

But today much has changed. As manufacturing and other technical careers have increasingly required higher education, the lack of skilled talent has created a workforce gap — and the shallow candidate pool is impeding businesses from being able to grow or stay competitive.

Still for many teens, pursuing a technical career is far from their radar. Roughly 94 percent of students are not interested in the skilled trades due to a lack of exposure or training, according to a survey by RIDGID. GPS Education Partners (GPSEd) is one organization challenging that trajectory. While the Waukesha-based nonprofit organization is perhaps best known for its innovative manufacturing youth apprenticeship program, it has expanded its offerings to include more work-based learning intermediary services to address the talent shortage well before students ever leave high school.

Outside of the skills gap, GPSEd points to the lack of awareness, experience, opportunity, and people entering the workforce that leaves employers struggling to find talent. The organization says businesses must shift their focus away from “hiring” talent to “investing” in developing talent they need. This shift requires employers to work hand-in-hand with students to create career awareness and advancement, rather than waiting for four-year graduates to complete their education, says Jeff Ziegler, GPSEd director of partnership development.

“Businesses must shift their focus away from ‘hiring’ talent to ‘investing’ in developing the talent they need.”

“When businesses engage in work-based learning, career readiness and post-secondary education can become attainable goals for all students,” Ziegler adds. “They walk away with a more affordable option than traditional universities and viable life-sustaining careers.”

As a work-based intermediary, GPSEd works with schools to align and implement educational programming with the needs of high-demand employers. The programming re-introduces the concept of augmenting traditional educational models with work-based learning activities, where students gain opportunities to learn, develop and demonstrate crucial career-readiness skills.

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member sitting in meetings with Amazon where they were telling us things about our workforce that even we didn’t know.”

With the pandemic and subsequent safer-athome order, businesses have renewed their focus on e-commerce. Yet, retailers and manufacturers still struggle to adapt to the new landscape. Their biggest challenge is managing direct-to-consumer logistics systems, said Jeff Peterson, co-founder and chief executive officer of Delevan-based Geneva Supply, an Amazon and e-commerce strategy and fulfillment provider.

For a company to fully leverage e-commerce, a well-planned process that includes warehousing, packaging and shipping is critical. But logistics are only half the battle – branding, retail pricing and freight cost are all part of the equation.

“A lot of people are forced into having an e-commerce presence, but they didn’t calculate the cost of the pick, pack and ship,” Peterson said.

Businesses cannot expect to have the same freight pricing as Amazon because UPS and FedEx, for example, base freight cost on volume. Companies are now retooling their strategy as they navigate the nuanced process of getting a product to a consumer at scale while maintaining profitability, Peterson said.

Amazon has set the bar incredibly high for consumers who expect the speed and convenience of two-day freight free delivery. As businesses chase these expectations, they soon realize the ex-

tent to which their business is exposed in the era of COVID-19.

In Wisconsin, the pandemic revealed a trucking shortage related to getting e-commerce products to their destination, Peterson said. Across all categories, some manufacturers may not be prepared for a 40% to 60% growth in e-commerce, he added.

U.S. retail e-commerce reached $211.5 billion in Q2, up 31.8% from the first quarter and 44.5% year-over-year, according to a U.S. Census Bureau Q2 2020 report. E-commerce also accounted for 16.1% of total retail sales in Q2, up from 11.8% in the first quarter of 2020.

In fact, the rate at which experts believe e-commerce would grow three years from now may arrive within six to 12 months, Peterson said. This fourth quarter and holiday season will be a test for manufacturers and retailers, he said.

“Everyone has prepared as well as they could, but I would say if you’re trying to make sure you’ve got your Christmas presents arriving on time, I would do your shopping a little bit early,” Peterson said.

Milwaukee’s proximity to Chicago creates a unique dynamic given that few regions across the country have a population of 10 million within 90 minutes of them. With Wisconsin’s favorable taxes and business climate and Chicago’s reputation as a global city, it makes sense for Amazon to establish a distribution hub in the southeastern Wisconsin region, Paetsch said.

“One of the reasons you started to see much

more distribution here is because of the busyness of Chicago and how much volume comes in and out of there. There’s a lot of bottlenecks that are there,” Paetsch said.

The same assets that draw distribution companies like Amazon to the I-94 corridor between Mitchell Airport and the state line also attract manufacturers, Paetsch said. And because manufacturing is the vertical with the highest multipliers in terms of job growth, the industry has always been a major focus for M7, Paetsch added.

Five million square feet of speculative industrial building has occurred in the M7 region over the past two years – developments that began before COVID-19, said Jeff Hoffman, principal with Cushman & Wakefield/The Boerke Co. “The industrial real estate boom will only accelerate as supply chains are reconfigured and the mass consumer migration to e-commerce platforms continues,” Hoffman said.

But even as the demand for industrial real estate increases, the Milwaukee region is challenged by a lack of developable industrial land with access to labor markets and freeway systems that industrial tenants have come to expect, Hoffman said.

“There’s some things as a region and as a state that we need to start to think about in terms of, how do we make infrastructure investments that enable us to play in that space all the more?” Paetsch said. “You can tilt all you want against global trends and it’ll be to the detriment of the region.” n

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Special Report MANUFACTURING & LOGISTICS

Automation is growing amid COVID-19, but not necessarily because of it AUTOMATION AND ROBOTICS have been a growing part of the manufacturing sector for years and it would only seem reasonable that a global pandemic that spreads when people are in close contact would accelerate that trend.

As it happens, several area builders of automation systems say they are seeing an increase in interest in their services. The reason, however, seems to have less to do with the need to keep employees six feet apart and more to do with challenges finding employees in general.

“Nobody has ever said that any of this was

BY ARTHUR THOMAS, staff writer

COVID-induced,” said Eric Wentz, chief executive officer of Delavan-based custom automation builder Better By Design.

Wentz said business was slowing down toward the end of last year with some projects being delayed.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, everything shut down as his customers scrambled to work remotely and figure out what they were dealing with.

Since July, however, Wentz said there has been an increase in activity.

“It still qualifies as birds in the bush, so to speak, but there are a lot more birds in the bush,” he said,

adding that the customer interest seems to be going beyond people simply kicking the tires on automation ideas.

Bob Gross, founder of Brookfield-based Gross Automation, said many companies within his customer base did cutbacks when the pandemic hit.

Engineering teams of 10 people may have been cut down to five. But customers also took the opportunity to spend time developing new products and kept engineers on for that work because of things MULLCORP like the Paycheck Protection Program.

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wasn’t a lot of new product development,” Gross said. “I’m going to bet that as we come out of the crisis, you’re going to see a lot of new product development and a lot of that was funded through use of the PPP funds to keep people employed when the business wasn’t there.”

That new product development hasn’t turned into business for Gross quite yet. He noted it takes time for things to work their way through the system and customers have not been able to display their work at trade shows or get on the road to sell it.

“This creates an environment where, yeah, automation is going to increase,” he said. “The COVID crisis, personally, I think, is going to push automation ahead by a couple years.”

Paul Szeflinski, president of New Berlin-based systems integration company IAS Inc., said he also expects to see more adoption of automation to address crowded areas in production, eliminate the need for humans to do remedial tasks and support the onshoring of work done overseas. In general, he said these trends had started prior to the pandemic.

“We started to see interesting trends as companies weren’t so focused on that return on investment for automation, but they were more concerned with how do I even get this product out the door anymore,” Szeflinski said.

He added that in industries like food and beverage or plastics where “the standard practice was just to throw more people at it,” more companies are expressing interest in incorporating automation to ramp up production.

Kyle Weise, director of marketing at IAS, said the food and beverage industry has been marked by a reliance on manual labor and high turnover.

Those in the automation industry have been waiting for a time when food and beverage begins to shift toward technology and that appears to be happening now.

“I think we’ll find out in the coming couple years,” Weise said.

Szeflinski said many companies don’t know where to start when it comes to automation.

Collaboration

“A lot of places, there aren’t any chief automation officers or anybody in that type of role to help guide them through that process,” he said.

IAS is also seeing increased interest from foundries where automation might already be used in melting or pouring but now is expanding into inspection, pick and place, grinding, polishing, and de-burring processes, Szeflinski said.

The plastics industry has also shown more interest in going beyond unloading injection molding machines to degating parts, removing flashing and packing.

“Historically, they just dump the parts in a bin and then somebody else has to sort them, somebody has to take them out and do all these extra processes. It just adds a lot of labor content to it,” Szeflinski said.

In addition to addressing labor needs, he said improvements in technology and pricing have made automation more practical, pointing specifically to advances in machine vision.

“I’m not talking about the artificial intelligence space, that’s a whole other topic, but more in the robotic guidance, the ability to grab a product out of a random bin of products rather than having them manually sorted,” Szeflinski said.

Wentz also said that the availability of labor appears to be a driving factor in the interest in automation.

“We still can’t get skilled labor,” he said. “If you drive through the industrial park I’m in or drive through any industrial park, you still see the signs out … and I don’t think it’s because they forgot to take the sign down.”

While the unemployment rate in Wisconsin went from near historic lows at 3.1% up to historic highs at 13.6%, nearly 40% of the jobs lost came from the leisure and hospitality sector and another 11% came from retail trade. Many manufacturers have lamented the challenge of hiring and retaining employees coming from more service-oriented sectors of the economy and for years before the pandemic they struggled to find skilled labor.

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Wentz said the increased interest in automation may also be the result of companies having additional capital available because of the PPP program or other forms of government support during the pandemic.

He also noted customers don’t always have a clear idea of how they need to go about automating.

“There are more requests for robots, even when a robot is not really the most optimal way to go,” Wentz said. “Instead of talking them into using a robot, we end up trying to talk them out of it in cases where they’re just spending way too much money and getting way too little out of it.”

He added that customers don’t always realize “what it takes for them to care and feed this machine zoo they have.” A company like Better by Design might be able to build a new automation system, but then the customer’s maintenance team will also need to upgrade their skills. Depending on what equipment the customer wants, they may also need to buy expensive subscriptions to keep their software up to date.

With automation, robotics and other technologies continuing to advance and increasing attention paid to ideas like Industry 4.0 or the Industrial Internet of Things, there is a narrative that the U.S. is behind other countries when it comes to advanced manufacturing.

Gross, who prior to the pandemic frequently traveled on Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. trade ventures, disagreed with that assessment.

“We are not behind the rest of the world. We are so far ahead of the rest of the world,” he said.

There have been cases where Gross says he has done work in the U.S. for multi-national companies and then shown off the work at the corporate parent on his international travels. He said the corporate teams were impressed and questioned where the technology came from.

“There are a lot of companies out there that don’t know where to start,” he said. “Yeah, we have people who haven’t kept up with everything, at the same time, we’re not behind.” n

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Special Report MANUFACTURING & LOGISTICS

Three opportunities created by COVID-19 for manufacturers Everson

Jagdfeld

Kryshak

BY ARTHUR THOMAS, staff writer MANUFACTURERS SAW their share of challenges from the coronavirus pandemic. From new health concerns to demand changes to scrambled supply chains, 2020 has been full of disruptions. But those challenges also create opportunity for an industry that’s always looking to improve.

A group of Six leading executives from across southeastern Wisconsin will discuss how their companies are preparing for 2021 at the BizTimes Media Next Generation Manufacturing Summit, which is sponsored by the Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership, BMO Harris Bank, CG Schmidt, CLA, Davis & Kuelthau and Vistage.

The event, to be held virtually on Oct. 15 from 7 to 10:30 a.m., will start with a one-on-one discussion with Aaron Jagdfeld, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Generac Holdings Inc. It will also include a panel discussion with Keith Everson, CEO of Sussex IM; Mike Kryshak, owner of Rebel Converting; Rick Ruzga, president of Power Test Inc.; Jeff Schwager, CEO of Sartori Co.; and Keith Smith, president of Vonco Products.

While the pandemic creates immediate challenges and opportunities, companies also face changes brought on by long-term trends outside of their own control. A few years ago, Generac began taking a closer look at

climate change at a time when 99% of its products involved an internal combustion engine.

“What happens tomorrow if we wake up and, because of climate change, all internal combustion engines are too expensive. … What would happen to our business?” Jagdfeld said.

“You talk to it with that kind of stark terminology, it starts to create action within the company.”

That kind of thinking has pushed Generac to broaden its offerings into services and solutions, including a push into clean energy, instead of only offering a manufactured product.

Here are some of the other opportunities that panelists are looking to

take advantage of:

Supply chain disruptions For some, the pandemic will bring products back to the U.S. that were previously made in Asia. Everson said Sussex IM now makes wall-mounted hand sanitizer dispensers for a customer that was forced to rent Boeing 747s to fly the products to the U.S. from China when H1N1 hit more than a decade ago.

“We’re going to see more and more people wanting to have their stuff made here in the United States,” he said.

Smith is already seeing the demand after Vonco moved to quickly

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Ruzga

Schwager

design a plastic gown, a product it previously didn’t make.

“That supply chain will change forever,” Smith said. “There will be more domestic sourcing of these PPE products. We (as a country) just got way too over our skis in the low-cost areas.”

Others, like Schwager and Kryshak, are having to react quickly and creatively to supply chain shifts.

While Sartori’s suppliers, primarily dairy farmers, have been reliable, the company’s customers have seen disruptions from other parts of the supply chain.

“We have to be more nimble than what we were before,” Schwager said.

“What used to be pretty consistent monthly schedules … now it’s we get a call today and they need product tomorrow.”

Kryshak is relying on the experience of his team to find other ways of getting materials for disinfectant wipes, including trials with paper converting machinery and an automotive fabric supplier. Rebel Converting also has an equipment manufacturer it purchased machinery from running the equipment because it has no room left to expand.

“Our supply chain has been breaking apart left and right,” he said.

Workforce woes When the pandemic hit, Power Test divided its production team into two shifts and three zones within those shifts. It was a move to prevent an outbreak from grinding the company to a halt, but it also required finding new leaders on the shop floor.

“Some of the people that maybe had been the quiet ones were the ones that stepped up and kind of took the lead on their shift,” Ruzga said, adding that others that seemed like potential leaders didn’t succeed and the company now has a better idea of gaps it needs to fill next year.

With unemployment jumping from historic lows to historic highs

Smith

during the pandemic, manufacturers have found new opportunities to address their workforce needs, but several panelists noted the challenge in keeping employees coming from other industries.

“The people that we’re hiring, they don’t last,” said Schwager. “They’re not accustomed to working hard.”

Jagdfeld said Generac has had to push its starting wages up 30% to $17 per hour over the past six months, adding that the available workers are coming from other industries like retail or hospitality.

“They’re not used to careers in manufacturing and a lot of them, frankly, don’t really desire that. They like serving people in that kind of economy that’s more a services economy than a goods economy and that’s a big difference. And so, I don’t think our available manufacturing employment pool really changed that much,” he said, adding that Generac will likely need to continue investing in automation to address its labor challenges.

Technological changes One of the most universal business changes brought on by COVID-19 has been the adoption of remote work tools like Microsoft Teams or Zoom.

Ruzga said Power Test has seen internal and external benefits from using Teams that will likely continue after the pandemic.

Internally, production employees now use iPads on the shop floor to find an online engineer and consult them when issues come up, saving them 20 or 30 minutes by not having to locate them within the company’s facility.

Externally, Power Test is using virtual tools for the training and commissioning of its equipment, especially since international travel is currently limited.

“We’ll never go back to full onsite training and support like we had in the past,” Ruzga said. “Everybody is trying to get their business done in new ways.” n

Keeping children and families safe with OMNIShield Leah Zastoupil, president of the Wisconsin Family Child Care Association, knew that there was a lot of pressure on her and her business.

She couldn’t afford to close due to COVID-19.

She knew the working parents of her children couldn’t afford to have her close due to COVID-19.

Yet, she couldn’t stomach the thought of her family or her kids’ families getting sick.

But a solution beyond her traditional cleaning measures emerged.

By forming a nanolayer of spikes on the surfaces it is applied to, OMNIShield inhibits bacteria and viruses from surviving on surfaces – even the ones that people interact with regularly.

With flu season just around the corner, Zasty’s is ready for its second application of OMNIShield.

When Zastoupil learned that a local company, Green Up Solutions, could apply OMNIShield, an invisible and safe antimicrobial that inhibits bacteria from living on surfaces, she acted quickly.

“A regular practice of doing this [service] again is definitely going to be on my agenda,” Zastoupil states.

“It was very quick, easy, and painless.”

“There is a lot of fear and uncertainty, and for me to be able to do this extra thing [OMNIShield] is one less fear [to worry about].”

The Wisconsin Department of Children and Families estimated that over 40% of the more than 2,500 child care and preschool providers in the state had opted to shut down by April 21st, 2020.

OMNIShield is food surface safe, colorless, and odorless. It lasts on porous and non-porous surfaces for 90 days. It was applied at Zasty’s Family Child Care on all surfaces 6 feet and below.

Working parents need these Centers to remain open AND to keep children safe.

OMNIShield allows them an extra layer of protection to do that.

Read this story in its entirety at biztimes.com/category/sponsored.

Green Up Solutions LLC

12733 W Arden Place, Butler, WI | info@greenupsolutions.org | 262-606-1600 biztimes.com / 35

JESSI LEMMER Advanced development engineer HELGESEN INDUSTRIES INC. BizTimes

Milwaukee

is

Jessi Lemmer was born and raised in the City of Milwaukee. She attended Milwaukee Public Schools, and graduated from Milwaukee Bradley Tech High School in 2010 where she had early exposure to CNC programming, CAD drawing, and welding.

proud to present its second annual showcase of Notable Women in Manufacturing spotlighting

accomplished

professionals throughout the

She earned her degree in mechanical engineering from the Milwaukee School of Engineering and today is an advanced development engineer at Hartford-based Helgesen Industries, Inc.

region. The leaders profiled in the following pages were nominated by their peers at

Helgesen designs and manufactures hydraulic tank reservoirs and fluid conditioning devices, which can be customized for diverse industrial applications.

work and in the community and showcase the diversity of talent in

Lemmer started with Helgesen in 2014. She remained focused and committed to strong team values and worked her way up from manufacturing engineer to her current role by her third year.

our market. The leadership shown by the individuals profiled here is setting an example to shape a better future for our region.

METHODOLOGY: The honorees did not pay to be included. Their profiles were drawn from nomination materials. This list features only individuals for whom nominations were submitted and accepted after a review by our editorial team. To qualify for the list, nominees must be based in southeast Wisconsin. They must be currently serving in a senior level role at their firm, must hold a leadership position in their industry outside of their own organization, have made a significant contribution to advancing workplace equality at their own workplace or beyond, and act as a role model or mentor.

Lemmer works closely with major external clients but also enjoys mentoring interns at the company and nurturing relationships with her coworkers.

In 2019, Lemmer welcomed her first child into the world and is enjoying motherhood while maintaining her passion for quality engineering and manufacturing work with Helgesen.

Helgesen proudly supports Women in Manufacturing.

Congratulations Jessi on your well-deserved recognition! We thank you for all of your hard work and for putting everything into each pro�ect at Helgesen!

Corporate office 1055 W. Sumner Street, Hartford, WI 53027 262-709-4444 | helgesen.com

ANASTASIA KRAFT

CARLA MCGINN

Founder & CEO

Vice president of finance and HR

XENA WORKWEAR

CL&D GRAPHICS

Anastasia Kraft is the founder and chief executive officer of Milwaukee-based Xena Workwear, a line of stylish, comfortable and responsibly-made safety footwear to help professional women express their confidence and personality.

Carla McGinn has served as vice president of finance and human resources at Oconomowoc-based CL&D Graphics for just over a year, but her impact, particularly during COVID-19, has been noticeable.

Kraft spent five years in engineering and manufacturing before realizing a more versatile category of workwear for women was needed.

“Carla has done a masterful job navigating both the finance and human resource responsibilities during COVID-19 for an employer that has been extremely busy over the past six months,” said Jeff Budzien, vice president, BMO Harris Bank.

“Carla balances the two responsibilities beautifully, both with delicacy on the HR side and strength on the finance side.”

Driven by her entrepreneurial spirit, Kraft created fashionable steel-toed footwear for women.

Her products have directly impacted women in the manufacturing industry. Women across industries have worn her products including women at General Electric, Harley-Davidson, Honeywell Aerospace, General Motors, Johnson Controls and more. Her company is also endorsed by the Society of Women Engineers.

Since she founded the company, Kraft has raised more than $750,000 in venture capital.

In business, she is committed to sustainability. The company has taken steps to lower its environmental footprint through sustainable manufacturing and responsible shipping practices.

CL&D provides flexible packaging solutions for clients. The company has seen an uptick in business throughout the pandemic, thanks in part to a strong leadership team and product offerings in the food and sanitation spaces.

McGinn has stayed on top of the safety concerns of remaining operational during COVID-19 and has simultaneously managed the stimulus programs and finances of the business.

She has more than 15 years of experience in the manufacturing industry, working primarily in finance for companies like TJ Hale Company, Glenn Rieder, Miller Brewing Company, and others.

JULIE GRAVERSON Vice president of operations SELLARS ABSORBENT MATERIALS, INC Julie Graverson is a nearly 40year industry veteran. She worked in a variety of operational and quality positions for Wisconsin Tissue in Neenah for 18 years, a startup converting plant in Arizona, and National Tissue in Cudahy.

In 2016, Graverson joined Milwaukee-based Sellars Absorbent Materials, Inc. Today she serves as shareholder and vice president of operations, and has contributed greatly to the continuing growth of the company by managing its multi-site, multi-state, 24/7 manufacturing operations.

Julie’s dedication, abilities and care for people has enabled the company to continue operating safely as an essential business throughout the COVID pandemic. Under her leadership, the company was able to meet the increased demand from customers and achieve record sales and profits.

“We admire Julie’s abilities, work ethic, character, and servant leadership. She truly cares for our business and for our people,” said Thomas Sellars, chief executive officer and chairman of the company. “We are very appreciative of her contributions to our shared success. She is a great teammate.”

biztimes.com / 37

LISA BROWN

Vice president, global human capital management

Director of continuous improvement – customer experience

HUSCO INTERNATIONAL INC.

GENERAC POWER SYSTEMS

For the past ten years, Angela Stemo has played a critical role in Waukesha-based Husco International’s record-setting revenue growth by helping to recruit, retain and develop talent.

When COVID-19 struck, Stemo quickly developed and implemented new policies to support in-person work for the company’s essential manufacturing workforce while simultaneously creating remote-work flexibility for the engineering and office staff.

She also recently oversaw a more than $10 million remodel of the company’s corporate headquarters, transforming the office into a modern campus that is consistent with Husco’s high-technology product line.

Earlier in her tenure at Husco, Stemo implemented a talent management program utilizing non-traditional performance reviews that emphasize communication between managers and employees to support employee growth and further Husco objectives. She also led a significant redesign of Husco’s on-campus recruiting, training and employee retention programs for more than 1,500 associates worldwide.

For 17 years, Lisa Brown has been a leader in the manufacturing industry. Today, as the director of continuous improvement - customer experience at Waukesha-based Generac Power Systems, Brown has made significant contributions to help innovate and expand the company’s manufacturing capabilities, transform business processes and serve the community.

In her current role, and as a key member of the corporate development team, she has led the successful integration of several domestic and international companies to expand Generac’s global manufacturing footprint and product innovation capabilities.

In 2019, Brown was promoted to her current role within the global operations team.

“With her effective leadership and proven project management expertise, she is leading a new, enterprise-wide initiative to drive sustainable process improvements and waste elimination within the company’s manufacturing organization to ultimately enhance customers’ experiences,” said Tom Pettit, chief operations officer at Generac.

MIRANDA MARTENS Plant manager DENALI INGREDIENTS LLC For the past 12 years, Miranda Martens has had a relentless focus on driving new initiatives and challenging the status quo at New Berlin-based Denali Ingredients LLC. Denali is an ingredients manufacturer serving the ice cream, novelty, fluid dairy, bakery, and food service markets.

She started as a temporary hourly employee in the quality lab and transitioned to the role of quality supervisor before working her way up to her current position as plant manager.

Denali has achieved six consecutive years of growth under her leadership and is positioned to continue that trajectory.

According to Robb Hinn, vice president of operations at Denali Ingredients, much of the company’s manufacturing success can be attributed to her determination to solve problems and strategize options in not only areas of her expertise, but also areas of limited exposure.

Over the past 18 months, Martens led the implementation of the company’s new ERP software, which has led to accurate, real-time data driving its manufacturing strategy.

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Strategies INNOVATION

‘Only the paranoid survive’ Norscot Group CEO’s focus on constant and relentless innovation THE WORLD OF RETAIL will never be the same with the rise of Amazon. They have turned retail shopping into a battle zone and many of the giants have fallen or disappeared from the landscape.

It’s hard to believe that Sears, the most successful catalog company on the planet, would lose its leadership to an online retail startup called Amazon!

In this battlefield, Mequon-based Norscot Group Inc., led by president and CEO Scott Stern, has emerged stronger than at any time in its history.

Norscot provides officially licensed and branded merchandise to well-respected companies like Harley-Davidson, Caterpillar, GM, Bobcat and the German giant STIHL. As proof, just wander through the company’s warehouse and see the extensive inventory with thousands of branded items.

What is so remarkable about their success is that every sale is a double challenge.

First, they have to provide offerings with a retail appeal, from wearable clothing, to watches, to a variety of consumer goods such as backpacks, mugs, headphones and even scale models and toys that contemporary business buyers and consumers want.

Second, they have to satisfy each client’s promotional merchandise objectives by developing items that reflect their brand promise and image.

Big dollars turn on getting the communication of any company’s brand right.

What’s the secret to growth in this type of highly competitive industry?

Stern focuses on constant and relentless innovation. He surveys customers’ needs and the changing trends in the market with a staff dedicated to new and creative offerings of both products and services.

His lodestar is giving the customer — whether corporate buyer, dealer or end-user – an experience that reinforces the brand of the client he serves.

Stern pays real attention to quality and at the same time studying fashion and merchandise trends. That includes producing custom catalogs to expand the choices available for his clients’ employees, dealers and customers.

The best testament to Stern’s success is that many of his clients have been with his company for over 25 years. He views those customers as partners and visits them frequently to get their feedback and address their ever-changing needs.

His biggest challenge is not other competitors but companies that think they can do promotional merchandising and marketing through their internal staff. That’s a never-ending challenge because many companies mistakenly think they can offer the same promotional merchandise programs without working with an experienced outside resource like Norscot.

You can learn from Stern that if you’re in a competitive industry fighting for a share of the market there are a variety of ways you can emerge a winner: 1. Spend time like Stern does with his customers so you understand their mindset and more importantly uncover their needs, which change rapidly. Nothing beats faceto-face.

2. Allocate some of your budget to ethnographic research, which is basically studying consumers and how they use your product or service. This is called “fly on the wall” research and it’s superior to focus groups in which one or two customers can hijack the conversation and feedback.

3. Encourage employees to be creative and give them room to experiment. Modern neuroscience research suggests that the reason most people are hardwired to be creative is because that’s what we needed to survive as human beings. Creativity is a talent that should be nurtured and taught.

Your budget should allocate a percentage of expenditures for training new and existing employees on the tools of creativity. It’s not

rocket science.

4. Are your meetings conducted in a way that fosters and encourages creative and innovative input from all attendees? That requires the team leader to encourage spending time understanding the problem and the challenge before jumping to solutions.

Then commit relentless ideation in order to generate multiple solutions. A Harvard Business School study found that the more ideas put in play the higher the number of final creative solutions.

5. Allocate part of the time of your company to looking for disruptive new products. Studies show that if 10% of your current revenues come from disruptive products, that 10% will be 90% a decade from now. Nothing new there. We are constantly using products that didn’t even exist 15 or 20 years ago.

Remember when Andy Grove, CEO of Intel, used as his guide for innovation and creativity at his company, “Only the paranoid survive”?

Stern takes that seriously. It is one of the reasons his company, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, continues to grow and prosper and lessons can be learned from his leadership. n

DAN STEININGER Dan Steininger is an author and a national and international speaker. As president of Steininger & Associates LLC he helps companies drive innovation. He is also president of BizStarts. He can be reached through his assistant, Emily Schulz, at (262) 661-6532 or es@bdpros.com. biztimes.com / 39

Strategies MANAGEMENT

Set the tone right away Shape your workplace culture in 90 days

Motivation and accountability increase when employees feel connected to the organization’s purpose and understand how their role contributes.

HAVE YOU RECENTLY STEPPED INTO a new leadership role? You want to get off to a great start and achieve big results? While it’s tempting to immediately focus on strategy, zeroing in on fostering a positive workplace culture makes more sense.

Why culture matters Positive workplace cultures are built on values of appreciation, inclusion, learning and trust and connect work to a higher purpose. According to the O.C. Tanner 2020 Global Culture Report, a positive workplace culture is 13 times more likely to have highly engaged employees and two times more likely to increase revenue.

As a management consultant, I experienced a 40 / BizTimes Milwaukee OCTOBER 12, 2020

positive workplace culture as a differentiator for business success when I saw how the same strategies for addressing common business issues played out in different companies. It was clear that successful strategies required successful execution, and positive cultures produced better executed strategies every time.

Maximizing the start of your new leadership role to shape culture Ideally, leaders invest in fostering positive cultures as part of their day-to-day leadership all the time, but no time is more critical than the first 90 days of stepping into a new role.

Those first few months are the perfect time to focus on culture because employees are expecting change and are open to adopting new behaviors.

It’s important not to waste this opportunity to establish positive cultural norms that will best support your vision.

Positively influence culture in the first 90 days I recently worked with Pam, a newly appointed chief operating officer of a financial services firm hired to increase the company’s net promoter score by transforming client services. To do so, the customer service team she inherited needed to be more innovative and willing to embrace new approaches. Not easy, given most employees had been in their roles for decades and were stuck in their ways. Here are the steps she took in her first 90 days to shift the organizational culture to better support her vision and business outcomes: » ASK QUESTIONS AND LISTEN. Pam embarked on a listening tour, talking to people at all levels about themselves and their work to quickly learn what was and wasn’t working and to surface new ideas. Asking questions and listening also signaled that people, culture and meaningful connections matter to Pam which quickly built trust and psychological safety. » TAP INTO YOUR WHY. Motivation and accountability increase when employees feel

connected to the organization’s purpose and understand how their role contributes. Pam sparked a renewed sense of purpose and meaning by communicating how her core values align with the work and what inspires her about her job and encouraging others to do the same. » ADMIT WHEN YOU DON’T KNOW. Pam embraced the mistakes she inevitably made while being new as an opportunity to model learning and growing by stepping outside of her comfort zone and failing forward – important behaviors needed to support her transformation goals. » SAY THANK YOU OFTEN. People need to feel appreciated to be motivated. Pam quickly reinforced a culture of appreciation and recognition by remembering to say thank you often.

And she built goodwill with written personal notes to express gratitude.

This low investment in time, effort and dollars over her first 90 days helped Pam get off to a great start and achieve her business goals longterm. Whether you are a new or existing leader, use these tips to strengthen your leadership, team dynamics and workplace culture to better support your vision and desired business results. n

BETH RIDLEY Beth Ridley is founder and CEO of The Brimful Life, former vice president of planning integration for Northwestern Mutual and a host for the BizTimes MKE Podcast. Learn more at www.thebrimfullife.com.

LEADERSHIP

Lonely at the top An unspoken challenge of leadership

What is hardest to deal with is the isolation that comes with leadership.

WHILE EVERYONE ACKNOWLEDGES that the past seven months have been extraordinarily challenging for leaders at all levels due to the COVID-19 disruption, it is but the latest demand in a long line of what they are called upon to manage.

Our expectations of leaders are high, sometimes unreasonably so. We expect leaders to have a command of the facts. All the facts. As we see them. We expect leaders to be wise, compassionate and forthright. We expect them to hear others out and symbolically beat their chests in humble confession when they unwittingly offend a constituent, employee, supply chain partner or stakeholder.

In short, we often expect leaders to be perfect while the definition of perfection changes with the times and sometimes with the prevailing social winds. When they mess up, we make them targets of derision and sometimes outright boycotts.

Full disclosure: I have a lot of friends in leadership positions. I hear a lot of stories. If we talk long enough to burn off the chaff of everyday irrita-

tions and the ongoing pressures of leadership, we get to the heart of what they struggle with most.

It’s not judgment, though that is a tough thing to deal with. Leaders are often evaluated by people who have limited information, scant experience, and a distorted view of the realities of keeping a business viable under duress.

It’s not financial pressure, though that too is tough. Looking at declining revenues and shrinking margins and knowing how downward cycles impact employees and the families they support is heart-wrenching for many. Cutting staff, furloughing workers, and asking others to step up in ways they are not accustomed to and may not be well prepared for cause far more sleepless nights than they typically admit.

It’s not even the stereotypical depiction of business leaders as evil and greedy that disappoints most.

What is hardest to deal with is the isolation that comes with leadership.

Human beings are wired to be connected.

Even the shyest introvert has a friend with whom to share secrets. Secret thoughts. Secret desires.

Secret pains. Secret rebellions. Leaders often feel they cannot share confidentialities of any sort.

Many believe they need to be extra-human, immune to the emotional barbs that come from living life, rising above it all to lead to a more positive future. Some are especially guarded against their own feelings or presumptions. After all, they are told that their biases are systemically evil, no matter their origin. Ultimately, some leaders feel they are called to be a-human in the sense that their personal experiences should not color their evaluations, decisions or actions.

Many are exhausted.

The coronavirus has created a surge in mental health challenges, spiking numbers in depression, anxiety and even thoughts of suicide. A study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control’s National Center for Health Statistics in late June found that 41% of respondents reported at least one adverse mental or behavioral health condition, including symptoms of anxiety disorder or depressive disorder (31%), symptoms of a trauma- and stressor-related disorder (TSRD) related to the pan-

demic (26%), and having started or increased substance use to cope with stress or emotions related to COVID-19 (13%).

The percentage of respondents who reported having seriously considered suicide in the 30 days before completing the survey (11%) was significantly higher among respondents aged 18–24 years (26%), minority racial/ethnic groups (Hispanic respondents, 19%), (non-Hispanic black respondents, 15%), self-reported unpaid caregivers for adults (31%), and essential workers (22%).

Many of these are employees of our companies.

Some are leaders themselves. But leaders are expected to effectively manage these burgeoning pressures in addition to maintaining profitable operations.

There are some who see information like this and shrug it off with, “Well, that’s why they get paid the big bucks.” True enough, but we know that money doesn’t heal these types of wounds. And being a target of derision because of an advanced income drives some into deeper isolation and pain.

I have a simple request: Please clear your mind of hierarchical assumptions to see your colleagues and leaders as fellow human beings. Be patient.

Practice compassion. Step up where you can. n

SUSAN MARSHALL Susan Marshall is an author, speaker and the founder of Backbone Institute LLC. For more information, visit backboneinstitutecom. biztimes.com / 41

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

COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE VJS names Katie Kawczynski as a Partner, Director of Architecture.

VJS Construction Services, Inc. expands the leadership team and Board of Directors, naming Katie Kawczynski, AIA, as a Partner and Director of Architecture, representing the fifth non-family member to be named as a partner.

As a licensed architect, Katie Kawczynski leads the team for VJS’ design-build services. She will augment the firm’s current leadership to increase market share, expand geographically, and lead strategic initiatives. Katie has spent the last six years of her career dedicated to helping VJS grow and expand strategically by creating innovative solutions for clients.

DISTRIBUTION

Associated Bag welcomes Michael Palecek as IT Manager.

Associated Bag is pleased to welcome Michael Palecek as Information Technology Manager.

Michael will be bringing his collaborative management style and over a decade of ERP and CRM implementation experience to the packaging products distributor.

EDUCATION Marc R. Barbeau named Stritch VP for Institutional Advancement & External Relations.

Cardinal Stritch University has announced the appointment of Marc R. Barbeau as VP for Institutional Advancement & External Relations. He most recently served as VP at Ter Molen Watkins & Brandt, a Chicagobased fundraising consulting firm.

NAI Greywolf welcomes Dawn Davis as a Commercial Real Estate Advisor to our growing team.

Her previous real estate portfolio includes Senior Housing, Skilled Nursing, Medical Office and Multifamily. In addition to her role as a commercial real estate advisor, Dawn has 10 years of business development prowess, 25 years of marketing experience and over 22 years of industry knowledge in the assisted living industry. “As we look to expand our brokerage firm, we are very excited to add Dawn to our team of commercial real estate professionals at NAI Greywolf.” said Wally Sauthoff, Managing Director of NAI Greywolf.

Nitin Kulkarni Promoted to Vice President-Business Development. In his new role, Mr. Kulkarni will be responsible for overall Business Development that covers Engineering, Customer Support, plus Sales and Marketing.

Mr. Kulkarni has over 15 years of experience at Helwig Carbon Products in Engineering Management.

NONPROFIT

PEAK Initiative names new Director of Finance & Operations. PEAK Initiative is pleased to welcome Jason Beard as Director of Finance & Operations. Jason is committed to ensuring that PEAK has stability in resources and talent to effectively deliver on our long-term promise to young people and the community.

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IMPACT Inc., which helps nearly 300,000 people each year regain personal stability, has announced the appointment of Randall C. Harlan as Chairman of its Board of Directors. Harlan, who joined IMPACT in 2011, is Sr. Vice President, Panther Workforce Solutions. He succeeds Kim Dougherty of Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin who led the organization to its first $5 million budget in 2020, IMPACT’s 60th anniversary. “This is a significant moment in the history of our organization,” said John Hyatt, IMPACT President & CEO. “We welcome Randall’s vision and enthusiasm for elevating IMPACT’s role in Southeastern Wisconsin.”

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Dan Meyer, Publisher, September 29, 2020 biztimes.com / 43

BizConnections NONPROFIT SCALING WELLNESS IN MILWAUKEE PLANS NONPROFIT HUB ON CIT Y’S NEAR WEST SIDE The organizers of a Milwaukee-based initiative aimed at increasing awareness of trauma and supporting trauma-informed work in the community plan to develop a collaborative hub for nine nonprofits on the city’s near west side.

Scaling Wellness in Milwaukee (SWIM) plans to build an 11,000-square-foot facility that would provide partnering community-based organizations with access to legal, accounting, grant writing and other services.

It would also include space for them to host events for donors, community gatherings, and trauma and resilience trainings.

The goal is to help small organizations scale and increase their impact in Milwaukee, said Amy Lovell, a co-founder of REDgen and a member of SWIM’s steering committee.

SWIM launched in 2018 as a coalition of local nonprofit leaders, public officials, academics, social workers, health care professionals and other stakeholders to address the issue of generational trauma in Milwaukee.

The group has worked with Milwaukee developer Juli Kaufmann to identify a location for the building on the city’s near west side, but has not yet disclosed the site.

— Lauren Anderson, staff writer

nonprofit

SPOTLIGHT

REDEEM AN D RE S TORE CENTER P.O. Box 342 Pewaukee (262) 844-5882 | redeemandrestore.org Facebook: facebook.com/RedeemandRestoreCenter Twitter: @ToRedeem | Instagram: @redeemrestorecenter

Year founded: 2015

c alendar

Mission statement: Together we love, restore, and support women recovering from sex trafficking and exploitation.

Milwaukee Rep will host its virtual Curtain Call Ball on Friday, Oct.

Primary focus of your nonprofit organization: Building a culture of loving, restoring and supporting others in all we do. We will provide recovery resources and services to women in a restorative care residential home where they can heal, reclaim their identities, and discover and fulfill their God-given purpose.

16 at 7 p.m. The online gathering will raise funds to help sustain the theater company as part of its Rep Rising Emergency Fund and celebrate artistic director Mark Clements’ 10 th anniversary.

The event is free but registration is required. More information is available at MilwaukeeRep.com/CurtainCallBall.

The Milwaukee Public Museum will hold its 34 annual gala virtually on Saturday, Oct. 17 at 8 p.m. The event will support MPM’s education and accessibility programs, its research, collections and visitor experiences. General reservations are free, and include access to the silent auction, live auction and buy-it-now items.

VIP reservations are $150 and include home delivery of a catered dinner and bottle of wine, along with other benefits. More information is available at MPMGala2020.givesmart.com. th

D O N AT I O N R O U N D U P First Business Bank’s 2020 Charity Golf Invitational in Milwaukee recently raised $34,500 for nonprofit organizations, including Above & Beyond the Playground, the Milwaukee Urban League, Ronald McDonald House, ADHD America, Beyond Vision, St. Marcus Lutheran School, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Young Life and Alzheimer’s Association. | Green Bay Packer Adrian Amos has pledged to donate $1,000 to the Alzheimer’s Association Wisconsin Chapter for every tackle he makes during the 2020 football season. | Spectrum has awarded $30,000 grants to both Hispanic Federation and Digital Bridge to further digital literacy in underserved populations within the Milwaukee area. | Quad has donated $25,000 to MagLiteracy.org to kickstart the creation of a national literacy marketplace. | The Milwaukee Bucks and Johnson Controls have extended their combined $60,000 annual grant s to Silver Spring Neighborhood Center and Playworks for an additional three years to continue community programming at Browning Elementary School’s multi-sport complex.

44 / BizTimes Milwaukee OCTOBER 12, 2020

Other focuses of your nonprofit organization: We continue to build relationships within various Wisconsin communities to raise awareness with presentations and quarterly trainings that lead to prevention, intervention and restoration. RRC has partnered and collaborated with many organizations.

We also initiate a law enforcement blessing drive each year.

We currently walk alongside women survivors in surrounding counties. RRC builds relationships to love, restore and support women in whatever stage of healing that they are in, providing and connecting her to physical, psychological, emotional, relational and spiritual support. Starting in 2018, a survivor support group was formed.

Social outings, mentorship, peer support and invitations to become involved in RRC’s projects or events, when appropriate, are also encouraged and extended. If a woman is in need of emergency housing or long-term

Chaplain Krista Hull housing, RRC will send a referral to the Alliance to find the right fit.

Number of employees at this location: 1 Key donors: Individuals, churches, foundations and businesses.

Executive leadership: Chaplain Krista Hull Board of directors: Val Turner, Linda Mont, Kristie Cooper, Megan McCray and Krista Hull Is your organization actively seeking board members for the upcoming term? Always.

What roles are you looking to fill?

Legal, marketing, financial and medical fields Ways the business community can help your nonprofit: Sponsorship, collaboration, donations, speaking opportunities Key fundraising events: Ignite Hope Gala; Pathway to Our Home; English Tea

AROUND TOWN

Business Health Care Group golf outing

1

3

5

The Business Health Care Group recently hosted its third annual golf outing in support of Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers at Ironwood Golf Course in Sussex.

2

4

6

7

1.

CHRIS MAMBU RASCH of Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers and JEFF KLUEVER of BHCG.

2.

LIAM MCDONALD of Lumino & Intercrown, LUKE MARKS of Erin Hills Golf Course, ZACH HOHL of University of Wisconsin-Madison and NICK HOHL of Navitus Health Solutions.

3.

CHRIS JANSSENS, STEVE JONES, TOM PABICH and DAVID FIELDS, all of Navitus Health Solutions.

4.

JEFF NELSON, retired from the Wisconsin Medical Society, VINCENT LYLES of Advocate Aurora Health, CHRIS MAMBU RASCH of Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers and DR. JACOB BIDWELL of Advocate Aurora Health.

5.

JENNIFER LAMERE of BHCG and MATT OLSON of Pivot Technology Solutions.

6.

MARTY FLOWER of UnitedHealthCare.

7.

MIKE REPKA of Independent Physicians Network.

Photos courtesy of Business Health Care Group.

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8

UPAF golf outing The United Performing Arts Fund recently hosted its Dancing on the Green golf outing, the final event of its 2020 campaign, at North Shore Country Club in Mequon.

8.

VINCE VITRANO of TMJ4, BRENT TISCHLER of Associated Bank, JIM BARRY of The Barry Company and DEANNA TILLISCH of UPAF.

10

9.

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VINNY MOLONEY of VAM Spinal Distribution and PETER BENZ of Infinity Benefit Solutions, Inc.

10. JEN and JOE PIEPER of Westbury Bank.

11. CRAIG OLINGER of ESI Equity, SCOT TROJANOWSKI of Z.T. Distribution, KEITH BERRY of M3 Insurance and

TIM STEWART of DeWitt LLP.

12

12. DEANNA TILLISCH, who retired at the end of September as president and CEO of UPAF, addresses the participants in the golf outing.

Photos courtesy of UPAF. biztimes.com / 45

BizConnections VOLUME 26, NUMBER 10 | OCT 12, 2020

GLANCE AT YESTERYEAR

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

PUBLISHER / OWNER Dan Meyer dan.meyer@biztimes.com

SALES & MARKETING

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

Miller time in Milwaukee

REPORTER Alex Zank alex.zank@biztimes.com

This late 1930s or early ‘40s photo shows the Miller High Life Spa tavern at 502 W. Wisconsin Ave. in downtown Milwaukee. The building has since been razed and the Wisconsin Center is now located on the site. The Miller Time Pub and Grill is currently located across the street at 509 W. Wisconsin Ave. — Photo courtesy of Historic Photo Collection/Milwaukee Public Libary

COMMENTARY

Huge win for Road America WHEN SPORTS FANS THINK ABOUT the most iconic venues in Wisconsin, Lambeau Field is obviously at the top of the list.

What probably does not come to mind for most, but should, are the state’s iconic race tracks: the Milwaukee Mile and Road America.

Some of the biggest stars in the history of auto racing have competed at these historic tracks.

But today, the status of Road America and the Milwaukee Mile could not be more different. One is thriving and the other is in decline.

The Milwaukee Mile, located at State Fair Park in West Allis, opened in 1903 and is the oldest operating motor speedway in the world.

In its heyday the Milwaukee Mile was regularly the next race on the Indy Car circuit after the Indianapolis 500.

But with the demise of Milwaukee IndyFest in 2015, the Mile has not hosted a major professional auto race in five years.

46 / BizTimes Milwaukee OCTOBER 12, 2020

Racing returned to the track last year with the ARCA Midwest Tour, a regional developmental stock car series held mostly at tracks in smaller Midwestern cities. That and other smaller racing events planned for the Milwaukee Mile this year were canceled due to COVID-19.

Even when such events can be held again, there’s little indication big time auto racing will ever return to the Mile.

The picture is much brighter at Road America, the 4-mile-long road racing course that opened in 1955 near Elkhart Lake in Sheboygan County.

NASCAR announced recently that it will bring a Cup Series race to Road America next year. This is a big deal. NASCAR’s Cup Series is its top racing series. All of the biggest stars in stock car racing compete in it.

NASCAR has held Xfinity Series races (NASCAR’s second-tier series) at Road America since 2010.

Getting NASCAR’s Cup Series is a huge upgrade for Road America compared to the Xfinity Series. It’s like going from having a AAA baseball team to getting a Major League team.

Compared to the Milwaukee Mile, which is also used for State Fair parking and concerts, Road America is a much busier place. It hosts

DIRECTOR OF SALES Linda Crawford linda.crawford@biztimes.com CONTENT SOLUTIONS MANAGER Maggie Pinnt maggie.pinnt@biztimes.com ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Paddy Kieckhefer paddy.kieckhefer@biztimes.com ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Christie Ubl christie.ubl@biztimes.com ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Dylan Dobson dylan.dobson@biztimes.com

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

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

Independent & Locally Owned — Founded 1995 —

more than 500 events each year. Major races were still held there this year, despite the pandemic.

The addition of a NASCAR Cup Series race at Road America will bring another big-time sporting event to Wisconsin. The popularity of auto racing has declined some, but NASCAR still has a huge following. When the time comes that we can again gather in large crowds, the draw for the Cup Series race at Road America will be significant. Wisconsin racing fans will be eager to see top stock car drivers compete.

At the same time, NASCAR has pulled out of Chicagoland Speedway, which could prompt Illinois racing fans to flock to Road America as well.

After a rough 2020, the Ryder Cup and NASCAR could provide a boost to the area’s hospitality industry next year. n

ANDREW WEILAND EDITOR

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

JAKE HILL PHOTOGRAPHY

the LASTWORD

PATRICK FERRY |

PRESIDENT

Stay self-aware

Concordia University Wisconsin

The Rev. Patrick Ferry, president of Concordia University Wisconsin and Concordia University Ann Arbor, recently announced he will retire at the end of the academic year after 30 years with the private Lutheran university system. It’s important as a leader to stay self-aware and know your own limitations, Ferry said.

“I haven’t thought about it so much as a philosophy as much as a necessity to recognize my own – to put it charitably – limitations. There’s so much that I don’t know or don’t know very well, and I’m not troubled by that. But you need good people who more than compensate for your own shortcomings. And then you have to let them do their jobs, to not micromanage. To weigh in where it’s appropriate but not overextend. And then to cultivate trust within the team members. Building a team is certainly as much

art as it is science, but you have to have the right players to make it work well.

“To be self-aware includes knowing my own strengths and weaknesses, and complementing where there are needs. But I also think it’s involved in this decision – I’m aware that the time is right for me (to retire), but it’s also right for Concordia. I don’t know if I would have arrived at that if I weren’t somewhat self-aware.

“We have a very senior team. I felt it was very important for me to be the first to step to the

Mequon Industry: Higher education Employees: 630 cuw.edu

side so that when the new leader is in place that person would have the opportunity to build the team of (their) own preference. Whoever it is, they will be facing some really large challenges.

I hope that person will have the opportunity to get a running start at it and that includes building a really strong team.” n biztimes.com / 47

NOMINATIONS NOW OPEN! NOTABLE

VETERAN EXECUTIVES BizTimes Milwaukee will feature BizTimes Media 2020 Notable Veteran Executives within the November 9th issue of BizTimes Milwaukee. This special editorial feature will profile the executives who are shaping their own organizations as well as the path forward for other women in the industry.

Your company, and its executives, are invited to submit a nomination form that will help us determine this year’s honorees. The special section will run in print and online, recognizing the chosen individuals for their accomplishments.

Extended Deadline is Today, October 12th

NOTABLE HEROES IN HEALTH CARE

BizTimes Media announces BizTimes Media 2020 Notable Heroes in Health Care, recognizing individuals and teams in health care who are working on the front lines of the COVID-19 crisis.

Nomination Deadline: November 13, 2020 Issue Date: December 14, 2020

NOTABLE WOMEN

IN HUMAN RESOURCES These accomplished professionals represent all aspects of human resources. The common denominator: They went into HR to help people and have staked out paths to make an impact.

Nomination deadline: December 16, 2020 Issue Date: January 25, 2021

To view this year’s winners and nominate, visit biztimes.com/notable