BizTimes Milwaukee | August 5, 2019

Work ongoing to enhance rail service from Milwaukee to Chicago

plus MILWAUKEE ANGEL INVESTOR JEFF RUSINOW DETAILS HIS RETURNS 11 CORPORATE BOAT CRUISES OFFER FRESH PERSPECTIVES, EXPERIENCES 22 SPORTS VENUES A HOME RUN FOR CORPORATE EVENTS 24

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Nominate the people and for-profit organizations who are making a positive difference in the community by donating their time, talent and treasure. Nominate the nonprofit organizations that are making the region a better place to live, work and play. Self-nominations also are encouraged!

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BizTimes Milwaukee (ISSN 1095-936X & USPS # 017813) Volume 25, Number 9, August 5, 2019 – August 18, 2019. BizTimes Milwaukee is published bi-weekly, except monthly in January, July and December by BizTimes Media LLC at 126 N. Jefferson St., Suite 403, Milwaukee, WI 53202-6120, USA. Basic annual subscription rate is $42. Single copy price is $3.25. Back issues are $5 each. Periodicals postage paid at Milwaukee, WI and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send all UAA to CFS. NON-POSTAL AND MILITARY FACILITIES: Send address corrections to BizTimes Milwaukee, 126 N. Jefferson St., Suite 403, Milwaukee, WI 53202-6120. Entire contents copyright 2019 by BizTimes Media LLC. All rights reserved.

Contents

4 Leading Edge 4 NOW

BY THE NUMBERS 5 ON THE JOB WITH… 6 PUBLIC RECORD 7 QUOTE UNQUOTE 8 BIZPOLL COFFEE BREAK 9 BIZLUNCH 10 JUMP START

11 Biz News 11 A NGEL INVESTOR DETAILS HIS RETURNS 13 THE INTERVIEW

14 Real Estate 32 Strategies 32 FAMILY BUSINESS David Borst

COVER STORY

16

33 COACHING Susan Marshall 34 BRIEF CASE

Improving the connection Work ongoing to enhance rail service from Milwaukee to Chicago

38 Biz Connections 38 NONPROFIT NEWS 39 SBA LOANS

Special Report

40 GLANCE AT YESTERYEAR COMMENTARY

Coverage includes a look at unique venues for business events including Wisconsin’s professional sports venues and Milwaukee boat cruises.

42 MY BEST ADVICE

41 AROUND TOWN

22 Corporate Event Planning

MARCUS CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS

M A K E- A-W I S H W I S C O N S I N PHONE: (262) 781-4445 WEB: wisconsin.wish.org

PHONE: (414) 273-7121 WEB: marcuscenter.org

Together, we create life-changing wishes for children with critical illnesses.

The Marcus Center acts as an energizing force that connects our community to the world through collaboration, innovation, social engagement and the transformative power of live performing arts.

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

NOW

Quad, LSC agree to break off $1.4 billion deal

By Arthur Thomas, staff writer The court fight over the proposed acquisition of LSC Communications by Quad/Graphics Inc. had barely gone one round, but the two printing giants said recently that they mutually agreed to terminate the $1.4 billion deal.

When the deal was announced last year, Joel Quadracci, chair-

man, president and chief executive officer of Sussex-based Quad, said it represented a “truly defining moment” for the company started by his father. Chicago-based LSC Communications represented the legacy printing business of R.R. Donnelley, the industry giant Quad had competed against for decades.

BY THE NUMBERS

The cost for official travel packages to the 2020 Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits ranges from $1,700 to

$

6,400

per person, according to the PGA of America, which is partnering with PRIMESPORT to promote and sell the packages.

4 / BizTimes Milwaukee AUGUST 5, 2019

Shareholders from both companies approved the deal and Quadracci expressed optimism that regulators would sign off, as well, but in June the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit seeking to block the deal.

The companies said challenging the DOJ lawsuit would come with additional costs and uncertainty.

“We are disappointed by the Justice Department’s decision to sue to block the transaction and believe that the lawsuit does not reflect the dynamics of print today and the competitive effect of digital media. However, rather than devote time and resources to prolonged litigation, we are choosing to focus on ensuring that our clients benefit from our Quad 3.0 growth strategy,” Quadracci said.

The DOJ argued that if the deal were approved Quad would dominate markets for magazine, catalog and book printing, allowing it to raise prices and reduce quality at the expense of publishers, retailers and consumers.

Quad pledged to “vigorously defend” the deal after the lawsuit was filed and LSC chairman, president and CEO Thomas Quinlan III said the DOJ was “wrong in its assessment of our transaction.”

Quadracci argued that printers are no longer competing amongst themselves, but must deal with threats from digital advertising. He

noted the entire printing industry has combined revenue of $76 billion, while Google and Facebook have more than $75 billion in digital ad revenue.

But the government pointed to printing contracts where Quad and LSC were competing against each other and offering millions of dollars in various incentives to lure or keep customers.

The court case, however, never reached a conclusion on the competition issues. The case was scheduled to go to trial in mid-November after a judge sided with the DOJ over Quad and LSC. The companies had asked for an expedited hearing process, citing a clause in their merger agreement that would terminate the deal if it was not completed

by Oct. 30, one year after it was initially announced.

Quad also faced the prospect of paying LSC a $45 million fee if the deal was not completed by the deadline. The company will pay LSC the fee as part of the agreement to terminate the deal.

The government argued the Oct. 30 deadline was artificial and the companies could extend it if they desired. Quad and LSC had planned to complete the deal by mid-2019, and argued that they either had to close on the transaction by the deadline or start their own separate actions. n

1-3 STEINHAFELS

Steinhafels creative team

1

4

4-6 JAKE HILL PHOTOGRAPHY

ON THE JOB WITH…

By Marla Hiller, staff writer There’s more to Steinhafels Inc.’s Pewaukee headquarters than just a showroom and warehouse. The second floor has a 5,000-square-foot television studio where Ira Klusendorf, consumer marketing creative director, and his team shoot Steinhafels commercials and product photos.

The studio features a turntable to achieve 360-degree pictures so customers can be shown what a piece looks like from every angle.

The in-house studio is both time- and cost-efficient for Steinhafels. In some instances, the team publishes photos of a new piece of furniture on the website before it even hits the store floor, a testament to the studio’s time efficiency.

Klusendorf explained that the cost of 350 commercials produced with Steinhafels’ current set-up is equal to the cost of 118 commercials produced with outside agencies. n

2

3

5

1 Klusendorf and his team strive to produce images that appear to be inside a home rather than a studio.

2

3

Klusendorf directs two child actors for a Steinhafels commercial, promoting the family-oriented image of Steinhafels.

A “behind-the-scenes” shot of the set, studio and the hightech camera equipment used for commercials and photos.

6

4 Klusendorf explains his use of LED lights to create natural lighting in photos and commercials.

5 Klusendorf stands on the turntable used for 360-degree photos. The turntable was inspired by those used for cars.

6 Klusendorf with some of the professional studio equipment the team uses, including 100,000-watt Tungsten lights. biztimes.com / 5

Leading Edge

PUBLIC

THE

RECORD Iron Town Harley-Davidson by the numbers

By Arthur Thomas, staff writer

New Hire?

Iron Town Harley-Davidson in New Berlin generated nearly $34 million in gross revenue in the first two full years after Sara Pomeroy bought it. But facing a lawsuit alleging check and inventory fraud, along with breach of contract, from Harley’s credit financing business, the dealership abruptly shut down in mid-July. The next day, the business entities behind the New Berlin dealership and another in Janesville filed for bankruptcy. Jonathan Pasternak, an attorney for the dealerships, said the owners were marketing the stores for sale after reaching an understanding with Harley-Davidson. The bankruptcy filing showed just how much of a drag the lawsuit and uncertainty has been for the dealership this year.

Share the news with the business community.

The New Berlin dealership listed $5.7 million in assets and $5.8 million in claims, including:

Visit biztimes.com/bizconnect to submit your news!

6 / BizTimes Milwaukee AUGUST 5, 2019

$15.7 million in 2017



$18.1 million in 2018



Announce new hires, promotions, accolades, and board appointments with BizPeople.

New Berlin dealership revenue

$4.1 million through mid-July 2019

$4.8 million in secured claims • $1.6 million to Byline Bank • $3.2 million to Harley-Davidson Credit Corp.

$1 million in unsecured claims • $288,000 to Wisconsin Harley-Davidson • $100,000 to MMR Motors (registered to Robert Moakley) • $88,000 in late rent After Harley filed its lawsuit seeking $6.3 million from the two dealerships, Wisconsin Harley-Davidson agreed to take over management of the New Berlin dealership and planned to buy the business after lining up financing. Robert Moakley, owner of Wisconsin Harley-Davidson, said he backed out of the deal at the end of May as mounting challenges made it difficult to secure financing.

“The dealership was ultimately too far gone financially to be salvaged without a much larger capital injection than we were prepared to invest,” Moakley said. “And more importantly, certain representations were made to us by several involved parties. Representations that either proved to be untrue at the time they were made, or were subsequently withdrawn from underneath us once we took over management of the dealership. This ultimately handcuffed the dealership’s ability to function properly, regardless who was running it.” n

“ QUOTE

unQUOTE

ALLAN H. “BUD” SELIG

”

COMMISSIONER EMERITUS OF MA JOR LE AGUE BA SEBALL Bud Selig, commissioner emeritus of Major League Baseball, discussed his new book, “For the Good of the Game,” during a recent interview with Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Tom Haudricourt at an event hosted by the Milwaukee Press Club and Rotary Club of Milwaukee. A Milwaukee native and 2017 Baseball Hall of Fame inductee, Selig is the former owner and president of the Milwaukee Brewers. He served as commissioner of baseball from 1998 to 2015, initially taking over as acting commissioner in 1992. While commissioner, Selig worked to change the economic landscape of MLB to make the teams more competitive with each other. As owner of the Brewers, he led the controversial fight to build Miller Park. n

“My job was to get people to work together. When I took over (as commissioner) – and I said I inherited a ‘blanking mess’ – owners hated owners, owners hated the commissioner, owners hated the union, the union hated owners, everybody hated everybody…”

“One thing about baseball is it’s a social institution. Two key words: hope and faith. And the job of a commissioner is to provide a system in which there is hope and faith, which means on March 28, which was opening day of this year, that a number of people and a lot of franchises have hope and faith that their team can compete. That didn’t exist (under the league’s previous economic system).”

“(Securing the funding to build Miller Park) was painful… this was not a team trying to move. On the contrary, this was a team trying to stay. And we put up with some what I describe in the book as Machiavellian behavior.”

“People can be critical, but the fact of the matter is Miller Park has wound up as one of the great parks in baseball… how good have Lambeau Field and Miller Park been for Milwaukee and for Wisconsin? And that’s what I told Bob (Harlan, former CEO of the Green Bay Packers) at the time – someday we may be gone, but they’ll thank us.”

“As commissioner, (the league’s economic turnaround) is the thing I am proudest of because we had never had a revenue sharing plan and today we have one that is really good.”

biztimes.com / 7

Leading Edge BIZ POLL

BIZTIMES MEDIA – Like us

COFFEE BREAK

A recent survey of BizTimes.com readers.

Electric scooters have returned to Milwaukee. Is this a good thing, or a bad thing?

Allan Klotsche

President | National Business Furniture LLC GOOD THING:

BAD THING:

770 S. 70th St., West Allis

56%

44%

INDUSTRY: Office furniture EMPLOYEES: 220 • Klotsche took the reins at NBF in October 2017, after 25 years at Brady Corp. and three years as president and CEO of office furniture manufacturer Mayline Co. LLC in Sheboygan.

• Over the past five years, National Business Furniture has been shifting more of its sales to products that are unique and proprietary to NBF. “That’s a pretty big shift because we formerly were really just representing other people’s products and reselling them.”

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

UNITED PERFORMING ARTS F U N D ( U PA F) PHONE: (414) 273-8723 WEB: upaf.org UPAF’s three-part mission is to raise funds for 14 of Southeastern Wisconsin’s most prominent arts groups, to help promote them in our communities and to be transparent and accountable with the dollars that their donors so generously give.

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• While the internet has made office furniture sales more competitive, NBF sets itself apart by prominently listing its phone number so customers can call with questions about online orders. “…When someone actually has a question about office furniture, we’ve got 45 people that are on the phone that can help them.”

• Klotsche worked in Asia for a portion of his career, where he was served a number of unique foods, from live sashimi to snake to

raw horse.

• A Whitefish Bay native, Klotsche lives there today with his wife, Mary.

• Klotsche loves everything outdoors, from fishing to hunting to camping.

• He doesn’t drink coffee “because when I was eight years old and we would have pancakes on Sunday morning, my dad would put the syrup in a coffee cup and warm it up for me.

And one day I grabbed the wrong cup and poured coffee on my pancakes and to this day I have never had coffee again. Trust me, coffee on pancakes is not good.” n

PHONE: (414) 263-8100 WEB: UnitedWayGMWC.org United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukesha County changes lives and improves our community by mobilizing people and resources to drive strategic impact in health, education, and financial stability.

8 / BizTimes Milwaukee AUGUST 5, 2019

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1

BIZ LUNCH

Lunch

ST. PAUL FISH CO.

Biz

ST. PAUL FISH CO. WEBSITE: stpaulfish.com

MAREDITHE MEYER

2

A D D R E S S: 6200 W. Mequon Road, Mequon

CUISINE: Seafood C H E F: Kyle Woppert M O O D: Fun and casual PRICING: Lunch entrees $8.95 - $15.95; Dinner entrees $14.95 - $25.95 Milwaukee-based St. Paul Fish Co. recently expanded into the North Shore with a new seafood market and restaurant at Mequon’s newly developed Spur 16 mixed-use project, which includes the Mequon Public Market, luxury apartments and townhomes.

Husband-and-wife duo Tim and Mary Beth Collins started the business in 2005 as one of the original tenants at the Milwaukee Public Market in the Historic Third Ward. Fourteen years later, that corner space has grown “organically,” they said, with an additional table seating area and a sidewalk palapa bar, but the restaurant was ready to expand beyond its 50-seat capacity.

A former canning factory, St. Paul’s Mequon location is much more spacious, with seating for about 160 diners including its full-service bar. Diners enter the restaurant through its front-of-house fish market, which sells a seasonal selection of fresh seafood shipped in four to five times per week. 

3

1 2 3

The East Coast-style Lobster Roll is one of the best selling items on the menu. St. Paul sources its fish from across the U.S., including Florida, Washington and Alaska.

The Fried Surf Clam Strips is one of 16 appetizers served at St. Paul’s Mequon location.

Its menu includes more salads and non-seafood items than St. Paul’s downtown eatery.

The restaurant is decorated with nautical artwork, historical photos and nods to coastal ocean life. It also has an event space that can be rented for groups of 20 to 40 people, or up to 120 people with the adjoining outdoor patio. biztimes.com / 9

Leading Edge

OTOLOGIC TECHNOLOGIES INC. LOCATION: Milwaukee

LILA ARYANPHOTOGRAPHY

@BIZTIMESMEDIA – Real-time news

FOUNDERS: Dr. Aaron Moberly, Metin Gurcan, Darrin McCall, Dan Wenger and John Guequierre.

FOUNDED: May 2019 PRODUCT: Ear disease diagnostic AI software WEBSITE: otologictech.com EMPLOYEES: 5 GOAL: Complete National Institutes of Health grant research work. Pursue Small Business Technology Transfer grant to fund commercialization.

Den Wenger

Health care software developer Otologic Technologies chooses to locate in Milwaukee

By Molly Dill, staff writer

10 / BizTimes Milwaukee AUGUST 5, 2019

IT COULD HAVE incorporated in Ohio, where it was invented. Or North Carolina, where one of its inventors now works. Though leaders pitched Otologic Technologies to make its home in those locales, the company ultimately decided to incorporate in Wisconsin.

“We actually chose Wisconsin because of the number of things that are going on here for startups, particularly tech startups and medical device startups,” said Dan Wenger, chief strategy officer and one of five founders of Otologic, which makes artificial intelligence software for ear disease diagnosis.

The company was officially founded in May, and is in the process of moving its headquarters from Madison to Milwaukee, starting in a coworking space. Its founders are raising a $250,000 friends-and-family funding round to begin product development and commercialization.

“The technology that we’re commercializing has been in development for about four years,” Wenger said.

Ear aches are one of the most common reasons people, and especially children, go to the doctor. But diagnoses of ear conditions are inaccurate up to 70% of the time, Wenger said.

“We believe it’s mostly the subjective nature of the diagnostic process. That process

hasn’t changed in over 100 years,” Wenger said. “The tools provide limited visibility. You’re often working with a cranky, uncomfortable, squirming patient like a child.”

So co-inventors Dr. Aaron Moberly and Metin Gurcan used a grant from Ohio State University to develop artificial intelligence software that compares a short digital otoscope video of the patient’s ear to known cases of ear disease to find a match and suggest a possible diagnosis to the primary care provider.

“The doctor makes a final decision, but this time they’ve got some objective guidance from a system of known cases,” Wenger said.

Moberly and Gurcan are working on a twoyear, $420,000 National Institutes of Health grant through September 2020 to expand the group of cases in the system to improve its accuracy. Early results have shown physicians’ accuracy rate improving from 30% to 85% with the use of Otologic, Wenger said.

In addition, primary care physicians with whom Otologic has tested the software have said they appreciate the ability to share the otoscope image with the patient to show them the problem, as well.

The company plans to move toward FDA clearance and commercialization over the next couple of years. n

BizNews FEATURE STORY

Milwaukee angel investor Jeff Rusinow details his returns

By Molly Dill, staff writer JEFF RUSINOW figures he has reviewed more than 2,000 startup decks and met for hundreds of coffees with Wisconsin entrepreneurs over the past 19 years.

Rusinow founded Milwaukee’s first angel network, Silicon Pastures, in 2000. At the Wisconsin Entrepreneurs’ Conference put on by the Wisconsin Technology Council in Milwaukee recently, he revealed for the first time the returns he got on his angel investments in Wisconsin companies.

Rusinow made 45 angel investments, most of which were in Wisconsin companies. Eight of those companies were sold or went public, providing him with a return on his investment. Rusinow calculated his all-in internal rate of return was about 37%.

But there are peaks and valleys to investing in startups, he said.

“While I’ve had the eight exits and have had obviously some successes, of those eight exits one was a successful … IPO, three of them were sales to Fortune 500 companies. And that’s the good news,” Rusinow said.

“There is some not good news, though. I hit a low point earlier, toward the end of last year, where two startups I am very involved in, one of them I was on the board, one I was chairman of the board, I had put $1 million in each of those.

Both of those went bankrupt in December.”

Those bankruptcies were Grafton-based Aurora Spectral Technologies LLC and Middleton-based Death’s Door Spirits.

Rusinow’s successful exits were: »» UltraVisual/Emageon: 4X return. Madison-based UltraVisual Medical Systems Corp., a web-enabled medical imaging software founded in 2000, was

acquired by Emageon Inc. in 2003. The company went public in 2005.

“It was fantastic, but guess what? It took longer to develop than we had planned,” Rusinow said. “We had to go out and get some more funding at not a great valuation. …when we merged, the calculations were based on revenue so…it wasn’t great in terms of how it worked out and what we got.” »» BuySeasons: 15X. New Berlin-based costume e-retailer BuySeasons Inc. was acquired

by Liberty Media Corp. for $55 million in 2006.

“I was chairman of the board,” Rusinow said. “A lot of fun teeing that up, lot of fun working with a Fortune 500 company in negotiations. It was a great ride.” »» Nerites: 2X. The Madison-based developer of adhesive biomaterials used for suturing in health care was acquired for $20 million

by Kensey Nash Corp. in 2011.

Jeff Rusinow speaking at the Wisconsin Entrepreneurs’ Conference biztimes.com / 11

BizNews

»» Prodesse: 3.5X. Waukesha-based biotech firm Prodesse, which made diagnostic kits for respiratory illness, was sold to Gen-Probe Inc. for $60 million in 2009.

“I came in late on that deal. The angels actually did much better than three-and-a-half,” Rusinow said. »» ModernMed: 4X. The Waukesha-based concierge medicine provider was sold to DaVita for more than $20 million in 2012.

Rusinow was chairman of the board and approached DaVita to initiate the sale, he said. »» RevolutionEHR: 4X. The Madison-based electronic health record software company received a $40 million investment from private equity firm RevOptix in 2014.

RevolutionEHR made a simple

software play in optometry, Rusinow said. Instead of a clipboard, the company moved eye doctors’ charts to iPads. »» Fishidy: 1.5X. The Madison-based fishing spot finder app was acquired by Raymarine last year.

“We had hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people who liked the app, but we were only able to convert about 3% to premiums (subscribers),” Rusinow said. “That became a challenge, but eventually we sold and we all got out. My 1.5, if it hadn’t been for the fact that I was on the board negotiating for stock options, that would have been more of a 1.1.” »» Asthmapolis/Propeller Health: 9X. Madison-based internet of things startup Propller Health, which makes sensors that attach to inhalers to track usage on a companion mobile app,

was acquired by ResMed for $225 million in January.

The deal closed about a month after the Death’s Door and Aurora Spectral bankruptcies, he said.

Rusinow said he’s encouraged by the progress Wisconsin’s startup and investing communities have made over the past 20 years.

When he started Silicon Pastures, there was only one other angel group in the state and there were no accelerators or other assistance organizations. There also wasn’t any corporate or university involvement in the space.

“There’s a lot going on, there’s a lot to feel good about, and if you are an entrepreneur looking for funding, it’s out there. You’ve got to do the work, you’ve got to set yourself up, but I think for the most part it’s really exciting,” he said.

Rusinow advised investors to lean in and be actively involved in

their portfolio companies, and to abide by the tried and true angel rule that at least one in 10 investments should bring a 10x return or greater.

“For this to work, the majority of the deals that I’ve seen in Wisconsin, the pre-money valuation has to be between $1 (million) and $2 million,” he said. “If you start getting into 2, 2.5, 3, 4, 5, you’re inviting some trouble because things always take longer, things get flattened out. Time is not your friend with a startup. Time is not your friend if you have a burn rate and you’re burning cash.”

He also gave advice to entrepreneurs seeking funding.

“If you are an entrepreneur and you’re looking for pre-revenue capital, understand the dynamics are there’s only so many angels out there and when you pitch them, you’ve got to really have it together,” Rusinow said. n

BMO Wealth Management welcomes Sarah Kyle and Andy Saeger.

Sarah and Andy join BMO Wealth Management as Director, Private Wealth Advisor’s in Milwaukee. Together they bring over 30 years of experience to serve our clients’ wealth management goals.

Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc. owns the certification marks CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ and CFP® in the U.S., which it awards to individuals who successfully complete CFP Board’s initial and ongoing certification requirements.

BMO Wealth Management is a brand name that refers to BMO Harris Bank N.A. and certain of its affiliates that provide certain investment, investment advisory, trust, banking, securities, insurance and brokerage products and services. Not all products and services are available in every state and/or location. Investment products are: NOT FDIC INSURED – NOT BANK GUARANTEED – NOT A DEPOSIT – MAY LOSE VALUE.

12 / BizTimes Milwaukee AUGUST 5, 2019

Sarah Kyle, Director Private Wealth Advisor 414-287-8753 sarah.kyle@bmo.com

Andy Saeger, CFP®, AAMS®, AWMA® Director, Private Wealth Advisor 414-287-7108 andy.saeger@bmo.com

the

Interview

THE MILWAUKEE REPERTORY THEATER recently expanded its leadership

team with the addition of three new key leaders. Melissa Vartanian-Mikaelian, previously general manager for the theater, has been named managing director.

Associate artistic director May Adrales is moving to Milwaukee to spearhead the Rep’s John (Jack) D. Lewis New Play Development program. Laura Braza also joined the theater in a newly-created role of artistic producer. Associate editor Lauren Anderson recently spoke with Chad Bauman, executive director of The Rep, about the theater’s expansion in recent years and the growing demand for arts and cultural experiences in Milwaukee.

What prompted the addition of three new leaders?

“There are a couple things in play here. The Rep, in the last five years, has grown pretty significantly. Over that time, we have gone from a $9 million (annual) budget to now approaching $14 million. We have a decade-high level of subscribers and patrons. The truth of the restructuring is that there is just more work to go around. At the same time, we’ve adopted a new ambitious strategic plan that calls upon us to grow our mission of diversity, equity and inclusion and develop robust new plays. We have to look at the structure of the leadership at the theater to be well prepared for the future.”

What do you attribute the Rep’s growth to?

“When a nonprofit theater is a mature company, it’s unusual to see that amount of growth. When you do see it, it’s usually a combination of factors. At the heart is the product and the artistic production on our stage is very high-quality and in very high demand from our patrons. We have a product that is indeed world class. And the second is the city of Milwaukee and southeast Wisconsin are having a renaissance, particularly in the downtown. A lot of people are coming back to the downtown for entertainment. Fiserv Forum has a lot to do with that. The vibrancy of downtown has a lot to do with it.”

Why are people particularly drawn to live art experiences right now?

“This is an opinion, but I think people are yearning for connection right now. We have a world that is highly digital and fragmented, and live theater is an opportunity to come together and have a shared experience and be exposed to something that could be unfamiliar for people. And people are looking for those opportunities.”

LILA ARYAN PHOTOGRAPHY

How has the Stackner Cabaret renovation expanded the Rep’s capacity?

Chad Bauman Executive director, Milwaukee Repertory Theater 108 E. Wells St., Milwaukee Employees: 451 milwaukeerep.com

“It’s been fantastic. It’s done exactly what we thought it would do. We opened it in September and we’ve now done four shows in that space.

We increased the seating from 118 to 193. And we did that because the Stackner has about 300 performances a year at 98% capacity. We had the demand and we just didn’t have enough inventory to meet the demand.

We expanded with the idea that it would bring in a half-million more in revenue. We just closed ‘Ring of Fire’, which became the largest sales in the Stackner in our history.”

Any new initiatives planned for the upcoming year?

“We’re expanding our engagement in education program. Right now we serve 20,000 in 200-plus schools and we have plans to significantly expand that, specifically our reading residencies program. We’re also looking at other ways to activate our venues. We’re in conversations with The Moth to activate some of our venues and also are building our relationship with Saint Kate Arts Hotel.” n biztimes.com / 13

Real Estate

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Maria Monge and Ryan Pattee stand in front of the building at 3528-30 W. National Ave. Pattee, president of Pattee Group LLC, is redeveloping the building and Monge is planning to move into the first floor to open the restaurant Pupuseria la Chalateca.

West National Avenue block on Milwaukee’s south side coming alive

ABOUT FIVE YEARS AGO, the 3500 block of West National Avenue on Milwaukee’s south side was identified as a place that had the potential to be a commercial destination for residents and visitors alike.

That vision is coming alive,

thanks to the effort of local developers, business owners and the nonprofit group Layton Boulevard West Neighbors.

Five buildings were identified for redevelopment along this commercial corridor as part of a LBWN and Clarke Square design charrette, which was crafted back in 2014. Those planning efforts brought together area residents with professional planners and designers, who created designs based on the neighbors’ desired uses and amenities.

In the time since, two of those buildings have been redeveloped while another two have been acquired by local developers who have plans for them.

“The sentiment was this has always been a main street for the south side of Milwaukee, it still makes sense for it to be that way, and that we value our historic buildings … and just wanted to repurpose it more for 21st century uses,” said Celia Benton, economic development director of LBWN. Ryan Pattee, president of Milwaukee-based Pattee Group

JON ELLIOT OF MKE DRONES LLC

BIRD’S EYE VIEW: B M O T O W E R

14 / BizTimes Milwaukee AUGUST 5, 2019

With the erection of structural steel recently completed on the BMO Tower project in downtown Milwaukee, construction is slated to be substantially finished in December.

Milwaukee-based Irgens Partners LLC is developing the 25-story office building at 790 N. Water St. The project team and city leaders marked the completion of the steel work with a topping-off ceremony in late June.

According to the developer, construction crews are working on an accelerated schedule in order to finish the project on time after the parking structure took two-and-a-half months longer than expected.

The entire building is expected to be enclosed in glass by mid-August, and work on the roof finished in September.

The BMO Tower is so far about 55% leased. Tenants will include BMO Harris Bank, Michael Best & Friedrich LLP, Heartland Advisors, Inc. and Andrus Intellectual Property Law, LLP.

WHO REALLY OWNS IT?

LLC, has purchased the former bar at 3528-30 W. National Ave., with plans to redevelop the commercial ground floor and residential space on the upper level.

Maria Monge, who owns the food truck Cielito Salvadoreño, will open the restaurant Pupuseria la Chalateca there. Monge said she has for years sought a brick-andmortar location and specifically wanted to locate in this neighborhood. The additional space will allow Monge to offer more food and beverage options, she said.

Pattee said project financing will come from a variety of sources.

Monge is applying for a white box grant and may also receive financing through the Wisconsin Women’s Business Initiative Corp.

Other financing sources include a bank loan and owner and tenant equity.

Acquisition and renovation costs together are around $270,000, Pattee said.

Meanwhile, Alex Anderson, a real estate investor and a sales executive with Powers Realty Group Inc., owns the building at 3516-20 W. National Ave. He said the redeveloped building will have two first-floor storefronts and two Airbnb units upstairs.

Anderson said he is applying for a white box grant with the city to help finance renovations to the commercial space. Renovations to the storefront space are likely to start this fall and be completed by the end of the year. Acquisition and renovation costs will total around $275,000 altogether, he said.

The developers have agreed to renovate the buildings and select businesses to locate there under the direction of LBWN. “Their (LBWN’s) enthusiasm and kind of how deeply they’re ingrained in the neighborhood and what their vision for the neighborhood is, I agree with that, and that’s the kind of stuff I want to be involved in,” Pattee said.

Benton said the organization hears a lot of requests from neighborhood residents for more family-friendly storefronts that are open later than 5 p.m.

“There’s tremendous buying power in the neighborhood from residents, and a lot of the needs for these families are not being met yet in the community, so it’s a loss of income in the neighborhood,” she said.

LBWN assists with development efforts in a number of ways, including bus tours of commercial properties and offering grants to business owners making commercial property improvements.

LBWN also acquires buildings when it can.

LBWN redeveloped the building it owns at 3514 W. National Ave., which consists of the Orenda Café on the first floor and apartments upstairs. The restaurant opened in May. Orenda is owner Leticia Munoz’s second restaurant, with the other being Michael’s Family Restaurant at 2220 W. Wisconsin Ave. “I wanted a new concept, something new, and it caught my attention that the building was going to be renovated and I could make the space the way I want it,” she said. “And it looks beautiful.”

Another building that has been redeveloped along the block is at 3524 W. National Ave., where 5Wise Workshop coworking space and workshop venue is located.

Anderson said he has an option to purchase the final building at 3522 W. National Ave., though he’s still negotiating on a purchase price with the owner. The building is now used for apartments. n

MILWAUKEE COLD STORAGE CO. WAREHOUSE The historic Milwaukee Cold Storage Co. warehouse in Walker’s Point is currently vacant, but may eventually be redeveloped by its new owner.

An affiliate of Milwaukee-based J. Jeffers & Co. this spring purchased the building at 100 S. Second St. for $300,000, according to state records.

Josh Jeffers, president and CEO of J. Jeffers & Co., described the building as a high-quality asset with “Class A locational attributes and linkages,” though he has no immediate development plans for it. He said in an email his firm may hang onto it for a few years before something materializes.

The 71,500-square-foot warehouse building was constructed in 1892, according to city records.

ADDRESS: 100 S. Second St. OWNER: 100 South 2nd Street LLC ASSESSED: $1,136,000

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STORY COVER

An Amtrak Hiawatha train traveling over the Menomonee River railroad bridge in Milwaukee.

16 / BizTimes Milwaukee AUGUST 5, 2019

IMPROVING CONNECTION THE

Work ongoing to enhance rail service from Milwaukee to Chicago

WISDOT

J

By Alex Zank, staff writer

oe Daufenbach was sitting in the Milwaukee Intermodal Station on a sunny and humid Monday morning, waiting for the Amtrak Hiawatha train to arrive.

He, like many of the passengers there that morning and every weekday morning, relies on the rail service to commute to and from work in Chicago.

Daufenbach, a Bayside resident who works at real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield’s Chicago office, said he mostly works remotely, but he does take the Hiawatha to Chicago about once a month for face-to-face meetings. He chooses to take the train because he doesn’t have to sit in traffic and he can work during the commute.

Daufenbach is among a growing number of people who are choosing the train to get to and from Chicago. State and business leaders point out that the Hiawatha creates an important economic link between the two metro areas.

“We’re part of the Chicago megaregion, which is one of the 10 largest economic regions in the country,” Tim Sheehy, president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, said at a recent news conference. “And to put it simply, commerce is about connections, and this train helps us connect to Chicago in a more frequent, more effective way.”

Joel Brennan, secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Administration, said that more than 40% of trips on the Hiawatha are business related, and 60% of those people taking the Hiawatha for business are making daily round trips.

“Businesses in this corridor clearly recognize the importance of this because 37% of the travelers indicated their business employer had paid for their ticket for these trips,” he said.

The Hiawatha service is Amtrak’s busiest line in the Midwest.

But Daufenbach also pointed out its shortcomings – chiefly, the lack of trips during peak travel hours.

“It leaves (Chicago) at 5:08 or 8:05 (p.m.),” he

said. “There’s no meeting that ever gets done at that point in the day. Either you’re going to have to duck out of your meeting at 4:30 and run to the train station, or your meeting is done at 5 or 6 and you’ve got to sit there until 8 o’clock; then you don’t get home until 9:30.”

It is these kinds of limitations that lead some people to choose their cars over the train.

Sarah Chow, a Whitefish Bay resident who works in advertising for Crain’s Chicago Business, splits her twice-weekly commute between driving and catching the train.

“The train is way more (pleasant) in some respects usually, unless there’s a problem with the train,” she said. “I can work on the train, I can read, or I can do whatever I want.”

But the days she has meetings, Chow said she finds it’s more convenient to drive so she doesn’t have to choose between leaving work too early or too late.

And Jason Liu, a Naperville, Illinois, resident and chief executive officer of Wauwatosa-based Zywave Inc., makes the commute to and from work by car every day, with the only exceptions being the occasional overnight stay or if he’s already traveling elsewhere for work.

“Zywave is a special company and worth the commute,” Liu said of his nearly two-hour drive to and from the office.

He said that since he lives in a western suburb of Chicago, the Hiawatha’s route isn’t really practical for him. What he would like to see is an option where commuters like him could park somewhere like Schaumburg or Northbrook, Illinois, and at least make two-thirds of the trip by rail.

However, track is being laid (figuratively and literally) for projects aiming to improve the existing connections between Milwaukee and Chicago.

These plans range in scope from practical, incremental changes to big ideas and futuristic technologies that are found more often in science fiction than in governments’ capital budgets. biztimes.com / 17

STORY COVER

Riding the rails The popularity of the Hiawatha service is clearly rising.

Wisconsin Department of Transportation data shows the service set an all-time record in 2018 of more than 858,000 passengers, a 3.6% increase over 2017 and more than double since 2003, when the service began providing seven roundtrips daily.

The numbers for 2019 are looking even more promising.

According to WisDOT, more than 417,000 passengers rode the Hiawatha line in the first six months of this year, a 5.6% uptick from 2018.

“We’re looking to break another record here this year,” said Arun Rao, passenger rail manager for WisDOT. “Almost every month, except for January when we had some cancellations due to severe weather, there was a very large growth rate.”

And why not ride the train when there’s so much congestion clogging the freeway in to Chicago?

“Even if every orange barrel and barricade was removed, it is still luck on how long it’s going to take you to drive (to and from Chicago),” said Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari.

Even Chow, who elects to drive once a week, noted its risks. This is especially true given the massive reconstruction of the I-94 freeway going on south of Milwaukee County.

“It’s really scary, to be honest, and dangerous.

Some of those areas, there’s no shoulder room,” she said.

Improving these connections State leaders contend adding more trips would make the Hiawatha service more convenient for commuters like Chow. WisDOT, the Illinois Department of Transportation and other stakeholders are working to increase the Hiawatha’s offerings from seven to 10 daily trips.

Wisconsin lawmakers earlier this summer approved a state budget that included $35 million to go toward this proposed expansion. The rail improvements necessary to make the 10 daily trips happen have an estimated price tag of roughly $200 million, according to WisDOT. The rail improvements needed to increase capacity on the existing route are reliant on matching funds coming from federal grant programs.

However, this expansion project hit a roadblock in recent months when IDOT made known its opposition to certain parts of the plans. Specifically, IDOT opposes a proposed 2-mile siding, or “holding track,” next to the existing railroad tracks in Glenview, Illinois, as well as a 3-mile siding through Lake Forest, Illinois.

Residents and elected leaders from both communities voiced strong opposition to the sidings.

They argued the new sidings would lead to freight trains sitting idle in the middle of their community, which would impact their overall health and safety.

18 / BizTimes Milwaukee AUGUST 5, 2019

Don Owen, Glenview deputy village manager, said the community was supportive when first hearing about the proposed Hiawatha expansion several years ago. Glenview has the only Illinois stop along the Hiawatha line outside of Union Station in downtown Chicago.

But Owen said the proposed siding would cause more congestion in the area, due to freight trains running at slower speeds as they pulled off the main railway to allow passenger trains to go by.

The starting and stopping of the freight cars would also impact the quality of life for nearby neighborhoods, he said.

“Having this mini freight yard next to the neighborhoods was not something we were looking for,” Owen said.

He said the village has shared with WisDOT some alternative projects, including adding tracks and making signalization improvements on a separate railroad from the one the Hiawatha uses.

This would mean the freight and passenger trains would never have to cross paths along this stretch in northern Illinois, he said.

According to WisDOT, the sidings were needed in order for other trains operating on the railroad to move out of the way of the extra Hiawatha trains.

Rao said WisDOT has met with IDOT and other stakeholders since the department announced its objections earlier this year. They are now looking for alternatives that would eliminate the sidings in those communities but still allow for the Hiawatha to be expanded.

“Those options will need to be modeled and thoroughly evaluated, and that process is going to take several months,” he said. “Following that process we’d have a clear direction for implementation and a better idea for a timetable.”

In the meantime, WisDOT said it is looking to make improvements and negotiate with the railroads to allow an interim increase to eight daily roundtrips on the Hiawatha. Department leaders said enough of the improvements can be made on the Wisconsin side so that the Hiawatha service can expand to eight daily round trips within the next three or four years.

One such project moving forward is the $56 million Muskego Yard bypass project, which would upgrade track and signaling at the Muskego (rail) Yard in Milwaukee’s Menomonee Valley. WisDOT applied for federal grant money on that project in mid-July. It would allow freight trains to bypass the Milwaukee Intermodal Station and downtown Milwaukee.

Another project Wisconsin is pursuing is the addition of a second platform at the Milwaukee Airport Railroad Station near Mitchell International Airport. This $10 million project was recently awarded a $5 million grant by the Federal Railroad Administration.

The third project in Wisconsin involves upgrading signals and providing Centralized Traffic Control between the Milwaukee Intermodal Station and a cutoff point 1.8 miles to the west, allow-

ing trains to operate more efficiently and at higher speeds throughout the segment. The signal upgrades, estimated to cost $5 million, were recently awarded a $2.7 million federal grant.

Another option being explored is moving forward with a package of projects that would allow the Hiawatha to increase to nine trips more quickly than it would take to reach 10 trips. Rao stressed this is just an idea, and nothing has been made final. He also reiterated that the ultimate goal is to reach 10 daily trips.

“Getting to the 10th round trip daily is when we’re going to have to really work with them (Illinois) and figure out our options,” said Craig Thompson, secretary-designee of the WisDOT. However, Canadian Pacific, which owns the railroad track that Hiawatha uses between Milwaukee and the Rondout railroad junction in Illinois, said it is opposed to adding any additional trips on the Hiawatha line until all rail improvements are made on both sides of the state line.

This would need to include the proposed sidings in Glenview and Lake Forest or alternative work.

“We have supported this Hiawatha service and intend to continue to support it,” Canadian Pacific wrote in a letter to WisDOT, dated June 26. “Adding additional Hiawatha trains without adding all the necessary additional infrastructure is, however, not something we can agree to.”

IDOT referred questions regarding the Hiawatha expansion to WisDOT. Thompson said he has spoken personally with IDOT’s secretary, Omer Osman, who told him IDOT officials “remain committed to looking at alternatives to the two (controversial) projects in Illinois.”

Projects in Illinois that are part of the overall expansion include: »» Glenview Universal Crossover, which would add a control point in Glenview so Chicago commuter rail system Metra could perform maintenance work while allowing other trains to cross over to opposite tracks, avoiding maintenance crews; »» Increasing the speed of freight trains from 40 mph to 50 mph through a 12-mile segment in Illinois, decreasing the speed differential of freight trains and passenger trains, which travel at 79 mph in that section; »» Lake Forest Universal Crossover, which provides a benefit to Metra crews similar to the Glenview crossover project; »» And adding a second track at the Metra Fox Lake subdivision, which would significantly improve delays by moving stopped trains off the mainline and increasing through-speeds of trains.

Rao cautioned that, since stakeholders are currently drawing up alternatives on how to get to 10 daily trips without the two controversial projects, the identified improvements could change once the new plans are made final.

What’s more, the Hiawatha train cars will also be replaced with new cars somewhere between 2020 and 2022. Rao said 88 cars are being built

ALEX ZANK

by Siemens Mobility in California to replace existing passenger cars on all state-supported Midwest routes originating in Chicago. This includes routes that run from Chicago to Milwaukee; Detroit; Grand Rapids, Michigan; and Carbondale, Illinois, among others.

The new cars will put the Hiawatha trains on par with standards seen on Amtrak’s flagship Acela service, which runs from Washington, D.C. to Boston.

“New modern equipment, competitive average speeds and the high number of frequencies, I think those are the three ingredients to get to a level of service similar to the Acela and where we need to be,” Rao said.

One clear leg up for Acela over Hiawatha is the speed it travels. Its average speed between Washington and New York is 82 mph, and between New York and Boston is 66 mph. The Hiawatha travels between Chicago and Milwaukee at around 60 mph.

Rao said WisDOT is always considering ways to decrease travel times, and said the new cars could help a little on that front.

What’s more, the Acela reaches a maximum speed of 150 mph. Kevin Muhs, executive director of the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, said at that speed, federal regulations require all road railroad crossings to be eliminated.

“You can’t have any opportunities for automobiles to cross over the line for trains to run at those speeds,” he said.

Amtrak’s Magliari said even more important than speed for passengers is frequency and reliability.

“There’s steak and there’s sizzle,” he said. “Sizzle is speed; steak is reliability, safety and fares. And reliability speaks to schedule.”

Farther down the track There is likely more to look forward to for passenger rail service. WisDOT’s long-range plan for passenger rail is based on recommendations made in the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative plan. Those recommendations are also endorsed in SEWRPC’s VISION 2050 long-range land use and transportation plan, Muhs said.

The recommendations include two new intercity rail lines connecting Chicago to the Twin Cities via Milwaukee and Madison, and another connecting Chicago to Green Bay via Milwaukee and the Fox Valley. This would be done by way of extending the existing Hiawatha service, and all three lines would operate at speeds up to 110 miles per hour.

It also calls for an increase in the number of trains to allow for 17 round trips once the extension to Green Bay is added, Rao said.

“They’re really long-term plans, and right now it’s really hard to give a timeline,” he said. “It depends on when the decision would be made to move forward with any of that. I think increasing the Hiawatha service to 10 roundtrips is a key component to doing that; that makes extensions more feasible in the future.”

Passengers disembark a Hiawatha line train after arriving in Milwaukee. Upper Inset: The Milwaukee Intermodal Station.

Lower Inset: Passengers in line at the Milwaukee Intermodal Station, waiting to board a Hiawatha train to Chicago.

The state is also pursuing adding another round trip between the Twin Cities and Milwaukee via the existing Amtrak Empire Builder service, which runs all the way out to the Pacific Northwest. Rao said WisDOT is finishing up negotiations with the railroads on needed infrastructure improvements to accommodate the added trip.

Beyond the Hiawatha improvements, SEWRPC also makes recommendations for four proposed rail commuter lines in the metro Milwaukee area. All four routes would end at the Intermodal Station, with one heading north toward Century City on Milwaukee’s north side. Another line would head west to places like Brookfield, Pewaukee and Oconomowoc, and branching off from that line would be a separate destination to Waukesha. A fourth line would head south along the lakefront to serve communities like Milwaukee, Cudahy and Oak Creek, eventually reaching Kenosha. This would, in turn, provide a commuter rail connection with Metra’s Union Pacific North line, which ends in Kenosha.

Robert Schneider, an associate professor with University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s urban planning department, said he is favorable to the idea of a commuter line to Kenosha, which would mean another connection to Chicago via Metra. Plans for a 33-mile Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee Commuter biztimes.com / 19

Thinking bigger Some are looking beyond existing commuter lines at new systems and technologies that promise even faster commutes and provide an even greater network of connections.

One such plan is being proposed by Milwaukee resident William Hume. The system would be built on a bridge over existing railroads and would provide lightning-fast travel times between Milwaukee and Chicago. The project would also require a remodel of both the Milwaukee Intermodal Station and Union Station in Chicago, as well as the installation of solar panels to power the train cars.

“The whole idea is that an individual could live in Milwaukee, have a job in downtown Chicago and get there in 15 minutes. It’s like a suburb,” said Hume, who is retired from a career in infrastructure land surveying.

He said he figures the entire system could be designed and built in about eight years, though not all players have signed on board that would make this possible. He also does not have investors lined up yet that would support the project, which he expects to cost at least $50 billion. Hume said the funding would come entirely from private money.

Another futuristic proposal is the Great Lakes Hyperloop. The transportation method uses a system of tubes at near-vacuum, pressurized capsules harnessing passive magnetic levitation, and electric propulsion, according to Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, the Califor20 / BizTimes Milwaukee AUGUST 5, 2019

Above L & R: A conceptual design of William Hume’s proposed passenger rail line. Right: A rendering of the proposed Great Lakes Hyperloop system.

nia-based company behind the proposal.

The initial first phase of the Great Lakes Hyperloop promises a 28-minute trip between Cleveland and Chicago. Milwaukee is among the cities that could possibly be part of the system’s second phase.

Ben Cooke, a spokesman for HTT, said the company has no official agreements with Milwaukee or Wisconsin, though it is considering bringing the system this way.

Meanwhile, a feasibility study on the initial route is nearly finished, he said. The project will then need to undergo an environmental impact study.

“Assuming funding and regulatory requirements are met, our engineering teams are estimating 36 months of construction time from start to finish,” Cooke said in an email. “Keep in mind these are all estimates, but if everything moves forward timely, within five years or so there could be a working Hyperloop system.”

Muhs said ideas like the Hyperloop system are certainly interesting, but so far unproven.

“It could be useful in the future, but I would say we’re interested but pretty cautious on whether it’s going to happen,” he said.

All of these ideas to improve transit, from practical to aspirational, work toward the goal of better connecting the Milwaukee and Chicago metro areas. Businesses and political leaders alike stress the importance of those connections for Milwaukee’s economy.

“Investing in the passenger rail service is really an investment in Wisconsin, an investment in our citizens,” Brennan said.

Denise Thomas, president and owner of Milwaukee-based consultancy The Effective Commu-

HYPERLOOP TRANSPORTATION TECHNOLOGIES

Link were quashed in 2011. Even so, that doesn’t mean the idea should never be revisited, he said.

“Nothing will happen if we don’t have a vision for it or don’t start talking about it,” Schneider said.

Any extensions from Kenosha likely won’t be coming from Metra’s side, however.

Michael Gillis, a spokesman for Metra, said the Kenosha stop was actually grandfathered in from a private service operating before Metra was formed 35 years ago.

Gillis said Metra is more focused on maintaining and improving its existing system and has few resources for expanding. In Metra’s long-range capital plan, which includes a list of desired expansion projects, there is no mention of expanding farther into Wisconsin, he said.

CAD GRAPHICS ROSALBA HUERTA, DESIGN CONCEPT WILLIAM HUME

STORY COVER

nication Coach LLC, said at the recent news conference, that took place in the Milwaukee Intermodal Station, that her business has a “huge dependency” on the Hiawatha service. Among the service’s benefits is flexibility, especially when meeting with clients in Chicago.

“With the Hiawatha service line we are able to have that flexibility and continue to be collaborative in a larger market as Chicago, but be based in the great city here in Milwaukee,” Thomas said.

The need for strengthening passenger rail connections is clear, not just with Chicago but across southeastern Wisconsin – especially when thinking about how Milwaukee can compete with peer regions, Schneider said.

Muhs said the region has reasonably high ridership based on what is currently provided, and the service is cost-effective. However, the overall number of transit options provided is low compared to areas with similar levels of density to Milwaukee.

To better compete with places like Denver and Salt Lake City, he said more investment in regional transit is needed.

“Wisconsin is an outlier in how much local control there is over revenue sources,” Muhs said.

He noted the state prevents local governments from raising property taxes or enacting sales taxes to fund such endeavors.

Schneider said governments need to find a way to overcome these obstacles to strengthen regional transit.

“If we want to compete as a region, Milwaukee versus other peer regions, and regions on the coast and in the Midwest, we really need to have competitive transit,” he said. n

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Special Report

MILWAUKEE RIVER CRUISE LINE

CORPORATE EVENT PLANNING

Attendees socialize on the back deck of Milwaukee River Cruise Line’s Harbor Lady vessel.

Corporate boat cruises offer fresh perspectives, experiences Area companies trade indoor event venues for waterways

BY MAREDITHE MEYER, staff writer HOME TO THE SHORELINE of Lake Michigan and confluence of the Milwaukee, Menomonee and Kinnickinnic Rivers, it’s no wonder Milwaukeeans like to say they are located on America’s Third Coast.

Water is considered a major part of local culture, especially during summer, when both locals and visitors take full advantage of the long-awaited sunshine and warmer temperatures, playing volleyball at Bradford Beach, walking along the Milwaukee RiverWalk, attending festivals on the lakefront and kayaking down the Milwaukee River.

For local businesses, summertime in a water-centric city can also provide an opportunity to make a splash when hosting corporate events.

“Taking events off land and onto the water allows us to use one of the region’s most valued cultural and economic assets while showcasing the city from a different perspective,” said Sarah Zens, events manager at the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce.

MMAC in recent years has hosted a number of events on the city’s waterways, ranging from riverboat cruises and tours to young professional kayaking events to networking on the Lake Express ferry.

Earlier this summer MMAC organized a five-hour fishing cruise on Lake Michigan, attracting a sellout crowd that filled 10 six-person charters. And plans are underway to expand the event next year, Zens said.

From a planning perspective, corporate 22 / BizTimes Milwaukee AUGUST 5, 2019

boating events present their own unique challenges, such as capacity limits, departure times, safety concerns and the possibility of inclement weather. But, Zens said, “it’s worth it when you see attendees experience Milwaukee’s beauty from the water and connect with their community.”

The occasional rain shower or drop in temperature doesn’t concern Dan Jorgenson, owner of Milwaukee River Cruise Line, one of several local boat cruise businesses.

The company’s five vessels—Lakeside Spirit, Harbor Lady, Miss Wisconsin and Edelweiss I and Edelweiss II— are equipped with fully enclosed, climate-controlled cabins, which allows the river cruise season to start as early as March and run as late as November. Other amenities onboard include outdoor decks, interior bar areas and sound systems.

Jorgenson started the company in 2006 and has since built out both its public and private charter programs. It currently offers nearly 20 public cruises, many of which take place on a weekly basis, including Wednesday Classic Dinner Cruise, Friday Margarita Fiesta Cruise and Saturday Beer and Brat Cruise.

But the brand throughout the years has worked to position itself as a private charter for corporate events, small weddings and other private parties, he said. “(A cruise) showcases the city in its best light,” Jorgenson said. “For employees, going to a game at Miller Park year after year just gets

old and the typical company party in a hotel gets boring. This breaks it up.”

Private cruises begin at the company-owned restaurant Pier 106, the former Port of Call located on West Wells Street along the riverfront. Vessels travel downtown via the Milwaukee River into Lake Michigan’s breakwater, looping around at the Milwaukee Art Museum.

With an in-house event planner and catering arm (through Pier 106), the cruise line has planned and executed corporate events for groups ranging from 20 to more than 150 people. The Harbor Lady is the largest vessel with a capacity of 145.

Jorgenson said his company has hosted events for large international companies, such as Johnson Controls, Rockwell Automation, ManpowerGroup and Northwestern Mutual, looking to entertain out-of-town clients and employees.

Introducing visitors to the city by boat is the best way to show it off, Jorgenson said.

It also provides a better view of the development and revitalization that has taken place along Milwaukee’s riverfront in recent years, said Corey Zetts, executive director of Menomonee Valley Partners Inc. The nonprofit organization recently hosted the Urban Manufacturing Alliance’s national conference, which was held in Milwaukee in early June. The three-day event kicked off with a boat tour of the city’s Menomonee River Valley and Harbor District areas.

“I think what people who came from out of town took away was the surprise and excitement of seeing how beautiful Milwaukee is and seeing how vibrant it is, but from the river’s perspective,” Zetts said.

Zetts said the tour, chartered by Riverwalk Boat Tours, was the first event of the conference to sell out, filling two 40-person boats.

Parts of the tour were guided so attendees could learn about Milwaukee’s manufacturing history and key redevelopment sites along the riverfront, Zetts said.

“When we were planning this, we thought that taking people on a boat tour of Milwaukee was something really special,” Zetts said. “You could see the history of Milwaukee, with historical buildings along the way and the renaissance that’s been going throughout the city. It was such a great opportunity for people who might not otherwise see how vibrant the river is and all that the city has invested into the riverfront.”

Menomonee Valley Partners plans to host additional boat cruise events during its weeklong 20th anniversary celebration in late September. Zetts said she hopes it will showcase the progress that’s been made in the Valley over the past two decades and build excitement about the development that is yet to come. n

Special Report

NORTHWESTERN MUTUAL

CORPORATE EVENT PLANNING

There are 10 main event spaces throughout Fiserv Forum, the largest being the 17,500-seat bowl.

Sports venues a home run for corporate events Offer unique experience, turnkey amenities

BY MAREDITHE MEYER, staff writer MORE THAN 11,000 people packed Fiserv Forum in downtown Milwaukee last month to see iconic singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffet in concert. Unlike the impressive lineup of shows held at the arena since it opened last summer, the performance was never publicly announced and purchasing a ticket was not necessary.

It was a private show open only to Northwestern Mutual financial representatives, staff, executives and their families as part of the Milwaukee-based life insurance company’s 139th annual meeting.

The concert was just one of numerous functions held at the almost one-year-old Fiserv Forum during the four-day event. Holding its annual meeting at the arena was a first for Northwestern Mutual. Last year’s meeting was the final event at the now-demolished Bradley Center, which had been a host venue for a number of years.

As Milwaukee’s largest annual convention, the company’s annual meeting makes sense for a high-capacity sports venue such as Fiserv Forum, but size isn’t the only appeal.

“A stadium or arena is built to not only seat large numbers of people, but also to bring them in the building in an orderly and 24 / BizTimes Milwaukee AUGUST 5, 2019

secure fashion,” said Paul Upchurch, president and chief executive officer of VISIT Milwaukee. “With arena-style seating, lighting, and audio-visual capabilities, corporate event planners can put attendees in the mind of cheering on their favorite home team, in this case their favorite organization, boosting excitement for and throughout the event.”

Sports facilities, such as Fiserv Forum, Miller Park and Lambeau Field, are perhaps best known for the teams that play there. But in recent years stadiums and ballparks nationwide have continued to bring in revenue during the off-season and in between games, positioning themselves as unique, turnkey venues for conferences, trade shows, board meetings and company parties.

The Milwaukee Bucks, which are the operators of Fiserv Forum, capitalized on that opportunity when designing the $524 million, 714,000-square-foot arena.

“The building was designed for the purpose of having multiple types of events, so it’s not just for the tenants, the concerts, the family shows or big public ticketed events. It’s really for any type of event that somebody can think of,” said Jonathan Zuckerbrod, director of

business strategy and platform development for the Bucks.

There are 10 main event spaces throughout the arena, the largest being the 17,500-seat bowl. The Green Room is the smallest, with seating room for 30 people and standing room for 50.

Other areas include the BMO Club, located on the ground floor near the Bucks’ locker room; the top-floor Panorama Club, offering a bird’s-eye view of the seating bowl and city skyline; the suite-level West Bend Lofts; and the outdoor plaza on the east side of the building that can fit up to 10,000 people standing.

The Bucks’ new bar-restaurant, The MECCA Sports Bar and Grill, can also be rented for events for up to 750 people. The MECCA is one of four establishments that opened earlier this year in the Entertainment Block across the plaza from Fiserv Forum.

For events, Fiserv Forum has a full-service food and beverage program that can be customized for any menu, and all audio-visual needs are handled in-house, which cuts costs for the client, Zuckerbrod said.

In its first 10 months of operation, from August to its fiscal year ending in June, Fiserv Forum hosted more than 50 corporate events.

That number greatly exceeded year one expectations, but the Bucks intend to “blow it out of the water” for the arena’s second fiscal year, Zuckerbrod said.

“I think more and more meeting planners are looking to use space that is not your typical four

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contact us today for details on corporate hospitality offerings

Special Report CORPORATE EVENT PLANNING walls of a hotel ballroom, so I think something huge for us is that we want to embrace how unique this experience is,” said Mallory Brigman, manager of private event sales for the Bucks.

Like Fiserv Forum, Miller Park includes a number of adaptable spaces used for hosting small and large events, many of which take place in conjunction with home games, said Tyler Barnes, senior vice president of communications and affiliate operations at the Milwaukee Brewers.

“We can host hundreds of people in our parking lot tailgate grids, or all-inclusive areas such as the JCI Club, Northwestern Mutual Club or our Miller Lite Deck, Johnsonville Party Deck or Aurora Health Care Bullpen,” he said.

“One of the smaller areas is a suite where a company can host a meeting of executives, then stay for the game. We also use the SKYY Lounge, the JCI Club or even the seating bowl for larger events on non-game days.”

As a business centered on entertaining people, hosting large group gatherings is already part of its DNA, Barnes said.

“Entertaining fans and making them comfortable is in our wheelhouse,” he said.

Of the three facilities, Lambeau Field is perhaps used the least for its original purpose.

The Green Bay Packers only play eight regular season and two preseason home games each year, but the stadium is far from underutilized.

Lambeau Field annually hosts about 800 total events and 75 percent of those are corporate functions, said Casey Ausloos, Lambeau Field events outside sales account executive with the Packers.

The venue draws corporate clients not only from major Wisconsin cities such as Milwaukee, Appleton and Madison, but also from across the Midwest, including Michigan, Minnesota and Illinois.

“Events held at Lambeau Field are special for all guests, even those who may not be Packers fans,” said Christopher Piotrowski, chief marketing officer at Associated Bank. “It’s hard to beat the history and nostalgia only Lambeau can offer.”

The Green Bay-based company, and the team’s official bank, said it hosts year-round events at the stadium to entertain current and prospective clients.

Built in 1957, Lambeau wasn’t originally

designed to accommodate special events like newer stadiums are, but the structure has since adapted to industry trends.

In 2013, the Packers completed a major expansion project that added four premium-seating areas with 7,000 seats. The main goal was to move fans off the ticket waiting list, but the project also included additional space to host events, including a loft area with a bird’s-eye view of the field, Ausloos said.

And in 2015, the team unveiled plans to develop the Titletown District on 45 acres adjacent to Lambeau Field. Construction on phase one of the project wrapped in 2018, adding six spaces equipped to host events. Among them is TitletownTech, a 46,000-square-foot innovation hub facility that opened in early June.

Often, the customer experience offered at stadiums and ballparks is simply attached to the novelty of the sport itself.

“We can differentiate ourselves from everyone else because we have that field in the backdrop. That’s something other places can’t offer,” Ausloos said. “It’s one of 32 pro football NFL franchises and we have the luxury of having it in our backyard. n

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MEET BETTER. EVENTS THAT WORK The Midwest’s Premier Entertainment Destination is also your best bet for full-service meetings—with the most hotel event space under one roof, free parking, free Wi-Fi, state-ofthe-art AV and professional catering managers to customize every detail of your event—all just steps from nonstop gaming, dining and luxury accommodations.

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VENUES DIRECTORY

Dining/Catering

Hotel/Meeting Venues

Entertainment

Sendik's Catering & Events No matter the occasion, we cater to it. Whether you’re treating your guests to boxed lunches or a staffed, plated affair, we’ll flawlessly execute every flavor and detail.

PRIVATE DINING ROOM: No GROUP SIZE: Any CATERING OR DINING OPTIONS: Full-Service Catering

414-716-5500 | sendiks.com/catering | cateringrequests@sendiks.com

DINING/CATERING

News? Press Releases? Awards?

Show them off in BizTimes’ new BizUpdates section.

Submit your company news at at biztimes.com/bizconnect

28 / BizTimes Milwaukee AUGUST 5, 2019

Shully’s Cuisine and Events

2810 Golf Road, Pewaukee, WI 262-547-0201 | didissupperclub.com PRIVATE DINING ROOM: Yes SEATING: 149 CUISINE: American DESCRIPTION: Didi’s Supper Club serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner with a menu featuring fresh Wisconsin ingredients.

146 Green Bay Road, Thiensville, WI 262-242-6633 | shullyscuisine.com PRIVATE DINING ROOM: Yes SEATING: From groups of 10 to 400 DESCRIPTION: Four unique spaces for meetings, presentations, team building, or corporate parties with award winning cuisine.

Jan Serr Studio

South Second

2155 N Prospect Ave, Milwaukee, WI 414-256-8765 | sazs.com/venue/jan-serr-studio PRIVATE DINING ROOM: Yes SEATING: 450 guests cocktail reception/ 400 seated reception CUISINE: Fully customizable menu for all event types: Casual, Formal, and All-Day Meetings.

DESCRIPTION: Three unique customizable spaces with stunning views of downtown, located on Milwaukee’s Eastside.

838 S 2nd Street, Milwaukee, WI 414-256-8765 | southsecondmke.com PRIVATE DINING ROOM: Yes SEATING: 350 guests cocktail reception/ 250 seated reception CUISINE: Fully customizable menu for all event types: Casual, Formal, and All-Day Meetings.

DESCRIPTION: Historical industrial building with open concept indoor/ outdoor space, located in trendy Walker’s Point neighborhood.

BRITT BERG PHOTOGRAPHY

GET THE WORD OUT!

DiDi’s Supper Club

L A K E COU N T RY ’ S GAT HE R I NG PL AC E Our complete property renovations provide a simple yet beautifully designed space for business and leisure travelers. Featuring over 40,000 sq. ft. of flexible banquet and meeting space, we invite you to experience contemporary Lake Country hospitality at its natural, vibrant best.

2 6 2 . 5 4 7. 0 2 0 1 2810 Golf Road Pewaukee, WI 53072 theinglesidehotel.com

VENUES DIRECTORY

Dining/Catering

Hotel/Meeting Venues

Entertainment

The Delafield Hotel

Sharon Lynne Wilson Center

The Delafield Hotel’s event venues set the tone for corporate retreats, conferences and galas. Standout catering. Superb amenities. The right environment to leave the right impression.

Located within Brookfield's beautiful Mitchell Park, the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts provides an intimate and sophisticated atmosphere for a variety of events. Parking is always free!

NUMBER OF MEETING ROOMS: 4

NUMBER OF MEETING ROOMS: 8

TOTAL AVAILABLE MEETING SPACE: 6,300 sq. ft.

TOTAL AVAILABLE MEETING SPACE: 23,460 sq. ft.

LARGEST MEETING ROOM: 4,100 sq. ft.

LARGEST MEETING ROOM: 9,000 sq. ft.

TOTAL CAPACITY (# OF PEOPLE): 250

TOTAL CAPACITY (# OF PEOPLE): 613

NUMBER OF GUEST ROOMS: 38

262-646-1600 | thedelafieldhotel.com | 415 Genesee St., Delafield, WI

262-781-9470 | wilson-center.com | 19805 W. Capitol Drive, Brookfield, WI

Hotel/Meeting Venues

Entertainment

Blue Harbor Resort 725 Blue Harbor Drive, Sheboygan, WI 1-866-701-BLUE (2583) | blueharborresort.com NO. OF MEETING ROOMS: 178 Guest Rooms, 64 Condos, 11 Meeting Rooms TOTAL MEETING SPACE: 16,000 sq. ft.

TOTAL CAPACITY: 544 largest room

Crowne Plaza Milwaukee West 10499 W Innovation Dr., Wauwatosa, WI 414-475-9500 | crowneplaza.com/ milwaukeewi NO. OF GUEST ROOMS: 198 NO. OF MEETING ROOMS: 8 TOTAL MEETING SPACE: 6,113 sq. ft.

LARGEST MEETING ROOM: 5,023 sq. ft.

TOTAL CAPACITY: 350 DESCRIPTION: Book your meeting today and elevate your event with our flexible spaces and expert staff.

Golden Mast, Okauchee Lake

Potawatomi Hotel & Casino

W349 N5293 Lacy Lance, PO Box 41, Okauchee, WI 262-567-7047 | goldenmastinn.com NO. OF MEETING ROOMS: 5 TOTAL MEETING SPACE: 7,800 sq. ft.

LARGEST MEETING ROOM: 3,400 sq. ft.

TOTAL CAPACITY: 400 DESCRIPTION: Beautiful rooms overlooking Okauchee Lake. Overhead screens & projectors. Small meeting and break out space.

1721 W Canal St, Milwaukee, WI 844-217-4100 | paysbig.com/hotel NO. OF GUEST ROOMS: 500 NO. OF MEETING ROOMS: 17 TOTAL MEETING SPACE: 72,000 sq. ft.

LARGEST MEETING ROOM: 24,000 sq. ft.

TOTAL CAPACITY: ?

DESCRIPTION: ?

Marcus Performing Arts Center 929 N Water St, Milwaukee, WI 414.273.7121 (Office) 414.273.7206 (Box Office) | MarcusCenter.org NO. OF MEETING ROOMS: 11 TOTAL MEETING SPACE: 28,433 sq. ft.

TOTAL CAPACITY: 2,301

War Memorial Center 750 N Lincoln Memorial Drive Milwaukee, WI 414-273-5533 | warmemorialcenter.org NO. OF MEETING ROOMS: 3 TOTAL MEETING SPACE: 46,000 sq. ft. of space included both indoor and outdoor.

TOTAL CAPACITY: Memorial Hall, largest indoor can accommodate 300 in banquet seating. Fitch Plaza, largest outdoor can accommodate 2000 in banquet seating.

30 / BizTimes Milwaukee AUGUST 5, 2019

2020 Ryder Cup, September 22-27, 2020 N8501 Lakeshore Road, Sheboygan WI 920-565-6110 | rydercup.com PRIVATE MEETING ROOM: Yes GROUP SIZE: 1-300 CATERING OR DINING OPTIONS: Continental breakfast, lunch, afternoon food service and 6-hour bar service included with all packages.

DESCRIPTION: Limited hospitality packages for individuals up to 300+ guests still available.

The Ingleside Hotel 2810 Golf Road, Pewaukee, WI 262-547-0201 | theinglesidehotel.com NO. OF GUEST ROOMS: 192 NO. OF MEETING ROOMS: 20 Rooms TOTAL MEETING SPACE: 40,000 sq.ft LARGEST ROOM: Lake Country Ballroom DESCRIPTION: Whatever size, substance or style, memorable gatherings are our specialty. Tour our renovated space today.

Springs Water Park 2810 Golf Road, Pewaukee, WI 262-547-0201 | springswaterpark.com PRIVATE MEETING ROOM: Springs Water Park has two private birthday party rooms.

GROUP SIZE: Springs Water Park offers day passes on most days of operation.

Group Rates are available for groups of 15 or more people.

CATERING OR DINING OPTIONS: Square Meal Snack Bar and Wet Your Whistle Salon DESCRIPTION: Value-rich overnight packages, birthday parties, day passes and group rates are available throughout the year.

Road America Race Track Year-round scenic park-like setting in Wisconsin's Kettle Moraine midway between Milwaukee and Green Bay, Wisconsin. Indoor and outdoor space available for all size groups.

TRIO TRiO....three floors of FUN! We make planning your upcoming Holiday Party, corporate event, or simple happy-hour getaway easy, and include that extra bit of needed entertainment.

EVENT SPACE: Entertainment lounge on 2nd floor, can host groups up to 100. Our 3rd

SEATING: Hosting from 10 to 10,000. Permanent meeting space with tiered seating to

level – The View at TRIO – offers options for groups of 50 to 250.

banquet areas for 300.

CUISINE: On-site Catering from Saz's featuring casual fare to sit down dinners.

414-800-6240 | Trio1023.com | 1023 N Old World 3rd St, Milwaukee, WI

800-365-7223 | RoadAmerica.com | N7390 Hwy 67, Plymouth, WI

VENUES

Dining/Catering

Hotel/Meeting Venues

Entertainment

To find out about future opportunities to add your listing to the Venues directory – 414-336-7112 or advertise@biztimes.com

biztimes.com / 31

Strategies FAMILY BUSINESS

Honoring our heroes For some, the family business is fighting for our freedoms NEXT YEAR, my only daughter will marry her retired Marine/current Army reservist fiancé on Armed Forces Day, a day that frankly had gone little-noticed on my calendar when it rolled around each year – until now.

With a son-in-law-to-be toiling in the military and a veteran of Afghanistan, I am far more interested than ever before in what it is like to be a military family. For context, the last of my family to fight in a war was my great-great-grandfather, who walked from Wisconsin to Atlanta, burned it, quite literally, and walked back. He was adjutant to Gen. Philip Sheridan in the Civil War, or as my Texas sonin-law calls it, the War of Northern Aggression.

Good thing we are all on the same side now.

My relative came from Prussia in search of less war only to find the republic he entered under mutiny from a southern contingent that wanted states’ rights over federal authority.

Thank goodness we settled that long ago…or did we? For those of you in Waukesha, M.L. Snyder was your second mayor and his family estate (and my family legacy) was torn down to build the library at Carroll University. But I digress…

What has surprised me is the legacy of service that so many military families have come to expect. With an ex-Marine father, an uncle currently in covert operations in Korea and a grandfather who served in the military, my sonin-law-to-be had little choice but to follow in their footsteps. As many of us go to work at our business handed down through the generations, 32 / BizTimes Milwaukee AUGUST 5, 2019

some are called to serve in the family business of protecting our ability to do just that. So while this column is reserved for business, and family businesses in particular, I would be remiss if I didn’t report on a phenomenon rarely discussed and infrequently heralded – the family business of military service.

This type of business, going to war, has historical roots. In the old days when legacy and sons were worth beheading wives over – yikes – the first son inherited the family wealth, the second son went into the military, and often the third son went into religious life, thus insuring eternity for the parents of said child. War, or going to it, was a birthright, or a right depending upon your birth order. But these vestiges are not a thing of the past. This call to serve in the military for many families is alive and well and probably similar to the call to serve for firefighters, police and other first responders.

For me, it has been a learning opportunity as I now pay much closer attention to what is going on in the world and to which country a member of my family may be sent. Weapons training comes with the service, and never having held a gun in my life, the myriad of weaponry that is part of this lifestyle is quite intimidating, frankly. And then there is the language. To speak military is a whole lexicon unto itself. And lastly, there is the folding of clothes. In all my life I have never seen anyone fold their clothes with such precision.

Seventy-five years ago, my father-in-law was preparing for a landing in Normandy that would change the world. Did he know it? As Patton rolled through the Ardennes and this 18-year-old took the wheel of an ambulance after the driver was shot, could he know the historical value of that time and of that moment – or was he merely trying to stay alive?

Earlier this year, my wife and daughter went to Europe to take on a spiritual pilgrimage to fol-

low in the footsteps of my father-in-law, marking the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landing.

From Omaha Beach to the Battle of the Bulge and finally to the clearing of a concentration camp at the end of the war, my wife and daughter went on that trip to memorialize, honor and remember.

While I stayed home to hold down the fort, and to help family businesses stay in business, I couldn’t help but pause with honor and respect for those who make war the family business, or better yet, make peace for our family businesses to be possible. n

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

COACHING

We need bridge-builders Trust yourself to handle different points of view IN A DEEPLY DIVIDED and emotionally charged nation, it is always encouraging to hear people speak of building bridges.

In Milwaukee and Waukesha counties, an increasing number of ambassadors on both sides of the geographic divide work tirelessly to construct this bridge, yet a great distance still separates too many.

With this in mind, I have been watching and listening closely for little clues to this dilemma.

What keeps us apart, not just in southeast Wisconsin, but also more broadly? Why do we have such a hard time joining hands in collaborative effort? What about this wish is so difficult to make real?

Slowly but surely it dawned on me that one of the biggest challenges in building bridges is the need for re-identification. Before we can persuade others to leave the old in order to build the new, we must begin ourselves. Often we think we are. But these automatic speech patterns demonstrate something else. »» “In my personal experience, what you’re saying doesn’t work.” »» “In my own life, that’s not how things have happened.” »» “You talk about trust, but I certainly haven’t seen any reason to trust you people.”

In any effort to change a current structure, practice, or belief, our starting point is our experience. Whether we seek to find a common place in which to stand, or resist those who are

different from us – and therefore a potential threat to our comfort or safety – we retreat to past experience to inform our thinking. Accepting this as normal and taking time to hear one another out would represent a big step forward.

Instead, most of us listen for shared experience (and consequent emotion, by the way).

If we have been wronged in ways others have, we bond through shared grievance. If someone reaches out to help us but we don’t believe they understand what we need or have what we truly want, the exchange tends to end there.

In other words, trust is lacking. And it starts with each of us. If we do not trust ourselves to be strong enough to hear different points of view, allow full voicing of dissent, or accept the discomfort that comes from learning very different ideas, we will not be willing bridge builders.

Most people push back on this challenge.

They are willing, of course. Why else would they be involved in such conversation? Yet, when confronted with their own lack of trust, many respond angrily. They feel ambushed.

They resent having the problem laid at their feet; it’s the other ones who don’t get it! Sadly, and predictably, they begin ticking off the ways in which no one listens to them. No one understands them. No one cares enough to truly appreciate their unique point of view.

The impulse to build bridges gets buried under the desire to stay safe behind walls. The walls may be invisible, but they are sturdy.

What’s the solution? Personal strength forged through introspection and interaction.

Going to new places, reaching out to strangers, noticing and managing discomfort, and keeping track of learning. Having new and different conversations. Asking questions and being still long enough to hear genuine responses. Developing a sense of curiosity to offset a natural tendency to stay among people you know.

I watched a large group of people interact

recently and saw this dynamic in action. People formed smaller groups based on familiarity.

Ethnic groups gathered around tables, self-selecting into exclusive bunches. A few people crossed invisible borders to meet and chat with others. They were seen as somehow suspect or disingenuous. I was saddened to hear comments like, “What office is he running for?” “What’s her deal? Prom Queen?”

Leaving the comfort and familiarity of “me,” in order to approach the building of “we,” an inclusive community willing to share differences and similarities in order to build trust, is no easy task. It feels risky and at times it can be embarrassing or hurtful if we overhear insensitive comments. But we must persist in the work. We must encourage one another to limit our “in my experience” responses in favor of “tell me more.”

We need to listen and learn if we are to build bridges. n

SUSAN MARSHALL Susan Marshall is an author, speaker and the founder of Backbone Institute LLC. For more information, visit backboneinstitute.com. biztimes.com / 33

Strategies A BRIEF CASE

How do I recruit good people?

Mary Beth Kingston

John McWilliam

George Meyer

Chief nursing officer Advocate Aurora Health

Owner Scathain

CEO Kahler Slater Inc.

“Our purpose at Advocate Aurora Health is helping people live well. We intentionally seek nurses who can advance that mission. As one of the 10 largest not-for-profit integrated health systems in the country, our 22,000 nurses have diverse and broad opportunities to pursue their passion, whether they wish to work in a hospital, a clinic, in home care, or in a variety of specialty areas such as clinical informatics or nursing education.

“We look for a diverse nursing workforce that represents the patient population we care for every day. A good fit is an individual who wants to actively participate in enhancing care delivery, the work environment, and the profession of nursing in alignment with our purpose.

We look for new graduates and experienced nurses who are interested in professional development, innovation and research. We have a strong tuition reimbursement program, continuing education, partnership with schools, and opportunities to get involved in system nursing shared governance, affording nurses an active voice in their practice. Our team-based approach to care, with strong partnerships between physicians, nurses and other clinicians, makes Advocate Aurora Health a desirable place for nurses to learn, grow and make a difference.

“Nurses comprise one-third of our workforce and reach far and wide across our organization, which makes nursing engagement critical to our success. We know when we have nurses who are engaged and willing to participate, we have better outcomes for the people we serve.

34 / BizTimes Milwaukee AUGUST 5, 2019

“Recruiting good people usually starts with my current team acknowledging that we need to add someone and perhaps discussing what sort of capabilities or characteristics are required for the position. This makes transitioning easier as the team anticipates the arrival of a new member.

“Because we do operate as a team, having everyone on board helps to ensure that chemistry will develop. Careful screening of applications will help to narrow the search for candidates. Then I will personally call the screened applicants to get a sense of their personality and background. If I get a ‘good feeling’ from that conversation, it will most likely move to the next level. I usually prefer someone with a diverse background who can function on many levels and is a team player. I also prefer people who have an interest in moving up from lower trained positions to higher managerial positions. Or from highly skilled trade positions to higher managerial positions if the candidate is so inclined.

“I like to discuss and share with candidates long-term goals so that I feel that I am offering them a job that can contribute to healthy life development, both in filling their workplace potential and vocational pursuits, while also maintaining a healthy work-life balance.

“Sometimes my instincts will out-rule any consensus when I recognize strong potential for long-term growth. Other times, I will allow part of the admin team to do the final screening and hiring. Other candidates will come highly recommended from fellow staffers and they are usually our first choice.”

“Kahler Slater uses a three-prong magnet strategy – people, process and projects – to attract great people to our firm.

“Our people bring national expertise, and are transparent, responsive and nimble when it comes to getting to know our customers and ensuring we co-create design solutions that will deliver powerful results for their organizations.

We compete (and win) against the largest design firms in the country, yet our scale makes us accessible and agile in ways that larger firms are not. Culturally, community involvement and employee engagement are thriving. Every two years we align with a community partner – the last two years with Milwaukee Riverkeeper and in 2019 and 2020 with the Guest House of Milwaukee. We set aside a firmwide volunteering day to serve our community partner’s needs.

“Our process incorporates industry-leading virtual reality, 3D printing and drone footage to help our stakeholders make more informed, expedited decisions. Our colleagues both present at and attend conferences focused on emerging technologies nationally to ensure we are bringing the latest insights to our performance-based design process.

“Our projects attract employees. Today’s employees seek opportunities to work on projects that are big and small, local and national, and technically innovative. We have that in spades at Kahler Slater. Some of our recent projects include the new home for the Milwaukee Symphony in the (Warner Grand Theatre) and the Brown County Expo Center (in Green Bay).” n

&

SHAPING THE FUTURE Manufacturing Matters! 2017 will take place at the Hyatt Regency in Milwaukee on February 23rd, 2017. The theme of this year’s conference is Shaping the Future, and the conference features 18 breakout session in six tracks including: Growth • Operational Excellence • Human Capital Management C-Suite Essentials • Technology & innovation Wisconsin Manufacturing P L AT I N U M S P O N S O R

Nworkforce GS SPPOONNchallenges P RL EASTEI NN TAs UI M SSOO RR : and trends are

on the minds of most manufacturers, we are pleased to announce this year’s keynote presenter is Kip Wright, Senior Vice President of Manpower, North America. Kip will discuss G O key L D workforce SPONSORS trends and what manufacturers can do to secure and develop their current and future workforces.

Wednesday, October 4, 2017 • October 7:00 - 11:00 AM Save the Date!

Wednesday, 9th, 2019 WI Manufacturing & Technology Show at Wisconsin Exposition Center at State Fair Park Kip Wright

Senior Vice President of Manpower, North America

7:00-11:00AM | WI Manufacturing & Technology Preparing For What’s Next Show REGISTER TODAY! at Wisconsin Center at aState Fair Park Are you letting the disruptors controlExposition you, or are you building “Proactively Adaptable Organization” www.manufacturingmatters.org Join us for the annual Next Generation Manufacturing Summit, featuring a lively interactive discussion with chief executive officers and

leadersConnections of southeastern Wisconsin manufacturing companies. These CEO’s will share their company’s ideas and best practices for competThe Shaping Your ing in a global marketplace and how they strive to be “proactively adaptable” world-class manufacturers in the 21st century.

1 2 disruptors in Company’s Future Proactively adaptable organizations look beyond their own four walls and next purchase order and are preparing for the inevitable

3

today’s business environment.

Hearare from industry leaders who creating processes and a culture of innovation, as well as methods of talent Next generation manufacturing companies making connections withare other businesses attraction, that will drive innovation in their business. to drive innovation. They are also connecting machines to improve productivity, reacting to connections between Moderated Panel: economies and markets, and striving to connect with their future workforce.

• Jim Hawkins, CEO - Kenall Manufacturing (1) • Jim - ITU AbsorbTech (2) Join us for theLeef, 9th President Annual Next Generation Manufacturing Summit on Oct. 9. CEOs from • John W. Mellowes, CEO Charter Manufacturing Company, (3) 4 5 the region’s leading manufacturers will discuss how they make these Inc. connections and will • David Werner, Manufacturing and Supply Chain Director, Industrial Adhesives and Tapes Division (IATD) 3M (4) share best practices that help their businesses succeed. Area manufacturing leaders will also share their ideas at roundtables focused on topics like: Moderator - Joseph Weitzer, Ph.D., Dean - Center for Business Performance Solutions, Waukesha County Technical College (5) » Growth Through International Trade Manufacturing Matters! 2017 will take place at the Hyatt Regency Confirmed presenters/panelists: » Women In Manufacturing » Effectivelyon Navigating Tariffs in Milwaukee February 23rd, 2017. The theme of this year’s • John Batten, President & CEO, Twin Disc (1) » Best Practices in Recruiting and Retention 1and the conference 2features 18 3 4 5 conference is Shaping the Future, • Bill Berrien, CEO, Pindel Global Precision (2) » Selling the Business and Maintaining a Legacy breakout session in six tracks including: • Ken Bockhorst, President & CEO, Badger Meter, Inc. (3) » Leadership: Building a High-Performance Environment » New Product Development & Innovation • Jeffrey Dawes, President & CEO, Komatsu Mining Corp. (4) Growth • Operational Excellence • Human Capital » Managing Growth – Organic, Acquisitions The program continues with roundtable discussions.

The CEO panel and roundtables will address a variety topics including: • Stacy Peterson, CEO,ofConnoils, LLC (5) Management C-Suite Essentials • Technology & innovation » Connected Buildings • Building an organization’s “adaptability muscles” • Creating a process and culture to be more innovative • Additive manufacturing/3D printing Wisconsin Manufacturing » Transformational Productivity for the future • Automation and process improvement • Process improvement » And• More Talent attraction, development and retention • Logistics & supply chain management • Customer-focused innovation

SHAPING THE FUTURE

As workforce challenges and trends are • Leadership & engagement • Succession planning on the minds most manufacturers, • Big data,of Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence • Exporting, global engagement we are pleased to announce this year’s keynote presenter is Kip Wright, Senior SPONSORS: Vice President of Manpower, North America. Kip will discuss key workforce GOLD SPONSORS trends and what manufacturers can do Kip Wright to secure and develop their current and Senior SVice President of UPPORTING: PARTNER: future workforces.

Manpower, North America

• And more

Register Today! biztimes.com/mfg REGISTER TODAY! • biztimes.com/mfg

REGISTER TODAY! www.manufacturingmatters.org

FEATURED MAIN STAGE EVENT AT

OCTOBER 3-5, 2017 • SHOW REGISTRATION: WIMTS.COM

Marketplace

Contact Pavlic Vending

to get your market today!

Variety, convenience and healthy foods… all at no cost to your organization!

262.574.1600 | www.pavlicvending.com

W W W. N E L S O N S A L E S . C O M

• Atlas Copco tool distributor • We can help you select the correct tool for your torque application • Certified Atlas Copco Repair Center • Available to repair or service your pneumatic and DC electric assembly tools • Atlas Copco certified repair technicians

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FRIESIAN HERD EXPERIENCES

262-402-6000

Where horses help heal people Tours Foaling experiences Horsemanship Skills Intuitive Skills Training Herd Life Coaching for adults Equine Facilitating for Herd Healing

• We provide Tool Certification and Calibration Services • Quick turn-around times • We offer technical repair support • Available to train your Atlas Copco assembly tool operators

Leaders in Environmental, Safety and Resource Recovery Services.

Full Service Provider Environmental/Safety Programs Development Sustainability Programs Compliance Services Waste Management Services Training

262-790-2500 | www.enviro-safe.com

Sign-up now for private riding lessons!

9034 W. National Ave.

WestW. Allis, WI 53227 9034 National Ave. West Allis, WI 53227

Kathy Fucile

Kathy Fucile

262-510-8963 friesianherd@yahoo.com friesianherdexperiences.com

Business Hours: Mon. - Business Fri. 9:30 -Hours: 5:30 Saturdays Mon. - Fri. 9:30 9:30- 1:00 - 5:30 Saturdays 9:30 - 1:00 Business Hours: Mon. - Fri. 9:30 - 5:30 Saturdays 9:30 - 1:00 Phone: 414 • 321•1850 Fax: 414 •5999 Phone: 414• 321 • 321 •1850

9034 W. National Ave. kathysshadeshop.com Owner Fax: 414 • 321•5999 West Allis, WI 53227 - Custom Window Treatments Phone: 414 • 321•1850

Owner - Commercial Residential Kathyand Fucile

- Repairs of most Shades and Blinds Owner

kathysshadeshop.com Fax: 414 • 321•5999 kathysshadeshop.com

Design • Site Surveys • Permitting • Production • Installation

262.432.1330 • Innovative-Signs.com

GET THE WORD OUT! News? Press Releases? Awards?

Show them off in BizTimes’ new BizUpdates section.

Submit your company news at biztimes.com/bizconnect 36 / BizTimes Milwaukee AUGUST 5, 2019

BIZ PEOPLE

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

LEGAL SERVICES Attorney James Cirincione joins Hansen Reynolds LLC. Hansen Reynolds is proud to announce that James Cirincione has joined as a partner in our Milwaukee office. He concentrates his practice on general business litigation and counseling in federal and state courts.

Cirincione has experience representing clients in complex commercial litigation matters, including contract disputes, product liability litigation, class action defense, mass torts and construction litigation. Prior to joining the firm, he practiced with two AmLaw 100 firms and the legal department of a Fortune 500 industrial company. In addition, he served as an 11th Circuit and Eastern District of WI clerk.

ARCHITECTURE Dawn Rolison Joins GROTH Design Group as director of marketing and communications.

Responsible for executing marketing strategies that drive growth, Dawn will lead the stewardship of the GROTH Design Group brand through marketing, communications and public relations.

NONPROFIT Program manager supports youth who have aged out of foster care.

SaintA has promoted Demonte Dismuke to program manager of the youth transitioning to adulthood (YTA) program. In this role, he will help SaintA continue to support, empower and advocate for youth who have aged out of foster care in Milwaukee.

MANUFACTURING Perlick promotes Jared Coates to production supervisor.

Perlick is proud to announce the promotion of Jared Coates to production supervisor. Jared started as a general laborer at Perlick eight years ago, and now supervises second shift, managing the manufacturing team.

Based on Milwaukee’s northwest side, for over 100 years, Perlick designs, engineers and manufactures luxury refrigeration equipment and systems for both homes and the bar, restaurant and beverage industries.

ARCHITECTURE Paul Stefanski will be taking over as healthcare studio director for EUA. As the new healthcare studio director, Paul’s influence will increase on EUA’s healthcare work; as he shares his knowledge, expertise and planning emphasis with EUA team members as well as additional healthcare clients.

NONPROFIT

MANUFACTURING Perlick names new chief operations officer.

George Nelson joins Perlick as chief operations officer. A native of Washington state, George brings three decades of quality, continuous improvement, operation excellence and Six Sigma experience to Perlick. He chose Perlick because it’s a Milwaukeebased family owned company that has a long history and a strong legacy of making products that interest the avid home brewer.

Based in Milwaukee, WI, for over 100 years, Perlick designs, engineers and manufactures luxury refrigeration equipment and systems for both homes and the bar, restaurant and beverage industries.

MANUFACTURING Max Weiss Company hires Random Lake High School graduate as metalworking intern.

Max Weiss Company, the region’s leader in custom metal bending and fabricating, has hired Grayson Vandenbush as a metalworking intern. Vandenbush will work in every department to gain a complete understanding of a roller-bender company’s operations.

NONPROFIT Greg Oberland named to Greater Milwaukee Foundation board.

The Greater Milwaukee Foundation has named Greg Oberland to its board of directors. Oberland recently retired as president of Northwestern Mutual after a 36year career with the company.

Derek L. Tyus named to Greater Milwaukee Foundation board.

The Greater Milwaukee Foundation has named Derek L. Tyus to its board of directors. Tyus is vice president and chief investment officer for West Bend Mutual Insurance.

MANUFACTURING Perlick hires Heather Shannon as senior brand marketing manager.

Perlick is pleased to announce Heather Shannon joined our company as senior brand marketing manager. Prior to working at Perlick, Heather worked at local public relations, marketing and advertising agencies CramerKrasselt and Bader Rutter. She was also a reporter and anchor at TMJ4 for six plus years. In her new role, Heather will leverage her experience to drive all of Perlick’s marketing activities.

Based in Milwaukee, WI, for over 100 years, Perlick designs, engineers and manufactures award winning luxury refrigeration equipment and systems for the bar and beverage and home industries.

MANUFACTURING Perlick hires Nick Siler as vice president engineering.

Perlick is pleased to announce Nick Siler joined our company as vice president – engineering.

Nick comes to Perlick with more than two decades of manufacturing experience, specializing in business process improvement and management. Nick will manage and further develop Perlick’s world class engineering department, increasing emphasis on innovation, product development and new technology.

Based in Milwaukee, WI, for over 100 years, Perlick designs, engineers and manufactures luxury refrigeration equipment and systems for both homes and the bar, restaurant and beverage industries.

To place your listing, or for more information, please visit biztimes.com/bizconnect biztimes.com / 37

BizConnections NONPROFIT ARTS ADVOCACY ORGANIZATION IMAGINE MKE NAMES FORMER FEEDING WISCONSIN LEADER AS CEO David Lee, founding executive director of Feeding Wisconsin, has been selected to lead Imagine MKE, a new organization that aims to support and champion the arts in Milwaukee.

Imagine MKE has emerged out of a two-year effort to address a lack of coordination in Milwaukee’s arts sector. Under local philanthropist Katie Heil’s leadership, more than 100 representatives from Milwaukee’s artistic and business communities have been convening to develop a shared agenda with the goal of establishing Milwaukee as a “creative hub and a world-class arts city,” the organization said.

As chief executive officer, Lee will

now spearhead those efforts.

Before joining Imagine MKE, Lee had led Feeding Wisconsin, the Madison-based association of Feeding America food banks in Wisconsin, since 2014. Prior to that, he managed program development and led state government relations and grassroots advocacy at Feeding America.

Imagine MKE is currently in its seed funding stage, having raised about $500,000 from private foundations that will support its first year of operation.

Within a few years, Lee envisions Imagine MKE serving as an arts chamber of commerce for the region.

— Lauren Anderson

nonprofit

SPOTLIGHT

H I S PA N I C P R O F E S S I O N A L S O F G R E AT E R M I LWA U K E E 759 N. Milwaukee St., Suite 322, Milwaukee (414) 223-4611 | hpgm.org Facebook: facebook.com/hispanicprofessionals Twitter: @HPGMilwaukee

Year founded: 2001

c alendar St. Ann Center will hold its Dream Together Gala on Aug. 16 from 6 to 9 p.m. at Discovery World Museum, 500 N. Harbor Drive in Milwaukee.

The event will feature silent and live auctions, dinner catered by The Bartolotta Restaurants, raffles, prizes and stories from those served by the organization. This year’s gala will benefit people who are waiting to enroll in the new units being completed at St. Ann Center’s Bucyrus Campus. More information is available at stanncenter.org.

The National Association of Black Accountants’ Milwaukee chapter will host its fifth annual Casino Night Fundraiser on Aug. 30 at 5 p.m. at Milwaukee Marriott Downtown, 625 N. Milwaukee St. The event will raise funds for NABA MKE’s scholarship fund, which benefits high school and college students with the goal of studying accounting and finance at the collegiate level. More information is available at community.nabainc.org/milwaukee.

D O N AT I O N R O U N D U P West Bend Mutual Insurance Co. awarded grants to six long-term care facilities in Wisconsin, including Samaritan Health Center in West Bend, to purchase lift equipment. | Fred Sitzberger, founder and chief executive officer of Sitzberger & Co., recently donated $50,000 to his alma mater, Pius Xl Catholic High School. | The Delafield-based Korkor Foundation’s Fifty Fifty Run/Walk for Mental Health raised more than $150,000 for mental health education and services in its second year. | The Northwestern Mutual Foundation is giving nearly $1.7 million in grants to local nonprofits and organizations that support community development through housing support, access to youth and family resources, and food programs.

38 / BizTimes Milwaukee AUGUST 5, 2019

Mission statement: To connect and unite Hispanic professionals, students and the community with rich heritage, strong leadership and impactful initiatives.

Primary focus: HPGM is a nonprofit organization dedicated to building a robust pipeline of Hispanic talent in the Midwest. We do this through scholarships, leadership training, networking and recognition programs for our diverse membership base, ranging from college students to C-suite executives. By giving one Latinx student the opportunity to complete their college degree, or by opening the door for one Hispanic professional to advance their career, we are changing the trajectory of individual lives and entire communities.

Other focuses: Fundraising and philanthropy Employees at this location: Four Key donors: BMO Harris Bank, GE Healthcare, MillerCoors, American Family Insurance, Associated Bank, Aurora Health Care, Brewers Community Foundation Inc., Kohl’s, The Marcus Corp., Northwestern Mutual, Potawatomi Hotel & Casino, Alliant Energy, Brady Corp., Briggs & Stratton, Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, EY, Froedtert &

Medical College of Wisconsin, Husco, Johnson Controls, Rockwell Automation, U.S. Bank, Vizance Inc., We Energies and University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business.

Board of directors: Raquel Filmanowicz, Oscar Tovar, Dimas Ocampo, Tom Parks, Alvaro Araque, Dr. Wilma Bonaparte, Zeferino Cisneros, Carmen Decot, Christopher Schreiber, Nancy Flagg, Marija Gajdarsziska, Leslie Gutierrez, Nancy Ott, Raj Patel, Cris Ros-Dukler, Elizabeth Strike, Shary Tan and Dr. William Welburn.

Executive leadership: Griselda Aldrete, president and chief executive officer; Kim Schultz, director of strategic partnerships and events.

Ways the business community can help your nonprofit: We believe that the ultimate measure of our success is thriving communities with educated, productive Hispanic citizens. We invite the business community to be a part of the solution by supporting students through our scholarship fund or by partnering with us for a networking or leadership development program.

Key fundraising events: The annual Five Star Gala and annual Blutender Fundraiser.

SBA LOANS: JUNE 2019 The U.S. Small Business Administration approved the following loan guarantees in June: WASHINGTON COUNTY

$80,000, Waukesha State Bank;

BMH Properties, 985

Fond Du Lac Ave., Kewaskum, $257,000, WBD Inc.;

WAUKESHA COUNTY

Artistic Edge Dance Center LLC, 608 N. Shore Drive, Hartland, $148,500, U.S. Bank;

Collar Enterprises Inc., 101 N. Oakridge Drive, North Prairie, $832,000, First Business Bank;

Commerce Redheads LLC, 2400 S. Commerce Drive, New Berlin, $262,000, WBD Inc.;

Dis/Vet Enterprises Inc.,

W226 N825 Eastmound Drive, Suite D, Waukesha, $300,000, PNC Bank;

Gearbox Express LLC, 155 W. Dewey Drive, Mukwonago, $4.4 million, Byline Bank;

JEFFERSON COUNTY

Milwaukee, $35,000, U.S. Bank;

RACINE COUNTY

Baker Glass LLC, W6030

JB Tavern LLC, 5230 W.

Burn Sibs LLC, 6500

Thornapple Lane, Fort Atkinson, $555,600, American Bank of Beaver Dam;

Blue Mound Road, Milwaukee, $100,000, U.S. Bank;

KENOSHA COUNTY

Washington Road, Glendale, $833,600, Wells Fargo Bank;

Captain Kelly’s Bar LLC,

5118 Sixth Ave., Kenosha, $563,000, Waukesha State Bank;

Laundromax LLC, 2811 18th St., Kenosha, $700,000, Byline Bank;

MILWAUKEE COUNTY

833 West Wisconsin Avenue LLC, 833 W.

Wisconsin Ave., Milwaukee, $5 million, The Bancorp Bank;

ABL Automation Inc., 2025 S. Branch Blvd., Oak Creek, $2.9 million, Live Oak Banking Co.;

Aeroforce Logistics LLC,

620 E. Vienna Ave., Milwaukee, $50,000, PyraMax Bank;

All-City Towing LLC, 1213

W. Mallory Ave., Milwaukee,$1.6 million, Newtek Small Business Finance Inc.;

Clark’s Beer & Liquor Inc.,

4728 W. Burleigh St., Milwaukee, $1.1 million, Byline Bank;

Crash Course Driver Education Center LLC,

3752 N. 58th Blvd., Milwaukee, $25,000, Summit Credit Union;

Lakeshore Family Dentistry S.C., 7155 N. Port MBA Corp., 4388 S. Kansas Ave., St. Francis, $68,000, Landmark Credit Union;

Murrar Inc., 3340 W.

River Meadows Court, Franklin, $7,500, Wells Fargo Bank;

Schieble’s Automotive Service Inc., 7375 N. 51st St., Mil-

waukee, $25,000, Associated Bank;

See Jr Properties LLC, 2657 N. Eighth St., Milwaukee, $48,500, U.S. Bank;

The White House Restaurant LLC, 2900 S.

Kinnickinnic Ave., Milwaukee, $455,000, North State Bank;

Torque LLC, 120 W. Town Square Way, Oak Creek, $238,600, Fifth Third Bank;

OZAUKEE COUNTY

C.A.M. Medical Inc., 166

N. Green Bay Road, Thiensville, $50,000, Summit Credit Union;

C.A.M. Medical Inc., 166

N. Green Bay Road, Thiensville, $30,000, Summit Credit Union;

Gehrke-Arms Investments LLC, 1475 S. 108th St., West

C.A.M. Medical Inc., 166

Jaybird Properties LLC,

La Rosa Landscape Co. Inc.,

Allis, $373,000, Byline Bank; 9459 N. Broadmoor Road,

N. Green Bay Road, Thiensville, $116,500, Summit Credit Union; N144 W5800 Pioneer Road, Cedarburg, $2 million, Partnership Bank;

Washington Ave., Mount Pleasant, $200,000, Wisconsin Women’s Business Initiative Corp.;

Funeral Home Inc., 515

Launch Now Agency LLC,

Center St., Lake Geneva, $850,000, Live Oak Banking Co.;

1819 N. Davies Drive, Oconomowoc, $61,000, Waukesha State Bank;

Purple Tiger Coffee LLC, 526 E. Wisconsin Ave.,

Oconomowoc, $23,000, First Bank Financial Centre;

Skylark SL LLC, 12565 W.

Feerick St., Brookfield, $50,000, The Huntington National Bank;

Skylark SL LLC, 12565 W.

Feerick St., Brookfield, $947,500, The Huntington National Bank;

Spargo Services LLC,

1001 Cecelia Drive, Pewaukee, $50,000, PNC Bank;

Spargo Services LLC,

1001 Cecelia Drive, Pewaukee, $639,200, PNC Bank;

Village Auto Repair LLC,

N68 W2830 Sussex Road, Merton, $100,000, Associated Bank;

Whiskey Waters LLC,

N50 W35124 Wisconsin Ave., Oconomowoc, $22,000, First Bank Financial Centre.

Mountain Top Coffee LLC, 363 W. Main St., Waukesha,

DFC Inc., 6810 Burma

Road, Waterford, $15,000, Community State Bank;

Northern Mechanical LLC,

15017 Plank Road, Union Grove, $29,800, Landmark Credit Union;

Raza LLC, 2240 Northwestern

Ave., Racine, $188,000, WBD, Inc.;

RWB Enterprises LLC, 3214

Taylor Ave., Racine, $304,000, Newtek Small Business Finance Inc.;

RWBB Enterprises LLC, 3214

Taylor Ave., Racine, $304,000, Newtek Small Business Finance Inc.;

SHEBOYGAN COUNTY

Ralph Trapp Drywall LLC,

W8698 County Road W, Cascade, $10,000, Wells Fargo Bank;

WALWORTH COUNTY

COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE

AND DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE

David J. Manthey, N8382 Hillburn Mill Road, East Troy, $90,400, Citizens Bank;

SAVE THE DATE!

Miami K LLC, 101 W.

— November 15, 2019 —

Evergreen Parkway, Elkhorn, $63,400, Citizens Bank;

Miami K LLC, 101 W.

Evergreen Parkway, Elkhorn, $5,000, Citizens Bank;

Sponsors:

MKED Enterprises Inc., W4574 Woodview Lane, Elkhorn, $48,600, First Federal Bank of Wisconsin;

Steven R. Lazarczyk

.

Exhibit Sponsor:

COUSTECH S U P PLY

I N C.

Event Partner:

Register now: biztimes.com/creconference biztimes.com / 39

BizConnections VOLUME 25, NUMBER 9 | AUG 5, 2019

GLANCE AT YESTERYEAR

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

Typed in history This photo, taken circa 1867, shows the C. Kleinsteuber machine shop on Tamarack Street (now 318 W. State St.) where the first practical typewriter was invented and developed beginning in 1867 by Christopher Latham Sholes, Carlos Glidden, Samuel Soule and Matthias Schwalbach. The site is now a parking lot.

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

SALES & MARKETING

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

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

DIRECTOR OF SALES Linda Crawford linda.crawford@biztimes.com ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Paddy Kieckhefer paddy.kieckhefer@biztimes.com ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Molly Lawrence molly.lawrence@biztimes.com ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Maggie Pinnt maggie.pinnt@biztimes.com ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Christie Ubl christie.ubl@biztimes.com SALES INTERN Tess Romans tess.romans@biztimes.com

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

PRODUCTION & DESIGN

INTERN REPORTER Marla Hiller marla.hiller@biztimes.com

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

Independent & Locally Owned — Founded 1995 —

COMMENTARY

DOJ spoils Quad’s huge deal PRINT ISN’T DEAD, but the federal government has dealt a serious blow to Quad/Graphics.

Last year Sussex-based Quad announced it would acquire Chicago-based LSC Communications in a massive $1.4 billion deal, combining the nation’s two largest printing companies.

Both are on the Inc. 1000 list, Quad at No. 608 and LSC at No. 649. (Full disclosure, Quad is the printer for BizTimes Milwaukee).

As the world has gone increasingly digital Quad has been forced to transform its business, and its industry. The company has made more than a dozen acquisitions since 2010, closed 34 printing plants and reduced its overall headcount by 10,000. Obviously, those were painful cuts to affected employees, but the printing industry clearly needed to consolidate to survive in the modern communications environment. Quad itself has evolved into more than just a printer; it’s now a marketing compa40 / BizTimes Milwaukee AUGUST 5, 2019

ny that offers printing and a variety of marketing services (including data analytics and digital marketing) to its clients.

The LSC deal was Quad’s next big move. LSC has annual revenue of nearly $4 billion. LSC and Quad each has more than 50 printing facilities.

In trying to make the case for the importance of the deal, Quad and LSC said their combined revenue would drop by more than $1.5 billion by 2022 without combining or taking other actions.

But in June the U.S. Department of Justice sued the companies to block the deal. Recently, the companies agreed to walk away from the deal. Quad has to pay LSC a $45 million deal termination fee.

It’s disappointing that the companies caved so easily. They should have fought the DOJ, although Quad chairman, president and chief executive officer Joel Quadracci said waiting for an answer from the courts would cause uncertainty and erode the value of the deal.

The DOJ argued that if the deal had been approved, Quad would have dominated the magazine, catalog and book printing markets.

But Quadracci said the DOJ doesn’t understand that printers aren’t just competing with each other but with all modern communication

venues, including companies like Google and Facebook, which Quad says combined have about the same amount of digital ad revenue as the revenue of the entire printing industry.

“The DOJ really indicated to us that they didn’t see that we were really competing with digital, which was the really challenging part to understand,” Quadracci said. “We’re all fighting for the same dollars; it’s just that print’s been on the losing end of it for a while... (The DOJ thinks) we’re just thinking about print as it was 20 years ago, but it isn’t 20 years ago, it’s today, it’s 2019 … It is a competitive market, but the reality is most of our competition is coming from outside the industry.”

Now Quad must focus on continuing to expand its business beyond print into data analytics and marketing. But the federal government has done the company, one of southeastern Wisconsin’s biggest employers, no favors. n

ANDREW WEILAND EDITOR

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

AROUND TOWN

CARW Brewers tailgate Commercial Association of Realtors Wisconsin members recently met at Miller Park for a Milwaukee Brewers tailgate filled with food, drinks and networking with industry professionals.

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1.

MARK LAMPE of NDC, LLC, CHAD SCHULTZ of Innovative Signs and JIM OLSON of Consolidated Construction Co., Inc.

2.

MARSHAL MIKOLAJCZAK of Chicago Title and MATTHEW KING of First Citizens Bank.

3.

KEVIN JOHNSON of Hunzinger Construction and TERI WIENEN of Pepper Construction.

4.

MARNIE NOEL of Noel Real Estate Advisors, JENNA JORDAN of ECS Midwest LLC, BAILEY COPELAND of VJS Construction Services and KATIE KAWCZYNSKI of VJS Construction Services.

5.

TRACY JOHNSON, NICOLE MARTIN, LAYLA FRECKMANN and REBEKAH BAAS, all of CARW.

6.

MEGAN BALLARD of Madison Commercial Real Estate, CASSI FRIEDLI of Greywolf Partners Inc., MARILYN HERZBERG of Greywolf Partners, SHARI ENGSTROM of Sid Grinker Restoration Inc. and VICKI FUNSETH of Madison Commercial Real Estate.

Photos courtesy CARW

WICPA New CPA Banquet

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The Wisconsin Institute of Certified Public Accountants recently held its New CPA Banquet at Milwaukee Marriott West in Waukesha. One of the hallmark events of the year for Wisconsin accounting professionals, the banquet is held to honor Wisconsin’s newly licensed CPAs and celebrate their hard work, dedication and the accomplishment of achieving the most prominent designation in the accounting profession.

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JOSE SAENZ of Marquette University, ANN DAUGHERTY of Rexnord, BROOKE LEITERMAN of Reilly, Penner & Benton LLP, and BROOKE HANKE of Herzing University.

8.

KAYLA HEMBLE of Wipfli LLP, KORTNI SMITH of Wipfli and KALE POST of Dwayne Johnson & Associates.

9.

SEAN BALDWIN of CliftonLarsonAllen, DANIELLE WEBER of Kohl’s Corp. and ALEX STEWART of CliftonLarsonAllen.

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10. TAMMY HOFSTEDE of WICPA and ALLYSON HOFSTEDE of KPMG. 11. BRITTANY GREUEL and ALYSSA KNIGHT, both of Deloitte & Touche LLP. 12. ALLISON LEMKE of Sikich LLP, ZACH THIEMER of ManpowerGroup, JENNIFER KRAMER of Sikich LLP, SHAUN DIEDERICH of Chr. Hansen Holding A/S and SOPHIA DEMOPOULOS of Sikich LLP.

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13. KYLE STEPHENS of Good City Brewing and LAURA STEPHENS of Wauwatosa Health Department.

Photos courtesy WICPA biztimes.com / 41

BizConnections MY BEST ADVICE

“ (Don' t)

JAKE HILL PHOTOGRAPHY

miss out on any of these moments that you can never take back.”

DAVID FANTLE Chief marketing officer

United Performing Arts Fund Milwaukee Industry: Nonprofit Website: upaf.org Employees: 22 “IT’S AMAZING HOW just a few people can change the trajectory of one’s professional career. In my case it was at Wisconsin Gas, relatively late in my 13-year tenure.

It was the company’s president Bronson Haase, who molded his ‘actions speak louder than words’ management techniques while playing for Al McGuire at Marquette.”

“Bronson demonstrated the importance in practicing the almost lost art of workplace balance. I worked with Bronson closely in 2000, when he co-chaired the United Way campaign with former UWM chancellor Nancy Zimpher.”

“It was a warm summer day and another United Way meeting. I was hoping to take my son to Chicago to watch my favorite (baseball) team, the Minnesota Twins, play the White Sox. When I mentioned possibly skipping the meeting for the game, Bronson told me, without hesitation, to go and not miss out on any of these moments that you can never take back.”

42 / BizTimes Milwaukee AUGUST 5, 2019

AGE: 59 PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Fantle holds a bachelor’s in journalism from the University of Minnesota. He worked at Wisconsin Gas for 13 years, exiting as media and public relations director.

Fantle later worked for VISIT Milwaukee, where he initiated the Bronze Fonz statue project. From 2011-’14, Fantle was deputy secretary for the Wisconsin Department of Tourism and acted as the force behind television ads “Airplane!” and “Naked Gun.” Since 2015, Fantle has served as chief marketing officer for UPAF. During his four years there, the organization has raised nearly $50 million for the arts. Fantle also has co-written two books, “Reel to Real” (2004) and “Hollywood Heyday” (2018), and is an adjunct professor at Marquette University teaching film history, pop culture and public relations.

IN THE NEWS: In June 2019, Fantle announced that he will be retiring from full-time work after 36 years and will leave UPAF on Aug. 30th. Fantle’s retirement plans include continuing to teach, talk, write and travel. n

2020 EDITION

Reserve your space in the 2020 Giving Guide!

MACC FUND, MIDWEST ATHLETES AGAINST CHILDHOOD CANCER, INC.

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

A Gift of Hope Through Research

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

Your involvement in this annual publication includes an in-depth

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

6 $4,854,837 1976

profile, plus several advertising elements in BizTimes Milwaukee

YEAR ESTABLISHED:

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

FUNDING SOURCES

GOALS

FUNDRAISING/EVENTS

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

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

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

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

EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP

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

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

Junior Bridgeman

Heartland Coca-Cola Bottling Company

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

Al Costigan

Costigan Family Foundation

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

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magazine, BizTimes Nonprofit Weekly enewsletter and BizTimes.com.

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

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

★ DENOTES EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP

Knoebel and Associates

Chair

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

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

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

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Paul Knoebel (Chairman) ★

Paul Knoebel

Publication Date: November 11, 2019

Paul Griepentrog Godfrey & Kahn, S.C. ★

Greg Klimek

Kenan Advantage Group

T.J. Marini

Wells Fargo Private Bank

Tim Michels

Tammie Miller TKO Miller

Lindsay Schweikert Fiserv

John F. Steinmiller

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

Milwaukee Bucks

Aldo Madrigrano

Retired, Beer Capitol Distributing

2019 GIVING GUIDE | biztimes.com/giving

Take advantage of the opportunity for your organization to be seen

Michels Corporation

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

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MMAC/COSBE’s

AWARDS LUNCHEON FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2019

11:00 AM - 1:30 PM

Italian Community Center 631 E. Chicago St. - Milwaukee

MMAC’s Council of Small Business Executives invites you to attend the 32nd annual Future 50 Awards luncheon.

Celebrate the success of 50 Milwaukee Region companies demonstrating strong growth in revenue and employment.

Keynote Speaker

JENNIFER BARTOLOTTA

Director, Care-a-lotta Founder, Train-2-Gain

Jennifer Bartolotta is the director of Care-a-lotta, the charitable arm of the Bartolotta Restaurants, and the founder of Train-2-Gain. Previously, she was responsible for managing the Bartolotta sales team, who actively promote and sell the “Bartolotta Experience” at their award-winning fine dining restaurants and managed properties. She believes strongly in strengthening and lifting Milwaukee, and lends her support to several community organizations engaged in that work.

Register at: www.mmac.org/Calendar.html Presenting Sponsor

Gold Sponsors C PA s

a n d

B u s i n e s s

A d v i s o r s

Media Partner The Future 50 Awards Program is a service of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce (MMAC) and its Council of Small Business Executives (COSBE).