“It’s like Raiders of the Lost Ark of cheese,” says Howard Kamerer, the new president and CEO of WOW, indicating the endless crates containing 640-pound blocks of cheddar at the company’s warehouse in Little Chute. “As far as you can see, there’s cheese. I had no idea America ate so much cheese. And it continues to grow.”

The company now has 23 buildings and more than 7 million square feet of warehousing space, including 21 facilities in Wisconsin (Green Bay, Little Chute, Appleton, Menasha and Oshkosh) and one each in Illinois and Idaho. If you’ve ever driven past a WOW warehouse and wondered what’s in there, it could be just about anything: big rolls of paper, sometimes 6,200 pounds a roll. Food ingredients, sugar and beverages. Machinery. Wood products. Plastics and retail merchandise.

And there is cheese. The company handles 500 million pounds of cheese annually. That’s 250,000 tons, more than the total gross tonnage of the largest cruise ship in the world, Royal Caribbean’s 225,000-ton Allure of the Seas.

But the cheese is just one of the cool things about WOW – growing with its clients is another. That’s how the company got started in 1977, when Harold Schiferl, Don Utschig and two minority partners built the first warehouse in Wisconsin Rapids – a 108,000-square-foot warehouse to accommodate the paper industry’s need for storage. Back then the company was known as Warehousing of Wisconsin. But in 2000, company leaders shortened the name to the punchier acronym, WOW Logistics, which made more sense when they expanded into Idaho in 2002 and into Illinois in 2006.

“The first facility was a dream come true for me, and it just kept growing,” Schiferl says. The paper industry in the 70s and 80s was quite strong, he says, and whenever WOW’s paper company clients would do an expansion, so would WOW.

“If they expanded to a different location, they asked us if we would be interested in going to another location,” Schiferl says. “That’s like what happened with the dairy industry – we expanded into cheese storage, and that’s what got us into Idaho.”

What else WOW does

It’s not just a lot of big warehouses. WOW offers four primary services that have blossomed out of what customers need: The commercial public storage, of course – and from that, build-to-suit warehousing (yes, if they don’t already have what you want, they will build a warehouse for you). It also is a transportation brokerage, working with about 50 local, family-owned trucking companies that typically have fleets of five to 15 semitrailers. And WOW has a financing program that’s currently focused on the dairy industry – “cheese financing,” they call it.

How does it work?

Say a cheese producer is making a hard cheese like a Parmesan or a Romano, or a super-aged cheddar. Some of those cheeses need to sit for months or years. WOW has some 13-year-old cheese in its facilities. (“I have some in my fridge,” jokes Jamie Wally, WOW’s vice president of sales and marketing.)

“Think about the money that it takes to tie that inventory up,” Kamerer says.

“So the service that we provide is we actually buy that cheese from that particular producer or brokerage facility, and they get the money for the cheese up front. We actually own the cheese, but then they do all the services with it and they agree to buy the cheese back from us.”

“In the past you would spend millions of dollars while holding that cheese on your own books,” says Wally. “And when the real business is producing or processing cheese, that’s tying up millions of dollars, so they move that out and they focus on their core business. We take care of all that for them. We build a nice matrix for them so they know their total cost per pound at the end.”

Meantime, if a cheese producer goes under while WOW owns its cheese, WOW can just sell the product – it’s one of those things that go up in value.

The company recently expanded the program with dry milk powder (financing 22 million pounds of it) and may eventually expand into other products as well, Kamerer says.

“If it’s a stable product and it’s something that ties up capital, then it’s something that we’re interested in exploring,” he says.

Because the warehouse is dealing with food – and Wisconsin cheese in particular – it has a multitude of safety processes and procedures that it must follow when the cheese arrives, while it’s there and when it leaves.

“One of the key differentiators is our leadership in food-grade safety,” Kamerer says. “We are the industry leader in both cooled refrigerated storage as well as what you could consider to be ambient – or what some industry insiders call ‘dry space.’ The market in general has changed quite a bit and the level of expectation from the government and from a USDA perspective for food safety standards has increased exponentially in the last 10 years.”

In addition to following its own self-imposed standards, the company goes through “a pretty extensive third-party audit once a year,” says Greg Solcz, distribution center manager for the Little Chute facility, which has 160,000 square feet of refrigerated space. “It’s very, very thorough. We have a lot of housekeeping things we have to do on a daily basis and monthly basis. It’s got to be done to keep the product safe for everybody.”

“Pest control is huge, especially with the summer months coming up. The building always has to be shut down. We can’t leave doors open because we don’t want bugs in here, we don’t want birds in here. We don’t have those things because we’re really strict with our food safety – we take it very seriously as a company.”

“The cheese requires specific temperature controls to facilitate the aging process. The long-hold cheese that we store in our facilities is constantly changing its flavor profile and as a result, the state technically considers cheese storage a manufacturing process,” Wally says.

The Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association chose WOW to help with its World Championship Cheese Contest in Madison this spring in part because it specializes in cheese and understands those necessary aspects such as humidity and temperature, says John Umhoefer, executive director of the association.

The Little Chute facility handled 60,000 pounds of cheese from 24 countries, volunteering its staff and about 20,000 square feet of warehouse space for the arrival and sorting of cheese from all those countries, says Umhoefer. “It’s all a gift they give back to the cheese industry.” The relationship with WOW goes back to 2002 when the contest grew to a capacity where it needed some assistance.

“Frankly, we needed a major warehouse,” Umhoefer says. “We partnered with WOW because we needed professional service and a controlled environment for these cheeses. They know what they’re doing.”

Pat Lovesee, supply chain manager for Great Northern Corporation, says WOW has been a longtime supplier for the company in its Chippewa Falls and Fox Cities markets. “They’ve done a great job supporting our endeavors in both of those locations with warehousing services,” Lovesee says. “We recently started doing business with the Schofield facility in support of a major company in the Wausau area and have gotten the same high level of support and service that we’ve come to expect in other locations. It’s just a well-oiled machine when it comes to warehousing and third-party logistics (3PL).”

Lovesee was impressed that the company developed an electronic data interface (EDI) that allowed GNC to meet the requirements of specific customers, critical to keeping those clients.

“They’re not afraid to develop a customized solution that is specific to your needs,” Lovesee says. “They’re not trying to fit you into a model that may work for another industry or another customer.”

That’s clear when you learn that WOW will build you a warehouse if they don’t already have one that fits your needs, helping with design, consulting, construction and financing. The company also will customize billing dependent on what a client wants to store and how – perhaps charging by square foot, by pallet or by hundredweight.

“Industries vary in how they measure and operate so we work with them to provide the storage and handling costs using their own terminology and best methods per the industry they represent or product they are storing,” says Chad Collett, vice president of marketing.

That customization applies to keeping track of inventory through those customized EDI systems like the one WOW developed for GNC. So even though it seems like a crate could become the Lost Ark in the vastness of a WOW warehouse, the company has meticulous electronic systems to keep track of specific items. Bar codes hanging from the impossibly high ceilings label the specific area and can be scanned right from the floor.

“All the processes are pushed toward technology in these distribution centers, and that’s really to streamline, create efficiency, eliminate paper, eliminate error, eliminate potential human error, really, and to help the operations run more effectively and efficiently for ultimately our customers’ benefits,” Wally says.

WOW Logistics forecasts a 15 percent growth rate in the second quarter of 2012 over the second quarter of 2011. In the past 10 years, WOW revenue growth has doubled, Collett said. During the past 20 years it has increased nearly 700 percent. Multi-tenant public warehousing facilities space use was 70 percent at the start of 2011 and is now more than 85 percent. In March, WOW officials said they had about 150 employees, give or take. In April the company employed 168.

During the economic downturn of 2008, warehousing as a whole was negatively impacted by the recession, Kamerer said. But WOW weathered the turmoil, dipping about 10 percent in revenue but holding profitability steady. The cost of cheese wasn’t really impacted by the economy, so WOW’s refrigeration storage – its most profitable portion of the business – wasn’t hit too hard.

“Because of our customer mix, and our reliance on food storage, we had a little bit of a buffer between the downturn of the economy and our opportunities,” Kamerer said. “I think the company did a very good job of being very fiscally conservative and being prudent in its management as far as its finances were concerned, so WOW Logistics did very well during the recession because of those two factors.”

New directions

WOW, which is owned by Schiferl, Utschig and Tom Oswald, was run by its partners or family members of partners until 2011, when Matt Oswald relocated to the East Coast to be closer to his wife’s family. He is continuing on the board of directors. After a nationwide search, WOW chose 44-year-old Howard Kamerer to take over as president and CEO last July. Kamerer had led three other companies previously: Redeye Networks, which he founded and eventually sold to Allied Telesis of Bothell, Wash., where he became COO and president; and Startec Global Communications of Rockville, Maryland. He also ran his own consulting company for four years.

“We were looking for someone that had strong business background and was familiar with mergers and acquisitions and in dealing with the financial world,” Harold Schiferl said. “And our new president Howard had the very qualities that we were looking for.”

The company seems all about adapting to change, and a lot of the WOW employees have been doing it for a long time. The nine executive staff members have an average nine-year tenure, and the distribution center managers like Stolz have an average 11 years.

“It makes it easier for them to understand our customers because they’ve been doing it longer,” Kamerer says. “They understand our processes, our policies and procedures better, and they understand the industry very well, so when we want to do something different, it’s easier for them to respond.”

Kamerer’s leadership has mainly been in the high-tech field. So he’ll be the first to tell you that his expertise is not in logistics, but in managing companies – and he prefers to turn the spotlight the other executive staff at WOW. When he does talk about himself it’s in the context of his management style, which aims to let the executive staff use its experience and expertise to the utmost.

Kamerer says there are two kinds of managers: One who operates on a “consolidated model,” making decisions for the company based on the information his or her employees bring them, or those who work on a “distribution model,” setting goals and directions for the company and allowing the executive staff to use their expertise to make decisions.

“If you allow those people at the edge – I’m talking about the executive staff – rather than the CEO making every decision and micromanaging, the organization scales better,” he said. “The organization is faster and more efficient by giving autonomy to those people at the edge. In order to create a great company, you really have to unleash a company’s collective talent and passion. It’s not about me – it’s about them unleashing that talent and passion.”

“People have to feel self-worth, they have to feel empowered, and you can’t achieve that in a consolidated model,” Kamerer said. “I never met anyone who said, ‘I feel valued, empowered and respected when you make every decision on my behalf.’”

Jamie Wally said Kamerer views his executive staff as experts in their given departments and relies on them in most situations to make the right decisions.

“It really opens people’s creativity and gets our team more involved with the decision – you take more ownership and then you have more accountability and responsibility,” Wally said. “It’s just a very effective model.”

“I’ve seen people kind of come into their own in a short period of time,” Kamerer says. “I’ve seen people taking on more, wanting to take on more, willing to take on more, and being accountable for it. And I’ve seen already a 12 percent growth rate in this quarter alone. Some of it has to do with the economy picking up, but it’s not all about the economy picking up. It’s about our folks picking up – and building confidence, and having goals they want to achieve, and being given accountability to do it.”

Kamerer and his wife, Laura, were looking for a like-minded community and a situation in which he could spend more time at home (rather than living out of apartments in places as far as Italy or Japan), he says. But he also wanted a position in which he could lead and help others to become stronger leaders.

“Now you know why this Silicon Valley kid came to Wisconsin,” Kamerer says. “That’s the stuff that drives me, is watching that executive staff grow – when those light bulbs come on, and they get to believing in themselves as a group, that’s what juices me. This gives me the opportunity to do that. And I still get to see my kids.”

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Craig Dickman understands that asking the right questions can lead to one hell of an idea. He recalls a time years ago, when he was working at a trucking company and encountered a client who was less than happy to see him.

“He had just come out of a meeting with his boss, and his boss had read him the riot act and said, ‘You’re missing your budget!’” Dickman told an audience he addressed at a recent St. Norbert College CEO breakfast. “And he looked at me and said, ‘Well, the reason I’m missing my budget is because fuel costs are up, I can’t do anything about that, so I’m getting beaten up for something I can’t do anything about.’

“There’s nothing in the world worse than being held accountable for something that you don’t control or even have influence over.”

Dickman says moments like that can lead to innovation and change in the marketplace: How do you solve this problem? Why can’t he have influence over fuel costs? It was one of many questions that led Dickman to create his company, Breakthrough Fuel, which confronts the fuel pricing challenge and blows away the notion that those costs can’t be controlled.

Since the company launched in September 2005, Breakthrough Fuel has saved its clients more than $300 million.

How? It’s easy (sort of). Dickman says even his close friends get confused about what his company does. It’s an easy idea – though the patented formulas and algorithms behind it are complex.

In a nutshell, the company saves shippers money by figuring out the exact cost of fuel for transporting a load from one point to another, offering alternative routes and shipping methods to help a company be more fuel efficient. It also helps them determine their carbon footprint and finds options for alternative fuels, such as natural gas.

“They revolutionized our business and our way of thinking – we’re a conservative company within and Breakthrough helped to guide our learning process,” says Vahan Badalow, director of corporate transportation for Andersen Windows & Doors, Bayport, Minn.

“Andersen managed fuel like all other shippers, but by partnering with Breakthrough Fuel we have been able to develop a comprehensive fuel strategy and process.”

How it works

Breakthrough Fuel has a jaunty, fun-to-watch video on its home page that will walk you through exactly how it works. But basically, it’s this: Say a company wants to ship a load of products from Point A to Point B. Usually what happens is the company calls a carrier, such as a trucking company. The trucking company calculates a fuel surcharge to deliver the product.

The problem is the fuel surcharge. Historically, the surcharges have been based on weekly indexes released by the Department of Energy, which are simply an average cost of fuel regionally or nationally. The prices usually miss the mark, sometimes in favor of the carrier, sometimes not, and too often the company shipping the products gets the short end.

The indexes don’t take into account things like the average daily cost of fuel and taxes along a particular route, the fuel efficiency of the vehicle, or discounts at fueling stations along the way. Breakthrough does – for each and every individual shipment. And when clients have thousands of deliveries a week (or a day) the savings add up – quickly. Considering that energy is 35 percent to 40 percent of the total cost of moving products to market, it’s a significant fiscal impact.

“There are very different prices in different parts of the country, and they can change daily and their relationship changes daily and seasonally,” Dickman says. “They have very different fuel tax requirements, so you’ve got states that are 18 cents a gallon in state tax, and states that are over 60 cents a gallon in state tax. All that created distortion makes this a very imprecise transaction for both parties, so there’s always a winner and a loser.”

Breakthrough Fuel not only figures out exactly how much the fuel should cost for each shipment, it also has negotiated discounts for its shippers at 560 fuel locations nationwide. Dickman says his company’s clients lower their fuel costs about 8 percent or 9 percent by using his company to find the best rates. They can save about 20 to 22 cents a gallon to begin with.

Breakthrough Fuel, which charges a per-gallon fee for its services, will usually work with all of a company’s suppliers and carriers to help them implement a fuel management strategy.

The company now processes about 7 million freight movements per year, managing 750 million gallons of diesel for companies that include Procter & Gamble, John Deere, Kraft, Whirlpool and Shopko. Breakthrough became profitable in 2009 and grew 115 percent in 2011, Dickman says.

Breakthrough Fuel also finds the best, most efficient (or fuel-efficient) ways to move the product, using trucks, trains or a combination (intermodal transportation). The natural side effect is a boost in sustainability.

“We focus on how can we reduce energy costs, how can we reduce the emissions associated with moving products to market, and ultimately allow our clients to get their products to market in a more efficient manner,” Dickman says.

How it started

Dickman has a clear view of the fuel surcharge issue from both sides. He’s worked for the carrier side – both for Schneider National and Paper Transport, and for the shipper side, at the former Green Bay printing company Shade Information Systems.

“I had spent half my career on the shipper’s side where I was responsible for getting products to market, and I spent the other half of my career on the carrier side, moving other people’s products, and the world of energy looked totally different depending on where you were,” Dickman says.

Dickman recalls a carrier in Idaho telling him an anecdote that illustrates the impact of fuel surcharges on trucking companies:

“They recall on one week their owner was kind of dancing through the office saying, ‘Boy, we’re making lots of money this week,’” Dickman says. “Two weeks later, he’s kicking chairs over saying, ‘We’re losing money this week!’ And the only thing that was different is where they happen to fall within the traditional fuel surcharge mechanism.”

So he had this idea.

Dickman approached his high school buddy from Green Bay Southwest High School, Al Zeise, owner of Green Bay-based IT services company Zyquest, to help him develop software to help calculate true fuel prices.

“As soon as he approached me with the idea, I thought, ‘It’s just a no-brainer kind of idea’ when you realize what the current model is,” Zeise says, who became an angel investor for the company.

“It’s a very disruptive idea,” he adds. “He’s catering to a major market: shipping.” The company’s beginnings had timing on its side: Hurricanes Katrina and Rita caused turmoil with gas prices, giving Breakthrough the chance to showcase what it could really do. By 2008, things went totally crazy.

The culture of change

That’s about the time that Andersen Corp. got connected with Breakthrough Fuel through a mutual friend. Andersen – which today has 17,500 to 20,000 shipments of windows and doors weekly – was looking for something that could help alleviate the stress of the financial nightmare of soaring fuel costs in 2008, Badalow says. But it’s not just about the savings, he says – it’s how Breakthrough helped position the company for the future.

Andersen’s work with Breakthrough led to research and discussions about alternative fuels, which led to a partnership with Dart Transport, Cenex and U.S. Venture on a new compressed natural gas (CNG) facility in Menomonie, Badalow says. Andersen is starting to convert its fleet to CNG fuel. The company says conversion of its first seven trucks will cut emissions by 28 percent a year.

Whirlpool also came on board during that volatile year, says Kevin O’Meara, Whirlpool’s head of logistics in Benton Harbor, Mich., and a former Schneider coworker of Dickman’s. Whirlpool, which also is starting to work with CNG, ships at least 3,000 truckloads a week and has saved between 5 percent and 10 percent on fuel costs using Breakthrough’s services. But like Badalow, O’Meara says it’s not just about the savings.

“If someone said, ‘Kevin, if you knew you’d save no money, would you still want to do this today?’ And the answer is absolutely yes. The reason is this gives me visibility into my fuel usage, and I can now manage it. It’s about transparency.

Like Zeise, O’Meara calls Breakthrough’s concept a disruptive idea. It’s not always easy to get people on board with something so new and different – and some aren’t keen on changing the way they do things.

“The biggest challenge is education – when we first started talking about it with carriers, they said, ‘What are you talking about?’” O’Meara says. “When PCs first got dropped on people’s desks, they said, ‘What am I gonna do with this?’ That’s exactly what happened with Breakthrough.”

Within the shipping world, what Breakthrough does is that radical of a change.

“I hesitate to compare him to Steve Jobs, because everyone gets compared with Steve Jobs,” O’Meara says. “But if there’s a local, Green Bay-Wisconsin Steve Jobs, it’s Craig Dickman. He comes up with ideas nobody would’ve dreamed of.”

“Craig’s an interesting guy,” says Zeise. “He does so many things well.” He’s both an entrepreneur and good at managing his business, not a combination that always goes together, Zeise says. “He even has a personality,” he quips.

Dickman is a Green Bay native and a sports fan. He served as chairman of the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers, and is still involved with sports, acting as president of the Bay Valley Lacrosse Association. He’s held elected roles in the community and is now on the Brown County Harbor Commission.

He and his wife Karen like to travel. He’s been to 48 of the 50 states (he’s missing Hawaii and Vermont). He likes to go to Europe and he brings his kids, who are both students at UW-Madison and both fluent in several languages that will help get the family pretty much around the globe.

Dickman has carried his innovative spirit into Breakthrough’s new office space – a renovated historic Milwaukee Road train depot on Washington Street in downtown Green Bay, where he moved his business in 2011. The building was gutted and refurbished, adding modern features like skylights, decks, a glass staircase, historic barn beams from the same era as the 1898 structure.

It’s a comfortable building to work in, accommodating 23 employees, including mathematicians, economists and environmental scientists. Many of them are graduates of St. Norbert College (Dickman likes to say, “31.82 percent”), including Jennifer Brice, who started with the company as an intern from its inception and is now its director of client services.

“Every day is different and that’s what I really enjoy about my job – there’s always new and innovative things,” Brice says. “We always joke around that change is normal here, which is fun.

Roads to the future

Breakthrough has another one of those St. Norbert interns working with the company’s business development leader on a model for airline cargo, which the company hopes to have up and running within a year. The company is also working on models for marine cargo, which Dickman says should be available in 2014.

“Ultimately, we want to have a fuel solution for any product regardless of how it moves, if it moves on truck or train or vessel or air, and so we really want to be the experts when it comes to mobile energy,” he says. “And then I see us really continuing to develop the alternative fuel and sustainability areas, and moving more dramatically into low carbon solutions.”

The company recently collaborated on two new compressed natural gas facilities, including the one that Andersen recently dedicated, and there are plans for more.

And though Breakthrough is already international in the North American sense, providing services to shippers into Canada and Mexico, there are inklings about going farther.

“We have clients currently who would like us to provide solutions for Europe, and so we’ve done a few projects over in Europe and have an individual in the Netherlands who’s doing some work with us, but it’s too early to tell yet,” Dickman says.

Breakthrough has already internationalized its technology to handle monetary conversions and metric weights and measures – but there are differences in business practices and cultural, social and regulatory issues that the company is working through, Dickman says.

What’s the future hold?

“I really, really envision 10 years from now we’ll be in downtown Green Bay, still an independent company, and we hope to be larger, covering more parts of the mobile supply chain and more geography,” Dickman says. “We’re trying to build something that’s going to have some value and keep competitive and keep defining market space in this area.”

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Martin Rudd, a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, earned his PhD from the University of Warwick and was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Bergen in Norway. He taught chemistry in Texas, Louisiana and Wisconsin before he became dean of UW-Fox Valley in January, where he has taught since 2003. He spoke with Insight Associate Editor Nikki Kallio about the college’s collaboration initiatives.

I WAS BORN IN THE FAR southwestern part of England in the county of Cornwall, and some people around here think they know a little bit about Cornwall because it is the original home of Cornish pasties. Those pasties eventually made their way to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan with many of the Cornish miners. The heritage of Cornwall is very much tin mining and many of those miners immigrated to the Upper Peninsula and made their way into Wisconsin, and that’s how the Cornish pasty came to be so popular up here.

I’ve been a passionate teacher in the classroom. I’ve been passionate about learning how to teach and I see that in a large number of the faculty and staff that I work with on a daily basis. I’m passionate about the unique position that UWFox and the UW-Colleges holds in the state education system. I wouldn’t have gone into the perils of academic administration if I didn’t believe that I could make a difference in this position.

So UWFox has gone through a lot of changes. You can see the physical change in the facilities that we have – a relatively new science wing, and of course a brand new communication arts center that was built through the funding of the counties and the state and the UWFox Foundation in the last couple of years. We are, of course, expanding the number of collaborative degrees that we have, and making sure that those collaborative degrees remain strong. UWFox has garnered a very good reputation for its collaborative engineering program with UW-Platteville, and we’re very impressed with the number of graduates from that program who’ve lived locally and have been trained locally and now have chosen to remain in the Fox Valley area.

We’re actually beginning to explore other types of engineering possibilities. For instance, we’re currently exploring opportunities in engineering technology. We’re working with other four-year campuses to see if we can bring those to the Fox Valley area and to the lakeshore and to southern Wisconsin.

We hope to realize some extended collaborations that we can have with our four-year campus partners. We’re in conversations at the moment with UW-Oshkosh in a degree to offer various types of education such as early childhood and special education, locally in the Fox Valley.

1655 University Avenue, Menasha, will be the new home of the UW-Platteville engineering collaboration starting in the fall of 2012. The facility was purchased a couple of years ago and has been renovated by Outagamie and Winnebago counties to turn it into a new engineering lab and facility, so we’ll have some classroom space, meeting space and extensive amount of laboratory space. With the moving of the engineering program from the main campus, we’re going to be making some changes on campus as well. We’ll be expanding our learning center on campus, bringing our Writing Pad out of the library to a more accessible location for students, expanding some of our delivery methods.

I didn’t anticipate how big the distances are in the U.S. – how far it is to drive and how far it is to fly from one place to another. Here, people don’t think anything about getting in a car and driving 500 or 600 miles in a day, so that’s one thing to get used to. The other thing I have to say is the sunshine, and although Wisconsin is maybe not the sunniest place I’ve ever lived, believe me, compared to where I grew up in England it seems like there’s endless sunshine here.

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How old will you be in 2030? Will you have a big family? Will you be taking care of your parents?

Know who your doctor will be?

The Wisconsin Hospital Association says that the state may be short 2,000 physicians by then – largely affecting rural areas, including the already underserved New North region.

But the solution also may lie right here at home, where medical education officials hope to create more training opportunities for future physicians.

Possible? Sure. The Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee is already communicating with universities such as the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, St. Norbert College and UW-Oshkosh about the potential to partner up on what essentially would become satellite campuses. Such partnerships would allow medical students to complete their education in the area, and ultimately help address the need for primary care physicians in underserved rural communities.

“What we really want is for our students to be willing to settle in the communities they train in,” says Dr. John Raymond, CEO of the Medical College of Wisconsin.

Nearly half of physicians locate in the state where they complete a residency, according to the WHA. Nearly 70 percent of Wisconsin medical students who graduate from a Wisconsin medical college and also complete a residency in the state decide to stay.

Green Bay and the Fox Cities are two of eight such potential campus “nodes” in underserved areas of Wisconsin that the Medical College of Wisconsin hopes to establish within a 10-year time frame, says Raymond. While some might argue that there isn’t a physician shortage, there certainly is at least a distribution problem, as “pretty much every county” has some underserved populations or areas, he says.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration has flagged 13 of the 18 New North counties as having medically underserved areas or populations (MUA/P). They include Brown, Door, Florence, Fond du Lac, Marinette, Marquette, Menominee, Oconto, Shawano, Sheboygan, Waupaca, Waushara and Winnebago counties.

The Green Bay and Fox Cities areas provide ideal expansion possibilities for the Medical College because they have several sophisticated universities and hospital systems, and they have local rural communities that would benefit from the primary care physicians that would be educated here, Raymond says.

“The beauty of that type of arrangement is the faculty of local colleges and universities have the reward and challenge of working with professional students, and for us, we get to partner with institutions that we haven’t typically partnered with,” he says. “We think it’s a win-win situation.”

The college is first studying the feasibility of locating the program in Green Bay, hoping to use it as a template for looking into other regions as well. “We’ve received a very enthusiastic response from the entire community,” Raymond says.

UW-Green Bay has more than 500 students enrolled as majors in human biology, making it one of the largest majors on campus, says Craig Hanke, UW-Green Bay associate professor of human biology. In fact, the program has doubled in the last 10 years and the university doesn’t anticipate interest waning anytime soon – and quite a few of those students end up going on to medical or dental school, or become physician’s assistants, physical therapists or chiropractors.

“So we’re already in that sense kind of working in a relationship with the medical college,” Hanke says.

The potential partnership could be highly beneficial on a number of levels, including that young undergraduates who may be thinking of pursuing a medical degree will see these graduate students in action, he says.

“I think it’s just an intriguing new idea for how you kind of spread out some of these critical kinds of educational services,” Hanke says.

Educating medical students alongside other students who are entering the medical field in other roles is in keeping with the changing nature of health care delivery, which is increasingly becoming a team sport, Raymond says. That will result in an expanded role for non-physicians and an interdisciplinary approach that focuses on outcomes, efficiency and cost.

November’s WHA report, “100 New Physicians a Year: An Imperative for Wisconsin,” calls for increasing medical school class size, increasing medical residencies in Wisconsin and considering forgiveness of medical school tuition expenses as an incentive to practice here.

Part of the barrier to becoming a primary care physician is the expense of medical school (and primary care physicians generally don’t make as much as specialists, so it’s harder to pay all that back). The Medical College is hoping to develop a three-year training model for primary care physicians to eliminate some student loans.

Other areas the Medical College hopes to reach include north central and northwest Wisconsin, and areas surrounding Eau Claire, La Crosse, Janesville/Beloit and Racine/Kenosha.

Causes for the impending physician shortage include an aging population and the implementation of health care reform in 2014 which will increase the number of people who have financial access to health care.

“I think the obvious danger is that we could get to a point where people can’t find a physician in a timely manner, and it may become difficult for someone to get an appointment with a doctor while they’re still in the early stages of needing treatment,” Hanke says. “And with an aging population – which we seem to be – what can we expect in the next 20 years? The number of contact hours with the elderly population will just increase. We’re certainly risking overtaxing our medical system.”

The key to expanding physician education is establishing residencies – but it’s also one of the challenges, since they cost about $100,000 per resident per year, and the federal government has capped the number of residencies it will support, Raymond says.

“There’s going to need to be some conversations, not only on governmental funding, but also on alternative funding,” says Dr. Charles Shabino, WHA senior medical advisor.

Students also need to have facilities in which to practice and faculty to instruct them – one of the reasons to establish programs where there are already strong hospital systems in place.

“I think we will see new collaboratives created, where health systems as well as communities and private sources are going to come together to put together these residency experiences,” Shabino says.

The WHA study reports that one primary care physician can add $2.5 million in revenue and wages to a community, including the employment of 23 full-time employees. “It supports community growth and community vitality, which I think is as important as the hard dollar economic growth,” Shabino says.

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Ask a business leader about the potential benefits of Fox Valley Technical College’s referendum for their companies, and they’ll be happy to explain. But more often, they prefer to steer the conversation to the impact on the region as a whole.

The $66.5 million referendum, set for April 3, would expand the college’s buildings and programs in areas of key demand, including public safety, health technology and transportation. That’s going to help ensure the future of growth and development throughout the Fox Valley and beyond, say leaders of several top employers, many of whom joined together to form the Friends of FVTC group to support the referendum.

“From a workforce-readiness perspective, from a New North-region perspective, technical colleges and Fox Valley Technical College in particular, they are very critical to getting skill sets ramped up,” says Margie Harvey, vice president of human resources for Miles Kimball and a member of the Friends group.

“There are so many unfilled positions and high unemployment within the New North. The plans the technical college is making now are very targeted to where we have demand today – and where the demand will be three to five years from now.”

Harvey and others say FVTC is key to retraining displaced workers or those who need to develop new skill sets to keep up with changing technology. Harvey, who is former state director for the Wisconsin State Council-Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), says a strong technical college system in general is critical to attracting new businesses to the region.

“When employers from outside of the area are looking at where they’re going to go, one of the key things they look at is what is the technical college like and how closely tied they are to the employers,” Harvey says.

The referendum project also includes renovations and expansions at the Chilton Regional Center, the college’s Agriculture Center, the Appleton campus and a land purchase adjacent to the Advanced Manufacturing Technology Center on Highway 41 in Oshkosh.

Miles Kimball and other area companies such as Miller Electric have a symbiotic relationship with the technical college and rely on it for both training and skilled workers. The college’s ability to keep up with demand will help ensure the future economic health of the region, says Mike Weller, president of Miller Electric and the treasurer of the Friends group.

“I think we have to look at it from a big-picture perspective,” he says. “One of the ways we in the Valley can maintain a high quality of life and keep jobs here is by ensuring employers continue to be competitive – and to remain competitive, they must have skilled employees to meet future growth. Fox Valley Technical College can help employers get those qualified employees.”

The benefits extend to the community as a whole, Weller says. The $34.8 million Public Safety Training Center, which will be located on the grounds of the Outagamie County Regional Airport, will provide a $100 million return on investment within five years, in terms of wages for area residents and income from people coming into the community for training.

“Very seldom do you get a three-two-one return on your money,” Weller says.

If the referendum is approved, community residents can expect to pay about $12.50 annually per $100,000 of property valuation.

“I feel that it’s a relatively small price to pay for us to continue to educate the people that live within our region,” says Dan Neufelder, president and CEO of Affinity Health System. “I think many people would be surprised that many of the students within Fox Valley Technical College already hold college degrees from other places. So I don’t view it as a cost, I view it as an investment.”

Public safety

Lynn Peters, executive director of the Fox Cities Convention & Visitors Bureau, says the addition of the Public Safety Training Center has the potential to bring more visitors to the area. Considering that a significant number of hotel rooms in the Fox Cities are paid for by business travelers, the college is one important piece of the local tourism pie, she says.

“We’ve seen a downturn in business travel, and when times get tough, everybody sort of pulls in their reins,” Peters says. “This would be something very new with a sophisticated level of training, and I could imagine lots of people saying, ‘Oh, it would be worth the trip.’”

The comprehensive Public Safety Training Center, which would be constructed on 75 acres of property at the airport, is attracting buzz because of its state-of-the-art features. They include a four-season forensics lab, an air disaster simulator and a variety of replicated buildings that would provide public safety officers with real-life emergency simulations.

“We attract 10,000 to 12,000 visitors per year – firefighters and emergency personnel who come for product reviews, inspections and training conducted by our employees and by technical college staff,” says Jim Johnson, president of Pierce Manufacturing in Appleton, one of the world’s leading producers of fire trucks. “If the Public Safety Training Center is built, that provides us the opportunity to bring in even more firefighters and emergency personnel to our community, and therefore more dollars to our community.”

The demand for new firefighters and emergency personnel is increasing as many current emergency workers approach retirement age across North America, Johnson says.

“There’s an incredible opportunity for our community to build a world-class training facility,” he says, “all while interest rates on the funds required to build the facility are at a historic low.”

The college is currently borrowing at a rate of 1.31 percent for capital expenses.

Outagamie County Regional Airport director Marty Lenss says the airport firefighters are required to undergo live fire training, for which they must currently travel to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. The immediate benefit of the facility would be more training opportunities and more opportunities to keep the training dollars local. Eventually the facility could ultimately become FAA-approved, and then would bring firefighters in from anywhere in the state.

“I think first and foremost, the technical college is one that specializes in the types of career training for a number of people who, given the economy, have been displaced,” Lenss says. “They’ve gone back to the technical college for retraining and there are waiting lists, in particular, in the public safety training arena. These are the folks who answer when you dial 911, when you need assistance. So you want the best-trained, best-equipped folks for our citizens. The technical college provides a quality training experience, so when emergency personnel are in the station and on duty, they’re going to be very sharp in all their skill sets and quick in their response.”

Real-world health training

The second-largest project in the referendum would be the $11.9 million Health Simulation and Technology Center. That project would include a robotic patient and allow students to experience in a classroom setting severe medical conditions, such as heart attacks, that they might not get to experience until they’ve been working on the job, says Neufelder.

“I think it’s not just a coincidence that Affinity has been rated one of the top quality health care systems in the country and that so many of our employees are trained by Fox Valley Technical College,” he says. “I think there’s a strong connection there. And Fox Valley Tech provides not only this service for the Affinity Health Care System but for other local health systems as well – systems that have a broad reach throughout Wisconsin. I think the technical college has become a regional asset in the training of health care employees.”

FVTC President Susan May says the college is constantly exploring new and emerging health care opportunities and works to adapt instruction and resources to help prepare students for those new opportunities.

May says the referendum might seem sudden to people who are now hearing about it in the media, but the college has been developing the projects for the past six years and held off on presenting them to the public because of the economy.

“We knew our region faced some economic challenges,” May says. “But the college has increased 30 percent in enrollment, and we’re now seeing indications of the economy turning. We’re seeing incredible signs of growth in various industries in this region and recognize a skills gap coming. We need to get ahead of that.”

The technical college has been working to gauge public response on the referendum since last fall. It continues to reach out to its nine-county district by making a series of presentations at government meetings, chambers of commerce, and professional/service groups. Some questions and concerns raised have included environmental assessments (the college has already conducted a wetlands delineation and is continuing the process of environmental assessments per state statute) and operating cost impact (it would be built into the annual operating budget and will not produce any more tax impact to the public).

On the road

Last year, the college served 53,000 people, about two-thirds of whom are students continuing their education or switching careers.

The high-demand career areas of truck driving and diesel technology would see a boost with the expansion of the J.J. Keller Transportation Center, which would add more classroom space, inspection and maintenance bays and double program capacity.

Roehl Transport, which is headquartered in Marshfield, last year constructed a multi-million dollar trucking terminal in Menasha that employs 30 people. It located there in part because of the proximity of FVTC and its training programs, and because of the population in the Fox Valley from which the company draws its talent, says Greg Koepel, vice president of workforce development & administration for Roehl Transport.

Educational opportunities need to expand in this area because so many truck drivers are retiring – yet the demand for truck drivers hasn’t waned and only continues to remain steady, Koepel says.

“Everything we have comes by truck, so in the case of our company, it was a recession-proof job,” he says. “We never laid off any truck driver. There is a tremendous amount of job security and stability in trucking, and of course, to have trucks moving, you need technicians to keep them moving.”

Koepel said Wisconsin’s technical college system is more cohesive than in other states and is very good at helping potential Roehl drivers and technicians gain the skills they need to be successful – and that helps Wisconsin to remain competitive nationwide. Such classes are vital, too, as funding cutbacks eliminate trades education from the educational system, Koepel says.

“The fabric of a community is made up of a lot of threads – employers who provide jobs and paychecks are certainly part of that fabric, and schools that provide the skills and the employees are part of that fabric,” he adds. “When you start pulling strands out of that cloth, it starts to fall apart. We hope voters recognize the value the technical college brings to our community – it will cause people like us to come into the area and to provide jobs and income-earning opportunities. It all fits together.”

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2. INSIGHT ON HIGHER EDUCATION – Family ties – UW-Oshkosh forum aims to reach more family-owned businesses in the Fox Valley
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High on his list: Incorporate a variety of transportation options. Include pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods. Above all, pay attention to what the Millennial generation wants.

“They think as a team, and this is going to transform everything,” Nelessen told the crowd of about 300 area developers, real estate professionals, municipal officials and other business leaders who attended the Insight-sponsored conference Feb. 3. The Millennial generation includes young people in their early 30s down to their early teens.

The Rutgers University professor, principal at A. Nelessen Associates, Belle Mead, N.J., and author of Visions for a New American Dream, emphasized the need for collaboration. Local, state and federal officials as well as developers, bankers, engineers and environmentalists must work together as they plan a future for the next generation, he said.

“The baby boom generation will no longer be in control by 2020,” Nelessen said. “It will become a whole other world. The question is, ‘How can you profit from it?’ I think the profitability is enormous, if the right decisions are made.”

In one of the four breakout sessions held during the conference, Jim Bath of Kimberly-Clark Corp. also discussed the importance of demographic and economic trends. The company, for instance, is adapting to the aging baby boomer generation and changing family structure. Like any company, it has watched economic trends as well, said Bath, director of the Research and Engineering Center of Excellence for North American

and European Personal Care at K-C.

“People always ask me, ‘When are the spending habits of consumers going to bounce back to where they were in the 1990s or early 2000s?’ I’m not sure they will. I think people have a different understanding of value now than they did before,” Bath said.

John DeLeers, business development manager for DeLeers Construction and a member of the InDevelopment Event Planning Committee, said Nelessen’s keynote speech, which emphasized the importance of developing pedestrian-centric communities, resonated

with him.

“He got me thinking about a lot on urban development – things I never imagined and that people don’t talk about around here,” DeLeers said.

One of Nelessen’s points in particular was interesting: Cold and snowy weather doesn’t keep Europeans off the streets or out of open market areas, a point punctuated by photographs of bundled people gathering on snowy streets. DeLeers was intrigued by the idea of having an outside center for people to gather year-round, where things were always going on despite snow and cold.

Nelessen continued his visit with a breakout session that included a ranking of development ideas for the New North region (everyone in the session – 100 percent of the participants – said adding more bike paths to the area would be desirable).

“The session was extremely insightful,” said Ann Duginske, R&D project manager for New North. “With his leadership and questions we were able to realize the common things we want to see in our future communities. It was fascinating to realize that the majority of rankings were positive, favoring things like more green space and bike trails. But, most importantly, the majority of answers were optimistic about the ability for us to work together to create these kinds of changes. I was inspired.”

OMNNI Associates project manager Brian Oleson, who also served on the InDevelopment Event Planning Committee, said he enjoyed learning about self-directed IRAs during the booth talks, and that the event is always great for connecting.

“Everybody seemed to be excited to be there,” Oleson said. “People were optimistic, and it seems like there’s a lot of hope that things are turning around.”

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“I really, really wish I could’ve had a forum as a resource when I was taking over for my dad in 1994,” Gneiser says. “A lot of the problems and headaches that occurred in the year after I took over could’ve been mitigated.”

Family business executives like Gneiser say that the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh’s Family Business Forum, which launched in 1996, provides an invaluable support system, serving as a connection point for those dealing with issues unique to family-owned businesses, such as transitioning ownership from one generation to the next and succession planning.

The forum is something of a hidden gem in the region, says Cathy Huybers, who took over as executive director when Sue Schierstedt retired in October. She’s been discovering how many family-owned businesses are out there and how few of them know about the forum.

“I just thought it was a great secret,” Huybers says. “So part of what I do is just to get out in the community and get the word out there.”

Huybers hopes to continue introducing more family members to the forum and increase membership, which is currently 35 businesses and 10 sponsors. The forum is for businesses of any size – it includes large companies such as Badger Mining Corp. and J.J. Keller & Associates and smaller ones such as Fond du Lac Bumper Exchange.

Huybers says during conversations with family business members, two key features of the forum are often noted: The family business education program – which is a seven-month certificate program offering topics geared toward family businesses such as governance, strategic planning, and evolving leadership.

The other is the affinity groups or peer groups which center around a particular set of issues or common roles in business leadership.

“The affinity groups are really the glue that hold the forum together,” Huybers says. “There are a number of them, and they’re kind of generationally focused, if you will.”

The dozen or so separate groups are set up to provide a safe environment for discussing challenges and work-related issues. The Generation Now group, for instance, is for those who have already taken over operation of their family business. Alternately, the TBD group is for those whose roles are yet To Be Determined. There also is a peer group for non-family executives, who may sometimes feel as though they don’t or can’t have a voice in the direction of a family business.

“Members can talk about or share the experiences they’re currently going through – they can share their concerns, joys, sorrows and help each other,” Huybers says. “They provide a sounding board for people to talk confidentially with others from other family businesses.”

That confidentiality promise is very important to the business leaders in creating an open, comfortable environment

Carmen Fosick, vice president of Elmstar Electric Corporation in Kaukauna, says she appreciates the open, welcoming, comfortable environment at forum meetings, and the sense of trust because of the confidentiality among members.

“This is truly a professional group, even though you can be at ease when you attend the events and meetings,” Fosick says.

Lori Blackman, controller/human resources at New Tech Metals of New Franklin, and her husband David are a part of the Generation Now affinity group that meets monthly to discuss issues affecting the current leadership in the family business.

“We find it valuable not just for the networking that we do, but for the people and services recommended by other members,” Blackman says.

Phil Janes, operations manager at Janesco, Inc., which includes Oshkosh Marine Supply and Derby Molded Products – Neenah, is a second generation family business executive and a member of the TBD group with his brother-in-law, Mark Tushar. The group meets about eight times a year and talks over or has speakers on such topics as employment issues, acquisitions, wills and trusts, and “the things that we need to be doing on our own level, even if we’re not owners currently,” says Janes.

Janes and other business leaders say the partnership with UW-Oshkosh and the relationship with sponsors provides the group with access to resources, instructors and experts who can help them address current issues.

The forum includes multi-generational business leaders who might’ve been helpful to Gneiser had the forum been available when he took over. While he knew a lot about nuclear submarines, he didn’t know a lot about running a business in the civilian world. “I was never qualified except that I had the same last name.”

Gneiser’s business was saved in the eleventh hour by a combination of factors, including layoffs and a last-minute angel investor.

Even though the forum wasn’t created in time to help with Gneiser’s transition, it has helped in other

ways: It led to the creation of a board of advisors and the creation of a “Dave Demise File” that contains all of the information necessary to continue the business in the event

of, well, Dave’s demise.

“So many people don’t realize the forum is available as a resource, the sponsors that we have. I’ve learned so much from them,” Gneiser says.

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Say you’re a contractor. You’re used to building subdivisions or maybe commercial buildings. Maybe there aren’t as many projects available as you’d like. You want your business to survive – so you’re thinking about expanding your repertoire into the public sector.

Now what?

“A lot of contractors, whether they be in residential, commercial or heavy highway construction – they’re moving into different markets,” says Stephen Stone, president of the Associated Builders & Contractors of Wisconsin, Inc. based in Madison. “They’re all trying to learn the nuances of those markets, and mistakes are made when they’re not familiar with working in that market.”

There’s a lot of paperwork, for one thing. And certifications and other requirements. So much so that many contractors will avoid public projects unless the private market is going dry, Stone says. But in the last three years or so, there’s been a shift.

That’s where organizations and agencies such as ABC of Wisconsin and the Tribal Procurement Technical Assistance Center (FACC-PTAC) in Oneida can help. They can provide the information that contractors need to gain an edge and make the transition from private to public projects. Such entities also can provide resources that will help make survival in a tough economy easier.

ABC, for example, has partnerships with insurance agencies and cell phone companies and can provide group buying discounts, which helps contractors save overhead costs, according to Stone.

But often contractors are simply looking for advice.

“If somebody calls here and says, ‘I got my first federal job, how do I comply?’ we can help with the resources we have on staff, or find the experts for them,” Stone says. “We know where they are, so they’re saving a huge amount of time.”

Of the 800 or so ABC members statewide, including in the New North region, about half worked in the public sector before the economy took a turn, Stone says. Now, another quarter (or half the ones who were solely working in the private sector) are taking on public projects.

But it’s a whole new ball game – or can of worms – depending on your perspective.

For instance, there is a special certification needed just to build hospitals. There are other requirements for government work such as the Davis-Bacon Act, which says that contractors must pay workers a certain rate. Finding those things out after the fact can be disastrous.

“To enter the government sector, you have to be prepared,” says Gwen Carr, program manager for FACC-PTAC. “You can’t just say, ‘Oh, I’m going to bid on government contracts.’ Depending on what it is you are getting into, if you’re talking about government construction there are specific certifications you have to have, whether it’s federal, state or county.”

Additional certifications, or qualifying as a minority-owned or disadvantaged business can help gain an edge in a particularly competitive market (see sidebar).

The agency also looks at old bids and examines why some were successful and others weren’t, to give people as much information going into the process as possible. The whole process is designed to force contractors to examine various parts of their business and be prepared for new opportunities.

The Builders Exchange of Wisconsin, which is a clearinghouse for information on construction projects statewide, reported 381 private projects and 3,067 public projects in 2007. In 2011, it had 295 private projects and 3,763 public projects.

As ABC has seen the market shifting, it has worked to educate members through newsletters, publications, educational seminars and workshops. The organization has encouraged contractors to cut back on expenses and to look for new ways to use their talents.

“Look for the markets that are still needed and still being built,” Stone suggests. “Health care is huge, transportation is huge, wastewater – the public still needs all that.”

But as contractors are switching from the private to the public sector as private projects have dried up, at the same time, a dwindling private tax base has caused public projects to disappear as well.

“So there’s a lot of change,” Stone says. “Some would say turmoil. The pressure is absolutely incredible on these businesses who have a number of employees they want to take care of, and keep families fed. It gets pretty stressful.”

That’s not to say the market is all doom-and-gloom. There are plenty of signs that the market is starting to come back. In fact, one of ABC’s largest members says that 2011 was the best year they had in 30 years of business. But they did have to move into different states, Stone says, and did university work that they’d never done before. It’s an example of a company that saw the downturn coming and leaned out early. It’s an example of how adaptability can make or break a company. Stone has seen others close their doors, too, either because they weren’t able to or wouldn’t move into new markets.

“Construction is a wonderful industry and it’s provided so much for so many people,” Stone says.

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Not so great for winter sports – but not so bad for construction.

In fact, Sam Statz of Hoffman LLC in Appleton says he just received a picture of masonry work from Hoffman field superintendent Dave Dickinson at the Affinity project site in Neenah. “He said, ‘Isn’t this pretty?’ and I said, ‘It’s even prettier in January.’”

The (mostly) mild winter has helped move along projects that might normally have taken a bit longer in colder and snowier weather, and that’s saving headaches, time and money, say construction officials in the region.

Hoffman is working on Affinity’s new two-story, 31,500-square-foot clinic, which is being built on the site of the former Glatfelter paper mill. Crews have been able to pour concrete and get some walls up because Mother Nature is being nice.

“Everything’s moving ahead because of the weather,” says Statz, who is Hoffman’s director

of construction services. “It’s going

to be a nice showcase for our

Affinity clients.”

Jim Lee, president of northern operations for Boldt Co., says three company projects are all doing particularly well because of the weather: the historic windmill project in Little Chute, the Appleton Alliance Church expansion and a large biomass power plant in Rothschild near Wausau.

“Typically, come the middle of November things slow down a bit – we have to be careful about construction and how we proceed,” Lee says. “We can continue, but winter affects productivity.”

This winter, however, has been great, he says. Boldt has been able to save costs on the windmill project, and similarly the Alliance Church project is “plowing right through” with pouring concrete and erecting steel. Boldt also is building a new heating plant for the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“Another advantage of this less severe winter is that more construction people are employed and getting paychecks than we would normally see this time of year – a normal or bad winter affects employment, so this is one of those side benefits,” Lee says.

Packers fans will be happy to know that Miron Construction in Neenah has been able to move much farther along on the 6,600-seat expansion of Lambeau Field because of the cooperative weather. Progress includes foundation and structural steel work on a vertical transportation tower on the north end of the stadium as well as on the expansion at the south end of the stadium, says Corey Brumbaugh, vice president of business development at Miron. The company also has been able to move much faster on two automotive dealerships in Oshkosh that had a very tight time frame, he says.

Milder weather allows for much more production and less time dealing with winter conditions. Site work such as landscaping, lights and parking lots can move forward now instead of waiting until spring, Brumbaugh says.

In other cases, projects are simply underway as planned.

“Other than the weather making it more tolerable for the workers, it hasn’t done much,” says Kris Schuller, Highway 41 project communication manager. “The plan was always for some work to continue during the winter.”

Currently crews are working on the Lake Butte des Morts Causeway, including work on the structure and bridges on the expanded part of the causeway, which involves driving steel, placing girders and moving equipment, Schuller says.

“That can all be done in cold weather,” he says. “I wish I could tell you, ‘Yes, we’re saving the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.’”

One potential drawback of the milder winter, says Statz of Hoffman, is that a lack of snow cover might contribute to frost in the ground, which could potentially delay a spring start date and incur a client extra costs for frost stripping (pulling up soil to get to workable ground).

Improving economic climate

As for the other kind of “inclement weather” – more accurately, the economic climate – it’s still partly to mostly cloudy with occasional breaks of sun.

“There are some projects we’re currently into that were put on a bit of a delay in ’09 and ’10 for various reasons,” says Lee of Boldt. “Financing was a lot tighter – it still is tight in commercial buildings, offices. It’s very slow yet. Those types of facilities are few and far between.”

The good news, though, is that Boldt is seeing improvement in pulp and paper – Thilmany, Proctor and Gamble and Georgia Pacific are starting to spend capital dollars on upgrades and efficiency projects. Power-related projects like the biomass facility that Boldt is working on in Rothschild also will continue to grow to meet new sustainable or “green” requirements set by the state, Lee says. The goal is for 10 percent of utilities’ energy production to be from renewable sources by 2015, he adds.

Statz says some of Hoffman’s commercial clients are in fact moving forward, but most clients (if not all) are at least looking at whether it might make more sense to renovate. In some cases clients are outgrowing their facilities, though, and they either need to build or renovate a larger space that’s on the market.

“People are really trying to take a good look at what they need,” Statz says. “There’s definitely a lot more thought into ‘should we build,’ ‘should we renovate.’ There’s really been an awareness among the commercial clients who are trying to analyze what’s going to be the best fit for them.”

Many are taking advantage of today’s lower costs. Contractors are leaner now, for one thing, and they also know that others are pricing competitively, “and that they in turn better ‘sharpen’ their pencils or they will miss the opportunity,” Statz says.

While there’s still some trepidation out there, signs are starting to point toward “go.” Brumbaugh says as some financing options open up, company leaders are making the decision to proceed with projects that had previously been on the shelf. So Miron has been seeing more preconstruction work moving forward, meaning facilities are not necessarily “shovel ready,” but they likely will be this spring. And highly visible projects like the Lambeau expansion can help.

“It’s awesome to see the Green Bay Packers organization moving forward with this type of expansion,” Brumbaugh says. “I like to refer to it as an economic development engine for Northeast Wisconsin because I feel this project is building confidence in local leaders and business owners, fueling their desire to move forward with their own projects.”

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Would it help to see the boss hitting the treadmill, too?

Bosses have maybe more influence than they realize on company fitness programs, says Tim Pingel, Health and Wellness manager for J.J. Keller & Associates, Inc. in Neenah.

“You can’t complain about rising health care costs and how much money it is on the budget when you yourself are not contributing by doing the best you can and changing your lifestyle,” Pingel says.

Companies such as J.J. Keller, Miron Construction, Kimberly-Clark and Thrivent Financial for Lutherans that have their own fitness centers should especially take note – if employees see the boss using his or her lunch hour working out (as opposed to working straight through lunch), employees then know it’s okay if they work out during lunch, too, Pingel says.

Knowing that company leaders can have such influence, Prevea Health and Western Racquet & Fitness Club in Green Bay have teamed for their third annual Executive Edge competition.

“The whole purpose of this challenge is to encourage that top level to set an example for health and wellness,” says Jennifer Younk, health and wellness sales manager for Prevea Health. “I’ve seen wellness programs fail if the top level is not involved … Employees are really motivated to change their lifestyle habits when their bosses are doing the same.”

So here’s how the program works: Northeastern Wisconsin company leaders are given a health risk assessment and fitness assessment at the beginning of the 12-week challenge, which starts this month, Younk says. Then, with the help of a health coach and a trainer, the executives develop a plan to improve their scores in both categories.

For the duration of the event, the executives receive full membership to Western Racquet & Fitness, and they and their spouses can attend six special events such as nutrition breakfasts, a cooking demo and a wrap-up party where the four winners are announced. Awards are given to men and women for the best overall score and most improved score.

The hope is that executives will motivate their employees by example and possibly bring wellness and health programs back to their own companies when they see their positive results.

Last year’s winner of the top overall men’s score, Cornerstone Business Services President Scott Bushkie, says that during one of the last days of the competition he came in to Western Racquet in the morning and ran his best 10K time ever. Then that evening, he came back and ran his best 5K time ever.

While that’s an accomplishment that may be inspiring to some and exhausting to others, it’s a good example of what can be achieved in a short amount of time. That’s what surprised Bushkie the most about the program – besides how much pain he’d be in at first – how quickly you can improve from where you start, if you stay motivated and consistent, he says.

“The reason I decided to participate was I knew I wanted to get back into better shape for myself, for my family and also to have more energy at work,” Bushkie says. “I found myself just not having energy I did when I was in better shape.”

Bushkie, who participated in sports all through grade school, high school and college (he was a decathlete), says he knew what he needed to do, but between work and kids and family he could always find an excuse not to work out. Executive Edge gave him just that – the edge he needed. Cornerstone held its own weight-loss competition several years ago, but what Bushkie has learned at Executive Edge might change future challenges at his company.

“I think if I were to do it again, I would look at more than just weight loss and more overall wellness,” Bushkie says. “I would also do it for a longer period of time or try and incorporate in true lifestyle changes versus just to win a competition which would last longer and be more beneficial to each of them.”

Other companies such as J.J. Keller and Miller Electric in Appleton offer year-round health and wellness challenges to their employees. In addition to its fitness center, J.J. Keller has an on-site health clinic with a nurse practitioner and also offers special events and challenges, including one to eat more fruits and veggies, Pingel says. During the holidays, the company offered a team weight-loss/maintenance challenge (where the whole team gets on a freight scale).

Miller Electric offers incentive points for medical examinations, screenings and preventive care and it has a full-time on-site nurse and a doctor who visits four hours per week, says Linda Pintar, benefits manager for Miller Electric. Last month, the company transitioned to healthier options in vending machines.

The company also partnered with Anytime Fitness for two weight-loss/body-fat loss challenges in 2010. The 78 participants that finished one of the nine-week programs lost an average of 1.5 pecent of their body weight and 4 percent of their weight, Pintar says. Some of Miller Electric’s senior leadership team participated in these events, too.

“I think all of us, when we know we have to get into better shape, whether losing weight or toning – it’s much more fun to do it with co-workers or friends and family than to set out by yourself,” Pintar says. “The motivating factor of competition or support is always helpful.”

But occasionally companies can run into challenges within the challenges. For example, Pintar says a couple of Miller Electric employees were a bit overly competitive, consuming a dangerously low amount of calories during the challenge. So the company is looking for ways to prevent such unhealthy “cheating,” and plans to address the issue up front during its next weight loss challenge.

Pingel said although J.J. Keller offers a “Biggest Loser”-type competition, the emphasis is on the six-month maintenance program that follows, which helps participants focus on sustainable habits. Executive Edge focuses on goals like dropping body fat percentage and cholesterol count rather than weight loss.

Last year’s overall high score winner in the female division, Kathy Fett, vice president of quality for Prevea Health, was already in great shape (she runs half-marathons) but dropped her waist measurement, maintained her good blood pressure and learned to incorporate strength training and improve eating habits during the program.

“I thought it would be very interesting to know how I could improve my fitness,” Fett says. “I believe in fitness programs to manage stress, which equates to a better home and work environment.”

Bushkie, who like Fett says he is naturally competitive in nature, is ready to defend his title this year, motivated partially by his 67-year-old father, who is undergoing treatment for cancer.

“Business owners sometimes get caught up in their businesses and being successful and making a bunch of cash,” he said. “But at the end of the day you can have all the cash in the world, but if you don’t have your health, what have you got? This helps you to refocus the compass a little bit on what is truly important in life, and to do it in a fun and competitive manner.”

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