What was Dennis Fenrick thinking? In a challenging economy, he’s opened a wine-focused restaurant, called Syrah, on a desolate stretch of Highway 57 north of Green Bay, with only a BP station and a Subway across the road for company. And he’s doing well, with repeat customers and favorable reviews on consumer sites like Yelp and Facebook.

Wine-savvy restaurants are capturing more dollars per table as customers enjoy ordering a glass or bottle with dinner. Restaurant owners who aren’t paying attention to their wine service are missing out on revenue, tips and repeat business from clients who have come to expect a good wine experience with their food.

Given that tourism is a $12 billion business in Wisconsin, you’d think that restaurants would know how to sell wine. Many servers don’t have a clue, and even bartenders in good restaurants claim total ignorance of the wines being offered. This not only loses restaurants money, it reduces Wisconsin’s appeal to tourists who expect competent service.

Fenrick, who has run small restaurants and most recently food services at Lambeau Field, lives on Green Bay’s East Side. He couldn’t find any restaurant within a comfortable distance, so he opened one. Now he is drawing area residents who have also been looking for an attractive restaurant with good wines.

“Wine is one of the funnest parts of the restaurant business,” says Fenrick. “The culture is changing with all the cooking shows on TV, so people are getting more adventurous with their wine.” The restaurant carries about 20 wines by the glass. In addition to providing a theme and a name, Fenrick figures that by going with wine and beer, he saved $30,000 in opening costs compared to the bill he would have faced for a full bar license and inventory.

“The majority of our clients are 35 to 55. We have some who are disturbed they can’t get an Old Fashioned; some stay, some don’t. It’s not a deal breaker.”

Although the vista from the highway may not be lit up with house lights on a winter’s night, the communities of Dyckesville, Brussels, Casco and Luxemburg are nearby.

Syrah shows that good wine restaurants can do well even in unfamiliar locations.

Jill Bassett has run Plae Bistro for five years. Customers who have given her high ratings online also complain that their GPS couldn’t find the place, which is tucked into the Development Drive complex southwest of the Hwy. 172 and GV intersection just west of U.S. 43. She thinks a good selection of wines by the glass is a key part of her draw.

“A lot of restaurants which I consider my competition serve house wine or one or two glasses from their list by the glass because they want that bottle sale. They are missing out on people who don’t want a whole bottle. When I go out with my husband, I want white and he drinks red. Having a good selection of wines by the glass can determine where we go.”

Kohler Resorts in Sheboygan has the most ambitious wine program in the New North, from the Horse and Plow pub with a decent selection, to the resort’s top restaurant, The Immigrant, which has 500 wines to choose from. Every autumn, the resort offers the Kohler Food & Wine Experience.

“We look at wine as a key part of all our guest experiences anywhere in the resorts,” says Teo Zagroba, beverage manager for The American Club Resort.

What does it take to get wine right?

Educating the staff, says Zagroba. Kohler devotes a week at the end of March into April on training the staff, a task which gets easier each year because many have been with the resort for several seasons.

“We provide them with the tools to sell the product and increase their gratuity. You would figure the connection is logical, but some people don’t realize it,” he adds. The resort works with Wirtz Beverage Wisconsin which helps him and the wine steward build their lists.

Ambitious wine restaurants put a lot of effort into selecting the wines, usually tasting and approving each wine before it goes on the wine list, and checking again with each new vintage.

At Chives, in Suamico’s Vickery Village, Chef-Owner J.R. Schoenfeld says all his servers taste. To keep customers coming back, he is strict about his list. The key is researching and tasting to find good wines, since many wineries are better at marketing their wines than at delivering quality.

“We want to offer wines that aren’t available in grocery stores. We taste, find out from our guests what they like and keep track of it, since sales evolve.”

Bassett at Plae Bistro has at least two staffers taste wines with her – she gets more opinions and they learn about tasting and the wines that are going on the list.

Union Hotel decided it wanted to be known for the best wine list in the area, says McKim Boyd, co-owner of a family business. He updates the list as tastes change, such as the evolution from merlot to zinfandel to Malbecs. The hotel offers 45 wines by the half bottle, which works well for the traveling business person or for couples where one likes white and the other prefers red.

The wine experience

Wine restaurants create an experience around the wine service, although disagreement on what constitutes an elegant wine experience starts with the wine list.

At Chives, which has an extensive selection wine list priced from $28 to $235 a bottle, only the name, the region, the vintage and the price are on the list. Schoenfeld leaves responsibility for providing advice to the server.

“The last thing a server wants is to give someone a wine they don’t like.”

Plae Bistro’s Bassett believes in printed menus and wine lists – no servers rattling off lists of specials or describing wines verbally for her restaurant.

“Customers can’t follow a server reeling off a list of specials, especially if there is a group. In big groups, no one is listening to you anyway.”

With its 500-plus wines, The Immigrant at Kohler offers the name, region, vintage and the numerical ratings from the Wine Spectator and Wine Advocate – it doesn’t offer wines that haven’t been rated at least 88 by one of those two leading wine publications.

Only for the grand tasting menu does it offer a wine pairing explained for each course on the menu.

Door Peninsula Winery in Carlsville, part of a group which includes the Cooper’s Corner restaurant in Fish Creek, decided last year to suggest wine and food pairings on its menu, even if that looked a little like Olive Garden.

“Duh! Why not before?” asks Jaime Forest, director of marketing at the winery. They also train their servers in how to suggest wines which will go well with the meal customers are ordering. The printed suggestions help compensate for staff turnover during the season.

Servers are the link – and often a weak one – between customers and wine sales. The good wine restaurants put a lot of effort into educating servers, tasting with them, and reminding them that wine sales can add $50 to $100 to their tips over the course of a week.

At Plae Bistro in Green Bay, Bassett thinks education is critical.

“If the servers don’t know anything about the wine, they are not going to sell it.” She offers information on two fronts: a description on the wine list and informed wait staff.

“If someone from Green Bay is going to spend $9 on a glass of wine, they want to know more about it – oak, fruit, wood – before they spend that kind of money. The more you describe the wine, the more it sells.”

She also offers flights of wines – four two-ounce pours so customers can sample before they spend $8 or $9 on a glass.

“It never fails, we sell at least one of those glasses.”

Judd Adelman, district manager for Wirtz Beverage Wisconsin, says servers don’t need an encyclopedic knowledge.

“When I train, I tell servers they don’t need to know everything about the wine, but if they know two things they can put the customer at ease. If you can tell customers that the Chardonnay is great, has a nice hint of oak and comes from the Russian River Valley, you are reaffirming that they made a good choice.”

In the absence of deep knowledge, charm often works, Adelman adds. At one restaurant he supplies to, the servers are not terribly knowledgeable about wine. “But the enthusiasm they bring to the table makes customers want to buy whatever they are showing. They often have sold large format bottles – magnums. If you take that $40 sale up to an $80 sale a few times a night, you can make an extra $20 or $30.”

As a salesman for the Madison-based distributor Left Bank, John Verbeten makes education part of his job.

“My company is very big on sampling. I pour for people at the restaurant, tell them the story, let them taste and talk to them about the wine so they turn around and talk knowledgeably about it.”

“People who are wine-interested, life-interested, will make more money because they are interested to talk about it.”

Shel Kidd, a wine consultant in Sheboygan who does restaurant training, says it is vital to show servers how to present a bottle of wine, open it smoothly and pour.

At Appleton’s Red & White wine bar, which serves a modest food menu, servers aren’t allowed to serve wine until they have been certified. Scott Roekle, director of operations for the group which runs the wine bar and the Fratellos restaurants, says the group’s restaurants hold shift meetings before each service to review menu and wine options.

He thinks serving a bottle of wine to a table should lend a combination of elegance and sexiness to the evening.

‘It needs a little pizzazz, a little dance that comes with extracting the cork, presenting it and pouring it appropriately.”

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Based on foot traffic at two recent Valley Home Builders Association events, Dennis O’Brien, president of O’Brien Builders of Hortonville, has plenty to be optimistic about.

“Consumers are getting excited again about whether they want to build new or even remodeling their own home,” he says. “Things are definitely looking better than they were the past three years.”

Scott Winfield Swick, president of Winfield Homes in Fond du Lac, says the market is especially hot for new homes worth more than $235,000. “It’s definitely more active in the higher end of the market. Part of that is they have better overall finances usually so it’s easier to secure the credit needed to build,” he says.

The numbers bear out the builders’ optimism.

VHBA executive vice president Christine Shaefer says the months of December 2011, January 2012 and February 2012 all posted numbers higher than the previous year. “We don’t anticipate the numbers we saw back in 2005 or 2006, but people are adjusting to the situation we’re in and they want to move forward and build.”

As a point of reference, housing starts in the 13 communities known as the Fox Cities were 577 in 2007 and 272 in 2011.

While more people may have the desire to build new homes, two factors are holding them back – the inability to secure financing and the worry about selling their current home in a slow real estate market, Shaefer says.

“Money is available, but you need to have good credit,” she says. “Remodeling is a big area of business. Nationwide, expenditures related to remodeling outpaced that of new construction.”

With people waiting longer to buy their first homes because of financial or other reasons, multi-family projects are growing in popularity. Across the New North, new apartment complexes are going up to meet the growing demand. “I think we’ll continue to see growth in that sector,” Shaefer says.

While some parts of the country are flush with empty spec homes, that’s not the case here, Shaefer says. “In the Valley, we didn’t overbuild as much as they did in other markets. We don’t have this huge glut of spec homes sitting on the market,” she says. “Homebuilders are still doing spec homes, but not as much as before.”

Keeping up with the trends

But for consumers ready to move ahead with building a new home, the options are endless, O’Brien says.

“For people building now, it’s all about efficiency – efficiency with energy, cost and space,” he says.

When it comes to energy efficiency, builders are doing more than just adding more insulation – they are using new house wrapping techniques, for example, and installing energy efficient doors and windows.

When it comes to space, homeowners are realizing that less is more. Shaefer says that nationwide, new homes are smaller than the ones built 10 or 20 years ago. “People prefer a more compact footprint and they want a home that’s obtainable and something they can afford,” she says.

Nationwide, the average home size was 2,521 square feet in 2007 compared with 2,392 square feet in 2010.

O’Brien says homeowners are trying to make the main floor footprint smaller and looking to add finished spaces above garages and in the basement. “People want the most for their money. It’s all about needs vs. wants,” he says.

While homes overall may be a bit smaller, one part of the home is getting larger – the kitchen. “Kitchens are definitely growing in size in proportion to the rest of the home,” O’Brien says. Swick says consumers are very interested in an attractive “living triangle” – defined as the great room, a dining area (often a part of the kitchen) and kitchen. “Kitchens are the most important room in the house and they want a home that brings the main living space, eating space and kitchen together in a way that flows,” he says.

New homeowners are also attracted to expanding living space by heading outside and creating small, private outdoor spaces. “The goal is to seamlessly blend the inside and outside spaces,” says O’Brien, adding that outdoor areas with fireplaces, a bar, grill and even space for a TV are on many homebuyers’ wish lists.

Consumers building homes are also looking to the future and “aging in place,” O’Brien says. They’re considering features such as three-foot-wide doors, barrier-free entryways and larger showers that all accommodate someone using a wheelchair or a walker.

When O’Brien featured a barrier-free home during a recent Parade of Homes, the level of interest was surprising, as were the comments. “People – of all ages – liked not having to step up between the garage and the house, for example. I think people really like the idea of staying home as long as possible and if they build amenities into their home that allow them to do that, they will,” he says.

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Imagine pulling into your driveway at night and with the touch of a button turning on the driveway lights as you approach.

With just a click of a button on a smart phone, homeowners can open a window to let in the sun’s rays or adjust their thermostat.

If it sounds too much like the “Jetsons,” the reality is “smart homes” are becoming more prevalent among homeowners in our region. What was once reserved for million-dollar homes has now become more affordable and more accessible.

“I would define a smart home as one where the home anticipates the occupants’ needs and creates an aesthetically pleasing environment where the temperature, lighting, entertainment systems and security all work together in an energy-saving manner,” says Gary Ruedinger, president of Future Technologies Inc. of Green Bay.

While many new construction homes are built with the different “smart home” systems in place, the trend is reaching beyond new construction.

“We see the interest when people are new to the home or remodeling a home in addition to building a brand-new home,” says Tim Suess, president of Suess Electronics of Appleton.

Twenty years ago, when Suess initially began putting the smart security and lighting systems in place, he typically saw very high-end homes. “The threshold has dropped over the years,” he says. “Now it is worthwhile in the energy savings end of things to do this in just about any home.”

For homeowners looking to remodel, a third-party company specializing in home automation is brought in to find what best suits the homeowners. “I also have a strong opinion that just because you can do something doesn’t mean that you should do it,” says Ruedinger. “The key to making all of this work is systems integration and a user interface that is both pleasing and easy to use.”

In a world where everyone is looking to reduce their carbon footprint, home automation is one of the first lines of defense against unnecessary energy use.

Whether it is exposing a room to the full southern exposure of sun in the winter with automated window treatments or turning lights on as you need them in your home, home automation allows for a more practical use of energy.

“Automated lighting control allows you to do light harvesting and can save anywhere from 10 to 50 percent on bulb life,” says Suess.

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How much of a carbon footprint will New North homes of the future leave? Not much of one, if energy-efficient housing features continue to catch on. But area builders say the key is having the right information before building or remodeling. So who can customers trust? How do they know if their building materials will work together efficiently?

Sometimes people looking to conserve energy will purchase green supplies that sometimes have the opposite effect on their utility bills, says Steve Romme, partner of Lifetime Structures LLC in Hortonville. That is why he strongly suggests that consumers hire an independent energy consultant to make educated decisions on how to save the most money and energy.

“People will come in and tell you, ‘These are the greatest windows and they’ll save you 20 percent on your heating bill,’ but I don’t think anybody can come into a building and tell you these windows will save 20 percent unless they know everything else about the building,” Romme says.

With help from consultants, companies like Lifetime Structures can sort through false claims, which Romme says makes the value of these consultants incredible to his business.

Joe Nagan, owner of consulting firm Home Building Technology Services of Kaukauna, works as an energy rater with Lifetime Structures.

Nagan, who has been in the residential building performance business for 26 years, uses computer software called REM/Rate that models and evaluates how a home would function with all the energy-efficient options selected by customers, who then make the final economic decision before the structure is built.

“If you don’t do your own analysis up front to weigh the advantages of all the technology that’s available to you when you’re building a new home, then you may come away with results that weren’t what you were expecting,” Nagan says.

According to Romme, builders should be able to tell a customer how much their home will cost and how much energy they will save.

“If they can’t [tell you] then that’s a sign that they don’t know how to build energy-efficient homes,” Romme says. “We tell every one of our customers that we run a computer model of their plans and we tell them how much it’s going to cost to heat, cool and power their house over the course of a year before we ever touch it.”

Romme says that after the first year, a Lifetime Structures energy-free home will have a zero utility bill.

This is possible through a combination of several techniques. The first is solar electric, which converts the sun’s energy into electricity. Second is solar thermal, which utilizes the sun’s energy to heat hot water. And third is geothermal energy, which uses the earth’s interior temperature to heat or cool a home. These technologies combined with an airtight, well-ventilated and insulated structure, and a homeowner dedicated to energy-efficiency, make up an energy-free home.

Though there’s interest in remodeling “green,” not many clients are building these new homes that are fully green to begin with.

Ed Schmidt, president of Schmidt Bros. Custom Homes Inc. of Appleton, says that in the last five years, only six customers have asked for geothermal energy and only one customer for solar energy. Similarly, Romme says only about 20 percent of customers are asking for energy-free homes. He says energy-efficiency is growing now as it becomes more cost effective, but it’s still a minority of customers who are going fully green.

Building materials and building techniques can be expensive, but they can also pay for themselves in the long-term with an energy-free home, Romme says.

“I think the majority of people we talk to are asking, ‘What are the miles per gallon of your house? How are you going to verify? Can you tell me that’s what it’s going to be?’” Romme says.

“Green” homes are not necessarily more expensive than building a traditional home. If an energy-free home is built next to a traditional home – both of the same size – the energy-free home’s mortgage payment would equal the amount of a traditional home’s mortgage payment plus its utility bills. For example, if the mortgage of a traditional home was $1,000 and the utility bill was $200, an energy-free home of the same size would have a mortgage of $1,200 and a utility bill of zero.

While the payback for building a green home can take about 10 years, a person can save hundreds of thousands of dollars that would have been lost to utility companies over a 40-year period, Romme says.

“We kind of look at it as taking money you’re throwing at the utility bill that’s gone forever and putting it in your house, which is a super great investment in the future,” he says.

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Today, a portion of the Town of Menasha facility is home to Prolamina Neenah, a flexible packaging company that is running 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The start-up, which began operations last August, employs about 80 people and has plans to grow even more.

Prolamina was founded by packaging executive veteran Harold Bevis two years ago. Initially, he bought two plants and thought about building a new facility. Instead, he decided the former K-C mill, with its close access to U.S. 41 and a rail line was a better fit. The region’s skilled workforce was another deciding factor.

Prolamina currently has two lines up and running – one it started from scratch and a second that it purchased last summer from Packaging Dynamics in Kaukauna. Looking ahead, the company hopes to have about 150 employees at its plant by next year. The goal is to create a plant that can engineer flexible packaging solutions, design high-definition graphics, manufacture laminates, print, laser score and convert flexible packaging solutions for the food and medical industries.

Prolamina’s addition is just another example of how vital the printing, packaging and paper industries are to the region’s economy, says Jeff Landin, president of the Wisconsin Paper Council. While he calls the market for the state’s printers “challenging,” Landin is also optimistic about the future.

“We are still seeing fierce competition from the overseas market when it comes to paper and that puts a lot of pressure on the industry,” he says. “The mills are competing hard against each other for market share.”

And while the economy is growing, it’s still not easy to be a papermaker, Landin says. “Many papermakers have gone through tough times the past 10 to 15 years, but that pain has positioned the industry to grow as we come out of the downturn.”

One benefit for many of the region’s printers is that most of the paper they make is actually converted into tissue – whether it’s toilet paper, wet wipes or facial tissue. Susan Stansbury, executive director at Converting Influence, which promotes a group of about 130 manufacturers and supplier members, says converting – which is basically what happens to the paper after it comes off the rolls – remains a strong and vital industry.

“Converting is a strong part of Wisconsin’s manufacturing industry and in Northeast Wisconsin, it’s even more so,” Stansbury says. “Converters add value above the mill. It’s an exciting area since the paper industry has been flat.”

Firms involved in converting, such as Coating Excellence International in Wrightstown and Green Bay Packaging, are more flexible and can easily adapt to changes in the market, Stansbury says.

Wipes is one product seeing a lot of growth with 10 firms from Milwaukee to Green Bay involved in their manufacturing.

“One of the things setting us apart is that we have the entire supply chain for the industry right here in the state. We can go from the forest to the mill to the converter and then we have the packaging companies right here that make the packaging that these products get put in to,” she says.

Wisconsin Film and Bag in Shawano is one of those packagers finding success.

The manufacturer has seen plenty of growth in recent years and has another expansion project under way.

The company received approval earlier this year from the City of Shawano to add 11,000 square feet to its manufacturing facility. Wisconsin Film and Bag creates a range of products such as large polyethylene pallet covers, plain polyethylene film and bags for shrinking products and layflat bags for food and industrial applications.

Jim Feeney, president of Wisconsin Film and Bag, says the expansion has been in the works for two years. The company decided to expand its Shawano facility in lieu of an acquisition or building a satellite location in another state.

When the addition is complete, another 24 to 28 employees could be added, bringing the company’s total employee count to more than 150. The expansion also means the company will be able to add five extruders that will run continuously.

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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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VibeTech’s products fight bone loss in the elderly. To achieve a vibration effect, the products use high-speed rotary components — a type of part AMD is skilled at making. Leismer says it makes sense to tap such expertise.

“It would be way too costly for us to try to bring in house all the manufacturing expertise and capacity needed to develop and make our products,” he says. “We have extremely talented, experienced manufacturers in this region. Why not use them?”

This happy coincidence of a region with medical device innovators and a high concentration of manufacturing experts is a key reason why Northeast Wisconsin may begin to see more growth in the sector.

While some regional companies have been making medical equipment for decades and are expanding, there also is more organized networking taking place that could spawn new products.

One organization focused on such networking is the Wisconsin Medical Entrepreneurship Foundation (WMEF), a collaborative effort between the WiSys Technology Foundation, and three clinical institutions in the state: Aurora Health Care, BayCare Clinic and Marshfield Clinic Applied Sciences. WiSys is a technology transfer organization serving all University of Wisconsin System campuses other than Madison and Milwaukee.

According to Maliyakal John, managing director of WiSys, the WMEF links up care providers who have device ideas with UW research experts, and also has introduced participants to manufacturing experts. The WMEF founders also have built up a $1 million fund to help ideas get developed.

Since WMEF launched in October 2010, about 35 device ideas are in various stages of development, says John. But because it typically takes two to five years for a concept to be ready for market, none of the devices have hit the market yet.

Some Northeast Wisconsin companies are involved with WMEF. For example, VibeTech has applied for funding for some clinical testing. WMEF also has introduced some participants to Fused Innovation, a Neenah-based provider of product development and rapid prototyping services.

David Kettner, director of business development for Fused Innovation, says the company has worked on a couple of concepts via WMEF. Kettner says the doctors functionally know what they need from a device, but typically don’t know the design constraints.

“They have their dream for what would be the ideal device, but they need guidance on how to make the product,” Kettner says. “There might be limits on how that device can be produced. What we can do is show them, ‘Here’s how we believe you can produce this device while still meeting the purpose you have in mind.’”

The challenge for physicians is that they just don’t have the time or the contacts to turn an idea into a product, says Dr. Paul Summerside, BayCare’s chief medical officer.

“The foundation can provide that back-office infrastructure so that when [physicians] have an idea, they have a framework for putting it on a path toward development,” he says.

For all the potential in new ideas, regional growth in the medical equipment market today tends to come from established companies. For example, Fond du Lac-based Basic American Medical Products, a unit of GF Health Products that makes health care beds, recently completed an expansion of its facility by 40,000 square feet and added some new equipment.

Kurt Hellman, senior vice president of manufacturing for the unit, says the expansion is part of GF’s Made in America strategy, but also is a confirmation of the effectiveness of the unit and regional partners.

“Much of what we do involves metal fabrication, welding and assembly, and we have a great group of folks with these skills,” says Hellman.

“Not only that, we have a good supply base in this region for parts, as well as for support functions like tooling. All of those things come together to make this a good region to make the products that we do.”

QAL Medical, a medical equipment manufacturer in Marinette, also expanded in 2011, adding 19 positions for its own line of continuous passive motion devices it began building in Marinette.

Jamie Smiley, director of operations, says QAL’s workers are meticulous in the way they perform tasks, not just on the plant floor, but also with customer service procedures.

“It’s a culture of hard work and taking pride in what they are doing,” Smiley says. “Our people take assembly, cost effectiveness and on-time delivery very seriously.”

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1. INSIGHT ON TECHNOLOGY – Hot spot for high-tech needs- Cold weather, reliable power may lure data centers to New North
2. INSIGHT ON MEETINGS – Elbow room for expos – Experts: Region can support proposed Appleton convention center, KI Expansion
3. INSIGHT ON HIGHER EDUCATION- FVTC means business – Company leaders say April 3 referendum critical to keeping, attracting jobs to region

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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1. HIGHER EDUCATION – Preparing for the future – Fox Valley Technical College looks to expand facilities, programs
2. INSIGHT ON HIGHER EDUCATION – Family ties – UW-Oshkosh forum aims to reach more family-owned businesses in the Fox Valley
3. INSIGHT ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT – Keeping pace – Led by UW, Oshkosh economy going strong

“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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Data centers are large facilities housing computer systems and their components including storage and telecommunications. Companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon use large data centers to keep information secure and allow users to access information freely. Filled with redundant and back-up power supplies, large companies have several of these massive facilities stationed throughout the country to make sure data always stays flowing.

And for every larger company like Google or Facebook, there are also many smaller companies, such as financial institutions, that use data centers.

With little in the way of natural disasters, such as earthquakes and hurricanes, the New North region as a whole is a natural fit for large data centers, says Carol Karls, a manager with Wisconsin Public Service. Add in the area’s “free cooling” system – yes, we’re talking about winter – the average temperature here is lower, which means it’s more cost effective to keep the equipment in these massive centers cool.

Karls, who sits on a committee pulled together by New North, Inc.

to attract data centers to the region, says the area’s reliable utilities are

also attractive to companies looking to locate their data centers. “When site selectors look at regions to relocate to, reliable utilities are a must, as well as multiple utilities to choose from,” she says.

For Karls, the interest in attracting data centers to the region came when she was approached by Jerry Murphy, executive director of New North, Inc., who was putting together a committee to represent the region to companies looking to move their operations or open new ones.

“There has been interest in the region,” says Murphy. “There are indications that the market is active and we want to have our selling propositions readily available.”

Over the past year a committee has formed to identify ways to market the New North as a region to data centers. “We also needed to take the time to pre-qualify sites,” says Chad Bianchi of the New North, who is working on the project.

And while data centers could potentially move into existing buildings, shovel-ready sites are more attractive. “Data centers require a lot of power and backup, so if we can identify or pre-qualify land for this, we are already ahead of the game,” says Karls.

The committee expects to launch a new website page as soon as April. The website will identify and map shovel-ready sites for potential data centers. In addition, the site will incorporate a list of facts and figures that identify why the region would be a good place for potential data centers.

For now, Karls says she is seeing an interest from potential data centers.

“When an interested party contacts the New North, we should have enough information on hand to move them forward,” she says. “That is part of the whole process, to be prepared to respond appropriately.”

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