Milwaukee Journal Sentinel business editor Steve Jagler has been hired as director of corporate communications at Milwaukee-based engineering firm GRAEF-USA Inc.
Jagler, who was the executive editor of BizTimes Milwaukee from 2002 to 2015, will begin his new role Jan. 2. He will be tasked with overseeing media and community relations for GRAEF. He will report to GRAEF principal Pat Kressin.
“They had contracted out for their communications in the past, but the company is growing and taking on a higher profile in downtown Milwaukee, and they decided that they wanted their own person in house to lead the communications,” Jagler said.
John Kissinger, president and chief executive officer of GRAEF, said Jagler’s extensive background in media in southeastern Wisconsin and throughout the U.S. made him an ideal fit for the newly created role.
“He’s going to be a high-level person here helping us strategize on public relations and communications,” Kissinger said.
Jagler left BizTimes Milwaukee to join the Journal Sentinel in 2015, where he wrote a weekly C-Level column on executive leadership. Before joining BizTimes Milwaukee, he was managing editor at the Milwaukee Business Journal.
A University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee graduate, Jagler has been a journalist for 34 years, during which time he received several regional and national awards for his reporting. He is a past president of the Milwaukee Press Club and has served on the board of directors for the Press Club and the Alliance of Area Business Publications.
“When I step back and look at it, I’ve been writing about corporate America and writing about adventures in entrepreneurship really since 1984, since I graduated from UWM,” Jagler said. “I’d like to think that some of the wisdom of all the people I’ve interviewed over the years and picked their brains for how they do what they do and why they do what they do, I’d like to think that wisdom could be of use in a corporate setting.”
On Wednesday, BizTimes Milwaukee first reported that GRAEF will be moving its headquarters into The Shops of Grand Avenue in downtown Milwaukee. Yesterday, GRAEF confirmed those plans.
