Leaders of southeastern Wisconsin’s 50 fastest-growing privately-owned businesses were honored Friday at the Italian Community Center in Milwaukee at BizTimes Media’s annual Future 50 awards program.
Special recognition was given to this year’s Fastest 5 companies, which are the five fastest-growing of the Future 50. Each Fastest 5 company represented a different industry and had a unique strategy that contributed to its success.
Leaders of the Fastest 5 companies participated in a panel discussion at the Future 50 event. Here’s some of what those leaders attributed to their companies’ success and what they see coming for their companies in the years ahead:
Nathan Stoppenbach, president of Pewaukee-based Edge Electric, which provides electrical contractor services, said most of their growth came from merging with A&J Electrical Contractors, which allowed the company to diversify its offering.
Stoppenbach recommended that before merging or making an acquisition, companies develop a long-term integration plan to ensure stable growth.
In the future, Stoppenbach said the company is anticipating more labor challenges.
“I don’t think we’ve seen the worst of that, unfortunately,” Stoppenbach said.
Palmer Hamilton LLC, an Elkhorn-based producer of furniture for schools and other facilities, found growth by focusing on making it as easy as possible to do business with them.
“Being in the K-12 market, the market really doesn’t fluctuate that much,” said John Gardner, Palmer Hamilton LLC chief executive officer. “So trying to figure out how to do more and more with the schools, but also make it extremely easy to do business with us was important.”
As an owner and operator of senior living communities, Wauwatosa-based Koru Health’s CEO Andrew Lange said that demand is high regardless, so the key was making sure the company grew in a stable manner.
“For us, the path to growth was building the right relationships and team building,” Lange said.
As the nation’s population ages, Koru Health is anticipating a “tidal wave of customers,” accompanied by more technology and artificial intelligence in the workplace.
MPE, a Milwaukee-based contract manufacturer specializing in medium-volume production for medical and tech companies, found itself in a changing market and repositioned the company to help its clients get out in front of technology, according to president and CEO Hank Kohl.
The fastest growing company in southeast Wisconsin is Delafield-based Evans Transportation, a third-party logistics and transportation management services company.
Chaos in the post-pandemic supply chain naturally drove a lot of growth to the company. The company responded with solutions-based development and embracing technology, chief commercial officer Charles Miller said.
“We’re going to continue to see, hopefully, reshoring of transportation,” Miller said. “We’ll see more due to geopolitical issues, getting people to buy things more close to where it’s produced. It won’t be necessarily less expensive, but I think that the risks to our supply chains is a real issue and people continue to act accordingly.”
