Wendy Perkins became president and chief executive officer of Monona-based WPS Health Solutions in 2023. With more than 2,500 employees, WPS is a benefits administrator for a variety of government programs and not-for-profit health insurer serving employee groups in Wisconsin, senior citizens around the country and military members around the world. Perkins joined the company in 2016 and previously held various roles, including chief management officer. Prior to joining WPS, she held leadership positions at Anthem and at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Wisconsin.
Education: Bachelor’s, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
Highlights from the past 12 months: “I’m incredibly proud of the work the team has done in standing up our Data Logistics business. Data Logistics is a new venture we launched to help other companies better manage their data and documents. We’ve done that by creating tailored, end-to-end solutions that adapt to our customers’ needs.”
Cocktail of choice: “Tito’s and water with a lemon and lime.”
First and most recent concert: “INXS at Summerfest was my first. My most recent was the BoDeans at an outdoor venue in the Northwoods.”
Your sport if you could be an olympian: “Swimming. I’m amazed at the power and speed of these athletes.”
Advice for first-time leaders: “Listen. You learn so much more from listening than talking. It allows you to hear other viewpoints and connect with those you’re working with.”
The historic Auler building and its adjacent parking lot at 159-165 North Broadway in Milwaukee’s Historic Third Ward has been sold for $2.1 million, according to state records.
The 14,600-square-foot building, built in 1903, is currently occupied by long-time tenant Mainstream Boutique, owned by Jeanette Dvorak. Mainstream has occupied the southside lower unit of the four-unit building for 10 years, according to Dvorak.
The two upper units are currently vacant. Access Boutique, also owned by Dvorak, resided in the northside lower unit for 15 years, but recently closed as Dvorak said she was ready to downsize her total business footprint in that location.
The now vacant lower unit has not yet been leased.
Milwaukee-based nonprofit organization The Difference Principle purchased the building and attached parking lot. The Difference Principle operates as the parent company for its two subsidiaries, Sirona Recovery and Justice Point. The Difference Principle intends to renovate the upper level space of the building and turn it into its primary administrative workspace, according to Edward Gordon, co-founder of the Difference Principle.
The renovation will cost around $750,000 and will create one large upper unit on the second floor of the building. Renovations will begin in the second quarter of 2025 and staff from The Difference Principle will move in shortly after its completion. The Difference Principle will use the parking lot during business hours as the current tenants do now and maintain the relationship with the city for nightly and weekend parking.
Neither subsidiary will operate out of the new location on Broadway.
The Difference Principle’s downtown office at 205 West Highland Ave in The Steinmeyer Building will remain as its primary location until the termination of its lease in March of 2026. The organization will then move all its operations to the site on Broadway at that time, according to Gordon.
Black Friday showed online sales outpacing in-store shopping, as consumers seek lower prices this season. Is inflation down for good, or will it echo? And what part does consumer confidence play in inflation? Annex Wealth Management’s Dave Spano and Brian Jacobsen discuss.
Ridership on the Amtrak Hiawatha line between Milwaukee and Chicago rose 4.5% in Amtrak’s 2024 fiscal year to 665,279, according to the federal passenger railroad operation’s annual report.
However, ridership on the Hiawatha, which has stops at downtown Milwaukee, Mitchell International Airport and in Sturtevant, remains 24.6% below its pre-pandemic peak of 882,189 in 2019.
Amtrak Hiawatha currently offers seven roundtrips daily between Milwaukee and Chicago. Amtrak plans to add an eighth daily roundtrip to the Hiawatha service after improvement projects are completed, including the Muskego Yard Bypass project, which will allow freight trains to bypass the Milwaukee Intermodal Station, and the addition of a second platform at the Milwaukee Airport Rail Station. The federal government this year awarded a $72.8 million grant for the $91 million Muskego Yard Bypass project. The $17.2 million platform project at the airport station is under construction.
Amtrak reported record ridership for its 2024 fiscal year (from October of 2023 through September of 2024) of 32.8 million passengers.
The new Borealis line, which launched on May 21 and runs from the Twin Cities through Wisconsin to Chicago, had 88,444 passengers during Amtrak’s 2024 fiscal year.
The Empire Builder line, which runs from Chicago through Wisconsin to Seattle, had a ridership increase of 11.2% for a total of 387,953.
Recent news of The Marcus Corp.‘s plans for a major $40 million renovation of its downtown Hilton Milwaukee hotel came with a somewhat surprising piece of information: the number of available guest rooms at the historic property will be reduced from its current 729 to 554.
As part of the project, expected to be complete by next summer, all 554 guest rooms in the hotel’s original footprint, built in 1928, will be refurbished with new bathrooms, modern amenities and upgraded heating and cooling systems. But the remaining 175 rooms located in the west tower — added to the building in 2000 — will no longer be utilized.
On its face, the decision to reduce the downtown Hilton hotel’s room inventory may seem counterintuitive to local efforts to drive more visitors to the city and to prop Milwaukee up as a premiere destination for meetings and events. The Hilton is the city’s largest hotel and one of two hotels connected to the newly expanded Baird Center, both via skywalk. The other is the 481-room Hyatt Regency at 333 W. Kilbourn Ave. Both the Hilton and Hyatt are known as “convention headquarters” hotels, which are large hotels located in extremely close proximity to the convention center and, because of their large scale, can commit a high number of rooms to convention groups.
The Hilton Milwaukee hotel in downtown Milwaukee.
Industry experts say the number of rooms available in convention headquarters hotels is crucial to the city’s ability to attract large-scale meetings and conventions. Milwaukee already falls behind many peer cities, like Indianapolis and Columbus, when it comes to rooms available in convention headquarters hotels. And now that the city’s convention center has doubled in size — thanks to the recent $456 million expansion project — questions remain about the possibility of a third convention headquarters hotel, one that would help accommodate an expected 100,000 additional visitors to Milwaukee annually because of the expansion.
‘Not a healthy market’
But now is not a good time to be adding more hotel rooms to the city’s current supply, says Marcus Corp. CEO Greg Marcus, who spoke to BizTimes on Thursday about the company’s decision to reduce the Hilton’s inventory.
Greg Marcus
Marcus pointed to the troubled state of downtown Milwaukee’s hotel market, saying Milwaukee currently ranks eight out of 10 of its peer cities for RevPAR, or revenue per available room. He also pointed to a string of bankruptcies at downtown-area hotel properties in the past couple of years, including The Iron Horse, the Hampton Inn & Suites, the Cambria Hotel and the Milwaukee Marriott Downtown.
“That’s not a healthy hotel market,” said Marcus, who argues the city currently has too many hotel rooms.
With continued discussions of a third convention hotel — one that would likely require some form of subsidy from the city — the move to take 175 of the Hilton’s rooms offline was made out of “risk mitigation,” said Marcus.
“We’re making investment decisions that last many, many years, and I can’t make an investment decision that’s going to last years where someone’s talking about coming in and subsidizing a competitor,” he said.
Challenging environment
The seasonal nature of the hotel business is also a huge challenge in a city with long, cold winters. Downtown hotels can rely on what’s usually a jam-packed events calendar in summer and fall for a steady stream of bookings during those few months, but it’s a different story the rest of the year.
“We can talk about new conventions coming, but we still have to operate 365 days a year,” said Marcus. “And so when you build lots of room inventory, you’ve got to hope that it can also be absorbed at other times too, not just for some big events.”
The decline in business travel since the COVID-19 pandemic has been a problem for large full-service hotels like the Hilton Milwaukee because that business is crucial for filling rooms not filled by convention attendees and during the winter months, said Greg Hanis, a hotel industry analyst and owner of New Berlin-based Hospitality Marketers International, Inc. Leisure travel has recovered from the pandemic, but business travel has not, he said.
“With what has happened with the downtown office market, the corporate traveler market has probably shrunk in Milwaukee,” Hanis said. “In between the large conventions you just don’t have the corporate traveler that you had before.”
In recent years downtown Milwaukee has added several smaller hotels, like The Trade, a 205-room hotel that opened last year in Deer District. Business travelers are increasingly choosing smaller, more intimate hotels than larger full-service hotels like the Hilton Milwaukee, Hanis said.
“The corporate traveler has changed its perspective a lot, they feel more comfortable going into a smaller hotel,” he said. “I think what Marcus is doing is they’re realizing it’s very difficult to fill 700 rooms. The market just can’t support it. They have to be competitive in a market that is obviously not showing the demand that’s needed for 700 rooms.”
The Hilton Milwaukee’s west tower.
Future of the Hilton’s west tower
The 175 rooms in the Hilton’s west tower will “eventually” be removed from available room inventory, according to a news release announcing the renovation project. Once that happens, the 14-story addition could be repurposed into something else, perhaps multifamily housing, Marcus said.
“It’s a nice building, well built. It’s valuable real estate,” he said.
Marcus also said the company would be open to ideas for keeping that part of the property operating as hotel rooms.
Hanis said the west tower of the Hilton Milwaukee hotel could be converted to a separate hotel with a different brand.
“It could be done that way if it can be separated out and the brand can figure out how to do it,” he said.
Delevan-based Kunes Auto & RV acquired Wisconsin RV World located in DeForest, the company announced Friday in a press release.
Kunes will merge its existing Kunes RV of Madison operations with the DeForest location and will operate under the name Kunes Wisconsin RV World, according to the press release. All current Wisconsin RV World employees will be retained in the process.
Wisconsin RV World is the state’s oldest towable dealer and has been family-owned and operated since 1945, according to the press release.
This acquisition will add to Kunes’ 19 other Wisconsin auto dealership locations, and its 42 total locations throughout the Midwest in Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota.
“We are honored to continue the legacy that Wisconsin RV World has built over eight decades of family ownership,” said Ron Baker, COO of the RV Division at Kunes Auto & RV Group. “Their commitment to customer service and family values perfectly aligns with our own mission and the initiatives we’ve launched to enhance the RV ownership experience.”
This acquisition will make Kunes’ sixth in the last two years. Other acquisitions include the Finley GMC dealership in Beloit, John Paul’s Buick GMC in Greenfield and All-Star Buick GMC in Oak Creek.
Since the pandemic, Kunes has more than doubled its operations, growing from 23 locations at the start of 2020 to over 40 today, 14 of which sell RVs.
In December of each year, the editorial staff at BizTimes Milwaukee selects the “Best in Business,” recognizing the region’s top newsmakers of that calendar year in five categories: Corporation, CEO, Small Business, Family-Owned Business and Community Leader.
This year’s Corporation of the Year, Microsoft, continues to make big news in southeastern Wisconsin. The tech giant is building a $3.3 billion artificial intelligence data center complex in Mount Pleasant, where Foxconn’s development, while significant, has fallen far short of its original plans for a massive manufacturing complex. Microsoft is building on land previously planned for the Foxconn development. Designed to support Microsoft’s cloud and artificial intelligence infrastructure, the data center project is expected to create 2,000 union construction jobs and 2,000 permanent jobs over time.
Our Best in Business Community Leader of the Year is the ThriveOn Collaboration (featured on the cover), which includes the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, the Medical College of Wisconsin and real estate developer Royal Capital Group. Led by Greg Wesley, Kevin Newell and Dr. John Raymond, the collaboration has spearheaded the $120 million redevelopment of the 470,000-square-foot former Gimbels-Schuster’s store building, located at 2153 N. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, into a community hub called ThriveOn King. The project, which includes residential, commercial space and community space, is a major boost to the King Drive corridor north of downtown Milwaukee and the city’s Halyard Park, Harambee and Brewers Hill neighborhoods. ThriveOn King seeks to improve social determinants of health in the neighborhood with the offerings of its tenants.
Other Best in Business honorees this year include: Versiti president and chief executive officer Chris Miskel, who has led the Milwaukee-based nonprofit blood health organization through a period of significant growth with numerous acquisitions and a groundbreaking this year for a $79 million expansion at the Versiti Blood Research Institute at the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center in Wauwatosa; Milwaukee-based Craft Beverage Warehouse, which specializes in direct-to-can digital printing and wholesale distribution of related products for beverage canning, and earlier this year doubled its printing capacity at its Milwaukee headquarters and recently unveiled plans to expand to Denver; and Brookfield-based material handling distribution company Wolter, which received an investment from a New York-based private investment bank this year, enabling the company to ramp up its expansion efforts, including the acquisitions of Cincinnati-based and Atlanta-based businesses and the launch of a southeast region. Wolter now employs close to 700 people and plans to double in size in the next five years.
Corporation of the Year:
2023 Northwestern Mutual
2022 FPC Live
2021 Milwaukee Bucks
2020 Milwaukee Tool
2019 Fiserv
2018 Klement’s Sausage
2017 Foxconn
2016 Direct Supply
2015 WEC Energy Group
2014 Generac
2013 Northwestern Mutual
CEO of the Year:
2023 Dominic Ortiz, Potawatomi Casino Hotel
2022 Jim Kacmarcik, Kacmarcik Enterprises
2021 Aaron Jagdfeld, Generac
2020 Mark Irgens, Irgens Partners
2019 Michelle Gass, Kohl’s Corp.
2018 Peggy Troy, Children’s Wisconsin
2017 Nick Turkal, Advocate Aurora Health
2016 Tim Sullivan, REV Group
2015 Peter Feigin, Milwaukee Bucks
2014 Mark DiBlasi, Roadrunner Transportation
2013 Paul Grangaard, Allen Edmonds
Small Business of the Year:
2023 Sprecher Brewing
2022 Eagle Park Brewing & Distilling Co.
2021 New Land Enterprises
2020 Fiveable
2019 J. Jeffers & Co.
2018 Good City Brewing
2017 Access Healthnet
2016 Rinka Chung Architecture
2015 Gehl Foods
2014 Bartolotta Restaurant Group
2013 Colectivo Coffee Roasters
Family-Owned Business of the Year:
2023 The DeLong Co. Inc.
2022 Fromm Nieman Brands
2021 Kohler Co.
2020 Rite-Hite
2019 Bartolotta Restaurant Group
2018 Michels Corp.
2017 Coakley Brothers
2016 Milwaukee Blacksmith
2015 Steinhafels
2014 Uline
2013 Super Steel
Community Leader of the Year:
2023 Tim Sheehy, MMAC
2022 Peggy Williams-Smith, Visit Milwaukee
2021 Dana Guthrie, Gateway Capital
2020 Marty Brooks, Wisconsin Center District
2019 Alex Lasry, Democratic National Convention
2018 Mike and Amy Lovell, Marquette University
2017 Joanne Johnson-Sabir, Sherman Phoenix
2016 The Baumgartner Family, Paper Machinery Corp.
2015 The Ramirez Family, Husco International
2014 Tim Sheehy, MMAC
2013 Rich Meeusen, Badger Meter
With Gov. Tony Evers calling it a “watershed moment for Wisconsin” and President Joe Biden calling it “transformative,” Microsoft made waves in 2024 with its plan to build a $3.3 billion artificial intelligence data center in Mount Pleasant.
The investment, to be made through the end of 2026, was announced in May, along with several corresponding community partnerships involving the Redmond, Washington-based tech giant.
Microsoft has more than 300 data centers around the world, but its Mount Pleasant campus will be among the most cutting-edge facilities the company has ever built, Microsoft says.
“We are going to be building among the world’s most advanced AI and cloud data centers that you will see anywhere,” said Brad Smith, vice chair and president of Microsoft, during a press conference held earlier this year. “This isn’t just about building a building, and it’s not just about the manufacturing jobs of today. More than anything, this project is about using the future of AI to fuel the future of manufacturing companies and jobs and skills across the state of Wisconsin and around the country.”
The data center complex is being built on land where Foxconn had planned to build a massive LCD screen manufacturing complex. Originally touted as a $10 billion project that would create 13,000 jobs, Foxconn’s development has been far short of those plans, and much of the land where it had planned to build is now instead being developed by Microsoft.
The fanfare surrounding Microsoft’s plans has conjured flashbacks of Foxconn’s undelivered promises, but Microsoft is planning to “under-promise and over-deliver,” Biden said when announcing the project. In recognition of its massive investment in the region’s economy, Microsoft is the BizTimes Milwaukee 2024 Corporation of the Year.
Currently, Microsoft is working on three different sites in Mount Pleasant. Construction work at 4800 90th St. began last year on 1.1 million square feet of data center space across three buildings and is expected to be completed in 2026. Just west of that site, work began this year on 1.3 million square feet of data center space. At 11508 Braun Road, site work began this year for a project that will bring 2 million square feet of data center space across six buildings.
Designed to support Microsoft’s cloud and artificial intelligence infrastructure, the data center project is expected to create 2,000 union construction jobs and 2,000 permanent jobs over time.
A Microsoft spokesperson said that as of July, the project has an average of 1,900 construction workers on-site daily, with that number expected to increase to 2,300 by next summer. Microsoft declined to provide more details on the permanent jobs and when recruiting for those positions will begin.
In addition to the data center project, through a partnership with Green Bay-based venture capital firm TitletownTech and the Green Bay Packers, Microsoft will establish a manufacturing focused AI Co-Innovation Lab on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the first of its kind in the United States, according to Evers.
Microsoft announced its first 315-acre Mount Pleasant data center project back in March of 2023 and moved to significantly expand those plans in November 2023, when the Village of Mount Pleasant shared that the company would purchase an additional 1,030 acres.
Since then – and since the announcement of the expanded data center project – Microsoft has also been assembling a site north of its current Mount Pleasant land holdings, purchasing hundreds of acres from dozens of landowners, marking some of the priciest real estate deals of the year. Microsoft has not announced plans for this land.
“Wisconsin has a rich and storied legacy of innovation and ingenuity in manufacturing,” Smith said. “…This is what a big company can do to build a strong foundation for every medium, small and startup company and non-profit everywhere.”
Leadership is a team sport, according to Versiti president and chief executive officer Chris Miskel, and Versiti’s upward trajectory stems from that team effort.
Miskel has served as Versiti’s CEO since February 2017, taking over from Jacquelyn Fredrick. The Milwaukee-based nonprofit blood health organization operates blood donation and research facilities in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin. In 2016 – before Miskel was hired – the organization’s revenue totaled $289.5 million. By the end of 2023, Versiti’s total revenue had grown to exceed $420 million.
Under Miskel’s leadership, Versiti has seen further progress and expansion this year.
Most recently, the organization announced on Nov. 4 that Versiti Blood Center of Ohio acquired Solvita Blood Center in Dayton, Ohio. Versiti has operated and will continue to maintain a blood center in Ohio, so this acquisition expands Versiti’s presence in the state. Miskel said Versiti leadership had been in talks with Solvita, which also owns and operates global tissue services, since he first became CEO.
“We’ve always felt like there was a nice strategic fit because of the geographic location and because of the mission alignment,” Miskel said in a recent interview with BizTimes. “Conversations accelerated in the last, I’d say, 12 to 18 months. (Solvita is) exceptional at tissue, and they entrusted us as someone that is maniacally focused on blood to care for their blood operation and make sure that the community in Dayton is served by an organization that cares about blood.”
On Sept. 10, the nonprofit broke ground on the Versiti Blood Research Institute’s 79,000-square-foot expansion. The VBRI is located at 8727 W. Watertown Plank Road at the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center in Wauwatosa.
The $79 million project will double the facility’s research capacity, add about 100 jobs and help support Versiti’s work to advance blood health. Over 30 years, the addition is projected to create about $19 million in tax revenue for the state. The project also received a $10 million state grant.
Versiti has also recruited “some of the best scientists in the world,” over the past 12 to 18 months, Miskel said.
“We have a recent recruitment that we’ll announce soon,” he said. “We feel like we’re cooking with gas on our research mission.”
In 2023, Versiti acquired two Indiana-based diagnostic laboratories, Quantigen and Pearl Pathways, that it has worked to integrate into its clinical trials operations this year.
“The integration stage takes grit and determination and perseverance,” Miskel said.
In October, Versiti opened a blood center and community resource center – called Versiti on King – inside the ThriveOn King building, located at 2153 N. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. Versiti held an open house for community members looking to give blood, connect and learn more about the services offered at Versiti on King.
Versiti on King does not only serve as a site for blood donations. It also offers education about diseases that commonly affect people of color, such as sickle cell, lupus, cancer and organ failure. Versiti on King also provides a community health navigator – a liaison between members of the community and health or social service organizations – as well as basic social services. There is also a training center on-site for Versiti staff to learn elements of phlebotomy.
Versiti recognized a deficit in collecting blood in Black and brown communities, which limits the ability to serve patients with sickle cell disease and other blood disorders, Miskel said in a previous interview. This potential service to the community contributed to Versiti’s presence as a health care anchor at ThriveOn King, he said.
“Lifting communities is a spark for us, and bringing our excellence in blood expertise to all communities is something that we wanted to live, breathe and act upon,” Miskel said.
In recognition of his leadership at a momentous point for Versiti, Miskel is the BizTimes Milwaukee 2024 Best in Business CEO of the Year.
Looking ahead, Miskel said that galvanizing philanthropic support for Versiti’s research is his number one priority for 2025. Miskel also hopes to harness the “boundless” opportunities of Versiti’s clinical trial services, he said.
It’s important to ensure that all employees under the Versiti umbrella are connected to the organization’s culture and that the hundreds of hospitals receiving blood from Versiti have what they need to save lives, Miskel said. Versiti Blood Center of Wisconsin provides more than 230,000 units, or pints, of blood and blood products annually to more than 56 hospitals in the state.
“On a day-to-day basis, there’s a chase, there’s a sense of urgency with everyone here to keep our vision moving forward,” Miskel said.
Despite the beverage industry’s constantly shifting landscape, Milwaukee-based Craft Beverage Warehouse has proved it’s found a business model that can keep up with any consumer trend.
The company specializes in direct-to-can digital printing and wholesale distribution of related products for beverage canning.
As younger consumers opt for THC-derived beverages and ready-to-drink cocktails over craft beer, Craft Beverage Warehouse has been able to move quickly and keep up with its customers’ demands.
“People are still drinking liquids out of a container and, fortunately for us, those containers are shifting toward aluminum cans because of sustainability factors,” said Kyle Stephens, president and co-founder of Craft Beverage Warehouse.
Last year, ready-to-drink cocktails were the fastest growing category of spirits, growing 26.8% and bringing in about $2.8 billion in sales, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States.
Similarly, THC-infused drinks have exponentially gained popularity with consumers. The global cannabis beverages market is anticipated to grow from $3 billion in 2024 to $117 billion by 2032, according to Fortune Business Insights.
Kyle Stephens
Craft Beverage Warehouse can help beverage manufacturers move quickly when adding to or altering their product lineup to meet consumer demand. The company is able to print newly designed cans in a matter of days – a stark contrast from lead times of 12 weeks or more at some competitors, Stephens said.
Craft Beverage Warehouse has seen so much demand for its products that the company this year announced two projects aimed at increasing capacity.
In October, Craft Beverage Warehouse unveiled plans to open a second facility, in Denver. The new digital print facility is scheduled to open in the spring of 2025 and employ 20 people. This will more than double Craft Beverage Warehouse’s current headcount of 18 employees.
The news of the Denver expansion came just a few months after the company doubled its printing capacity at its Milwaukee headquarters, located at Century City Business Park. A “multimillion-dollar” investment allowed for the purchase of a new print-to-aluminum can line. The new line can print approximately 30 million cans per year.
In recognition of the steps it’s taken to capitalize on shifts in demand, Craft Beverage Warehouse is the BizTimes Milwaukee 2024 Best in Business Small Business of the Year.
“We have been eyeing national expansion for the last 18 months,” said Stephens. “Our team has grown both in size and experience and are now ready to take the next step for the business. While our products are in high demand, the cost of shipping and related environmental impact can be an obstacle when shipping outside of our region.”
Opening a second facility in Denver means Craft Beverage Warehouse can move closer to some of its clients in the Mountain West region. This will also allow for lower shipping costs and even shorter lead times, Stephens said.
“The products we ship are fragile. We ship empty cans. It’s basically air. It’s very expensive. In order to expand, we need to expand regionally,” he said.
He examined a handful of additional regions when planning the company’s expansion. Atlanta was one city Stephens really liked, but that idea was eventually tabled due to the established presence of a competing company.
Even with a second facility in the works, Craft Beverage Warehouse is still in need of additional warehouse and office space.
The company is still pursuing construction of a second facility at Century City Business Park, located at 3025 W. Hopkins St. Designs for that project could be coming as soon as early 2025, Stephens said.
Reflecting on four years in business, Stephens said he wishes he would have considered how quickly Craft Beverage Warehouse would grow and taken time to secure additional money from investors at the start.
The company has seen a massive uptick in revenue in a short amount of time, which makes it hard to reassure potential investors that the business model is sustainable, Stephens explained.
“A technology company can throw technology at a growth problem,” he said. “Every time we grow, it takes a multi-million investment. It’s hard to get the right partners on board.”
In the coming years, continuing to ramp up capacity will be the biggest priority for Craft Beverage Warehouse. Eventually, the Denver facility will have two print lines like the Milwaukee headquarters.
There could also be opportunities for the business to expand into other markets outside of craft beverages due to the unique type of printing equipment Craft Beverage Warehouse uses.
“We love Milwaukee,” said Stephens. “We’re always going to try to find ways to grow here.”
In February, Brookfield-based Wolter Inc., a material handling distribution company, received a game-changing investment from BBH Capital, a private equity strategy of New York-based private investment bank Brown Brothers Harriman & Co.
Thanks to the “significant growth investment,” Wolter has expanded its business substantially throughout 2024 with the addition of Bobcat products to its catalog and several acquisitions in the southeast region of the United States creating a new operational market for the company.
Since its founding in 1962 by Otto Wolter, who now serves as board chairman, the company has acquired nearly 20 subsidiaries. Its Midwest market includes Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and the upper peninsula of Michigan.
Wolter acquired Cincinnati Crane & Hoist in July and Atlanta-based Dedicated Material Handling Solutions in September. The Atlanta acquisition drove the establishment of its southeast region and added more than 100 employees. The company’s southeast market includes Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Florida.
Recognizing its approach to fast growth and national expansion, Wolter is the BizTimes Milwaukee 2024 Family-Owned Business of the Year.
In 2023, Wolter employed around 590 people. As of November 2024, Wolter employs close to 700 people, according to chief executive officer Jerry Weidmann, the son-in-law of Otto Wolter. The company has an annual revenue of $250 million.
Wolter employs several other family members in leadership positions, including Otto Wolter’s two daughters, Kim Weidmann and Jan Plenke, who serve as leasing manager and customer support group representative/assistant to the chairman, respectively. Otto’s son, John, manages the vehicle fleet. Otto’s granddaughter, Shanna Williams, serves as finance administration supervisor, and Gwen Plenke, Otto’s granddaughter-in-law, is a senior staff accountant. Frank Machi, Wolter’s nephew, serves as controller. Two of Wolter’s grandchildren, Theron and Ian Cichacki, serve as the Brookfield service office supervisor and draftsman of storage and handling.
Jerry Weidmann
Among the things Wolter attributes to its success, a culture of family-centric values is at the forefront.
“The core element of being able to grow a family business is to be able to translate the family values and culture in each acquisition,” Weidmann said.
Most, if not all, of the businesses Wolter has acquired are also family owned, which is “in the nature of the industry,” according to Weidmann. The acquisition process has proven more fluid for Wolter if the existing company shares similar family values.
With industry founders reaching retirement age, an acquisition by Wolter offers a built-in exit strategy, Weidmann said. This is something that Wolter advertises when acquiring a new subsidiary.
Wolter uses a four-phase team building system – forming, storming, norming and performing – to transition businesses to operate in “The Wolter Way.” Forming takes place when the acquisition is announced, as both companies form into one under the parent (Wolter). Storming is the frictional period in which a subsidiary is tasked with adopting new policies and procedures. Norming is the acceptance and adoption of said policies and procedures. Performing happens when the transition is complete and both companies are functioning under the same leadership.
“In our case, organic growth became more difficult to attain our goals,” said Weidmann. “It wouldn’t be fast enough, so we chose acquisitions as the platform.”
Using its acquisition model, Wolter has expanded to 19 locations across the midwestern and southeastern United States and plans to double in size in the next five years.
Wolter expects to duplicate its operations by expanding into states bordering the Mississippi River into the northeast region. With a higher concentration of major cities in the eastern half of the United States, shared distribution methods and commerce density makes for better opportunities to increase Wolter’s footprint, Weidmann said.
In addition to its acquisitions, Wolter has added several new leadership positions to oversee the growth in the southeast region. Stu Pineda was promoted to chief financial officer, Ross Jeremiah was promoted from executive vice president to president of the Midwest region, Tony Jones (former CEO of Doosan Industrial Vehicles Americas) was named president of the southeast region, and Martin Park will serve as chief of staff to Weidmann.
Wolter was recognized as one of BizTimes Media’s Future 50 companies in 2022, 2023 and 2024, a recognition of southeastern Wisconsin’s fastest growing, privately held companies.
ThriveOn King has opened its doors to the public – a monumental milestone for the catalytic development aimed to lift up Milwaukee’s underserved communities.
The 470,000-square-foot former Gimbels-Schuster’s store building, located at 2153 N. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, has been redeveloped as a community hub called ThriveOn King. The organizations behind the $120 million project – the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, Medical College of Wisconsin and real estate developer Royal Capital Group – joined forces to create a partnership called the ThriveOn Collaboration.
In 2018, the GMF and MCW first announced their shared initiative to address social determinants of health in a neighborhood facing particular health disparities. They went on to recruit Royal Capital as the developer and announced plans for the project in 2019.
“With us being in the Historic King Drive BID, we are a centerpiece of the community in the way that it used to be, and we’re able to showcase people’s aspirations, hopes and dreams,” said Greg Wesley, president and CEO of the GMF.
Wesley, a founding co-chair of the ThriveOn Collaboration, formerly served as senior vice president of strategic alliances and business development at MCW before taking over as the GMF’s new CEO in August. He leads the collaboration with founding co-chair Kevin Newell, president and CEO of Royal Capital, and Dr. John Raymond, president and CEO of MCW.
The ThriveOn King project, for which construction began in 2022, has three main parts: commercial space, 90 housing units and a parking structure.
The commercial space at ThriveOn King officially opened its doors to the surrounding community on Oct. 15. The housing component will be complete by early January, Newell said. There will be affordable housing units for families and people 55 and older, as well as apartments dedicated for MCW students. MCW’s new Health Equity Scholars Program and its inaugural cohort of five students will be based at ThriveOn King.
In recognition of the progress it has made in developing and opening ThriveOn King, the ThriveOn Collaboration is the BizTimes Milwaukee 2024 Best in Business Community Leader of the Year.
Improving social determinants of health
The ThriveOn Collaboration’s ultimate goal is to improve the social determinants of health for the underserved neighborhoods surrounding ThriveOn King, which is nestled between the Halyard Park, Harambee and Brewers Hill neighborhoods. Social determinants of health include access to healthy food, quality affordable housing, economic opportunity and early childhood education.
ThriveOn King houses the GMF’s offices, MCW’s community engagement programs, Versiti on King, JobsWork MKE, Malaika Early Learning Center and Kinship Cafe. The presence of these organizations at ThriveOn directly targets social determinants of health. There’s also about 10,000 square feet of community space on the first floor of the building.
“… (We) wanted to demonstrate that if we really want to move the needle, you can’t have it sitting in these silos,” said Wesley. “It can’t just be a community engagement effort. It needs to be an economic engagement effort as well, and it cannot ignore the folks that you are partnering with – (it) can’t create this negative gentrification component.”
The ThriveOn Collaboration connected with members of the surrounding communities to get input on their needs for the space. Raymond said area residents wanted focused investment in early childhood education, healthy food and job training. The possibility of gentrification was also a concern among community members.
“All of us collectively heard from the community that they didn’t want the area to be gentrified, they didn’t want people who had lived in and around the area for generations to be priced out of their homes,” Raymond said. “And so, we did create an anti-displacement fund to help people pay for taxes, and we’re working with the city to do everything we can to prevent people that have lived there for a long time to have their homes become unaffordable because of the tax burden.”
‘A place of convening’
To Newell, ThriveOn King stands as a landmark for its community.
“It’s a place of convening,” Newell said. “It’s a place that folks can do everything from donate blood, grab a cup of coffee, engage with community leaders, learn about research, apply for a grant, apply for an opportunity to get some job training, bring your kid for early childhood learning and also be able to live there. It’s a very comprehensive community that we built inside of the community.”
ThriveOn King ultimately “symbolizes the community’s investment in itself and the community coming back to life,” Raymond said.
“If you just go into the ThriveOn King building, any time of day, you’ll see people from the neighborhoods convening there, having business meetings, walking through and looking at the artwork, the murals, just feeling pride in their neighborhood,” Raymond said. “I’ve been there a few times in the morning and just observed people coming through. It’s a source of optimism, of pride, of energy. All those things are being realized, and we’re only just beginning.”
