Third Ward office design is way out of the box

For the majority of us, the office is a utilitarian environment where we show up, do our work, and go home. We don’t complain about glaring overhead lights, noise distractions, or confining cubicles parked at right angles which seem to block out the world around us.
After all, it’s an office, right? The message inherent in most office design is that work is an activity not meant to be enjoyed. With everything placed at right angles and uninspired colors covering the floors and walls, is it any wonder that people feel dull at work?
But for the relative few who have the good fortune to work in an inspirational office setting, the office environment is a source of energy from which creativity naturally flows. The medium is the message.
More often than not, advertising agencies are on the cutting edge of contemporary office design. That is certainly the case with Marx McClellan Thrun, a six-person agency in Milwaukee’s Third Ward.
From the moment one sets foot in the 4,000-square-foot space on the sixth floor of the Marshall Building, you realize this is an office that transcends the merely ordinary.
Marx McClellan Thrun’s low-ceilinged reception area, while modest, gives a hint of what lies ahead. Six black wooden icons affixed to the wall serve as metaphors for what the agency does. There is a bowling ball, a black cat, a dagger, dice – all which serve to illustrate the nature of the work that the agency juggles, says principal Rick Thrun.
"We’ve been successful because every day we juggle lots of dangerous things for some very special clients," Thrun says. "And yet we still manage to have some fun."
Heading from the reception area into the main office, the visitor is greeted by views of the Third Ward skyline which is visible through the large, old-fashioned casement-style windows. Two metallic stairwells lead to an office loft. Colorful portrait murals by local artist Tom Porter stand out against Cream City brick walls.
In another subtle but perceptible shift, nearly everything about the office is flowing at 45-degree or odd angles. Nothing is set up on traditional 90-degree lines. Even the odd-shaped cubicle walls take on this effect. Sight lines flow in virtually all directions.
"No matter where you are in here, you can see out," Thrun says. "We didn’t want to make people feel that they were walled off. At the same time, we also didn’t want to come up with a space that was overdesigned, or overdecorated.
Before the $43,000 remodeling was done in 1995, the agency occupied the office much as it was from the previous tenant, a photographer who both lived in the space and used it as his studio loft.
One of the primary goals for remodeling the wide open space was to give everyone his or her own workspace while maintaining the feeling of openness and light.
Taken together, the overall feel of the office is one of airiness combined with industrial chic. Throw in some imaginative interior design elements, and you’ve got an office that positively oozes the feeling that cool advertising concepts are just waiting to be born.
The office was designed over three years ago by Ed Miller of the Winters Design Group, who also helped agency principals Rick Thrun and Laura Marx remodel their 1935 home. Miller credits Thrun with helping him take some of his ideas to the next level.
"I think they needed a space that lets their clients know that they are in the right place if they are looking for innovative ideas and exciting artwork," says Miller, who won the National Remodeling Industry Association’s Contractor of the Year Award in 1996 for his work on the office.
"We didn’t want people to walk in and get the impression that six people are sitting at Macintosh computers doing design work," Miller says. "We wanted to convey a sense of energy, that this is a place that is not static. For the customer/client, this space shows that members of the agency are not status-quo thinkers."
Marx McClellan Thrun’s clients include Johnson Controls, Briggs & Stratton, Motorola, Concours Motors and Lake Park Bistro.
A kitchen the photographer put in has been retained, and works well as a separate area within the redesigned space. Brick walls that were painted white were sandblasted.
"It was too ’60s/’70s, kind of ‘pop’ looking," Miller recalls. "It needed to be updated to the ’90s into something more refined."
One of the first moves made by Miller and Thrun was to carpet over the checkerboard pattern linoleum floor
"We wanted to convey a sense of energy, that this is a place that is not static."
– Ed MIller, Winters Design Group
that dominated the space. Not only did the carpet provide sound abatement, but it gave the space a more professional look, Thrun said.
The large pillars that stand in the room were painted gray, as was the ceiling. Industrial-type lights hang off the pillars and point skyward. Steel cables fan out across the ceiling like spokes from a wheel, giving it added visual texture.
Partition walls are painted in warm colors like eggplant and terra cotta. Placement of corrugated steel on curved surfaces and glass block in random, but strategic, order inside dividing walls adds an element of sophistication.
Two metal stairways lead up to the loft. One of the stairways is surrounded by curved partition walls which play off the rounded walls at the top of the stairs, providing the staircase with a more cohesive look.
Thrun’s design studio looks out over the floor below. Marx has her own separate office with a door on the first floor, as she performs a lot of the nitty-gritty financial work for the firm which requires a higher level of privacy. Jagged-edge concrete panels with steel reinforcing bars protruding are placed at the front of the loft near Thrun’s office. The fractured panels perched at the top of the loft are meant to create the abstract feeling of being in a deconstruction zone.
There are several conference rooms, including a more formal one off the reception room that, in reality, is anything but formal in terms of design. Suspended industrial-style lightning aimed down at the table is the dominant feature of the room, which has Cream City brick walls. The other conference area is in a partially enclosed space in the main room. On a steel table, this is where much of the decision-making for the group takes place on Monday mornings. Clients and vendors are also brought here.
"We wanted to make it a place that clients would enjoy coming to," Thrun says. "When vendors and other people that we work with come here, it’s a place they remember."

May 1998 Small Business Times, Milwaukee

Miller Brewing fund helps tradesmen get started
Orlando Arce knew that if he wanted to get ahead in the world, he would need the tools of his trade.
Trouble is, those tools are expensive. And in many of the trades, employees are expected to have their own tools, especially at smaller firms. But even at larger firms, employees often need to bring in some of their own tools.
Arce, however, didn’t just sit on his desire. He attended classes as Milwaukee Area Technical College and did so well that he was awarded a set of shop tools through the Tools for Success program sponsored by Miller Brewing Co.
Since its introduction in Milwaukee six years ago, Tools for Success has assisted more than 180 MATC students with more than $185,000 worth of tools. This year alone, 21 MATC students in 20 different fields won the tool scholarships. The scholarships are based on the students’ academic achievements, career goals, community service, biographical statements and references from faculty and community members.
“Before I won the scholarship, I had to borrow tools to do my job,” said Arce, an auto body and paint technician who works for Lou’s Autobody Carstar. “It’s better to have your own tools. The program has helped me out in my career to a very large degree.”
Arce, who won his tools last year, said he would have been in a bind without the tools scholarship.
Tools scholarships range from $600 to $2,500 worth of tools. But because Miller works with MATC to buy the tools through educational channels, a scholarship can include equipment valued at up to $10,000.
Arce’s story is not unlike the hundreds of other persons who’ve won tools through the Miller-sponsored program in Wisconsin, California, Texas, Ohio and Puerto Rico – they have one final hurdle to qualify for jobs in their selected fields. That hurdle being tool ownership.
The program not only benefits the worker, it also benefits employers, say Jack MacDonough, chairman
“Before I won the scholarship,
I had to borrow tools to do my job … The program has helped me out in my career to a large degree.”
– Orlando Arce, Lou’s Autobody Carstar
and CEO of Miller Brewing, noting the tight labor market that businesses must deal with. “We’re facing a critical shortage of skilled labor, and no issue is more important to the future of the collective workforce. Young people and those looking for new careers have shied away from entering the trades over the years, and now we must address this problem head-on if we hope to solve it.”
The Tools for Success program, he says, is one way Miller is tackling the problem.
Miller started the program in Los Angeles in 1991 after seeing a growing need for skilled tradesmen, said Julie Kubasa, corporate communications representative for Miller. Through the years, “it’s helped us publicize that America needs more people in the trades,” she added.
For MATC, the program is a boost for its skilled trades disciplines, says Donna McCarty, director of college relations. “It really helps us encourage people to go into the trades,” she said, adding that for many people, a career in the trades can be financially rewarding.
“The lowest pay-range of the jobs these people are moving into is $9 to $10 an hour while the highest is $18 to $20 an hour,” she said.
The demand for workers is there. “For every graduate we have, there are five job offers,” McCarty notes. The U.S. Department of Labor says a growing percentage of the workforce will be comprised of skilled labor.
For some of the scholarship winners, the tools they get are the only ones they own. For others, having an extra set allows them to have a set of tools on the job and one at home for sideline work.
Miller, Kubasa noted, is a very active benefactor to many causes. But the Tools program is a favorite, Kubasa says. “Of all the corporate programs we have, this one is most special. It makes the giving so much more real when you can see an individual recipient and when you know the impact of the giving on that person’s life. And when you see what some of these students have overcome, it really is rewarding for us.”
McCarty is similarly enthusiastic about the program, especially since it provides an extra recognition for accomplished students at the end of their studies.
And for many of the students, the awards ceremony is recognition the likes of which they’ve never felt. “It’s a real self-esteem builder,” McCarty says. “Many of the students will say they’ve never had an honor like this.”
May 1998 Small Business Times,Milwaukee

Geoffrey Martin lives in Mequon, but he put his business elsewhere. Martin, executive vice-president of Pope Scientific, likes living in Mequon, but he’s relocating his growing business from Menomonee Falls to the Saukville Industrial Park. Martin’s new 44,000-square-foot facility should be complete by August.
“We looked in Menomonee Falls, Germantown, Grafton and the Cedarburg areas, but we avoided Mequon because the land there is too pricey,” Martin said. “I live in Mequon and would have liked to have my business close by, but I didn’t want to deal with the city government there.”
Easy freeway access and affordable land prices led Martin to locate his firm, which manufactures distillation equipment for the chemical industry, to Saukville.
“Saukville was the place to go,” Martin said. “They want the industry and were willing to work with us. Ninety-nine percent of my employees will go with me, so labor won’t be an issue. It was a real pleasure working with Saukville. They did everything but shine your shoes. They were so open to working with us.”
That’s good news to Chris Lear, Saukville’s village administrator. Saukville owns and promotes its industrial park and wants to see businesses there succeed.
“We’ve got five new buildings going up in the industrial park this year,” Lear said. “That’s in addition to the growth planned at Charter Steel, our biggest employer, which has added a $100 million addition to its physical structure. We will do whatever we can to help our industries grow and grow our industrial park at the same time.”
Ann Murray, president of the Grafton Chamber of Commerce, said the village of Grafton is the industrial hub of the Ozaukee County.
“The first phase of the Grafton Industrial Park is complete and the second phase has at least three firms there now and more are coming,” Murray said.” In the past, it was easier to get industry here, but with the difficulty in getting good employees, it’s become more challenging.”
Besides attracting industry, Grafton hopes to bring in new business to its downtown area. A master plan to redevelop the downtown is in the works.
“Finally we’re seeing some much-needed changes,” Murray said. “Some buildings are for sale downtown and we would like to see business owners get the help they need to make their businesses successful. We will have small business loans available to them. As a chamber, we do a good job of recruiting new businesses and helping them to feel comfortable in the community.”
While Saukville and Grafton bend over backwards to help businesses locate there, Mequon takes a different approach.
“Most communities say ‘What can we do for development,’ but in Mequon we say ‘What can development do for us,'” said Brad Stenke, the city’s community development director. “We can be more selective about the development we have here. We are mainly interested in providing regional services for the people who live in our community.”
While Mequon has 300 acres set aside for industrial development and an additional 100 acres for commercial/office development, it’s in no hurry to develop it.
“If someone wants to locate here they have to come to the table with the type of development we feel is in our best interest,” Stenke said. “But once you are here, our feeling is that we want you to prosper and we will work with you to see that you are profitable.”
May 1998 Small Business Times, Milwaukee

Not even the CEO has an office at firm’s new quarters
When the staff of the Milwaukee engineering firm of Graef, Anhalt, Schloemer & Associates was planning the firm’s new office space last year, they knew they wanted to project a professional, high-tech image.
But whether that image would be projected through an open-concept office, or through a facility with individual offices would become a central issue for the discussions.
“We discussed it at length,” says Rich Bub, CEO and a principal of the firm. The sticky situation that kept cropping up in those discussions was, if there were going to be offices in the new facility, who would get one and who wouldn’t?
That was not only seen as an immediate dilemma, but one that could continually crop up. If the company had decided to build offices for employees above a certain level, what would happen if a cubicled employee were promoted to an officed level position?
What followed those thoughts was the concern of how the non-officed group would react to being left out.
“It came down to a situation of, if this group has offices, why not that group, too?,” says Bub, a proponent of the open concept.
Thus the push for the open concept, in which no one would get an office. “That became our biggest seller,” he says of the some-or-none scenario. “It would have been a harder sell if I were to get an office while others didn’t.”
Further, it was determined that an open-plan concept would offer far more flexibility for staff changes.
The firm’s board was very sensitive to getting the entire staff to accept the open-plan idea, noted Cynthia Gall and Jane Dederling of Engberg Anderson Design Partnership, the architectural and design firm which handled the office design.
The principals and staff bought into the egalitarian approach, and the firm moved into its new open-concept offices in the Honey Creek Corporate Center development March 7.
The 22.5-acre Honey Creek Corporate Center, just off 84th Street adjacent to I-94 in Milwaukee, is a project of Opus North Corp.
Graef, Anhalt Schloemer & Associates anchors the first of three similar buildings planned for the site. G.A.S. has 36,000 square feet on the third and fourth floors, with an option to lease additional space in the 118,000-square-foot building. Superior Services, a West Allis-based nationwide waste services company, recently announced that it would move to the development, leasing 16,000 square feet.
In selecting an open concept, Graef, Anhalt, Schloemer & Associates is following a trend, according to the International Facility Management Association (IFMA). More managers at US and Canadian offices are now working in open-plan workspaces than three years ago, according to IFMA’s new research report, Benchmarks III.
The open concept is seen as more conducive to camaraderie while the office set-up can reinforce hierarchical patterns.
“It gives the feeling that everyone is in this together, the CAD technician to the owners,” Bub says. “There’s a real teamwork mentality promoted.”
There is, however, some respect for hierarchy and for work needs. Bub, for example, has a larger work station than other persons at the firm. But basically, there are two sizes of “cubicles.”
The IFMA report indicates that while open-plan workspaces are more common among corporate professionals, senior clerical, and general clerical employees, the use of open spaces has increased the most among middle management.
The current mix of office type revealed by the study is 58% open plan (spaces divided by movable partitions), 36% private (offices enclosed by floor-to-ceiling walls), and 6% bullpen (open areas without partitions).
A recent study by office furniture manufacturer Steelcase showed that only 17% of workers desire a corner office – once deemed the most coveted office space. And office furniture maker Haworth has seen a marked increase in its sales of systems developed for open-plan offices. Other firms have seen similar increases in sales of open-plan office products.
“Call it what you want: open-plan, systems furniture, or cubicle, it’s a great answer to a business’s need to promote better communications and collaboration among their workers,” says Sheri Cuccarese, Haworth’s director of product marketing and development.
Dederling, of Engberg Anderson, notes that in the Milwaukee area, there’s still a demand for private offices for upper management. But those spaces are not only smaller, but they are more often incorporating both exterior and interior windows, allowing management to see the staff and the staff to see management.
Besides the change in corporate culture, another factor driving firms toward open offices is money, Dederling says, with owners seeing cost savings in open-plan concepts.
The new Graef, Anhalt, Schloemer & Associates facility isn’t without enclosed spaces. In fact, there are 15 conference rooms in the site. When privacy is needed, or when a large group of employees gather on an issue, the rooms are available. But even those conference rooms share in the open-ambiance, with floor-to-ceiling windows facing the main office space rather than solid walls. “The glass walls add to the open feeling,” said Engberg Anderson’s Gall.
A lunchroom can double as a meeting space when needed.
Otherwise, the site is planned to promote people being together rather than being off by themselves, Bub says.
Bub sees two main attributes of the open-plan concept. First is visibility; everyone, not just partners with offices, gets to look out a window. “It allows a view of the outside world without having to look through a manager’s office,” he says. No cubicles are stationed along the main length of the offices; rather, the space is reserved for an aisle, allowing everyone to share in the view of what is planned to be a pond-centered prairie-style courtyard. That window-side aisle also allows more natural lighting to flow into the entire office area, Dederling notes. Everyone at G.A.S. also has access to a deck off the fourth floor.
The open concept is additionally intended to promote greater and quicker communications among the staff, Bub says.
There was a significant concern about noise levels in the open office, concerns that were addressed by the design of the office and materials selection. Work centers that were seen as noise producers – such as the mail room and paper copiers – were consolidated. Hard walls rather than partitions were used in some locations to hold back noise. Ceiling tiles and panel fabrics were selected with noise abatement in mind. A “white noise” system was installed. And along aisles, higher cubicle panels were used.
Within cubicles, employees are discouraged from tacking too many items to the panels. Pictures, papers and other items on panel walls thwarts their noise-reduction capabilities, Gall says.
Aside from those measures, Bub says he’s noticed a difference in the voice levels used among the staff. “They end up talking softer,” he says.
During a reporter’s visit, despite considerable activity the office atmosphere was one of peace and tranquillity rather than noise and commotion.
The acoustically-friendly facility stands in contrast to the firm’s former offices at the Milwaukee Engineering Center – the old St. Therese Catholic grade school about a mile west of the new site. The original use of that facility has been restored by the Milwaukee Montesorri School.
May 1998 Small Business Times, Milwaukee

Don’t let big account list force you into reactive mode
Question:
I feel a little guilty saying this. I have too much business and find myself being reactive to my sales territory. I am afraid that I am neglecting some of my current accounts. Any suggestions?
Answer:
This is a common situation in today’s economy. Some may say it’s a good problem.
It’s still a problem.
If you have been involved in sales during leaner times, then you know how important it is to retain and nurture the business that you have. Too many accounts can cause sales people to become reactive rather than strategic in approach to their territories.
Here are some ideas:
Are you working on the right kind of business? Sometimes inquiries from new potential customers can seem like a priority. If those inquiries are keeping you from developing more profitable business with your current customers and/or other more desirable potential accounts, refer the business to someone else, either internally or externally.
Don’t be afraid to refer business to resources outside of your organization. By demonstrating that you care about taking care of the customer’s needs, you will reinforce that you are a valuable resource and will position yourself for future business.
Categorize and prioritize your accounts. Define the most desirable accounts and most profitable business for your company. Those should become your priority accounts. Then, rank the remaining accounts according to long-term business potential. Depending on how many accounts you are managing, you may end up with two or three categories such as type A, B and C accounts. As new account inquiries are made, categorize them immediately in order to stay focused on the appropriate actions.
Develop account plans for your top accounts. Type A, or priority accounts, typically are those that reflect the most profitable and long-term business potential. Develop a strategic account plan for each of those including the customer’s long- and short-term goals, how you are positioned to help meet those goals, and a communication plan for interacting with the account influencers on a regular basis. Those accounts warrant the majority of your sales/service time. A general rule of thumb is to spend time in your accounts proportionate to the sales potential.
Develop plans for the existing accounts, or type B and C accounts. If you have determined that those accounts warrant your attention and reflect long-term business potential, then you must communicate with them on a regular basis. However, that does not mean that the communication has to be face-to-face. You may develop a communication plan for all Type B accounts, for instance, which would include methods that you would use to simply stay in touch and receive feedback from the accounts. It is best to get feedback from these customers to see what type of communication they expect and prefer.
Examples may be that all Type B accounts receive the following:
Annual sales visits with review of goals and objectives. Quarterly newsletters. Monthly phone calls. Semi-annual survey and response forms.
Get others involved. Are there others within your company that would benefit from account contact? For example, pairing technical people from your company with technical people within your accounts not only frees you up, but will solidify multi-level relationships. This is also a wonderful way to develop associates who wish to develop a better understanding of your business. A visit, or even a phone call, from your president to the account president sends the message that the relationship is important to you.
Assign temporary responsibilities. If your company is experiencing a growth spurt, you may wish to assign certain individuals to temporary account responsibility. For instance, if your strength is developing new account relationships, you may assign a service person to develop ongoing relationships in your existing accounts.
Do some gardening. Weed out accounts that drain you of your time with little return. No one likes to turn down business, yet the time that you save can be spent to cultivate more profitable relationships.
Marcia Gauger is president of Impact Sales Training in New Berlin.
May 1998 Small Business Times, Milwaukee

Two years ago, Terry Tarillion felt the weight of the world on his shoulders.
The 52-year-old executive was in the process of moving his company, Heritage Printing & Graphics Center, to a new facility in Brookfield, and there was considerable pressure and uncertainty tied to the move. At the time, Tarillion was engaged in a never-ending struggle with city officials over building code restrictions. The company also took on a large amount of debt for both the building and new printing equipment as part of a strategic shift Tarillion was implementing.
Then, in the middle of the move, two of his three key employees unexpectedly left the company. One was a print shop manager who came down with a rare bone disorder. “About the time we really needed him, he was gone,” Tarillion recalls. The other, a trusted sales and marketing manager who had been with the company for 16 years, up and left for Prairie du Chien to start her own business with her husband.
With uncertainty surrounding the company’s future, Tarillion started to show the signs of stress. He visited a doctor for stomach problems. Then, with the pressure of work weighing on him, he started neglecting his marriage and having trouble at home.
“There was a lot of uncertainty,” Tarillion recalls. “It was like, ‘What’s going to happen next?’ It was a period of time when chaos reined. There was this constant background of doubt and fear creeping in. We had long-term people showing physical and mental strain. It is not a time I would like to go through again.”
The more he leaned on himself for solutions, it seemed the worse things got, Tarillion recalls. Ultimately, he says it was his Christian faith that pulled him through.
“Terry realized the job is not the end-all,” observes Poul Sanderson, a Milwaukee psychotherapist who specializes in executive stress counseling. “He empowers his employees, seeks outside counsel, and he’s well-rounded. That’s why I think he’s successful.”
Many are not as fortunate, succumbing to stress in the form of heart disease, migraine headaches and all manner of debilitating illnesses. The American Institute of Stress reports that anywhere from 75 to 90 percent of all doctor visits are stress-related. A report issued in 1992 by the United Nations called job stress the United States’ largest export. Stress-related ailments cost US corporations as much as $300 billion a year, according to a study by Cornell University.
According to Jo Hawkins Donovan, a Milwaukee corporate consultant and psychologist, when the pressure of living with ordinary and extraordinary events exceeds our capacity to cope, we start to exhibit the symptoms of stress. Our physical and mental health starts to deteriorate.
Tend your garden
Hawkins Donovan once treated an executive in his mid-40s who came to her completely burned out. The man had risen through the ranks as a high-energy over-achiever to become head of a 500-employee Milwaukee company.
Over time, the executive ignored the early warning signs such as irritability, lack of enthusiasm for the job and not being able to sleep. The man didn’t say anything about his stress to anyone, and the symptoms grew worse to the point where he became almost non-functional, Hawkins Donovan recalls.
By the time he walked into her office, the man exhibited the classic symptoms of burnout. His energy level was so low he could hardly respond. He was in despair and wholly incapable of making decisions.
In the midst of his despair, the executive would drive down to his old South Side neighborhood and sit there, longing for the days when he felt he was still in control of his life, Hawkins Donovan says. The man felt trapped that he had to be with people all day long, both at work and when he got home and stepped into the role of father. This conflicted with his introverted nature.
“People in this situation feel like they are losing it,” Hawkins Donovan says. “But there are so many options for managing stress. The big issue is to stop and decide you are going to do something about it.”
What Hawkins Donovan did was get the executive to take some time away from work, and helped him re-examine his priorities. She had him do simple things to get time alone, such as plant a garden. With her assistance, the man learned to be more discriminating about where he applied his abilities.
“He was giving a crisis-type energy to everything he did at work,” Hawkins Donovan says. “He had a belief system that said he couldn’t say no. He was just madly trying to please everyone else without taking stock of what his own needs were.”
Burnout is reversible, Hawkins Donovan says. The man is back leading the company and doing fine since he made the necessary adjustments.
Great expectations
Mike Tetkoski sees a lot of middle management health-care workers in his job as clinical psychologist at St. Michael Hospital in Milwaukee, and many are there for the same thing:
They’re stressed out.
A combination of too much work, not enough people to do the work, and unreasonably high expectations in today’s corporate environment are leading people to work themselves not only into poor health, but into a mental state in which they feel they have little control.
“Fewer people are doing more work,” Tetkoski says. “But the expectation is that it will be done at the same level and within the same timeframe. So they suffer in silence and work longer hours, hoping that it will all work out in the end.”
This is what Tetkoski calls quantitative stress, the kind that results when there aren’t enough bodies to go around. For people who have been promoted, what might have seemed like a reward now seems like a sentence. They see others going home to their lives while they stay and work into the night. People in this position can start to feel isolated and resentful toward the organization, Tetkoski says.
“At the same time, they think to themselves: ‘I have to justify the company’s faith in me,'” Tetkoski says. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that one. So they decide to work longer, harder hours, because retreating to their old job is not an option.”
According to a study of more than 5,000 Swedish and American men, junior executives are more likely to sustain heart attacks than leaders of companies, Sanderson says. Also, the lower tenth of workers are more likely to develop heart disease than men in the top five percent of companies, suggesting that stress is not confined solely to management ranks, Sanderson says.
The other type of stress Tetkoski sees in his practice is qualitative stress. That results when people who are good at their line-level jobs are promoted into management ranks with little or no training. And they are reluctant to ask for help or training for fear they will be perceived as not being up to the task.
“Just because someone is a good radiologist or staff nurse does not make them a good manager,” Tetkoski says. “This is an entirely different mindset. And the organization is not crazy about providing you with the opportunity or the time to acquire those skills to get you over the hump. And if they do get permission to take a class, their workload remains the same. These people are typically expected to do more work.”
What if the organization is asking you to do budget projections, and you have never done that before? Tetkoski asks. If you are lucky, you may get an experienced manager to walk you through the project. But ultimately, the job you end up doing is slipshod and you are left with the feeling that you are an impostor in this new position, and that you will be fired when your superiors find out, he says.
Some of the business people Tetkoski sees in his practice are business owners of companies with 20 or fewer employees. They started the business because they were particularly good at the necessary skill to get it off the ground, but now they are struggling with the managerial aspect because the company is in its second stage of growth.
“It is at this point that these guys come to me after they’ve hired five new people, and they are further and further removed from what they used to do,” Tetkoski says.
For some owners or managers, it is a matter of loosening up the reins and delegating authority, he says.
“I ask these people to look at their own values,” he says. “I ask them where they see themselves in the workplace, and what niche they can fill. A lot of these people just think they’re along for the ride. So I stop and make them think by showing them that they have control over their own destiny. Some decide that they don’t want to do this anymore. They don’t want to be a manager, or they decide to delegate more.”
Tetkoski knows of several highly respected physicians who are getting out of the practice of medicine because they are sick and tired of the increasing administrative burden.
“My assumption is, they have become so far removed from doing what they want to do – which is practice medicine – that they feel like they can’t turn back the clock,” Tetkoski says. “That’s the sad part. It’s not that people don’t want to do the job. There are obstacles that get in the way, and everyone loses.”
Reclaiming their lives
For the small entrepreneur, stress can be as much of a factor as it is for the lead executives of a large company.
Until early 1997, Rick and Cindy Owings felt like they were living to work in their seven-employee firm, Owings Computer Graphics. There was constant pressure to maintain a sufficient backlog of work in order to keep the employees busy, Rick Owings recalls.
“There were different pressures such as dealing with people’s individual lifestyles, meeting payroll and having to compromise our standards, at times, in order to maintain a necessary volume of work,” says the 39-year-old Owings. “This created a tremendous amount of pressure. We had to spend more time – a lot more time – than we really wanted.
“We really didn’t have a life other than work for about 10 years,” Owings continues. “For the first six years, we worked every Saturday and half of Sunday. We didn’t take vacations. We were putting in 65- to 70-hour weeks. Our 7-year-old daughter was raised in this office. Our social life was virtually non-existent.”
Finally, Owings and his wife began to see the light when several employees left the firm. They noticed a corresponding decrease in pressure. They started taking 10-day vacations to the Caribbean.
“Our blood pressure must drop 30 points when we do that,” Owings says. “I feel like it adds 10 years to our lives.”
About 16 months ago, the last employee left on her own. Now, it’s just Owings, his wife, and a part-time bookkeeper. Their quality of life is better, and they feel as if they are in control.
“I think some people are afraid to admit that it is impossible to do it all – to function at a high level as an executive, to manage the household, be excellent parents, and still have time for friends and family,” Owings says. “I think some people want to give the impression that things are problem-free, that everything is running smoothly.
“They are afraid that if clients, friends or relatives see the bumps in the road, that somehow they may lose credibility with these people,” Owings says.
“I just found that admitting the fact was a big step in the right direction for us. Everyone sets high goals and standards, but there is a price to pay for it. And the price is personal relationships and free time. You just have to draw the line somewhere. You just have to come to the realization that it probably can’t all be done.”
May 1998 Small Business Times, Milwaukee

Sterns see mission in filling vacant urban properties
When Sam and Nathan Stern look out over their third-floor office in Milwaukee’s Riverwest neighborhood, two things stand out in the panorama.
One is the distant view of downtown – an area infused with millions of dollars of redevelopment money over the last decade and an area with a seemingly very bright future.
The other scene is of Humboldt Yards across the street, arguably a blighted area where railroad engines and cars of the Milwaukee Road once gathered, and where neighbors once bought gravel and sandbox sand from a corner-lot business operated by Norman Pipkorn. The vacant site is now the center of controversy over the potential establishment of a Jewel/Osco retail operation there, alongside residential development.
But behind those scenes of downtown redevelopment and the highly publicized Humboldt Yards prospects lie scores of properties awaiting attention. The Sterns have made it their mission to bring attention to those sites, to be catalysts in redeveloping what some would say are the less-attractive parts of the community.
The critical difference is, the Sterns don’t see those areas as unattractive. On the contrary, they see the central city as laden with amenities for businesses. And they believe it’s incumbent for business to support the central city.
“We believe it is important that, if the suburbs are going to be strong, the center of the community has to be, too,” says Sam Stern, Nathan’s father and the originator of the duo’s business, Stern and Associates. “You can’t have a strong suburban economy if the head is weak. All the limbs of the body have to be strong.”
But how do you make the head strong? The Sterns believe the ingredients are in place for that to happen. And they don’t see the “head” as being totally down and out.
“Milwaukee has done a great job of holding itself together, “Nathan says. “But where is it going from here?”
Sam adds, “The suburbs have grown at the expense of the head, and it’s time that the head compete.”
The right marketing in commercial real estate dealings can makes things happen, the Sterns say.
“It takes more than putting up a sign on a property; you have to be willing to market your offerings as would any new industrial park in the suburbs, and maybe more so,” Sam says, lauding efforts of the city to do just that in some parts of town, such as the 30th Street Industrial Corridor.
The perceptions of crime, which they’ve noted are misperceptions, have to be dealt with head-on, they say.
“The reality is much better than the perception, in a business sense,” Sam says. Those misperceptions, he says, foster economic depression in central city areas and impose unnecessary costs on businesses. “They’ve allowed their fears to cost them money.”
What business owners will find in city commercial buildings, the two say, are favorable cost-per-square-foot terms, in-place infrastructure, and a nearby labor pool which doesn’t require extraordinary transportation to a plant.
The Sterns don’t say that a city location is the right move for every business.
“While I have lived in the suburbs and while there can be good reasons for a business to be in the suburbs, there are businesses that should be in the city and which would benefit from being in the city,” Sam says.
The Sterns last year – their first year of business – handled close to $2 million in transactions, and they have a number of properties in Milwaukee County which they’re now marketing, including the old Geiser Potato Chip plant at 30th and Burleigh in Milwaukee – a 142,000-square-foot, food-grade facility that now lies vacant after a trucking/warehousing firm declined to renew its lease for the space. They’ve been in talks with prospective tenants about the space.
They’re also marketing space in the building they operate from at the southwest corner of Humboldt and North avenues, a building owned by Damian Zak that was originally built in the 1800s as a Jos. Schlitz Brewing Co. tavern.
Interest in city properties has picked up, they say.
“In the last six months we’ve had inquiries from people who need crane buildings, and who need to save on fixed costs, and who need workers,” Sam says. “And they’re considering leaving the suburbs because the square-foot rate of being west of the beltway is a lot of money in comparison to what it is in the city.”
Marketing properties in older areas of the city can be challenging.
High on the list of those challenges are regulations related to polluted lands -regulations that must be changed if America’s cities are to survive, say Sam and Nathan Stern of Stern & Associates in Milwaukee.
“No one wants to drink polluted water, or to have their children or themselves exposed to contaminants,” Sam observes. “But there are situations where pollution causes no harm.”
In those cases, the two say, redevelopment must be made easier.
It can be made easier by indemnifying property owners from liabilities for past polluting practices, they add.
“The present laws which will not indemnify against future liability make it impossible to transfer title, so lenders won’t touch such deals,” Sam notes.
But the second issue, he adds, is that there are properties that might be polluted but which pose no health threat. The question then becomes, what’s the real cost – to a community’s economic vitality – of not developing those sites?
“Those sites become unbuyable for people who could use them,” Nathan says. Unused, he says, the sites only foster further economic degradation, a point community leaders throughout the nation realize. “City governments realize that, without indemnification, major portions of cities will never have a use.”
May 1998 Small Business Times, Milwaukee

Joppe Logistics, LLC, a new distribution company, has leased 137,500 square feet of the former Briggs & Stratton facility at 12000 W. Burleigh St. in Wauwatosa, according to Mooney LeSage & Associates which handled the transaction.
The company commenced business in February, according to owner James Joppe Jr.
In addition to serving Briggs & Stratton, the company offers distribution, logistics and warehousing.
The company has signed a long-term lease.
Other leases announced by Mooney LeSage include:
– 42,000 square feet of space at 960 E. Milwaukee St. in Whitewater for Eco-Tech;
– 32,300 square feet of space at S66W14328 Janesville Rd. in Muskego for Meurer Bakeries of Milwaukee;
– 30,000 square feet of space at 1171 Universal Blvd. in Whitewater for Trek Bicycle Corp.
The Polacheck Co. of Milwaukee has announced the following leases:
– 1,847 square feet of retail space in the Riverview Centre at 827 S. Rochester Rd. in Mukwonago for Einar C. Svang III, DDS;
– 2,820 square feet of office space at 8350 N. Stevens Rd. in Milwaukee for Barrientos Architects;
– 1,150 square feet of retail space at 1677 N. Farwell Ave. in Milwaukee for Starbucks Corp.;
– 11,241 square feet of office space at 4915 S. Howell Ave. in Milwaukee for Sky Alland Marketing;
– 2,681 square feet of office space in the Riverfront Plaza at 1110 N. Old World Third St. in Milwaukee for CBS Cable; CBS Corp.;
– 1,780 square feet of office space at 5485 S. Westridge Dr. in New Berlin for Aid Association for Lutherans;
– 2,289 square feet of retail space at The Pavilion in Mequon for Scando Enterprises, d/b/a The Tinder Box;
– 6,400 square feet of industrial space at 11711 River Ln. in Germantown for Mero Structures, Inc.
– 2,738 square feet of office space at 250 N. Sunnyslope Rd. in Brookfield for Banc One Financial;
– 23,500 square feet of retail space at Rivercrest Drive and Appleton Avenue in Menomonee Falls for Office Max, Inc.;
– 2,000 square feet of retail space at Timmerman Plaza at 10442 W. Silver Spring Dr. in Milwaukee for Advance America, Cash Advance;
– 10,400 square feet of space at 1000 N. Water St. in Milwaukee for New Resources Corp.;
– 4,800 square feet of retail space at 6800 Washington Ave. in the Racine County Town of Mount Pleasant for Aurora Health Care, Inc.
Building Projects
Golden Leaves, LLC, is constructing a 15,000-square-foot retail and professional office building in downtown Hartland. The property, at 350 Cottonwood Ave., will be the home of Benning’s Books, adjoined by Heidi’s Café and Gourmet Coffee, Inc. The project also includes interconnected professional office suites and a luxury second-level apartment.
Ludwig Ridder Design, an architectural firm, will occupy one of the suites.
The development is a venture of Dianne Benning, who started Benning’s Books five years ago, and partner Karen Zernan. Golden Leaves will also manage the building.
Beyer Construction of New Berlin is handling interior office construction for the Helen Bader Foundation at the century-old Saddlery Building at 233 N. Water St. in Milwaukee. The foundation is locating from the Firstar Center. Architectural work is by Kahler Slater Architects of Milwaukee.
– Beyer is nearing completion of a project at Eaton Corp./Cutler Hammer Products, 4201 N. 27th St., Milwaukee. The project, which began in December, involves renovation of the second floor elevator lobby and complete reconstruction of the cafeteria and servery areas. Work includes installation of new servery fixtures and food service equipment, and new lighting and furniture. Quorum Architects of Milwaukee handled design.
Selzer-Ornst Co. of Wauwatosa is completing the renovation for Interim Health Care in Wauwatosa.
KCM, Inc., of West Bend has completed the design and has been awarded the contract for a 10,000-square-foot professional office and retail mall to be located in Jackson. B.E.K. & Associates, owners, are in the process of leasing the space.
– KCM has also been awarded a contract for a 13,000-square-foot industrial building in Jackson. The owner, Sierra Grinding, manufactures grinding wheels.
Z-Teca Fresh Mexican Grill Restaurant of Milwaukee chose MSI General Corp. of Oconomowoc to complete the tenant build-out for a Mexican restaurant at 3101 N. Oakland Ave. in Milwaukee. An April opening was scheduled. The restaurant will be operated by Roaring Fork, LLC, which is owned by Mike Pranke and Eric Wagner and which holds the exclusive Wisconsin franchise for Z-Teca. The restaurant firm is based in Denver. Founded in 1995, it plans to have about 300 locations in the US by the year 2000. It features made-to-order entrees.
– MSI General has also been selected by Custom Products Corp. of Menomonee Falls for the design and construction of a 33,502-square-foot addition to its manufacturing facility at the corner of Lilly Road and Silver Spring Drive. The expansion is Phase I of a program to provide additional manufacturing space. New orders from Cummins Engine and others were the catalyst for the project.
When John Iverson purchased the company in 1972, it had three employees and 8,000 square feet of space. It now occupies more than 300,000 square feet and employs more than 650 people. With expected growth, the company is planning a Phase II addition, as well.
Venture Development of Waukesha has completed the new office space for Relations Systems in Brookfield.
– Venture Development has also completed an interior remodeling project for Burton & Mayer, Inc., in Brookfield.
ASI General, Inc., of Waukesha has completed a new office building for Wisconsin Retail Lumber Association at W175 N11086 Stonewood Dr. in Germantown. The building includes 6,000 square feet of offices for the association and 4,000 square feet for tenant space.
The Lang Group of Lake Mills has been selected by the Sheboygan Redevelopment Authority to develop 14 condominiums with individual entrances on the Sheboygan River in the downtown area. The project will be known as River’s Edge. Each home will have a boat pier in the backyard with access to Lake Michigan.
Moves
George Webb Restaurants has moved to a new corporate office and commissary in the Bluemound East Industrial Park, south of I-94 in Pewaukee. The 16,350-square-foot building features expanded warehouse space plus rooms for training, conferencing and a full test kitchen. The chain now has 45 restaurants in Wisconsin.
Image Makers Advertising has moved from its Elm Grove location to its own renovated building at 139 E. North St. in Waukesha. The historic building was constructed in the 1880s as an out-building for a woolen mill.
Maglio & Co., a full-service wholesaler and distributor of produce, has relocated its offices and warehouse to 4287 N. Port Washington Rd. in Glendale.
The company had operated for 50 years on Commission Row in Milwaukee’s Third Ward. A second location was added in 1985 in the Walker’s Point neighborhood. Both those locations were vacated.
By the end of the year, the company expects to add 15 people to its current staff of 52.
The Glendale site was purchased from Johnson Controls last May. A 21,000-square-foot addition was constructed, adding 10 truck doors. The completed facility has 80,000 square feet of operating space with more than 30,0000 square feet dedicated to refrigerated storage.
With the added capacity, the company plans to expand its service territory and product lineup.
May 1998 Small Business Times, Milwaukee

At Jorgensen Conveyors in Mequon, business is booming. The firm, which makes custom-designed conveyor equipment used in the metal-working industry, employs about 120 individuals. It moved from Milwaukee to Mequon in 1985.
“Getting qualified employees is a challenge,” said Marc Jorgensen, president of Jorgensen Conveyors. “It is one of our main issues, especially as a constraint to growth. We are in an environment here where you have to be as creative as possible in finding new workers.
You can’t just sit back and rely on traditional methods.” To build his workforce, Jorgensen got involved with the Ozaukee County Transportation Management Association.
“It has really helped us,” Jorgensen said. “We’ve got about four people each day riding the system. I know it’s helped other businesses even more than us.” The other path Jorgensen took to increase his labor pool was through the Workforce 2010 program, which allows high school students to get apprenticeships at local businesses. A consortium of businesses along with the local high schools developed curricula in the schools and at various worksites to teach students basic skills they need to succeed in the workplace.
In addition, Jorgensen is working with the Milwaukee Area Technical College and the Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership to recruit under-employed and unemployed workers, as well as those involved with the Wisconsin Works (W-2) program. In late March, a welder from Jorgensen spoke to a group of about 50 prospective employees about working at Jorgensen.
“We hope to hire about 10 to 12 people as welders through this program,” Jorgensen said.
“It is a nice opportunity for us and them.”
May 1998 Small Business Times, Milwaukee

Does yours provide all the benefits it could?
Recruiting is arguably the most basic HR function. And the employment application form is certainly the most basic recruiting tool. Therefore, it seems logical to make sure your application form enhances the hiring process.
However, if you’re like many business owners (or HR people) with “to-do” lists that are already too long, it’s been quite awhile since you revised or even reviewed your company’s application form.
As with many employment-related matters, there are two aspects to consider – legal compliance, and potential benefits that enhance HR effectiveness and therefore organizational success.
Legal compliance
No law dictates what an employment application form must look like. But numerous laws make it illegal to use the answers to any potentially discriminatory questions.
It’s therefore risky to include such questions on an application form, since courts and administrative agencies are likely to presumé that you’ll use all the information solicited.
If discriminatory hiring activity is alleged, the burden is overwhelmingly on the employer (and it’s very difficult) to prove that non-job-related questions on an application form were truly not used to discriminate.
The best rule to follow is to include only questions that will provide job-related information.
Enhancing the effectiveness
of the hiring process
It’s a good practice to require all applicants to complete an application, even if they’ve submitted a resumé. Remember, a resumé is written to present an individual in the best possible light. A well-designed application form provides valuable information that is rarely included on a resumé:

Emotions are often basis of purchase decisions
Ask a car dealer, and many will tell you that their customers buy the looks, the color, the style of a car first, then support their decision with logic, like gasoline mileage, warranty and affordable payment plans.
Dale Carnegie said, “When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion.”
Whether we’re buying a car, a house, a bulldozer or breadsticks, our buying decisions are driven by emotional factors, then backed up with facts. The salesperson who recognizes this will close more sales and forge stronger customer relationships.
This is yet another reason why the questions you ask up front are so critical.
Too often we make a few, quick queries about current usage and needs, then launch into a lengthy lecture on why ours is faster, cheaper and better.
You can’t blame the prospect who then says “I’ll let you know,” and stops returning your voicemail messages.
Emotional reasons for buying are as individual as your customers. While price is always mentioned as a buying requirement, we all know that the lowest price doesn’t always win.
In fact, most buying decisions are made on other criteria. Will your product or service require special training for an already over-worked office staff? Will buying from you require the prospect’s accounting department to make changes, all for the sake of a few cents per item?
Are relationships already formed with competitors? Most important, does doing business with you help to fulfill the job satisfaction needs of your customer? These are far more likely reasons than price, and every one of them can be overcome – if you uncover them.
Even buyers who appear to focus only on the logic of the sale do so because they take pride in making a wise decision which, in itself, is the emotion factor.
Understanding the buyer and that person’s business will help you to help the client. With so much information available at our fingertips, nobody
… buying decisions are driven by emotional factors …
should make a sales call without knowing something about that industry, current trends, or even the company itself. When meeting face-to-face, find the prospect’s personal buying triggers.
Ask what he or she likes best and least about current vendors. Ask who in the company would actually use the product or service you’re selling, and how your company can be of assistance.
Is that price-only buyer you’re working with more interested in protecting a budget, or demonstrating accountability to superiors? In either case, once you find out, you can help.
Ask more questions, uncover more wants and needs, and sell benefits, not just facts. You’ll end up selling more. Lots more.
Joe Guertin is president of Joseph Guertin & Associates, an Oak Creek-based speaking, training and coaching firm. Your comments are invited at 762-2450, or jguertin@tcccom.net
May 1998 Small Business Times, Milwaukee

Anticipate problems when switching computers
When I was a kid, my dad purchased a new car every two years, always an Oldsmobile and always the auto that our family doctor was trading in on a new model.
I was reminded of that the other day when I got my new laptop. As a pseudo techno-geek, I have the enviable position of working for an early-adapter super techno-geek. That not only allows me to see and play with the latest and greatest technology, it also means that I get the chance to purchase the hand-me-downs.
The hand-me-down that was the latest object of my desire is a 150mhz MMX, 32mb, active screen, 10 spin CD-ROM, laptop.
I was somewhat comforted in taking on this used machine knowing that buying used enabled me to obtain more horsepower and a much nicer interior than I would have been able to afford if I had purchased new.
Like any recently purchased used auto, or computer, there were a few minor maintenance issues to be resolved before I could go zooming down the information highway. In my case, it was a Lithium Ion battery that brought me to my knees and made me realize how much of my life is now contained on a computer hard drive.
The machine worked fine as a computer, but as a laptop it was worthless. My battery would not take a charge.
Prior to purchasing my first laptop I was a hardcore desktop user. I believed that the screen real estate that one had to sacrifice in order to be mobile was not worth the convenience. Also, at the time laptops were not as powerful as the current state of the art.
The greatest challenge I had with this belief was that as I like to work at home as well as the office, the desktop solution was less than efficient. While I could copy documents onto a floppy or some other removable media to stay mobile I still always seemed to have left the document I most needed on the machine in the location other than the one where I had to do the computing.
A power-user friend of mine convinced me that switching to a laptop would solve my problems. He also said that once I switched to a laptop I would never want to go back to a desktop. I have found that to be true, as I cannot think of a reason why I would ever want to once again own a desktop computer. Except maybe that my aforementioned battery was not charging, thank goodness I had planned my move in advance.
If you have not changed computers for a while, let me tell you that it takes some careful planning before upgrading. If you have any meaningful interaction with a CPU – in other words, if you are doing any more than the most basic data entry – you have to think carefully about what you are about before your impending move.
Document management pays great dividends in these situations. I keep all my documents in the Windows 95 folder called “My Documents.” I never save a document to the root of “C.” This greatly narrows down my searches for mistitled docs as I at least know they are in the “my document” folder on one of the sub folders I have created in My Documents.
When I was preparing my move to the new machine I all I had to do was copy the “My Documents” folder onto Zip disks and transfer them onto my new machine.
It is the small utilities and helper applications that can be the wild card. For example, I have quite an extensive collection of well organized URL bookmarks inside my browser which I needed to move as well as a couple of older shareware applications which I would be lost without.
Don’t forget to search around the data files for your scheduling and e-mail applications. Most current applications will not allow you to simply transfer the application from one system to another, you must use the installation program to properly set up the application.
If you have used the application for some time, there may be some historical or back-up data files which you may need in the future, so think carefully about all the applications you most frequently use.
I tend to customize the menus in the office applications I use most frequently. It is amazing how accustomed one becomes in the appearance of one’s screen and how difficult is to recall were one went to perform the original customization.
Those are the most basic planning procedures one must go through when contemplating a move to a new system. The Nick Card rule of thumb states that when migrating to a new computer, expect a 30-day lag in optimum operator performance while the user tweaks the applications.
I was without my primary machine for about a week. Being homeless in cyberspace is not fun. I practically live in e-mail and my electronic calendar is my guidepost. I had to plan my day around using “vacant” PCs while their primary users were out of the office.
Luckily, being a techno-geek helped as I keep my contacts and calendar on a Pilot. I had the contacts I needed. The biggest challenge turned out to be making sure my Palmtop and my desktop schedules stayed in sync as I could not use the auto sync function with out my laptop.
So the moral of the story is three-fold: First, before migrating to a new machine plan carefully to make sure you get all the documents and data files you need to get your job done. Second, make sure that even if you are not contemplating a move that you back up your data files, you never know. And third, try to work for a techno-geek, like Paul Simon said “One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor.”
Nick Card is a pseudonym for an employee of Allied Computer Group in Milwaukee. Nick can be contacted via e-mail at nick@alliedcg.com.
May 1998 Small Business Times, Milwaukee