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Learning curve
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Auto-Comm leaders focus on budgeting process
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By MaryBeth Matzek
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Problem: No working budget
Solution: Taking time to understand the ins and outs of the entire business and its financial needs so decisions can be made without panicking.
When Duane Webber started Auto-Comm 10 years ago, working on a budget was easy. The provider of LED sign solutions continuously saw year-over-year growth. Then the great recession hit and that laissez-faire attitude came to an abrupt end.
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Enter stage left
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Entertaining refocus helps facility succeed
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By Sharon Verbeten
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The day before 9/11, entrepreneur Frank Micale purchased land off U.S. 41 in Neenah, poised to expand his business office space and launch a new venture. Not being able to foresee what would happen the next day – or in the next 10 years – Micale still knew he was taking a risk. But, he assumed, the time was right. So he took the plunge: securing the financing and planning to build Perfect Presentations, an innovative audio/visual conference facility aimed at servicing professional speakers, business managers and professional entertainers.
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Back in the driver's seat
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Career coach helps those who ask "What's Next"?
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By Sharon Verbeten
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In the days of Ward and June Cleaver and earlier, our parents and grandparents found careers and may have stayed with them for years, even decades, but times have changed. When that paradigm shift hits baby boomers, as it has in the recent recession, it can turn lives upside down.
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Opening Doors
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Improved Communication help take Mid Valley to next level
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By MaryBeth Matzek
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Change isn’t easy. With that in mind, Kevin Schmid, owner of Mid Valley Industries in Kaukauna, knew he would need help as the company transitioned ownership and grew to the next level. He turned to Shipra Seefeldt, owner of Strategic Solutions Counseling in Appleton and an expert in organizational change Read More...
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It's All About Me
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Communications tool facilitates understanding
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By Sharon Verbeten
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Effective leadership is a key tenet for any business, yet it’s one that’s often overlooked, or, at the very least, underemphasized. Joe Kiedinger, founder of Prophit Marketing in Green Bay, wants to change all that – giving leaders a chance to better understand their employees and, in the process, build Read More...
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Ancient Plant is Key
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Santal Solutions sees rapid growth
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By Sharon Verbeten
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For thousands of years, an indigenous tribe in India has used plants as medicine. Arun K. Chatterji has been using the ancient knowledge of the Santal tribe, combined with his scientific research, to offer modern applications for people to improve their weight, blood sugar, cholesterol and stress. As founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Fox Valley-based Santal Solutions, Chatterji has transformed his research into a company that sources, procures and licenses dietary supplements with naturally occurring plant-based ingredients – all with a focus on bio-availability, bio-diversity and sustainability.
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Bullfrogs, Blizzards and ballparks
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New team ownership, stadium plans keep sports entrepreneur busy
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By Sharon Verbeten
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Green Bay may be known primarily as a football town, but for sports entrepreneur Jeff Royle, diamonds and gridirons are ideal bedfellows.
“Baseball can work in a football town,” insists Royle, majority owner of Titletown Baseball Group and president of the Green Bay Bullfrogs. And after only three seasons housed at Joannes Stadium on the city’s East side, the team has proven that – leading the Northwoods League (NWL) in wins in its first season and snaring 75 percent capacity attendance ever since.
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Beep, beep, yeah!
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Lamers Bus Lines sees smooth ride ahead
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By Sharon Verbeten
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BY ALL ACCOUNTS, EVEN IN the midst of a recession, it’s been a very good year for Lamers Bus Lines. The company is building a new corporate headquarters in Green Bay, and earlier this year it sent nearly two dozen motorcoaches to the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Lamers also was recently named one of Read More...
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A global map quest
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American Digital Cartography customizes map data
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By Sharon Verbeten
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Twenty years ago, the acronym “GIS” (Geographic Information System) was unknown, and paper maps were often the only resource for navigation. Fast forward two decades. Navigating systems are light years ahead, GIS is omnipresent, and mapping information is utilized not just for street directions, but for a multitude of corporate applications.
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Dairy godfather
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Fledgling company aims to lessen learning curve for farmers
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By Sharon Verbeten
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The irony of Tom Wall's business isn’t lost on him. Before he started research for his business Dairy Interactive, the Brown County native had never milked a cow.
Today, however, his license plate reads “MOR M1LK” and his one-year-old incubator company in Denmark markets an animated interactive software program to teach milking routines to dairy farmers and their staff. Wall came up with the idea in much the same way many businesses are launched: he identified a need.
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A retail holy grail?
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Entrepreneur hopes to revolutionize point-of-purchase sales
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By Sharon Verbeten
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Can there possibly be a crystal ball that could predict and respond to what consumers want, immediately when they want it? A magic wand, of sorts, that would eliminate the “wandering hand” of consumers and instead lead it right to a specific product?
Appleton entrepreneur and career ad man George Kotalik believes there is such a retail holy grail – an innovation he and his team of backers call Power POD Systems.™
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Making of a maven
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Social media and marketing aid Sandra Began’s holiday business
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By Sharon Verbeten
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Sandra Began doesn’t need to pay much attention to the calendar. After all, when you’re in the holiday business, every day is Christmas. And putting a high-end spin on such a niche market has proven both to her – and to fans nationwide – that there’s no place like home for the holidays.
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Kickin’ up success
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Fond du Lac boot and shoe retailer makes Inc.’s Top 5000
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By Sharon Verbeten
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In the midst of a recession, when most businesses are laying off workers, it’s rare to find a company that is not only hiring but planning an expansion as well.
But boot and work shoe retailer JGear of Fond du Lac – recently named to Inc. magazine’s 5000 list – is doing just that. “We’re still growing very, very strongly, even in this recession,” says Barry Braganza, who co-owns JGear with his brother, Shane Baganz. (Shane uses an Anglicized version of their Portuguese name.)
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Sign of the times
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Cineviz packages digital signage and other interactive media solutions
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By Rick Berg
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Eyes follow a passerby as we walks past a store window. He stops to check it out and discovers that he can interact with the window display merely by touching it. That’s the magic of projection film – just one of a growing number of slick, interactive devices and software Scott Koffarnus is bringing to market through Cineviz, a company he started last year. There’s also The Cube – a device that projects images into a floor surface, allowing potential customers to play games or interact with the images. And there are audience analytics packages that let a retailer measure audience response and target advertising messages to the demographics of the audience viewing the message.
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Pop culture
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Twig’s Beverages in a bottling glass of its own
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By Sharon Verbeten
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Lying in a hospital bed halfway across the world almost 60 years ago, Floyd Hartwig was concocting a very tasty plan. The injured Korean War veteran returned to the United States and did a short stint in the refrigeration industry – a venture which, quite by design, led him into the beverage business.
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From annuities to art
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Bank’s partnership uses art as a marketing tool
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By Sharon Verbeten
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Randi Hillesø has been manager of marketing and communication for American National Bank Fox Cities for just one year, but already her out-of-the-box ideas are bringing a higher profile to the small, locally owned Appleton bank.
“We needed to gain visibility,” says Hillesø (her full name is pronounced RON-dee HILL-es-eyu). Even though ANB has been around for 16 years, she adds, “the changing economy required a different look and [we needed to] reposition ourselves.”
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Team effort
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Small business consultants partner to offer clients more
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By MaryBeth Matzek
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Meeting with a client to discuss different ways to improve the company’s operations, Gary Vaughan, owner of Guident Business Solutions, soon discovers an underlying problem – poor cash flow – that is hampering what the business is trying to do. Instead of trying to solve the issue himself or tell the client he can’t help, Vaughan calls in Tony Busch of Priora Cash Flow Management LLC to provide his expertise. The result? A happy, satisfied client.
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Seussian success
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Sheboygan firms collaborate on quirky annual report
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By Sharon Verbeten
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They really want to be on top…
And with six awards (and counting) they may never stop!
With a touch of Seussian genius, DuFour Advertising has gone beyond making a corporate annual report interesting – all the way to award-winning. The Sheboygan firm’s design and production of the 2007 annual report for Acuity Insurance has garnered six prestigious awards, ranging from local to international.
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Above and beyond
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Urban design sets Aloft Hotel apart in Ashwaubenon
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By Sharon Verbeten
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Did the Green Bay area really need one more hotel? That was one question developers asked themselves a few years ago before committing to building an Aloft Hotel in Ashwaubenon. And while most might believe the answer was “probably not,” Jay Supple, one of the project’s developers, and his partners were convinced the upscale hotel could succeed if it made enough of a statement. Read More...
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Filling a niche
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Nurse brings cozy co ffee shop ambience to Pulaski
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By Sharon Verbeten
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Perhaps not many people would take the route Chris Richter did about a year ago. She left a fairly recession-proof career – nursing – and started a business in a small town in the midst of a troubled economy. And while she may not take home a paycheck (yet), at least she can say she enjoys what she does.
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Troubleshooters
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Kerntke Otto McGlone partners put their money where their mouths are
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By Sharon Verbeten
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It’s all about the clients. While most business owners may use that phrase casually, the senior partners at Kerntke Otto McGlone Wealth Management Group in Appleton really put their money where their mouths are.
The quartet of financial planners believed so strongly in better serving their clients that they left their previous firm – all were independent contractors with Ameriprise Financial – and teamed up to launch Kerntke Otto McGlone two years ago. Collectively, they have more than 55 years of experience in financial planning. Read More...
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Powerful potential
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Appleton’s Virtualtech unleashes the power of websites
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By Sharon Verbeten
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It's not exactly a phrase you might expect to hear from the owner of a company steeped in the world of the Internet: “I hate computers.” But you won’t hear any apologies from Tammy Schultz, owner of Virtualtech, an Appleton firm that creates, designs and hosts websites and specializes in Internet marketing and promotion.
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Show and tell
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Security firm uses interactive showroom as marketing tool
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By Pam Pirman
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Perhaps the most valuable marketing advice any business owner can get is based on a favorite kindergarten activity: Show and tell.
The simple act of showing and telling customers about one’s products and services can be indispensable. That’s what Mike Wildenberg, owner of Lappen Security Products in Little Chute, has learned. And that’s what led the company – which has been around since 1953 – to invest in a new, 2,200-square-foot interactive showroom.
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