Excerpted from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
By Rebecca Carballo

The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation announced Tuesday that it will award nearly $500,000 in grants to Wisconsin nonprofits that encourage entrepreneurship.

Eleven of 32 applicants were chosen. Grants were awarded to organizations to help them provide education, mentoring, training, business development and financial services programs to Wisconsin’s entrepreneurs.

The grant requirements were more open-ended than other WEDC programs, so more nonprofits could receive funding, the agency said. The grants support a variety of projects and were created to address the needs of each region.

“Much of the economic growth the state has experienced over the last six years is a result of the efforts of the state’s entrepreneurs as they develop innovative products and services to meet the changing demands of their customers,” said Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch when the grants were announced Tuesday.

WEDC also sought projects that could be replicated throughout the state, including smaller communities and rural areas.

The recipients of the grants are:

• Center for Enterprise Development Inc., Fond du Lac ($40,000)
• Couleecap Inc., La Crosse ($53,676).
• Indianhead Community Action Agency, Ladysmith ($43,646).
• Janesville Innovation Inc., Janesville ($66,062).
• Milwaukee 7, Milwaukee ($60,000).
• Nicolet Area Technical College, Rhinelander ($27,000).
• Oconto County Economic Development Corporation, Oconto ($25,000).
• UW-Madison Law & Entrepreneurship Clinic, Madison ($75,000).
• UW-Stout Center for Innovation and Development, Menomonie ($60,000).
• Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, Madison ($15,000).
• UWM Research Foundation, Milwaukee ($33,000).

Read the full story.

Excerpted from Lodi Enterprise
By Tamar Myers

A new program to Lodi and Poynette School Districts enlists local businesses to help students envision their futures.

“It’s a real perspective on jobs in Wisconsin,” said Todd Anderson, a counselor at Poynette High School.

Through the Inspire Madison Area program, students can explore future careers by connecting with career counselors or find experiential learning opportunities such as job shadowing, tours and internships.

Inspire Madison Region is a supplement to Career Cruising, which is the career exploration software program the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction has made available to all public school districts in the state.

Beginning in fall of 2017, a state statute mandates that all sixth through 12th graders must receive academic and career planning. The Career Cruising software has resources to build a portfolio and explore different career paths, according to the DPI’s website.

“But where it’s lacking is connecting students to experiential learning opportunities,” said Gene Dalhoff, the Inspire Madison Region manager and the Vice President of Talent and Education for the Madison Region Economic Partnership (MadREP).

And so, Inspire Madison Region picks up there.

The Inspire Madison Region program was partly founded because of local businesses’ desire to recruit future employees, Dalhoff said.

“We’ve heard from companies that are concerned about the future of their workforce right now,” he said. “They are having difficulty finding enough employees and down the road, they’re going to have more difficulties. So they’re interested in building a worker pipeline.”

Businesses choose what they offer to Inspire, Dalhoff said. They can simply appoint “career coaches” to field questions from students about the business. Or, they can go further and offer job shadowing, tours, apprenticeships and internships.

Dalhoff said participants can be contacted by any student in the Madison area. Employers designate career coaches to answer student questions.

“It doesn’t matter if that career coach is five miles down the road or 100 miles down the road,” said Dalhoff.

Still, he encourages businesses to get involved to benefit local students. Ideally, Dalhoff said students should have the chance to job shadow and work with businesses in their own communities.

“When it comes to onsite learning opportunities,” he said, “the more local, the better.”

Read the full story.

Excerpted from channel3000.com

One of the most important civic conversations we are having right now is how to prepare our young people, as part of their education, for 21st century careers.

It speaks directly to how our schools function, to filling the jobs open today and tomorrow, and to the economic future of our region.

MadREP’s Inspire Madison Region initiative now has 41 school districts and 210 employers signed on to a program to connect businesses and schools to allow students to explore career options through direct contact with local employers, mentors and coaches.

These are up-close experiences that will help kids prepare to be the workers new economy businesses will need as they grow here. It’s smart strategy by MadREP, and – if done right – will help reduce disparities as it nurtures our workforce.

View the full transcript.

Excerpted from Rock County Alliance
By James Otterstein

Plastic Industries, Inc., a plastic packaging manufacturer that produces custom and stock bottles, has leased 75,0000 SF at 2929 Venture Drive in Janesville’s Beloit Avenue Industrial Corridor. The property, which is owned by STAG Industrial, is a multi-tenant building occupied by manufacturing and distribution firms. Once the facility’s tenant improvements and equipment installations are completed in early 2017, Plastic Industries will begin operations and eventually have up to 30 full-time employees.

Headquartered in New Hampshire, Plastic Industries is privately-held, blow-molding manufacturing company. With seven facilities located across the nation, Plastic Industries provides custom – as well as stock – bottles, containers, and canisters for the following markets: Specialty Beverage,  Food / Food Service, Healthcare, Industrial / Household Cleaners and the Automotive aftermarkets. In addition to offering custom design and mold making capabilities, the company utilizes state-of-the-art technology and its production facilities maintain industry recognized certifications (e.g. SQF Level II, AIB, IMS, etc.).

Beth Muscato, CEO of Plastic Industries commented, “We are excited to be expanding our manufacturing base in Janesville, Wisconsin, and investing and growing with the local community. We are a customer-centered, service-oriented company and look forward to expanding that focus in the upper mid-west.”

According to James Otterstein, Rock County Economic Development Manager, “This project continues to reinforce the narrative that manufacturing remains an important, as well as strong, economic component for Wisconsin and the Janesville-Beloit MSA. Our team looks forward to welcoming Plastic Industries into the area’s business community.”

Read the full article.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Madison, Wis. — The Madison Region Economic Partnership announced today that it has 41 school districts and 210 employers in the region signed on to participate in the Inspire Madison Region Program. The Inspire initiative is designed to better connect business and education by enabling students to explore career options with local employers through experiential learning activities which may include communicating directly with mentors, job shadowing, internships, apprenticeships and plant tours. The businesses that have signed on have also pledged 235 mentors/coaches and committed more than a thousand experiential learning activities.

“The workforce pipeline is critical to economic development and we are delighted to see so many districts and employers embracing this program as one of the many options for developing that pipeline,” said Paul Jadin, President of MadREP. “The program is an integral part of our Advance Now Strategy as well as the mission of our Business and Education Collaborative (BEC). We created the BEC to link business and education, and Inspire does exactly that.”

The initiative supplements the Career Cruising platform and is provided by the same vendor. Career Cruising is a Wisconsin DPI-funded program available to all school districts in Wisconsin which helps students learn about potential careers as they work their way through high school. Inspire takes that effort further by connecting education and industry in the Madison Region and enriching the local Academic Career Planning process for students, parents and educators.

“Inspire Madison Region is a unique resource that allows Madison Metropolitan School District to bring real world experiences into the classroom by connecting teachers and students with local business, community and post-secondary partners,” said Kristin Long, Career Education Coordinator for Personalized Pathways at Madison Metropolitan School District. “As we continue to build capacity for experiential learning in our District we are thrilled to see the broad range of careers and businesses that are represented,” Long said. “Students love connecting with our partners online because they can explore careers from anywhere and get answers to their individual questions.”

The Inspire license was funded through a grant from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation which is working with Wisconsin’s Regional Leadership Council, which Jadin chairs, to extend the effort to other regions. “I would like to see the Inspire program expanded throughout the rest of Wisconsin because it would provide economies of scale on purchasing the license and would create student mentoring connections statewide,” said Jadin.

Gene Dalhoff, who, as MadREP’s VP of Talent and Education, is charged with managing the program, pointed out that, “We are on track to get all of our region’s school districts on board and, while 210 companies is a great start, we need to keep adding to that list in order to produce the best experience for our students. It doesn’t cost anything to be highlighted on our site and it can help the companies develop their future workforce.”

“Inspire provides a great platform for business to connect with educators and students in order to help build our future workforce,” said Bridgett Willey, Director of Allied Health Education and Career Pathways at UW Health. “Our organization has been able to fulfill nearly 20 requests for speakers, student interviews and other career events in the schools through the Inspire platform. In addition, our clinical workforce has answered nearly 50 questions from students from various schools throughout the state, who are exploring careers in health care.”

Inspire is another way MadREP is engaging its rural communities in its economic development efforts. It is essential that businesses are brought on board as districts are signed up, particularly in those rural areas like Horicon. Steve Johnson, Factory Manager at John Deere Horicon Works, points out that, “John Deere Horicon supports Inspire Madison Region because it provides students with access to information about the types of jobs in manufacturing, the actual requirements of the jobs and allows connections to mentors who can provide students “real life” information about those jobs. It also can provide students with better information on what manufacturing is today and dispel the negative myths. Manufacturing can provide great jobs for all skills levels and the better we can connect students to these options through Inspire, it becomes a win-win for students and manufacturing.”

For more information, visit www.inspiremadisonregion.org.

Contact: Paul Jadin
pjadin@madisonregion.org | 608.571.0401