Excerpted from Janesville Gazette
By Neil Johnson

The company is seeing a resurgence as a recreational clutch manufacturer, ‘but many in Edgerton still don’t know Certified Parts Corp.’s Hoffco Comet clutch division is on the map.

After all, Comet is only housed in a 200,000-square-foot industrial building just a few blocks east of downtown. It’s only been the leading name internationally for clutches used in pretty much any go-kart, minibike, ATV, UTV or snowmobile on the market. And it’s only been located in Edgerton for three years now.

Still, Comet Division Vice President Jay Grafft recently had to call a local weekly newspaper with a reminder that the former Highway Trailer building at 415 Fulton Street is not vacant. Comet is in there.

“We’re sort of under the radar a little, I guess,” Grafft said as he moved through the mammoth facility.

The building houses hundreds of pieces of equipment for producing clutches along with a huge arsenal of equipment for Janesville company Certified Parts’ half-dozen other divisions. Eight full-time workers bustle at the plant, which quietly fills orders worldwide.

The uptick in production deals has kept the plant as busy as it’s ever been since it moved to Edgerton. Some orders have doubled, Grafft said. That’s pushed workers into a daily world of versatility.

The company now is forming a partnership with Blackhawk Technical College and Edgerton High School for an internships-to-hire program. It is using three-dimensional imaging CNC machines in training rooms at the plant to teach students specific production methods used in the Comet division.

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Excerpted from Daily Union
By Chris Welch

The message in the 1989 movie “Field of Dreams” was, “If you build it, they will come.”

However, it’s quite the opposite in Whitewater, where “If you come, you can build it” is the mantra at the newly opened Makerspace, located in the Bluff Road Marketplace building.

The idea of a space where people can make or learn how to make things — a “Makerspace” — has grown in popularity across the nation in recent years, with 113 individual Makerspaces of various sizes east of the Mississippi River.

In short, people go to a Makerspace to use tools and equipment that they might not be able to afford, or have space for, on their own.

Makerspace members range from professional artists to casual hobbyists, tinkerers, and crafters; from someone who simply wishes to learn how something is done, to people seeking to fill a special need (such as, for example, replacing a single section of carved trimming on a Victorian home).

The not-for-profit Whitewater Makerspace had a “soft opening” on Oct. 1, and while it is open for members to join and come to build things, not every piece of equipment is fully operational yet

According to Whitewater Makerspace consultant David Buggs, a more celebratory grand opening will be held before the end of the year. The soft opening, however, already has led to numerous activities at the site.

Paul Jadin, president of the Madison Region Economic Partnership, an eight-county consortium of which Jefferson and Rock counties are members, said that Makerspaces are an excellent testing ground for entrepreneurs.

“We regard them to be part of our overall effort here at MadREP, especially the innovation and entrepreneurship plank of our platform,” he said. “That platform calls for us to work more with entrepreneurs to establish more worker-spaces and provide a better network for them while giving them access to more mentors.

“Makerspaces … are very important to that whole networking opportunity and to that whole effort to create space in which entrepreneurs can test concepts or test prototypes,” Jadin said. “It’s a great way to find advice from other people who have succeeded.”

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Excerpted from Janesville Gazette
By Jim Leute

Greg Piefer sees a parallel between his young company and the city of Janesville.

Both are fighting through challenges to reach prosperity, he said.

“We’re a start-up company trying to do the right things, make the world a better place and make some money along the way,” Piefer said Thursday as the keynote speaker at the luncheon preceding the annual Rock Regional Business and Marketing Expo.

“We’re facing issues and challenges and fighting through them, just as Janesville is doing.”

SHINE is working toward regulatory approval of a $85 million production plant that will use low-enriched uranium in a series of eight accelerators to produce molybdenum-99, a medical isotope used in more than 30 kinds of diagnostic imaging procedures and more than 40 million medical imaging tests each year.

The plant is expected to open in late 2016 and generate annual revenues of $200 million in 2017, Piefer said.

SHINE picked Janesville over two other Wisconsin cities.

It was a difficult decision, but Piefer said he has no regrets.

“When we looked at Janesville, we saw an amazing workforce that could be retrained if needed, one with an outstanding work ethic,” Piefer said.

He also referenced the area’s leadership, infrastructure and economic incentives.

“We’re doing this in partnership with Janesville, Rock County and the state of Wisconsin,” Piefer said. “We got tax incentives and assistance in securing loans.

It’s a two-way street, he said.

The company will create 150 high-paying jobs, and it will serve as an outreach tool for the community, an example of a high-tech company that can thrive outside of Madison, Piefer said.

“We’ll show people that if you need a solution outside of the UW, we want it in Janesville,” he said. “Janesville is building a reputation, and the people in Madison are very aware of what’s going on here.

“This region is coming alive, and we’re looking forward to being a part of that.”

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Excerpted from Beloit Daily News
By Hillary Gavan

Rock County 5.0 released an Inspire Rock County promotional video during today’s Regional Business Expo in Janesville to alert the public about its new career readiness website.

Inspire Wisconsin-Rock County, a online one-stop-shop at www.inspirerockcounty.org, will allow students, primarily in the middle school through college years, to scout out careers and companies of interest in Rock County.

At the new site students and parents or teachers can search for internship, job shadowing and even employment opportunities for young people. Some companies may agree to have coaches or mentors signed up to answer students’ questions about what courses to take in high school or college and how to be the best in their chosen field.

Otterstein said the portal gives equal access to all students and can give them connections to the work world they may not otherwise have. The connections could lead to internships and eventually full-time jobs.

More than 50 companies throughout Rock County, representing various industry clusters and company ownership structures, already have committed to participate. Nearly 130 work-based learning activities have been entered into the system, and approximately 50 volunteers have stepped forward to serve as virtual career coaches.

Otterstein said Rock County 5.0’s new business and education strategy will help employers get a better-prepared workforce. And businesses will increase their visibility while informing future workers about local career and job opportunities.

“It provides a win-win for everyone: better information, more interaction opportunities, less info hunting, increased engagement and communication efficiencies which is a huge when taking into account staff and resource capacity issues in the K-12 system,” he said.

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Excerpted from Janesville Gazette
By Neil Johnson

In a pitch to local realtors and developers at a development junket Wednesday, Milton City Administrator Jerry Schuetz borrowed a quote from the UW-Madison athletic director.

“To paraphrase Barry Alvarez, he once said, ‘If you want season tickets, you’d better get them now,’” Schuetz said. “Well, I’m saying, ‘If you want to get into Milton, you’d better get in now.’”

Schuetz was speaking at a breakfast briefing Wednesday morning attended mostly by local stakeholders—Milton-area bankers, realtors and residential developers. But the message was one Schuetz said city officials plan to repeat to companies he says already are sniffing around the 250 acres of land offered for development along the new Highway 26 bypass/Highway 59 corridor.

Schuetz said he’s had phone calls from three or four restaurant and retail developers in the last month who said they like the visibility of parcels along the new bypass, which cuts a high, swinging arc past the city’s east side.

To the layperson driver who passes undeveloped land along the new bypass, which was completed a little over a month ago, it appears the road goes east around Milton. Schuetz said the city views the new road’s curve differently, and Schuetz plans on selling it differently, too.

The city’s lens: The bypass runs right through the Crossroads Business Park, a city tax increment financing district that blankets the interchange of Highway 59 and the new Highway 26 bypass.

Hence, Schuetz explained, the city’s former backyard is now its front yard.

“Now it (the bypass) goes through the city,” Schuetz said “This (business park) is going to be a gateway to the city.”

In the briefing Wednesday, Schuetz unveiled some of the city’s plans for developing city and privately held land in the business park. Among the items he showed realtors and developers were maps from a consultant study that showed how the business park is organized in parcels sectioned off and organized.

The plans show separate uses for business, retail and commercial properties on parcels to the west of the bypass and industrial development to the east of it.

Schuetz explained that chunks of land in the business park vary from 60 to 15 acres, and though some are still owned privately, they’re all included in a city TIF district. That makes the parcels eligible for city incentives designed to offset land purchase and development costs.

Milton-area Realtor Fred Hookham said he believes the completion of the bypass was well timed, dovetailing with resurgence in the economy.

“With some apparent optimism returning to the business community, we’re perfectly positioned now. The Milton bypass is done now just in time to grab the first attention of the people, the developers, that want to make a move early on,” Hookham said. “And we’ve got enough variety of parcels between commercial and manufacturing that it really bodes well.”

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