Excerpted from Janesville Gazette
By Jim Leute

Rock County now has its third shovel-ready business park, and one economic development official said it’s just a matter of time before companies start building on the properties.

Rock County 5.0 announced today that Edgerton’s Business Park has earned the Ady-Austin consulting group’s shovel-ready designation.

Edgerton joins Beloit and Janesville as Wisconsin’s only, third party certified shovel-ready industrial/distribution sites, said James Otterstein, Rock County’s economic development manager.

Rock County is considered a leader in the shovel-ready movement. The state is working on a similar program, “Ready, Set, Build,” which has yet to certify any sites in Wisconsin.

The Edgerton park has 42 acres of land certified as shovel-ready.

Because Rock County 5.0 has done the certification work, prospects could start construction in as few as 30 days and avoid a six- to eight-month delay while they pay someone else to certify the property.

In addition, prospects can use a full suite of tools Rock County 5.0 offers at each of the sites, including an online portfolio of six building designs that meets building codes and the requirements of the county’s three shovel-ready industrial parks.

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Excerpted from BizOpinion
by Tom Still

Jeff Helgesen, one of Rock County’s largest developers, doesn’t parse words when he’s asked if the Janesville area is better off today than it was when General Motors Corp. was the 800-pound gorilla in town.

“No question about it: I think Janesville is much better off today,” said Helgesen, president of Helgesen Development Corp. “We’ve shifted to a more technological type of business and to (computer-driven) manufacturing. We were forced to come to grips with our future.”

There are still plenty of laid-off GM workers who would disagree, but the rebirth of a diverse economy in Janesville, Beloit and the rest of Rock County is a success story in the making. It bears watching by other communities in Wisconsin.

The closing of the Janesville GM assembly plant in late 2008 meant 5,000 jobs at GM and other auto-related firms were wiped out, sending Rock County into a tailspin just as the worst of the recession hit Wisconsin and the nation. The county’s unemployment rate peaked around 13 percent.

Of late, however, the news out of Janesville and Beloit has been much better. Companies such as Kettle Foods, United Alloy, Universal Recycling Technologies, SSI Technologies and Kerry Ingredients have expanded.

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Excerpted from Janesville Gazette
By Stan Milam

The $2.05 million Janesville manufacturing incubator project, the only one of its kind in southern Wisconsin, is on schedule for completion Nov. 15.

The steel framework is now in place to outline the 18,0000-square-foot project on Venture Drive on Janesville’s south side near the intersection of Beloit Avenue and Avalon Road. The facility will be able to accommodate four manufacturing areas with separate outside entrances in addition to nine office suites with separate entrances.

“The facility features moveable wall partitions for maximum flexibility,” said Vic Grassman, economic development director for the city of Janesville. “We will be able to configure the building to satisfy tenants’ needs.”

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Excerpted from Wisconsin State Journal
By Judy Newman

Anteco Pharma, Lodi, plans to add at least half a dozen employees by the end of the year now that its building addition is completed.

The $3.5 million construction project gives Anteco 40,000-square-feet of space in its building at 925 Development Dr., up from 12,500 square feet, adding warehouse space and a cafeteria and locker rooms for the company’s 20 employees in addition to more manufacturing space.

Howard Teeter, president and managing partner of the privately-owned, contract pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturing business, said it is the first phase of a plan to boost employment to 80 and multiply Anteco’s revenue tenfold by 2016.

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Excerpted from Wisconsin State Journal
By Judy Newman

Two young Madison tech companies, Murfie and Vidmaker, got a big boost this spring when they were accepted into TechStars — and one came back with a virtual pocketful of cash.

TechStars is a prestigious, three-month accelerator program. It started in Boulder, Colo., in 2006 and now holds annual sessions in Cambridge, Mass.; New York City; Seattle; and San Antonio. Thousands of companies apply; only about 10 per session are chosen.

Vidmaker lets people in different places make a video together online. The company started last June with no funding, co-founder Dale Emmons said.

“I cashed out my 401(k) and lived on that for a while,” said Emmons, 29, who quit a job with Sony Creative Software to chase his dream.

Just weeks after returning from TechStars in San Antonio, Vidmaker has landed $550,000 from investors, including Graham Weston, co-founder of Rackspace Hosting, a publicly traded San Antonio information technology hosting company with $1 billion in annual sales.

Emmons said TechStars offered “an enormous pool” of successful tech entrepreneurs as mentors. “We went from a couple of guys with an idea and some ability to build a product into knowing how to go out and get funding, how to ask for help when we need it, and now, access to a gigantic network,” said Emmons, who grew up in Bangor, near La Crosse, and left UW-Madison two courses short of a computer science degree.

Vidmaker hopes to launch a prototype version later this year. The company, at 612 W. Main St., has four employees — including Emmons and co-founders Ryan Bolyard and Yuri Zapuchlak — and plans to hire one more.

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