 To love where you live, a monthly magazine of the wonderful things happening in Sheboygan County. The things that we believe you should know about so that you can either participate or you can brag a little because there are a lot of good things going on. This morning I have as my guest Jim Shusler who is with the Sheboygan County Economic Development Corporation. And I'm glad to have him here. There is a lot going on, isn't there Jim? Absolutely. I wouldn't trade places with anybody else in America for what we have to offer here in Sheboygan County. Wow, that's saying a lot. And you know, I see people all the time outside of our county who say what is going on there? How can that much activity be happening in Sheboygan? So that's why you're here as our guest today. We're going to talk a little bit about that. From where you sit Jim, what's the number one priority for the Sheboygan County Economic Development Corporation? Well, we've got one priority, but Betsy, I've got to break it into four parts. And those four parts are workforce, attraction, expansion opportunities, as well as entrepreneurial for first and second stage. Workforce, you know, a bit on that is that we've got more jobs available than we have people. The awesome thing is we've got a great place to draw them to. And so it's required us to actively draw people from the outside. When we typically talk about workforce, people think the skills gap and we have that here. We certainly need to bring in skilled folks, but we also have an opportunity that most areas of the country don't have to offer and that is this entry level opportunities where someone without any skills can walk into a job, get trained for that job. And then they're earning about $35,000 to $40,000 here with phenomenal benefits. We have multiple companies that offer that. So it's a surprising thing that we have to make them aware of. The attraction area is specific to drawing in and filling in all the gaps that we have. For example, all of the apartment buildings that are in development right now, some of them are just coming through the end of the pipeline. Some of them are still getting ready to get a shovel into the ground, but all over the county we're going to be seeing about 900 units all in over the course of this 18 month period here. And it's because we don't have enough housing to provide the housing necessary for the folks that have been moving in here. Plus some of the housing that's being developed is offering different kind of amenities that folks that didn't necessarily grow up in Sheboygan County are looking for. The alternative is those folks that have been moving to Grafton, Cedarburg, and commuting to Sheboygan, Port Washington, even Manitowoc County because we didn't have the housing that they wanted or enough of the housing. And it even goes into single family housing of late Manitowoc County of which has been declining, the job market has been declining month after month. Their housing market is skyrocketing and the hypothesis is is because we're virtually out of homes for sale in Sheboygan County that people are gravitating there. And so we need to completely exploit that because if people can do without a commute, let's deliver that for them. Expansion opportunities. The most recent one that was announced was Masters Gallery. And we've constantly got to be ready for our great local companies expansion opportunities. They had looked at Texas, they had looked at Colorado, and working with multiple stakeholders we were able to put together a plan. Woosburg did a great job of ruling that one home and now we've got a new production facility breaking ground in Woosburg. And then the final area is something we've only been working on since about 2014. And playing a little catch up as a result is his entrepreneurial activity. And that's first stage, somebody wants to start an entry level business. But it's also the second stage businesses. Some of them that we recently worked on, Three Sheeps Brewery, when they moved from Hopps Haven into the former Koch facility is someone that we engaged with them, helped them when they were at their business plan, built up their financials, worked with them on the financing strategies. And we've got a lot of second stage in the pipeline right now. So that's the one thing. Boy, excellent. And it translates into four things. Absolutely. That's great news. We've got a task in economic development. Fortunately, we've got a team that are engaged. It's certainly not just me that does that. Right, right. We've got a board that's very engaged. And the members, the other members of Shawing County Economic Development are all engaged on delivering these outcomes. Small business development center has been very helpful in our second stage and entry level activities. So it's a genuine, a true team effort to make this all happen. Right. A lot of things going at the same time. I believe one of the most successful initiatives that I've heard about or that I'm aware of in the last year has been the Joseph Project. Can you tell us a little bit more about that and how it started for people who don't know? And then, you know, where it's heading. You bet. Well, speaking of workforce, that's what that's all about. And there is no silver bullet to address the workforce opportunity that we have in Shawing County. So one of the steps that was developed, and it started in the conference room on the main floor of Plymouth City Hall, and it was a meeting that was held with one of our state, one of our U.S. senators, a gentleman named Orlando Owens. I was actually meeting with him, trying to get them to support a grant that we were seeking for red-writer manufacturing, working north and south. And whereas Senator Johnson doesn't sign a lot of grant letters or any, through the course of that conversation, that free, far-ranging conversation, we connected on the opportunity that we had for entry-level jobs. Orlando happens to be from Milwaukee. So from that, Orlando, who was participating in pastoral activities, introduced us to a pastor down in Milwaukee, north side of Milwaukee, and so Pastor Jerome Smith and other pastors, we brought them to Sheboygan, plus a few potential job candidates. And we did a tour of the city, actually of the county, and then we toured several manufacturing facilities to show the kind of jobs that were available. It really opened everyone's eyes. And so it's evolved into something that's, their goal this year is to bring 400 people, additional people through the Joseph Project. It's expanded beyond Sheboygan County, which is wonderful because the ultimate goal is delivering the outcomes people are looking for work. The Joseph Project reaches beyond perceptions that people have of folks in urban areas. It really, through the church, we're absolutely able to find people that are interested in working, and things happen in life. And so we found people. We found young people. We found people that would be mid-age, that are all interested in working, and because we have so many great companies here in Sheboygan County, these folks now have careers. The other thing that's evolving from it is that some folks are interested in actually moving here. The Joseph Project has a transportation module to it where people are transported back and forth from Milwaukee. The van that says someplace better. That gets old. And although a lot of people in a lot of places have a one-hour commute, so it's not something new. But one of the wonderful things that's emerging is now folks have good incomes, they have great benefits, and they're looking for homes here to take advantage of the amenities we have. And that's even helped trigger the trailing spouse in a lot of cases, has helped trigger additional ethnic entrepreneurial opportunity, which is wonderful. Yes, it is. And I mentioned the someplace better van. The someplace better program that was launched by our two organizations, what has it been now? A year and a half? It was two years in January. It has really picked up speed. I think we can ask the people who watch this show to do some things for us in that regard. And one of them always occurs to me, and that is to go to the website someplace better.org. Take a look at it, go through the jobs, send a link to people that you know who are friends, family, people you know in other places, and let them know about the positions that are open here. Because that kind of, if we can get that kind of traction, I know the response has already been phenomenal, and I don't know what the numbers are now, but that is the most visited part of that website is the job availability. And the thing about someplace better is it really is connecting with the fact that we do have something special here. Yes. A lot of people in a lot of places have special things, but if you've lived anywhere else, you know, you've seen the good, you've seen the not so good, and it really, having lived anywhere else, you know, and my career has taken me from Des Moines to St. Louis to LA to Seattle, I've seen some pretty cool things in my lifetime. But we have this foundation here that really starts from the lake front, and then you roll the kettles in, and you really, really don't find a lot of places that have that diversity of opportunity. So I'll give you an example, is my mother volunteers for a food pantry in northern Wisconsin where she has retired to. And she said, hey, you know, I want to connect these folks with jobs, looking for opportunity. So what I did is I brought up a bunch of these little business cards that said someplacebetter.org and encouraged them to hand those out to folks that are in a tough position, you know, in their life, because we do have many career opportunities. Someplace better connects you to career opportunities, but it also gives you an introduction to Sheboygan County, and it kind of gives you a good visual introduction to what it's like here. And then it also shows housing alternatives and, you know, and all of those different things. Schools, just everything. Even right down in the clubs. Exactly right. A lot of hands went into building that, and it's a tremendous success that continues to grow. Yeah, it really is appreciated, and I know we refer people to it all the time. And then, of course, we have the hardcover book, which will start coming out again next January. I think we'll have a new edition already. So yeah, it's going fast. And our employers appreciate those efforts. I think they are really putting the website and the booklet to good use to try to recruit great people to come to Sheboygan County. I also want to touch base on the programs that you provide so that if somebody's watching and they're thinking of starting a business, how do they make that connection and then what happens when they meet with you? We are very focused on growing those next generations of business. So we, I serve as the point of entry for the Economic Development Organization, meeting with the entrepreneur, and that entrepreneur might have an idea, I want to start a day care. We're looking for daycares, by the way, or I want to open a restaurant. Or I've got this thing that I'm manufacturing now out of my home and I've identified some markets but I really need to blow it up and typically engineers aren't as well versed in sales and marketing skills so we can help wrap that up. The other example is those next stage companies and we have many of them in the pipeline. One that I can discuss is, for example, Three Sheeps. Grant Pauley knows, had really worked hard at his craft. He creates an incredible product. He also totally gets marketing. I mean he got all those things and he got where he needed to, he knew where he needed to go to grow that business to the next stage. So we brought in small business development center, built financials, laid on the marketing strategies on top of it, where was the product going to go, needed capacity, the way you grow your business is added capacity, sales and marketing and worked with him. We worked with a lot of non-traditional finance alternatives so came up, working with Grant, came up with an alternative that worked specific for his business and now he's absolutely kicking in that next stage out of the facility on North in Sheboygan. Great example. Great example. Thank you very much for coming today and for sharing these stories with us. Happy to be happy to EDC. Thank you. Absolutely. I would like to contact the SCEDC and if you're thinking of starting a business, if you want your business to grow, if you want to move to Sheboygan County and all kinds of interesting things going on there. So thanks Jim, appreciate you being here today. Welcome back to Love Where You Live. I am very excited today to welcome the winners of the Sheboygan County Chamber Champions Award in the service category for 2016. Our champion storage members of the Chamber. This is the largest group we've ever had here because this business is definitely a family affair and so really pleased to have all of you here this morning. If you would do me the favor of introducing yourselves to the audience, that would be great. Great. Well, I'm Jerry Fletcher and this is my wife Diane Fletcher and we are the owners of Champion Storage and we have our two daughters, is that? I'm Jenna and I'm in charge of marketing. Okay. And I'm Amanda. I'm in charge of handling customer service as well as accounts receivable. And as I understand it, these duties continue to get more and more and more and more as the company grows. I remember, I believe, what was maybe your second ribbon cutting, maybe the first. I can't even keep count anymore of how many units you have in your business, but it is definitely a very successful and well-branded product. I'd like you to start by telling us a little bit about the beginnings of the business and how you got it off the ground. Maybe started. Jerry has always been intrigued by the storage business. Back before we even started, we'd be driving around different places and he'd always be pointing out different storage buildings and he just thought it was a fabulous idea that people, if their garages got too full or their homes or they were moving, had a place to temporarily store their things. So time went on and we decided, well, maybe we should look into this. So we started driving around different areas in Sheboygan County and first maybe looking if there was any possibilities of buying storage facilities. And then we soon decided we wanted to build our own, so we started looking for land. And so our first purchase was six acres of land on Playburg Road and it worked out fabulous. Yeah. So with our first building, we also had a lot of obstacles that we weren't aware of. Examples such as who builds these type of buildings? How many units do you fit in a building? What type of rates do you charge? There's a lot of obstacles that we had no mentors involved and basically just kind of winged it, professionally winged it if there's such a word. You have a pilot's license? And also being involved with the, it's called the WSSA, Wisconsin Self-Storage Association, that helped us a lot as learning the laws as far as storage facilities, the do's and don'ts, and then also meeting with other storage unit operators throughout the state of Wisconsin that helped us enormously. And that was like in 1990, 2001 I believe it was, roughly, when we joined that. Once again, our first building was 20 years ago. So we continue to grow. We're a company that we're cautious as far as what we do, but yet in the same breath we are aggressive. We look at the demand as far as what is going on in the community. We're extremely, we take a lot of pride in what we do throughout everything from maintenance to our customer service is extremely important. Once again, the adage is, if you don't take care of your customers, you don't have a customer. So that is very high on our list to take care of as our customers. Absolutely. And it shows. It definitely shows. So it's a family business, through and through, as noted here with the entire family in the studio today. Did everyone decide to take this on together, or did you have a bit of negotiating and convincing to bring, like, did it take some negotiating and convincing to bring you in? Well, I think I can speak for Man and I that it was something that was never really discussed when we were growing up. So it just kind of happened. However, growing up with a family business, it was something that we were always around, always hearing conversations, you know, even though we were little, we were in the sense a part of it. And so it's not too surprising that things worked out this way. It kind of started for me. My mom just kind of asking for help here or there, like, can you look at this for me? Or can you help me with this? Or just little things very sporadically that got a little bit more frequent. And I think that kind of sparked something in her to realize that, you know, champion storage is really growing. Maybe I do need some help. And so how about you just work one day a week? And it basically snowballed from there. Very nice. And I agree with Jenna. This was really never in the plan. Jenna went off to get her bachelor's in marketing. I actually got my degree in hospitality management. So her marketing experience and me working in the tourism industry helped me grow with the customer service knowledge that I am able to bring to champion storage. If you would have told me 10 years ago that I'd be living in Sheboygan and the four of us would be working together all day, every day, I would not have believed it. But amazingly, it works out great. We all have our own opinions. We sometimes don't agree on the opinions that one another has, but we all have a high amount of respect for one another and it just, it works. It works for us. That's great. Any advice for people considering a family business? Well, I think in that regard, we do have a strong family background. I came from a family business and Jerry's been in business for himself his life. So we brought that forward. I guess the thing we decided is everybody has their own responsibilities. They both have, Jenna and Amanda have their expertise that they brought to our business. Jerry has, we all interrelate, but we all have our own responsibilities. So it helps us to have our individual tasks that we need to do. And I think that's the utmost thing, trusting each other, respecting each other. In any company, that's what you need. And by having it be a family business, it's important. Family's important. We still have our family time when we get together with our grandkids and stuff. So you got to have, you got to balance it. Anybody else have a comment about advice for a family business? Well, I think one thing that we learn is name and a company is important. When we first started out, our first, our first building, our name of our company, Diane, like this name, it was called Chesapeake. And her being in a family business, in a bike business, she wanted to name a bike with this name Chesapeake. And it got voted down in her family that that was not going to work. So she had this mindset that our company was going to be called Chesapeake Warhouse. Well, it set pretty good for me for the first building or two. And then we had customers that couldn't spell Chesapeake, which even today I have to take a step back and think about how do you spell Chesapeake? It's hard to write the check. Exactly. And then we had a customer one day come in and ask if this is Cheapskate Storage. And right there from Cheapskate Storage, it's like, you know what, I think we got to change this name. So we worked with the CH with Chesapeake and worked out into Champion Storage. So that's... And they're doing a website. We wanted them to be able to find a website. That's her one story. Great story. Now if somebody can kind of give us a kind of a capsule view of the business as it is now and then the plans for the future and, you know, just give that numbers and picture for people. We have...today we have 10 different locations in Sheboygan, Coney. We're mainly based on the north side of Sheboygan. That's where the majority of our locations are. But we're very proud to say that we're expanding into Usberg as well as the town of Wilson. Our main focus is mini storage units as well as warehousing. So our mini storage units range anywhere from 5x10 units all the way up to 12x40s. These customers that are looking for storage units typically want to store household goods as well as their vehicles. As far as the warehousing, we offer anywhere from 2,000 square feet up to approximately 20,000 square feet. To run a business out of or just store a collection of cars, it's really for anything. Very nice. So then our next project is going to be... We purchased in December a 20-acre partial between Sheboygan, between the Walmart and Hardscrove on Highway 42. And we have some future plans to build a total of 18 buildings on that. It's going to take about 5 to 10 years, we realize that. But this year we're going to break around. We're going to have the site work completed. And we're going to initially put up three buildings this year. This is going to be a late summer fall project. And it's going to continue every year as needed. And that's why I'm saying this could be a five-year program up to 10 years. Okay. So we're extremely excited about that. I think we love Sheboygan. Yeah, I think so. I'd better get our ribbon-cutting scissors ready. Is that the message here? I think so. That's great. That's great. We have a lot going on and we're excited. And I have to speak from the Chamber of Commerce standpoint. You've been very much involved in the Chamber and have also worked with the SEVC in building your business. It's always a pleasure when you see people begin to participate and then come in for more and more along the way that is valuable to them. And you said after the show, you're heading over to be part of the Google Apps presentation this morning. So that's music to my ears. And so I congratulate you. I'm, if you just spend a minute talking about that, about why you're involved in the community and in the Chamber in particular. Well, I feel the Chamber has been a big part of us being a family business. It's been Jerry and I in the beginning. You don't have a lot of resources of people that ask questions or bring to our company. It's a small company. The girls, it was great. They went to college. They brought in a lot of information. But as far as Sheboygan County and working with other business people, the Chamber has been fantastic. We enjoy the focal point meetings in the morning. We go to as many as we can. And like you said, the Google Apps thing today. There's nothing that we go to that doesn't bring some information back that we don't implement somehow with our business. It's a wealth of information. We like the after hours. That's like more casual setting with networking with other businesses and getting to know them. So I think our Chamber is fantastic. I think one of our big events too that we enjoy the four of us is the Chamber gulf outing. This year, we're going to sponsor a whole. So we're looking forward to that. It's the 20th anniversary this year. So we are reaching out to try to do extra special things and. Excellent. And that's a way to touch base with everybody at the outing. So it is a great way to get your, and you can have a game or you can do something fun. I'm sure that you're no fun at all. So it's a great event. And I'm not sarcastic either. So it's been a real pleasure knowing you and also congratulations on being the Chamber champion in that services category. That's a big deal. It's the largest category that we have. So that came through your hard work and your dedication. So please to watch you in the future. Can't wait to see the new stuff coming along the way. And thank you so much for coming in this morning. This is great. Thank you for having us. Yeah, we appreciate you inviting us.