 Welcome to Love Where You Live, a new monthly series by the Sheboygan County Chamber. I'm Betsy Alice, executive of the chamber, and I'll be your host for this series. Very excited this morning to welcome Chad Peleshek, the director of planning for the city of Sheboygan. And we're gonna talk a little bit about the marine sanctuary project as well as the fresh coast concept that you're hearing about now in the news. Welcome, Chad. Good morning. I'd just like to give a little background for our viewers on the marine sanctuary project, kind of where it started, how we got involved, and then we can move on from there. Sure, back in the 2009, 2010 timeline, we were approached by NOAA, which is the National Oceanic Administrative Administration. Thank you for that. And they approached the city about this concept of a national marine sanctuary in the waters off of Sheboygan and the coastline from two rivers to Port Washington and the fact that there was a number of shipwrecks that could be preserved under a national process. We didn't know much about it at that time. Mayor Ryan was the then mayor and we did a little bit more research about it, but we found out that it was a process that it seemed like a good designation for the communities to undertake, but there was some holes on the federal level and trying to get something like this approved. There was a lease of trainer walker to be considered for a designation under developed as part of that process. And then it can be published in the federal register and we can ultimately become designated as a federal national marine sanctuary. And I think that one of the most important things about this or one of the most novel parts of this is that we have four communities involved. That is correct. And three counties and that all four cities and all three counties have all signed signed on to resolution supporting it as well as 150 other organizations in this area. And now I think it's a matter of trying to have each community have its own unique approach to it so that we all attract people here and serve our communities with the communities and to, you know, provides that. We really want this to be a, but what if we- A bit more about that. I know people are very interested in that subject. Certainly from a business standpoint and an education standpoint, there are huge ramifications for the future for our schools and for all the school kids, you know, across the Midwest. That is correct. And, you know, when we looked at where we see, where we see, yes, and they've done a great job laying out exhibits. So we've got the footwork there to send the national marine sanctuary piece in connecting with our kids. It's called STEAM Education, but it's really about bringing kids out and connecting them through different options of getting into these types of fields at a younger age and that they, you know, ultimately when they would graduate from high school would have a basis for going into these types of positions and opportunities that are right here in our own county. Well, very nice. I'm going to switch a little but it's still in the same topic area. We have the, you talked about the space, the spaceport project and how it's developed and I have to say personally and professionally, it's been an amazing transformation. We use their facility quite often for education events, things like that in their auditorium and then everybody gets exposed to how different it is now, how wonderful it is, but it's going to become even more wonderful from what I understand. There is a lot of talk about the new project and I'm going to let you talk about that. I think it's fabulous. Sure, so a group of city leaders and nonprofits got together and said, let's build a model for what this could look like. So we came up with a three phase project. Phase one of the project is to purchase and install the science on the sphere, which is a, there's only one other one of these in the state and that's in the Monona Nature Center and what it is is a six foot diameter globe that is a screen that turns in the middle of the room and you've got four projectors and you get real time data sets from NOAA. So NOAA is not only national marine sanctuaries, they're also the weather center people, they're also the oceanic and they have ties to the whole kind of atmospheric stuff that goes on. So they've got all this data sets that they're able to provide to you under their program when you purchase their equipment and they can send you real time or past historical data that you can use as an educational tool. So students in our schools could come and be able to participate in those types of activities and learn real time what's happening with earthquakes and those types of things. Phase two is a development of a SEMA lab, which is a NASA lab would allow a spaceport to put the NASA logo on the outside of their building, which is huge from a marketing standpoint and would bring in 10 or 12 different workstations into the spaceport that would be tied to NASA and that you could learn real time how the whole space evolution and all that works. And then the third phase of it is to build a new building on South Pier somewhere that could be tied to spaceport that would really tie the sea side of things. So there could be such things as real time robotic training with our companies and some of the stuff that they do. It could be maker space if you were an entrepreneur and inventor and wanted to go and make some stuff, you could have space to do that. Real life playgrounds on schooners and tying kids to the waterfront and being able to learn how to do sailing and all of that kind of stuff. So that's probably a four year out or so process, but it's really about trying to leverage year round tourism and making people wanna come here, even our residents and people moving into this area to wanna be able to use this on a year round basis and have an asset that would draw people in. And the whole exploration and innovation part of it, I think is key to our differentiation as an area as we look at the marine sanctuary. I'm very excited about it. I think it has huge potential for everyone. Yeah, I would agree and I would think, I don't think there's anything like this anywhere else in the state of Wisconsin or even in the Midwest to this degree. So if we can get the support and get this done, I think this is gonna be another feather in our hat for why people would wanna move here and why people would wanna participate and get their kids involved at a younger age to start building at a younger age, this workforce need that we have and get people involved with a lot of hands-on engineering and that type of stuff. I think it's an economic development engine. It sure is. I mean, I really do. I think there are so many aspects to it and the whole attraction idea you mentioned. I fully believe that in addition to all the wonderful recreation we have, all of the education assets, all the things that our county offers now to have this on top of it and to become the center for that in the whole state or the Midwest. And I have to say, I was lucky enough to go to Alpina to visit the National Marine Sanctuary there with a group from Sheboygan and seeing that science on the sphere, there's no way that Chad, as good as you are at explaining things, there's no way you can convey what that's really like. Exactly. And it was a $150,000 project. We got three local companies to each kind of given 50,000. So the order went in at the end of the year last year. So it should be installed sometime in April and be opening to the public in May. Is it okay to mention them or are they anonymous donors? I think they're anonymous donors at this stage, but they will probably come out. Hopefully they'll share that at some point because I'm sure there are other businesses in the county that will wanna step up and assist with this project as we move along. But yeah, what a fabulous opportunity for our young people. One of the other things that we don't know where this fits, but any kind of federal designation comes other opportunities for federal funding. So I think our schools need to start thinking outside the box on how we can engage our students in the waterfront and the lakefront because there's gonna be a lot of opportunity. There's already been opportunities presented to us for education related to the water and that kind of thing. So we always say there's gonna be this whole plan through of additional opportunities for grants and different research mechanisms and stuff like that just from the designation and we've seen that in Alpina, Michigan where they actually take students out on NOAA research vessels and they're using side scan sonar and they can find new shipwrecks that were never discovered before and those types of things. So I mean, there's in the classroom, there's in this technology center and then there's getting right out on Lake Michigan and being able to experience it firsthand. Right, and if you wouldn't mind going back just a little bit to the SEMA lab, you know, I don't, I'm not sure what exactly that stands for but I'd love to hear your depiction of what that is, how that looks, how kids interact with it. So it's really a 10, it's really, it's like a workstation thing and there's programming set up around that. So some of the things that are involved with it like our wind tunnels and different ways of how you lose your gravity when you're in space and all kinds of that stuff. So it's really tied to what astronauts basically would be doing on a day to day basis but it's programming that's then tied to kids. There's, this is, it's about a million dollar project. You need about, it's 250,000 to get it going and then they require so much in operating costs for five years. The closest one right now to this in Wisconsin, to Wisconsin or to Sheboygan is in Cleveland, Ohio. So there's spread out all over, they're typically partnered up with universities that have an aeronautics program but there's also places where they've been, they've been planted into specific museums and stuff. So we really feel there's a great fit there with what Spaceport has done and what they do with programming on that aeronautics side of things and the whole space piece of it to be able to leverage that. They've got the room and the current layout to do it. It's just about getting the money to contract with NASA and then they actually bring in NASA trainers and they have real-time aerospace people that are there with the students working with them. So it's a whole different array of NASA related programming that some of it is even hard for me to fathom because I'm not in that field but it definitely, it brings a real world, real-time right to the students. And I think if you talk about return on investment, there's so many levels at which that will play out. There's that first level of tourism where we actually have numbers where we can project how many dollars and I don't recall the number, do you? The number ranges in the ballpark from nine million up to a 756 million so everybody always says, well, what's, and that's on visitor spending and everybody always says why such a range because that's based on capturing a portion of the, that population that would be spending the money is driving up the I-43 corridor to go to Dork County every day. So how would we grab those people off? So if we were to get 10% more visitors and the spending related to that would be on the 10 million side but we could also, if we got up to like 50% more visitors coming into this area that were spending money, it could be well into the hundreds of millions of dollars. And that's based on that these are real time numbers on a conservative field from what Alpina, Michigan is saying. Right, which is a very rural area. Exactly, and Alpina, Michigan is 100 miles from the nearest interstate so you have to be wanting to go there and they see 100,000 visitors in a community of 10,000 people a year that are just coming to the sanctuary and what they have to offer. So we, this is a whole another level of innovation on our tourism side of things as well so there's two key components. And I'm a firm believer that tourism drives economic development. So these two will work hand in hand as we start to build this infrastructure going forward. Come to visit, come to stay. Correct. That's kind of the other part of it too is the attraction piece. So yeah, it has huge opportunity for everyone involved. Anything else that we haven't covered yet that you'd... I guess what I wanted to just say is where you're gonna see coming out in the news we've developed some fresh coast, we've developed a fresh coast Sheboygan video that really kind of looks at this whole area and how this could be tied to workforce development and that kind of initiative. So we're gonna continue to work through that and then work through the... Can people find that anywhere, Chad? Yes, I think it will, there'll be a link available on this program and we can get them linked into YouTube to watch it. Great, great, because they should see that. It's a great video. And then really about just building this, getting this going, NOAA in Elpina, Michigan, NOAA has had a presence there with the Great Lakes Heritage Museum and research staff and those types of federal employees there. We don't know what that looks like for us because we're not one port in this sanctuary. There's four ports. So NOAA hasn't really alluded to what that model is gonna look like here but I think there's gonna be benefits in each of the communities for different research from our port out to the lake and vice versa for the other communities. But I think NOAA has done a very good job with the program and they've done in Elpina and I think Elpina can be a great teacher for us as to how to develop these programs and get kids involved because we have this major resource right out our back door and some days we take it for granted. And a lot of kids in this community and around the state haven't even been out on Lake Michigan. So how do we really engage them into that? And there's organizations such as SEAS, the sailing educationist, Shabuigan that's doing an excellent job trying to get kids out on the water through different maybe youth sailing activities and boating activities and get them tied to the water. The NOAA coming in and then the whole city side of things. So I think we've got the bones to this plan built. We just have to take it to the next step. And I believe that the NOAA officials also see that we have even more than bones. That is correct. I mean, they understand, they have a real passion for this project and are looking to these communities to build I think what we're all building. Exactly. And the relationships that have evolved from that I think are one of the very best things about it. I would agree. And I think the NOAA officials, the acting directors were just in town a week or so ago. We had the opportunity to meet with them and explain our plan. And they seemed to be very on board and excited about what this could mean for the Shabuigan area. So look for a link to see the video. Stand by for more information. What's the timeline now as you understand it? We see, well, the space port, I mean, the science in the sphere would be phase one. And like I said, that'll be coming public and being open to the public in April or May. The designation we thought was gonna be a two year timeline. Now we've heard from them that they're gonna try to bump it up and get it done before the presidential elections, which would put it in the September, October timeline. So we'll see if that comes to fruition on a federal level. And then the CEMA lab was hoped to be fundraising over the course of the next year. And then at the end of 2017, they have it installed open in 2018. We had originally thought that would line up well with the designation process. So it may or may not. And then that final science on the sphere thing would be probably within the next five years. But I think there's some real benefit and there's some real opportunity that could happen with it, especially with the fact that there's gonna be some additional room tax dollars coming forward once the bonds are paid off at Blue Harbor. That those are gonna have to be dedicated into some type of tourism related use and this is a perfect opportunity. Perfect timing, yeah, perfect timing. I thought that was just a great thing that that has evolved right now. Yes. So we're looking good in the years ahead, I think. We are, and we've got a lot of other great assets to add to this for this county. Well, and you take that and you add in all the other things that are already here that draw people, that bring people here as tourists, that encourage people to stay here. Correct. I think we're sitting well. So thank you, Chad, for all the work you've done on this and the team, too, that's been working on this in Sheboygan County. Looking forward to hearing the next reports in the chamber, we will try to help in getting that information out and helping to make sure our companies are participating in what goes on in the future. We appreciate it, thank you. Yeah, thank you so much. Our next segment, we are going to be featuring Steve Harrison from Old Wisconsin Sausage and we're going to talk to him a little bit about his company and the expansion and what he sees in the future. Welcome back to Love Where You Live. In our member spotlight today, we are going to feature Steve Harrison from Old Wisconsin. Welcome to the program, Steve. Thank you, Betsy. Just, you know, just to give a little overview about Old Wisconsin to our audience, tell us, start maybe with the history. I'd like to hear about how the company began and... Well, there's a couple of folks that used to make sausage in Elkirk Lake and then the two partners split. One moved to Sheboygan. Used to be called Thielman Sausage Company and then moved to Old Wisconsin Sausage Company and now we use the company title as Old Wisconsin Sausage. So it's a pretty long colorful history but, you know, we've built several additions in Sheboygan and we'll be continuing that tradition over the next couple of months. Yeah, you are in the process actually right now. And tell us a little bit about your number of employees, your locations and then this new location and what that's going to mean to the company. Right. Well, right now we have about 260 full-time employees. We have another because our business is somewhat seasonal. We make sausage products, so they're entertaining type items. So over the summer months, over the fall months, our business increases pretty dramatically. So we employ probably another 120 to 150 temp employees during that season. So, you know, if you put everything together, we're in the range of about 350 to 400 people at any given point. Wow, okay. And this new facility? It's 104,000 square feet right off of the I-43 and it'll give us a lot of new opportunities to service customers. What we've seen over the last couple of years is the demand for products has grown quite dramatically and so occasionally we're not able to meet all of the demand so we disappoint some folks. So this is going to give us a new chance to kind of re-earn the trust of those people and make sure that when they place an order that they get it on a timely basis. So you've been a relatively quiet company but I notice your new facility is right off the freeway. Is there a strategy involved in that? Well, I think we've always looked at the interstate and the Chamber was very kind to provide traffic numbers on I-43 but we're a consumer products company. So obviously visibility is a component of what we look at and clearly with the amount of traffic that drives up the interstate and that visibility is a good thing for us. The other piece of the puzzle was just working with the city and I can't say enough about how the city has expedited the process of the paperwork and the permitting and from the time we started. These are folks that work very hard to find a way to make it work. We have other facilities not in Wisconsin and we hear the horror stories all the time about the municipalities getting in the way of development. They find ways to almost discourage development rather than encourage it and whether it's the mayor, whether it's the city development department, whether it's the administrator, the common council, everybody's been very supportive of this project. Wonderful to hear. Wonderful to hear. I'm just curious and I think other people may be too. What are some of the, first of all, what are some of the products you make and then what are some that are maybe lesser known that people aren't aware of or that are brand new? Well, we're a full line sausage company. We don't make fresh products. So everything that we have is either smoked or cooked. So we've got a pretty substantial footprint in brats, wieners, hot dogs, ring baloney. That's prominently an upper Midwest component but the largest part of our business is semi-dried sausage that's shelf stable and that product is really sold throughout the country and exported to Canada and we're working with Mexico now and other opportunities in Asia. So those pieces of the puzzle make it pretty exciting but the typical summer sausage that you might see but really the bulk of what we do is a snack sausage and you'll find it in most convenience stores and a lot of the Walmarts across the, well in fact all of the Walmarts across the country and almost all of the major retailers across the country and it's really products that are kind of conducive to an active lifestyle because they don't need refrigeration so you can take them on picnics. You can take them out hunting, fishing, boating. You know, they're good snacks for kids, high in protein and that's kind of a component of where we're spending a lot of our time is looking at the protein markets and what other things we can do with those. Right, excellent. And Steve, you and I know each other pretty well because you've been a chamber president for the past two years and a chamber member for, I don't know how long. Yeah, much longer than that. Many, many years, longer than I've been here and you're still serving on our business education partnership committee. Tell me a little bit about your relationship with the chamber and the work that you've done there and what you see in the future. Well, the energy I think associated with the current chamber and it's a testimonial I think to your leadership and the new hires that we've had within the chamber but when I first started on the chamber board it was more a show and tell with less engagement on the part of the board of directors, less engagement on the part of the members and that transformation has been awesome to watch the level of engagement of the people that actually feel like they're making a difference and whether that's with the board of directors or whether that's the other volunteers, I think you see a level of energy now that not only within the community and the neat things that are happening there but within the chamber itself that it used to be all volunteer committees and then it was all staff committees and now there's a melding of both the staff and the volunteers and it's an extremely effective way of managing a lot of these groups and I guess the part that I feel the most excited about is that the chambers is really making a difference leaving a footprint, leaving a legacy of the kinds of things that make our community better and that's probably the biggest change and I think it's a change overall in the community we have some phenomenal great volunteers that spend a lot of time and energy to make this a better place. Well, thank you for your service on the board. Thank you. And I would attribute it to the leadership that we have, the volunteers who step up, the people who often spend many hours a week volunteering for the chamber and our board of directors, our committee members, all the folks. Yeah, I agree. So thank you for joining us today, Steve. I appreciate it. I appreciate you being here. And thank all of you for joining us today too. You'll be able to see this program online at the station's website that you'll see on the screen. From all of us at the Sheboygan County Chamber, we hope you love where you live.