 and welcome back to Love Where You Live, a monthly magazine brought to you by the Sheboygan County Chamber of Commerce. I'm your host, Betsy Alice, and I'm the Executive Director of the Chamber. This morning we are going to meet some folks who are very much involved at the Chamber in our young professionals movement. I'm going to start out this morning by just having them introduce themselves and tell you a little bit about what they love about this area. I'll start with Gracia. Okay, my name is Gracia Fiaeus. What I love about Sheboygan the most is the lake front, the lake overall. I think that anybody that comes to Sheboygan has to visit our lake. It's just beautiful. We also have the opportunity to have the city, but as well as a country side to our, to Sheboygan. What do you do, Gracia? So I work at Rockline Industries in the HR and Training Department, and I'm part of Coastal. I'm the chair of the Steering Committee. Great, and Coastal is our young professionals organization in Sheboygan County. Thank you. Thank you. I'm Alec Bartley. I'm an engineer at Sargental. I'm a member at large on the steering committee for Coastal. I moved to Sheboygan about three years ago. I think I would echo Gracia's comments about the lake being Sheboygan's greatest asset, certainly the one thing you see, that you need to see here. Also just the combination of really great companies in the area. I moved here for the, for Sargental, but there's just so many great organizations giving back to the community here. That's true. Very generous. A lot of family-owned businesses here that really sustain our economy even through bad times. So thank you, Alec. And Carissa. I'm Carissa Schlegel. I do work at the Chamber, and I am the Coastal Young Professionals Network and the Special Events Coordinator. The best asset to, of course, is the lake, but as Gracia kind of pointed out to, I really like how we do, we have big city amenities, but at lower costs, like a little city. We have everything that you could think of right here. We have an art center. We have all this stuff that I love about the city, but we also have it here. So it's kind of interesting. And that's encouraging, too. I mean, that's really what we want to hear, because we are, as our audience knows, we have more than 3,000 jobs available in Sheboygan County right now. So we'd love to have a huge influx of folks like you and young professionals and people in all categories to come and stay in Sheboygan County. So thanks. This morning, we're going to focus on a very special event that has, I think we're in our third year. It's called YP Week. But before we do that, I'm going to have Gracia tell us just a little bit about Coastal Young Professionals. Perfect. Coastal Young Professional Network is an organization that is off of the Sheboygan Chamber. We currently have about a little over 600 members. We welcome young professionals in the Sheboygan County that either live or work in Sheboygan. And we truly, we truly try to focus on the aspect of social development and professional development. We have combined committees that work together to provide events. And we also collaborate with organizations, businesses, venues and restaurants to try to highlight them. We really want to make sure that our young professionals grow roots in the Sheboygan area and that they feel that this is home as well as try to highlight all of these businesses and organizations that we have. We reach out to great leaders, top executives here in Sheboygan County. And we have them speak to our young professionals about how they got to where they're at and all of those topics that YPs want to learn about. And we really want to make sure that our young professionals become those top leaders. And by doing that, we also want to make sure that they stay in the Sheboygan area. We don't want to lose them. We want to make sure that they stay here. And I think that ultimately helps our workforce. That's such an excellent capsule for for what the whole group is trying to accomplish. And I think what our businesses would like to see happen too. I think that the great part about it too is that we can all say here that we're very busy. So there's very little commitment to it. We want to make sure that we have all of those events available. But if a YP can attend, it's okay. It's really up to what they can go and up to their schedules. Yep. I really liked the change now that they can actually just sign up for the emails. Yes. And they become a member, so to speak. But it allows them to hear about all the exciting things in all those categories that are going on. The career development piece, the social piece, all of those things. So what has been your involvement? You're now the chair of Young Professionals. Yes. And prior to that, were you involved in other ways with other committees? So the great part about this is that I'm from Rockland Industries and I was really looking to take my career to the next level. So I met with my manager and he's like, you need to get involved in Coastal. You need to really learn about what's out there in the community, how you can help out. And also, this is a great professional way for you to kind of learn to network with others as well. So I got involved in our back then, our development committee, and I was a part of the event planning. And then after that, I became the chair for our ambassador committee. Our ambassador committee really focuses on recruitment of new members. And that was a great leadership opportunity for me. And along the way, I was able to make a lot of friends, great relationships with all of them. And I think that has helped me overall. And I think that I've been a part of Coastal now for about three years, roughly. And that's a period of time. So you're on the development group. When that group grew out, our young professionals grew from about 200 to 600 people participating. So nice work. No wonder they made you president. That's great. And Alec, how about you? What's been your involvement? You've been here for three years. Been here for about three years. Been on Coastal for about two and a half. Been in the member at large position now for about a year and a half, a little year and three quarters. Really, for me, it was a professional development opportunity. I'm not originally from Sheboygan County. So it was just a great opportunity to meet other young professionals outside of work to kind of understand what other people are doing in the community and really kind of work on my networking skills with others. Very nice. I'm glad that you're both so involved, too. And we'll bring you into this soon, Carissa. We're going to move now to the big event that's coming up. I should say the big events that are coming up involved in what's called Y.P. Week. And I happen to know this started three years ago through an organization called New Walkie that started to engage chambers and other groups throughout the state to begin to have a week where we focus on this because that really helps bring the visibility up for the group. So that's coming up April 22nd to the 29th. And it is going to start with a big kickoff event. But, Carissa, tell us about in general what the purpose and how you see Y.P. Week having already had an impact and what impacts you hope to see going into the future. So the idea of Y.P. Week, as you mentioned, it kind of started from New Walkie. It was just at one time kind of the idea of a conference in one week, and it gave the ability of young professionals to attend what they wanted to attend. And then it kind of grew from there, like you mentioned, expanding to several other communities. The idea, of course, to showcase why Sheboygan for us and other communities in Wisconsin are great places to live and why you would want to stay here or come here as a place to live and work and grow. So the idea kind of from there kept growing and now the idea has grown to the 72 initiative. So our goal is actually to connect all 72 counties within Wisconsin to be part of this one week to not only showcase Wisconsin and young professionals, but really showcase everything that we have here and why you would want to move here, why you want to stay here. You mean a lot of people come to school here, why would you want to leave? So it's the opportunity to really show everything that we have. So it kind of grew from the conference side of it to now expanding completely in a different way and really making an impact on community, making changes and making conversation that we didn't have before. Yes, I've noticed a really, I would say, deliberate effort to engage leaders in our companies so that they have that direct face-to-face contact with young professionals because that's what young professionals are telling us they want to have. And it's working. So let's talk about the big event, the big event that's on everyone's mind, that is going to kick off this week. So our big event is our YP We Kick Off event. Our theme is very big in Sheboygan. So that means we want to highlight everything very big about Sheboygan. We're inviting all of the communities that are participating in YP Week statewide to Sheboygan. So we're bringing them here. It's going to be held at Blue Harbor Resort Conference Room. And there we're going to invite a lot of top leaders and executives to attend. So we're going to have a representative from Sargento. We're going to have Louis Gentine there, Randy Rudolph, president of Rockland Industries. Paul, please let me know if I miss, yep, from Volrath Company. Terri Lillinson, she is our Sheboygan Chamber Boards Direct. She's our president. She's also going to be representing Shrink. So we're going to have a lot of people there. We're also going to be having what we do best in Sheboygan and in Wisconsin. We're going to have a lot of cheese, brats, good food. We're going to have music, chocolate, entertainment. And the fun thing is that this year, we're inviting our companies to bring their mascots in. And we want them to have a race. So we're going to make it very fun, casual. It's going to be a great networking opportunity. And of course, we're highlighting our lakefront and our side. So Blue Harbor is a great location for us to have this. It is the views there are spectacular. So yeah, let's hope for some really good weather. So so what about entertainment that evening? There's I understand there'll be some entertainment too. Yep, we do have a DJ. And we're hoping to do a balloon drop a countdown to kind of kick off YP week. We do have the mascot race. We're going to have a cheese carver that you can watch. There's so many things that you can do that night. And we're just trying to engage and make it fun at the same time. That's the great part about this is that we have gotten so much support from Sheboygan community. We've gotten so many businesses and organizations that came together to make this event great. And the great part about it is that they're also telling their employees come come and join us. Let's all get together. So it's going to be a lot of fun. Along with entertainment, we're having an after after party at three sheeps. The DJ that's going to be there is going to be Tim Dolphin along with Jose Tovar, which are local DJs in Sheboygan. So we're making sure that we're highly highlighting the best of the best here. Excellent. It's really a great opportunity to showcase why Sheboygan County is a great place to live, work and play. Yeah, yes. Great. So not only will we be talking to those who live here, because quite often, you know, you get into your habits, and you kind of forget about all the other really nice things there are to do here. So we need to re expose the people who live here. And then also hopefully have some people from some other communities come and have that taste as well. That'll be great. That'll be fun. We want him to move here. So this is I just want to go over the details. This is on the 22nd on a Saturday evening. Yep, starts at 5 p.m. 5 p.m. tickets available online. So you can go online and purchase your tickets is 15 per ticket. And then the event goes all the way to 8 p.m. And as I mentioned before, if they want to, they can also attend the after party. So that should be fun. Nice. And then online. Carissa, we're online. So if you just go to shaboygan.org, we actually have a little tab that says coastal young professionals. If you just click on it, you'll see our scrolling list of events that you can just register. Very nice. So that's the kickoff. Yes. Now let's talk about the week who would like to start with that. Would you like to start with this Sunday brunch? Sure. So so after the big in shaboygan event on Saturday, we have a Sunday brunch that following day starts at 11. And the idea is kind of a relaxed day to take a trolley tour to some various restaurants and bars in shaboygan. Really? Yeah. Nice idea. Yeah. And so it's kind of a Saturday is for partying, Sunday is for kind of a relaxed brunch. And you don't start until 11. And we don't start until 11. So it will give some people a chance to recover. But to kind of showcase shaboygan to people who may not already be here, even for people who are here, kind of talk a little bit more about the community. And then there's a tie into our Coastal Cares group, which is kind of the nonprofit arm of Coastal. Tell me about Coastal Cares a little bit. Yeah. So Coastal Cares came about. So the mission of Coastal really is to create those future leaders of shaboygan County. And we realized that we were touching on the professional development, we were touching on the social. But the service aspect, the opportunity to give young professionals an opportunity to give back to shaboygan County wasn't there. And we surveyed our young professionals and we got that sentiment from them. So Coastal Cares was an opportunity for us to expose young professionals to various nonprofits in the community, give them an opportunity to give back on a day with the hope that that becomes a longer lasting relationship. We recognize that young professionals are very, very busy. And so sometimes it's hard to get started. So we wanted to find an easy way for them to get exposed to a number of nonprofits. So this year, we kind of some of the themes of Coastal are really inclusion and diversity. And we wanted to take those themes for our Coastal Cares group. So we had multiple nonprofits that we're partnering with. And can we talk about those? Sure. So for our first quarter. So we had our first event at the end of January. We partnered with the Wild Center above and beyond Children's Museum and Big Brothers, Big Sisters around a Peep the Cat event at the Wild Center. So highly successful, very, very successful. We had over 300 people at above and beyond and over 600 at the Wild Center. So it was just a great opportunity for young professionals to work with Children. I think it's some exposure at the Wild Center and have some great nonprofits involved. Our second quarter event is Monday, May 15th, and it's centered around the Sheboygan food bank. So it's that Saturday is actually stamp out hunger. It's a day to in the mail. Yep. And so we recognize that the food bank would have a lot of canned goods to sort through. So we have that event to help sort through some of those goods coming in. We're also partnering with an organization called Horizon for Girls, which is an organization that that helps at risk girls in our community. We just thought it'd be a great opportunity to have some positive role models there to work with them. They do a lot of give giving back to the community as well. So we thought it'd be fun to kind of work with them play a little game of who can make the most baskets. Well, great. Third quarter end of September, we're working with the Glacier Lakes Glacier Lakes Group as well as Generations. So Glacier Lakes is focused on stewardship of the environment. Generations is an organization in Plymouth talking kind of a partnership between kind of very young daycare as well as senior center. And so it's it's right around grandparents day at the end. So we want to give they have a very active group. So we wanted to partner with them to clean up some local sites in the community. And then their last event in I think at this point we're looking at early November is going to be with Salvation Army and it's a coach for kids. Well, that's excellent. Really excellent because you know looking at all the data too from millennials and this generation is they really do want to be involved in service to their communities. So I think you'll really get some good commitment in that regard. And just from our first event in January, we've had a number of nonprofit young professionals volunteer at above and beyond at the Wild Center moving forward for the last couple months. So I've been very successful in that regard. You are indeed very successful. Carissa and Graciel, let's talk a little bit more about so we've done the Sunday brunch in YP Week. We'll get back to that now. What follows that? So on Monday we're going to be having a behind-the- scenes at Torquay Coffee and our behind-the-scenes program is really targeted towards touring a company and having them speak of how, when they started, what they do and it's really an opportunity for our YPs to ask questions. We tour the company and hopefully we're going to get to taste some coffee. So it's going to be a lot of fun. That's going to be in the morning time and they can go ahead and sign up online as well. There's free food. It'll be good. Excellent. So something to go with the coffee? Yeah, but they're going to do a coffee tasting and then kind of pair it with some food. Nice. There really are differences in coffee. Yeah. Significant differences. And they make, Torquay makes and packages so many kinds. I had no idea. Oh yeah, it'll be a fun tour. I've toured there before. Nice. Yeah. And then on Tuesday, it's called Leading Across Generations. It's actually a workshop. His name is Chip Lutz. We're actually bringing him in and he is going to talk kind of in a unique situation. It's how millennials can work better with the older generations. We hear a lot how the older generations need to change and work and help us kind of come into the workforce but really how can we also help on their end to better make work situations better, how to better communicate, all that kind of stuff. Excellent. Excellent. How to work better as a team. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. That's great. Can I go to that one? Yes. Yes. Open to everyone. Okay. And we should say that about YP Week that the kickoff and the events are open to everyone. Not just young professionals. Right. And there's a little urgency too because some of them fill up. Yes. Yes. So we want to say that too. If any of these sound really good to you, you should sign up quickly. Yes. Okay. And then Wednesday? Wednesday is our Google Apps event. We actually are looking at how Google doesn't just have email anymore. It's not just a search engine. They have so many apps out there that we don't even know about. So what we're going to actually start with is an overview of just all the apps that they have. I even found out yesterday that they have an app that, say you're going on vacation and you see a sign and it's in a different language, you can take your phone, put it up and on the screen it will translate it. So you'll see the picture but all the words will now be in English if we need. So you'll see a stop on the stop sign but in front of you in real life you don't see the words stop. So that is amazing and you don't even know about it. And so at that event we're going to go over all the apps they kind of have and just a real brief description of each and then kind of get which ones they want more information on and more of a deep dive and then we'll try to do a few deep dives of a few of them and then the ones that they really want to know even more information that we're hoping throughout the year to kind of make it a program so that every couple months we'll actually do deep dives on specific apps and how you can use them and use them on your phone. Yeah we're really excited about that one and then so we're actually doing a morning and afternoon session because we want to be open to availability and that day we're really excited about that one and then what is day is it? Thursday yes is our soup event we're actually partnering with the local Sheboygan soup group they just started and they actually take community projects and they try to start them up in a way so if they want to redo an alleyway redo a park any kind of community activity that someone has an idea about you actually submit your idea and then it's judged and I think four or five of them are picked so at that actual event it will be announced which projects are going to be selected and then we'll be there of course volunteering giving out soup and you can hear all the presentations they'll also have one in fall and the hope is that after hearing the projects also didn't get selected that hopefully a few people businesses may want to pick on some pick up some of those projects as well. Excellent so they actually raise funds yes by selling soup. Some of it is by soup and then also donations through Sheboygan County. Okay it's just a great way to empower people to give back to the community to make a difference to make a change. Yeah and I love the fact that there it's a group of people who are selecting those yep those particular projects too so you have so much buy-in from the beginning if you do it that way rather than someone sitting in their office and saying well I want to redo this. Yep right yeah what a great concept that's wonderful and then on Friday. Friday is our food for thought series and what we do for food for thought series is we invite a top executive or leader to come and speak with our YPs this this time around we're going to have trick Jacob Sten he is the owner and CEO of Jake's Cafe so he's going to be there we're going to have like an Q&A time for our YPs and we're going to have some interview questions that we're going to be interviewing him it's going to be at the Yacht Club great breakfast great breakfast and a great lakefront view again so that's going to be from 7 30 in the morning until nine and they can go ahead and register online so that's really fun events those are really fun participants of you had Laura Kohler you had Louie Gentine and they were so candid yes you know when they're asked those questions by young professionals they just tend to be very open and the environment is very casual so people will really enjoy that if you're interested you need to sign up right away because it's one of my favorite programs that we have so it should be a lot of fun okay and then Saturday we are having we're going to be partnering up with neutral grounds so it's a business where they teach jiu-jitsu and and they're going to be having a self defense class for our YPs we're going to get really active it's going to be fun it's it's in the afternoon time so it's from 1 to 3 p.m. so it should be a lot of fun to do that as well excellent so that rounds out the week yep and at the defense class we actually have our instructor is actually a police officer so he's trying to give us some background information to on how important self-defense is and how you need to know how to protect yourself in any situation yes another one I need to attend yes that would be great I would like to add that at all of our events for YP week we're going to be having a food cart so non-perishables and if you attend the event and you want to bring any non-perishables we're going to be donating those so we're very excited and that's going to go support the coastal cares event in May the food bank food bank okay excellent nice tie-in I think all of you working together like that really creates a great group of things that coordinate you know everything seems to feed something else so that's wonderful very quickly I want to talk a little bit about October feast now we're done with YP week let's imagine ourselves in the fall but we don't want to skip summer but Alec I know you have some some responsibilities in regard to October feast a little bit about that sort of at the other pole of the year six months or so later October feast is really just a great way to celebrate young professionals in the community have some fun as name implies it's in October and it's kind of a feast we have restaurants restaurant tours in the community come in give samples of some of their foods and as a group we kind of vote on who has the best food in Shiborien County and they work hard at it very good yeah it's very good this is restaurant quality food here coming in and it's just a great way to get together a mingle network nice I love that event I think what upwards of 400 people attend all the 400 people yeah and where is it this year we are at the John Michael Cole arts on thanks okay I wasn't I know we've been there the past few years but well that's and what is the date for that one October 13th okay second Thursday in October so put that on your calendar you can't quite register yet but but it will it will be coming up and then you know there are two other signature events coming up that we almost forgot that are really important we have next wave actually coming up so next wave is May 9th and it's a time to celebrate our young professionals we have the wards of entrepreneur of the year community volunteer member of the year top YP of the year and after they're selected we also have the top 10 and professionals of the year and then lastly our committee member of the year award that really represents that committee member that has been pushing coastal forward and really making a difference so it's a fun night to really showcase our young professionals and that night is and the time it's May 9th and it starts at I believe five o'clock okay and the judges are hard at work the nominations have been made yes you know stay tuned next year if you know of someone who who who deserves that award but also please plan to attend it's an excellent way to celebrate this group of people who are becoming more and more important and vital in our communities so thank you Carissa anything else yeah we're doing well so I want to thank all of you for joining us today we are so happy that this group has happened I think young professionals started maybe 15 12 or 15 years ago but not until the past four or five years has it really taken off and thank you so much for your hard work and involvement and and the engagement of all our young professionals in this vital effort the employers are so appreciative and want to be involved and that's a good sign so thanks again for being with us on the show thank you thank you