 Good afternoon. If I could get everybody's attention now, thank you very much. My name is Ashok Rai. I'm the president and CEO of purveyor health, and I'd like to welcome you to our first Friday lunch. We've been honored to sponsor this with the Chamber of Commerce here in Sheboygan County now for almost five years as we were doing the math. Today we're here to talk about someplace better and and how we can continue to make Sheboygan County an ideal place for our labor force and for more labor to move into our area. That being said, we have an exceptional speaker today. I'm very honored to introduce now Governor Scott Walker, our governor of Wisconsin. Well, thank you, and it's great to be back in Sheboygan, and I love the theme someplace better. It's certainly thinking about not only this area, this region, but it fits in well with the state of the state right now, which I pointed out in our report to the legislature is strong. I want to touch on that a little bit. I said it's strong, but it's not it's not it's not mission accomplished. We don't have that banner up yet. It means there's still work to be done, but it is strong and growing stronger by the day and certainly the good work that you're doing here, not the least of which is, and I'm going to touch on this in a moment, on unemployment. When you think about the statewide rate, the last couple months has been down to about 4.2, 4.3 percent depending on the month. You're even lower in Sheboygan County. You're about the inverse about you're about 3.4 percent. That's really remarkable because for any of you who are studying anything in the realm of economics know that economists contend that about 3 percent is what they call full employment, meaning that anything below that is people just kind of moving it, not being unemployed, but moving them between positions. So I had to, what's that? Why is it below that? But I said that at least in Madison at the School of Economics, they talk about 3 percent. And so we're doing well as a state. We're doing well certainly here as well on top of that. But so I had to tip to the chamber, to the mayor, the city leadership, the council, to the lawmakers from the region, number of whom are here. We appreciate that along the way. And we certainly appreciate all your good work. You know, we talked about the state of the state. We mentioned not only is it strong, but a few years ago when I was running for governor, I suppose I have to qualify that, when I was running for governor in 2014, that being for reelection because I ran a couple times the last few years. But when I was running for governor in that 2014 election, what we pointed out then was a simple phrase I've tried to stay focused on the last couple years. And that is the idea, the phrase that when everybody wants a job should be able to find a job. The only thing I would qualify to that is, it's not just a job, but everyone who wants a career can find a career. And I think that's really important as we go forward. And it ties in to not only the needs of individuals looking for work or looking for a better job. It ties in very much directly into many of the employees here and others across the state who are now looking for qualified workers. And we're going to touch on that for a few moments as well. But you think about those factors. So statewide, you're well below the statewide average. Statewide here we're at the lowest unemployment rate we've had over the last couple of months since March of 2001. And that doesn't seem like that long ago. If you're my age, you're others like me, you think, okay, that's the 2000s. But I put that in terms of my sons who are a junior and senior in high school. Excuse me, in college, it seems like they were high school just a few years ago, junior and senior in college, 20 and 21 years old. The last time the unemployment rate statewide was as low as it's been the last few months, they were five and six years old. That's like a lifetime ago for them. And so for any of us who've got sons and daughters, whether they're college age or high school or younger, you think that's literally if they're in an early stage, even high school, that that is a lifetime ago. And that's how low unemployment there is in the state of Wisconsin. You're helping leading the charge here in Sheboygan County. On top of that, we have what's commonly referred to as the labor force participation rate. It's just a more complicated way of saying, what are the percentage of people working in the state of Wisconsin? Here in our state, it's 68%. That's more than five points higher than it is nationally. And that's significant because it's one of the top 10 states in the country. We have low unemployment below the national rate. We have one of the highest percentages of people working, adults working in the workforce here in the state. And then last year, at least according to two of the statistics, there's a variety of different statistics for tracking this, but at least two of those followed by the U.S. Department of Labor, we had the most people working in the state of Wisconsin that we've had in at least 20 years. So all those things are significant. Now, there's other factors we talk about. We're proud of the fact that we took a $3.6 billion budget deficit every year we've been in office. We've had a surplus. We'll continue to at the end of this fiscal year. We're proud of the fact, particularly when you consider our neighbors down in Illinois, that we're one of two states in the country with a fully funded pension system or that our per capita debt is one of the lowest, one of the best in the country, or that our bonding levels are one of the lowest that we've had in 20 years. Those are important. We're pleased that the state and partnership with our local governments, particularly our school districts, more specifically because of the leadership of our great teachers and others in our school districts and our parents, and most importantly, our students, we continue to see our school scores going up. We last year's graduating class had the second highest ACT scores in the country. Last year we saw, a year ago, we saw our graduating class had improved yet again the number of graduates in the state. Third highest in the country. So in all these different measures, we're doing well. But there's more work to be done and there's more that we can do to build off of that because as so many of you know, who are hiring here in this community, in this region, that's the good news that the challenge, if you're an employer, is now it's even harder to hire. It's even harder to find qualified people to fill those positions. And so really our focus, like I said, is not just about finding a job, it's finding a career. And there's a series of things we need to do proactively in partnership with the private sector, who's overwhelmingly leading the good economic recovery we've had here in the state of Wisconsin. And that is to start shifting our focus and our resources into helping increase that pipeline, to helping increase the prospects you have for hiring people here in this community, in this county, and for people all across the state. So we've done a series of things we'll continue to. One of the things I'm excited about is this coming school year, this fall we'll have 25 school districts across the state that are pilots for what's called academic and career plans. And then in the following school year, we'll have every state in every school district, I should say in the state, we'll have the ability to do that all throughout the state to get to the point where as early as sixth grade, our school districts can test in academic and career plans, can start working with our students. Again, as early as sixth grade, the reason why that's so important is we want students not just in high school, not just six months out from graduation, not even just a year or two, we want students to start thinking about it in early and middle school so that they're thinking about the kind of courses they might want to take both in junior high and then ultimately in high school to get ready for their career path. Because waiting six months before you graduate from high school just isn't going to cut it. And that's part of the challenges we face. There just hasn't been enough focus. And this is a national issue. That gets an international issue these days in terms of the workforce shortage out there. So we're starting with funding the states providing for our schools to do academic and career plans to get them thinking about what am I good at, what am I interested in, what kind of career opportunities are available so they start making decisions in that regard. Now along the way then we've helped our schools offer more courses in junior high that can then technically count for high school. We're seeing more and more of our school districts do dual enrollment. And we announced a few weeks ago in our state of the state that we're actually shifting resources from a program called Wisconsin Fast Forward where we still have dollars there for customized worker training and we'll continue to do that. But we're shifting some of that three million dollars right away right now to help our school districts whether they have a program and they want to expand it or they don't have a program and they want to start one to be able to do dual enrollment programs in the state because what we found is that we do that partnership between our school districts or public school districts and our incredible technical colleges whether it's LTC or others across the state. We've got 16 great technical colleges in the state and that increasing with the more school districts that are doing dual enrollment partnerships with our technical colleges the more we give our students really a jump start in their careers. Incredible incredible jump start in their careers. I was just talking the other day with some students one of whom had he told me that he had 20 credits he had acquired in high school that qualify for higher education. That's like almost getting a year for free. That's phenomenal and we need to do more of that. We need to encourage more of that. It's good for a variety of reasons. It's certainly good for employers because that means you're getting students whether they're getting an associate degree or an undergraduate degree. You have the potential of getting them into the workforce or at least the prospect for the workforce a year sooner. So that's good for all of you who are hiring. It's good for us as taxpayers because we're not we're not subsidizing we subsidize both our University Wisconsin system and our technical college system. So that's that much quicker and and that's that's much more resources we can invest elsewhere along the way but it's particularly good for the students and prospective employees because we hear all the time all sorts of debate about student loan debt and it's a real issue. I know I've got two sons in college right now myself so I can attest like anyone else who's a parent in this audience but I've said for all the debate about how to deal with that so much of which in in our state or nation's capital focus is on interest rates and sure it'd be nice to have some relief there as well but if you've got 30 or 40 thousand dollars with the debt I don't care what the interest rate is that's hard to pay off whether it's six or four or two or zero percent and so one of the best ways to deal with student loan debt and obligations is to keep the cost down in the first place. So I'm proud that working with the legislature when we've been able to freeze tuition first time ever four years in a row at all of our University of Wisconsin campuses but now there's a whole series of things we're working on that will help reduce the cost of higher education be it in our two or four year or typical two or four year operations or even accelerate the time to completion so that someone who gets that dual enrollment credit can actually get an associate degree within a year increasingly we're working with Ray Cross and the University of Wisconsin system to say we want to have the University here in Wisconsin the system provide a series of probably starting out as a pilot with a series of targeted degree programs but eventually grow from that of three-year undergraduate degrees figuring that if we can do like we do a dual enrollment we can have more course options where we can partner our school districts with our higher education institutions we can get our students in and out and hide demand high need areas within three years three years to completion that has a dramatic impact like I said on the cost for the student and their families on the impact on the taxpayers and on the impact of getting more people into the workforce sooner we hear this all the time people who say not just in in in skilled trades although that in of itself is something we need greater incentive and focus on it it's not just about government by the way it's about all of us sending the message that it's good for our sons and daughters to consider career paths that have a variety different ways no way I want to make this clear the other day I was talking about this in Madison and somehow one of the reporters in the Capitol Press Corps took this somehow as meaning I was discouraging people from going to traditional undergraduate degree programs I said that's not true at all what I'm saying is we need to embrace all of the career paths possible so for some of our students that's going to mean going to an apprenticeship program and I'm proud that apprenticeships over the last four years for youth apprenticeships have more than double in fact adult apprenticeships are up about 30 percent that's great there are great jobs that require an apprenticeship and we don't have enough people in many of those key areas then you look at other areas there are tremendous career opportunities and anything from manufacturing, transportation, construction, information technology, healthcare you name it there are tremendous careers that require an associate degree and the great place to go for those is one of our outstanding technical college and then there are tremendous needs for undergraduate degrees in finance and accounting and engineering and IT and in healthcare as well and even beyond that there's some that require graduate level degrees particularly we have a shortage of rural areas for primary care physicians and others out there what we need to be doing not just in government but as a society is telling our young people who are thinking about their career choices that each of those are going to be celebrated but we need to think about it early on so it's not an afterthought it's what are you good at what are you interested in I I told this report the other day when he asked he said did you tell your sons to be highly skilled welders because you point that out is a high demand out there I said no what I told my sons was figure out what you're calling in life is figure out what you love and then we'll help you figure out a way to get the education to get a career that helps you get paid to do what you love but we've got to help understand that that we shouldn't be telling our sons and daughters whether they're ours or or just a society as a whole that there's only one pathway to success there are many pathways and as we've seen again as employers you know this as members of the chamber you know there are tremendous tremendous opportunities today for great careers as we speak we just need to find enough people the skill sets to fill those to get them the education and the qualifications and the training that they need to succeed we also know we've got to be at the forefront of it not just to fill the needs we have today but any of you particularly in manufacturing although it's true in other elements in healthcare and beyond but particularly in manufacturing we know in the next five to ten years the median age of our employees in manufacturing skews pretty high and so we know in the next five to ten years any of you in HR particularly know that's the problem the thing that keeps many of you up at wake at night worrying about what are we going to do in the future well I think a great challenge provides a great opportunity because if we get out front on this if we're aggressive on this not just with their young people but but with people coming back into the workforce with people coming off the sidelines we can be the state that has one of the lowest unemployment rates one of the highest percentages of people working in the country one of the most prosperous country or states in the country and potentially in the world because of leadership when it comes to workforce development because these days I say that workforce and career development is no longer just a title end of itself it really is a fundamental form of economic development because it's the chamber and the county economic development elements know and the regional efforts know it's not enough to just say here's the business climate here's the tax credits here's our industrial park what employees want to know is if i'm going to grow here where are my great employees going to come from if i'm going to move here how can you show me a steady supply for the demand i'm going to have now and in the future out there and we are fundamentally focused on that years ago you know back in the beginning of 2010 the unemployment rate was 9.2 percent all the talk then from all of us in office no matter what level was jobs jobs jobs today it has shifted it's all about filling those jobs jobs jobs and the more that will come out there and so that that is a real focal point for us and it's not just in those traditional areas in terms of education and higher education and training all those report it's also looking at other aspects again this is one of those where it requires a comprehensive view and so we look at we look at things like what other what are the categories of people living in our society or are sitting or too many of them are sitting or standing on the sidelines and so we look at a number of things give you three quick examples one is a couple years ago i mentioned this in our state of the state at the time i said there there should be not one man or woman who served our country particularly those have been deployed over the last few years whoever has to serve their country and come home and want for a job and so we put a renewed focus in hiring our veterans particularly those who've been recently deployed and i'm proud to say that wisconsin now has one of the lowest one of the lowest unemployment rates for veterans in the entire country we went down in 14 we went down in 15 in fact last year we averaged about 3.6 percent unemployment that is unheard of compared to many places around the country we're sadly just a few years ago the unemployment rate for our veterans was about double the national rate we are well below the even the state rate although our goal our focus not just in state government but working with all of you is to have zero percent unemployment for those veterans who want and are seeking employment in this state and i said we made it easier too because it's not just patriotic it's not just the right thing to do it's not just a solid business savvy sense because if you hire a returning veteran particularly those who've just been deployed the beauty of that is they're well trained well prepared well disciplined loyal beyond belief to your organization and so there's plenty of good business savvy reasons but on top of that we fully restored the wisconsin gi bill right after we took office and the beauty of that is now if you want to hire a veteran you want he or she to advance in your organization and maybe be promoted and to be promoted they need additional education they can go to any of our public institutions and earn that that education for free what a deal what a bargain not just for them but for you as an employer so we're hoping to continue to draw that unemployment rate down and to put more of our returning veterans back to work you all can help us out that helps deal with part of the workforce issue another example is one i've talked about the last couple years we call it a better bottom line what it really is about is helping employers identify the unique abilities of people who are otherwise identified as having a disability being a physical disability a intellectual disability society has definitions out there but what we have found through the programs we put in place is that with slight accommodations many maybe not every single person identified with that but a vast majority of the people who are identified as having a disability can work at least part time is not full-time and they want to we're not forcing them they want to because there's a fundamental dignity a sense of pride and association that's involved with that what we found is it got my attention a few years ago with a one of our multitude of programs we have but one in particular called project search which helps high school age people with disabilities spend a year in a program it started out with hospitals it's now expanded to other worksites across the state but where we spend a year and they both rotate around different positions to get a feel and to learn for what they're interested in and in turn what they might be good at in terms of employment what piqued my interest was one of the the first two hospitals in the state to do this were were our first two employers not just hospitals were down in madison it was the va and and the uw hospital down there and as i was touring meeting the young men and women who are part of this program i met this amazing woman who was working downstairs in that hospital and she had really acute autism really acute autism and she had found her niche at that hospital working in the area that sterilized surgical equipment and the reason why i said she found her niche because anybody's in health care knows that one of the most important jobs in a hospital in the health care facility that does any sort of surgery is sterilizing that equipment because there's no margin for error there's no margin for error and so in this instance her acute autism anybody knows anything about autism knows particularly acute stages it's that individual likes repetition they like doing the same thing ideally over and over there's a certain comfort and a feeling of accomplishment with that and so instead of her autism being a liability in this particular position it made her probably arguably one of the best if not the best candidate for that position excuse me so by identifying the right place and the right knee it wasn't a matter of charity it was a matter of placing people in the right conditions in the right situation and they became a great asset as a a worker as a as an employee at that institution there are plenty other examples all across the state i've had so many employers who work through our programs through both better bottom line but specifically through the division of vocational rehabilitation who saw about a 15 percent or 15 year high in terms of the number of people that we've we've helped employ this past year so many people we've talked to as employers who said you know i thought i was just doing the right thing but this really was good for us it was good for the people we worked with it raised our morale and helped us out again taking more people off the sidelines and putting them into the game for employers and business all across the state and then the last one example i'll give you deals with public assistance now this years ago tommy thompson did some things in this regard back then we used to call it the 80s and 90s welfare reform it kind of slipped away over the past decade or so uh and we've looked at a little bit differently but it's a similar concept i'm proud to say for example in this state now because of our reforms the state of wisconsin requires any adult who's physically able to work and has no children in their household if they want public assistance they want something like food stamps they can only get it if they're enrolled in one of our job bringing programs and they're seeking employment each of the days of the work week now as you can imagine we first talked about this uh in the in the capitol there were some who i think falsely but but some said you're making it hard to govern assistance so no we're not we're making it easier to get a job right isn't the end of the game i mean for someone who is able we're able to help them out we all know that people go through tough times there but for the grace of god go pretty pretty much any of us out here but we also know that if someone is able to work we're not doing them a favor by keeping them dependent in the government forever we're just not doing them a favor and so the what we are fundamentally saying in this state is we will help you out but we expect something in return it's a pretty simple concept actually i i grew up in a small town down in walworth county my dad was a preacher there i still remember as a kid people would come to the church and ask for help and assistance from my dad and the church and and more often than not they'd given but my dad always had a rule someone was able they had to do something in return it might be paint the door out in the back it might be taking the garbage out it might be sweeping up the fellowship hall but he wasn't going to give somebody just something without asking for something in return now that's not being tough that's just reinforcing the dignity that comes from work that comes from the expectation that yeah we're good and decent people but we expect something the other night as i gave our report to the legislature i gave a couple examples and one of the great things one of the great prides of the thousands of people we've already moved we've already transitioned from government dependence to true independence have been the stories of people who not only got employed but one woman in particular who got a job and then a couple months later got a better job and then along the way through her job club she found out about a grant that would help her through one of our technical colleges get trained and certified as a certified nursing assistant and she told our folks working with her it was the first time in her life that someone had actually had confidence in her that she could learn something and get a valuable skill and she was excited to go out and do that that's a transformation out there that's a transformation out there and that just showed that you know for too long we've allowed people to sit on the sidelines and it's not just about us as taxpayers say we don't want people living off of our tax dollars that way it's not just about helping employers find more qualified valuable people to get in the workforce it's about instilling the dignity that comes from work and allowing people to control their own lives and set their own destinies it's about freedom it's about freedom and prosperity in this state and that's really been our goal in all of this and so those are just a few examples of things that we're doing and I say we because it's it's our staff it's our cabinet but it's the great lawmakers you're helping us out along the way and we so much appreciate that partnership as well as the partnership with our with our counties particularly when it comes to social services or municipalities when it comes to economic development and most of all with all of you in the private sector because we talk about those good job numbers they don't come because of government you know government can be a help or a hindrance we tried to be a little bit less of a hindrance and certainly tried in a couple areas we're proud of the fact that we've helped lower the cost of doing business in the state i'm proud in particular that property and income taxes today are lower than they were before we took office that's a good thing that puts more money back into the economy to churn out to help put more people to work and to make investments i'm proud of the fact that we reigned in out of control regulations and frivolous lawsuits along the way and believing there's still more work to be done but we've made tremendous strides there those are all really great things to improve the business climate and they have i remember watching the the rankings over the years you know wisconsin chief executive magazine good example in 2010 we were ranked 41st in the country 41st we've consistently been on the bottom 10 last year i'm proud that same publication moved us up to number 12 12th best business environment in the entire country that's a pretty big shift from 41 to 12 it's pretty big shift out there we want to do more i'm not satisfied i want to be in the top 10 and then i want to be competing against virginia and utah and florida and texas and all the other places are competing to be the best state for business because you see it's not just about a ranking it's it's not just about the number of jobs when i was first running in 2010 for governor we had lost all those jobs we lost 133 000 jobs before we took office in those four years we had unemployment as i mentioned that was over nine percent but it really wasn't about statistics it was about real people who had real families and real communities all across the state who were suffering because they either lost a job or they were cut back on wages or they went part time and i knew we had to do something big and bold and by getting governor out of the way you all responded by helping take grab of that opportunity and and build up that prosperity and help put more people to work and build stronger families and to build stronger communities here and across the state of wisconsin and we're excited about where we can go going forward but we know it's going to take a team effort so we appreciate as employers all that you do we appreciate the work of the chamber and all the others who support our great employers in the state our goal our pledge to you going forward is we're going to continue we're appropriate to move that barrier out of the way at least at the state level to the extent that we can to make it easier for you to invest in and employ people here in the state of wisconsin and then in areas where it's appropriate for us to partner well like in education like in worker training like in higher education we're going to be aggressive and not just funding those areas but making sure those resources go to where they're productive where there's a sense of relevance it's one of the things i harp on it's not just the size of the check it's what is the outcome what does it actually get you in terms of performance that matters and we're going to continue to do that going forward we've now put in place a number of forms in this next budget i'm i'm looking to invest for example more money into public education this state over the next two-year budget why because we freed up our school boards with the reforms we've done the last few years to see that that money is actually going to be spent in the classroom and that we can do more things like dual involvement we can do more things that get our students career and community ready going forward and so we're going to shift some more resources in the next budget in that regard we know that along the way it's not just about that but it's about having good and solid infrastructure those are areas where we can be good partners to ensure that whether it's a solid transportation system with roads and bridges with freight rail and ports and airports when it's solid infrastructure when it comes to cost effective and reliable sources of power by working with our utilities was ensuring that we have clean water and access to high-speed internet and making sure we work with our health care providers to continue to have quality health care at a reasonable price in the state those are all areas where it's appropriate for us to be a good partner in government at state the local level i can't speak for the folks at the federal level all the time but but certainly for the partnership we have here within the state of wisconsin we're committed to doing that so that we build the foundation in the first category things lower taxes fewer regulations lower litigation costs those are all great things that help improve the quality of of of your business environment of your economic environment of your business climate in the state of wisconsin workforce and infrastructure those are the must haps so we're going to make sure those must haps are in place going forward we're going to make it easier for you to do business we're going to particularly focus in on workforce issues at all different levels from apprenticeships to associate degrees to undergraduate degrees to graduate level degrees we're going to focus on making education and worker training relevant to the needs of our employers in this state so the people we train the people we educate aren't just going somewhere else they're filling the job needs that we have and staying here themselves and ultimately their families in the great state of wisconsin hopefully for many generations to come so i'm excited about the future i know there's a there's something great here and there's something great happening in this state we want to build off of that we want to work with you we're excited about the future we're not done yet like i said it's not mission accomplished but the state of our state is strong we're looking for ways to make it even stronger going forward thanks so much for letting me come by today it's my pleasure to introduce the remainder of the program today we're going to be we're hearing about the someplace better campaign and we have a board of individuals here for you we have Betsy Alice Steve Cassidy Chad Hamilton Dave Grabner Norm Geertz and Joe Joan sorry Joan Revinnelli Miller this is what happens when you're wearing glasses and you really need to go without them when you read so if i could have a warm hand warm round of applause for our panel can everyone hear me i got a little closer to the mic all right there's our lead slide nice looking huh sheboygan county is growing we hope primarily it's growing in gross domestic product if you look at this chart GDP growth interesting huh Wisconsin 1 percent sheboygan county 3.2 percent that's the great news that shows the expansion of our companies then we go to county job growth you see sheboygan at the top of the list this is between august 2011 and 2015 we're at 7.3 percent all the surrounding counties we stand out pretty clearly there and that's one of the problems we're talking about but it's also great news job growth 2011 to present i think this one's particularly interesting we're talking about Madison we're talking about dame county look who's ahead in job growth maybe move the capital this is what we call the underwater slide but over here on the left hand side these are the unemployment claims in sheboygan county right next to that are the jobs just in sheboygan itself over here we have the estimated unemployed and this is a number that includes those who are collecting unemployment as well as those who are not collecting unemployment but who are jobless over here on the right and this number is actually grown to about 2800 now we have 2400 jobs that are available in our county now you can see the issue we have thousands of jobs and interestingly only about five percent of these are temporary or seasonal positions about 35 percent require a four-year degree and our largest areas of growth are insurance and finance and manufacturing we have some special guests today they're going to talk a little bit about the gap a little bit about what their companies are doing in regard to this gap and where they sit so that we can get a really clear picture from our major employers we're going to start with Steve Cassidy from the Kohler company welcome Steve thank you Betsy and good afternoon everyone i'd like to start my comments by thanking Betsy the sheboygan chamber of commerce sheboygan economic development council and those that participated in the creation of this marketing campaign of someplace better it really is fantastic and it put sheboygan county on the map just 30 days ago when we had news agencies from all over this area come here to sheboygan and and get a little bit of behind the scenes of what we're doing it's amazing the opportunity that's in front of us and at the same time it's quite challenging because it it will over time constrain growth and force us to look at opportunities elsewhere so the more we can band together the more we can use the assets that we love and use here in sheboygan county and to take this on the road so that we can get the word out that sheboygan county is open for business the better off we'll be this morning i had the pleasure of of joining a group from my organization at kohler that had celebrated 35 years of service or more and one individual and he's actually sitting in the room john wittstrand mentioned to me that that when he joined kohler company our revenues were 350 million dollars we had three physical locations two of the manufacturing locations outside of sheboygan county one in brownwood texas one in spartenberg south carolina and then our home base here in kohler and roughly about 2000 employees in total fast forward through john's career 38 years and we sit here today with six billion in revenue 55 manufacturing locations around the world and we're in six of seven continents around the world and we have 33 000 employees more than 5000 here just in sheboygan county i want to start by saying thank you as well to sheboygan county for giving us this platform to grow such a wonderful company and allow it to continue to be our home this will and is the home of kohler company and will be for as long as i have a career there so as we shared 30 days ago i mentioned to the press we had 337 openings currently available today that number exceeds 400 so it's just over 400 positions it's broken into three parts about 20 of those positions are in manufacturing specifically skilled trades as well as general manufacturing another 20 of those positions are in full-time positions within our hospitality business and then the remainder 60 percent in administrative and professional roles and within that category disciplines like governor walker spoke of in engineering it finance supply chain etc over the course of the next 12 months we do anticipate hiring as many as 550 full-time employees and that excludes seasonal workers to the hospitality group which would would add another 350 to those roles so it's quite a significant need for sheboygan county but also as i said earlier quite an opportunity it doesn't take a lot to become engaged and applied for these positions people that have good work ethic have a passion for learning our good and communication skills and are willing to immerse themselves into one of these subject areas and there is plenty full opportunities for both education and degree programs or in through the color company the other employers up here internal training programs to start your career from the outlook going forward it's as positive and somewhat as challenging for the next three to five years we envision that need to continue and maybe even at a higher level governor walker mentioned the aging workforce population i mentioned breakfast with a set of folks that had 35 years or more with my group alone at coler that population is going to graduate over this next five-year horizon and we'll be looking to backfill those positions as well as add growth positions to the organizations for coler itself it's about a two-thirds one-third equation so two-thirds of our business is in positions or growth and another one-third in backfill of retiring professionals and you may ask where does all this growth come from some of it is the global footprint that we now participate in but a lot of it's happening here in the us which should make us all feel pretty good even though the stock market's a little crazy and you hear news stories all the time about the threat or the potential of recession i will tell you we are recovering in the housing market we still have a very favorable business and climate with low interest loans money that's available and good opportunities for again employment and career at the coler company with that i'd like to introduce chat hamilton senior vice president and general counsel at sargentil thank you can you hear me okay it's never quite sure how close to get to these mics you know i have to admit you all should be commended usually the surest way to clear room is to put the lawyer on an agenda and today we've got two of them and you're all still here even after dessert thankfully though we had another guest here that the chamber brought in that had a little bit more status than we do which was nice so never fear though you don't need to worry i sent jane my 35 pages of remarks in advance for her to look at and lucky for you she trimmed it down to three or five minutes so i i think we'll be okay so but if you have any four o'clock appointments you might want to get on your phone and cancel a real quick i'm kidding i'm kidding in all seriousness i'm here about sargento right um but before i tell you about sargento i think you need to know a little something about myself i'm not from wisconsin in fact i am a fifth generation colorado kit i was born and raised there and so many of my ancestors going back so that should tell you two things number one on sunday afternoon i'm going to be watching paint and manning lead the broncos into nfl history number two it should tell you that to pull a fifth generation kid from a good job from his home state to someplace else it really does need to be someplace better and that's definitely what we have here in shabuigan county when i first came to this county in 2013 my first draw was obviously sargento most of you know us it's a great company lou and louie are fantastic to work for a tremendous culture and it really struck a struck a chord with me and it was something that i wanted to be a part of but when i brought my wife and daughter here to visit the county as well we realized that shabuigan county as well really was someplace better i mean if you look at the natural beauty that we have in this county the family friendly atmosphere the great warm people that you run into every day whether it's at the grocery store when you're at work the terrific schools the access to the arts sports and entertainment which is more access than you get in some metropolitan areas i mean who would not want to raise a family in a community like this so now it's my pleasure to stand in front of all of you and to do this to get offer out the same kind of opportunity and make sure that the rest of the world hears about the same opportunity that i've been able to enjoy for the past two years you know we have a great problem in shabuigan county we have really low unemployment but that makes it really tough for companies like mine sargento to recruit currently a sargento we have 60 open positions right now is at this moment we're planning on 142 more positions coming open and we expect 126 new positions to come open due to retirements and things like that as the workforce turns over in other words the cheese business is good we are hiring and we are open for business and we need to get people here to help us do that now these jobs run across our business we have a lot of manufacturing of course but we're also looking for production professionals we're looking for supervisor people with technical expertise and not only that but sales professionals marketing professionals and even some officers we're going to be recruiting for us soon it's difficult for us to go out there and try to talk about how good shabuigan county is and so a program like this and all the work and effort that you all contribute to this program really helps us and really ends up making a difference you know it's sargento our corporate culture is paramount we are looking for others when we hire who fit that corporate culture we want team players we want people who have a good sense of humor people who are ethical who have a sense of ownership in what they do and we want people that are willing to give back to their communities and that's why shabuigan county and the someplace better campaign is really something that fits in well with what we're trying to do and is a big asset to our own recruiting operations you may have heard before and any of you have been to anything that we do in sargento the 60 years ago over 60 years ago now liner ginteen started the company with one very simple employment philosophy and that philosophy was hire good people and treat them like family we are looking for more of those good people and we are looking forward to the fact that someplace better can help us find those two people and we are really excited to show people that shabuigan county really is someplace better and go broncos thank you we're all cheering for paint manning right i'd like to introduce dave graver he's the president of the war shabuigan memorial medical center and a senior vsp of hospital operations for greater mcwalkie north which includes the aura medical center in graffton and washington county so please welcome date good afternoon i'm i'm also a nurse so if you feel unsafe as a brocco fan and you get injured let me know um so thank you for an opportunity to be part of the discussion today i'm proud to call shabuigan area our home um we have much to offer here we're thriving business community the great lake and the beautiful outdoors and many amazing opportunities for work and play i fully support to tell others the love that we have for shabuigan we may need to not keep this a secret any longer at any given time of our health care in shabuigan has dozens of jobs to fill it comes from being a major local employer as well as being part of the roar system that has is the largest private employer throughout the state today we have 85 openings and expect to fill 150 positions over the next year if we could get a piece of property we'd probably have additional uh our needs include um all skill levels everything from entry level uh such as nursing and medical assistance uh to professional positions in nursing behavioral health um departmental leaders advanced practice provision providers and physicians the major the majority of our recruitment is professional in its nature like all organizations we anticipate turnover and there we see a gap between the skills that we have and uh people with those skills readily available in particular we have over 10 uh physician positions that we're recruiting for to today and as you can imagine physicians have many choices where they come and work what we find is when we get them here and we talk the story about what's happening here uh that there are people that want to want to come and join us and so we've been very fortunate to recruit excellent providers aurora is also making significant investment similar to what the governor talked about to retain our current caregivers and attract professional to live here we're partnering with many of you in the in the room here our shabuigan county uh high schools technical colleges our colleges as well as we work in with milwaukee and green bay in the advanced degree programs our high school partnerships include a cluster program which provide work experience for special needs uh individuals and ready them for uh work in in our environment we conduct job shadows for high school and college students showing careers uh shadowing careers in nursing pharmacy sports medicine among others we work with our great institutions here lake short technical college in in clinical rotations for nursing and radiology uh lake and college we offer semester programs for business and behavioral health and then concordia college uh with students for physical therapy and rehab clinical rotations and then we also work with our really our great institutions in in wisconsin for medical schools in training medical students nursing um nurse practitioners and and physician assistants they work alongside our caregivers and we get them here and working in our environment and many choose to stay and call this home at aurora we also provide a unique role in that we probably end up as a as an expanse on many of your uh line sheets uh as with health care costs and so we are partnering with local employers to decrease your health care costs by better design of health care benefits and programs focusing on healthier and employees that supports local companies to retain and attract employees and allows them to be competitive uh with their products and services we believe these efforts not only reduce costs but will help build a healthy state economic climate that will lead to more job creations which is as we heard from governor walker one of the top priorities of course aurora is part of with many of you in the room at overall job um in in creation and we're eager to showcase shabuigan county as indeed someplace better many thanks to the shabuigan economic development corporation and the shabuigan county chamber for their leadership in this area and now i'd like to uh introduce norm diritz he's the coo and president of proprietary products group for bemus manufacturing thanks stave i want to take just a couple of minutes to reinforce some of the themes you've already been hearing uh bemus manufacturing company is a family owned business we've been uh very proud to call shabuigan county home for the last 115 years and our intention is to call shabuigan county home for decades and generations to come about 75 of our global business originates here in shabuigan we employ about 1500 manufacturing people here a thousand of those are full time about 500 part time we employ another 200 people um in things like engineering sales planning marketing accounting human resources and administrative functions we currently have 20 open full time positions available 15 of those are in manufacturing and include both production and skilled trades positions and we have another five positions open and some of our other business functions our demographics tell us not unlike some of the other companies that you've heard from already that we have a high percentage of very seasoned uh well trained employees that have been with the company for many years our 25 year club has a membership of something over 300 members over the next decade a lot of that experience is going to graduate or become alumni they're eligible to retire and so we're going to have an ongoing need for at least 50 positions every year for the next several years as we replace those add to that some rather aggressive plans that we have for growing the business and you can see that people um and attracting people to our company is a critical need we're looking for problem solvers we're looking for team players we're looking for people who believe in continuous improvement we're looking for people who listen we're proud to be selling to the world while living and working in sheboygan county we're believers in this being someplace better and we need more people to join us with that let me introduce uh jone rabinelli miller whose general counsel and vice president of human resources for acuity good afternoon i am excited to be able to be here today to represent acuity as many of you know we are a mutual insurance company and we've been in business for over 90 years and we've always been in sheboygan and our commitment is to keep sheboygan as our home office as you can probably tell by all the expansion that you see going on we're not going anywhere so the expansion that you're seeing is is another 240 000 square feet that we're adding and just so that you know we have a little over 1200 employees right now but about 900 of them are in sheboygan the other folks that we have are really our field employees because we write business in 23 states in addition to wisconsin 75 percent a commercial line about 25 percent personal line the other thing that we have is that we we are an institution that enjoys a fun culture we were ranked by fortune magazine last year as number three in the top 100 only two behind google so that's google blossom consulting and then acuity in sheboygan so we really feel fortunate we feel fortunate to be able to to bring that kind of culture and so what we're looking for in people is really someone who fits into our corporate culture now most of our um physicians require a bachelor's degree and we look for someone who has about a 3.0 or better grade point average but just as important we look for people who take pride in the work that they do who accept empowerment to provide quality world class customer service who are willing to express their creativity whether that's climbing the rock climbing wall or riding the ferris wheel and embrace our culture which is one that is an enthusiastic champion of life well lived we filled we had 42 employees start in january of this year we have 26 offers out there that have been accepted and those people will start sometime between now and june 15th and we do have 60 open positions these rank anywhere from entry level positions and in case you haven't heard we have a phenomenal training training program so one of the challenges that we have is to let people know we will train you we don't there's no like insurance degree that you can get to be a commercial lines underwriter or a claims individual or a loss premium auditor so we put our people through pretty intensive training program and that's one of the challenges that we have is to let people know any major that you have we can use whether it's psychology or history or finance or programmers because we have all those kinds of positions available and open and so one of the other things that we have is bringing people to shaboy get and then letting them see not only the corporate culture that we have but also the fabulous community that we have so I was telling Betsy that this is something that we take with us whenever we do our recruiting because it gives people a sense of all that shaboygan has to offer not only the fact that we're the midwest champion of surfing for fresh water which by the way one of our employees looked at and then decided to come and join us from california so that's not to be lost on anyone but it's a matter of retaining all of those great employees that we have we have a 97 percent retention rate and still we're committed to getting our folks to know more about all that we have to offer here and this is a phenomenal vehicle for doing yet so I appreciate you putting this all together we appreciate being part of the community and i'm going to turn this over to Betsy so aren't we fortunate to have these companies in our area we're just amazing and and we want to do everything we can to to help you to assist you and I speak on behalf of the shaboygan county economic development corp as well as the chamber we're here to help we must grow we know that in 2015 the chamber and the shaboygan county economic development corporation for the first time developed a formal partnership around workforce development to attract new employees to shaboygan county we conducted focus groups a variety of them primarily with people who moved here within the last five years to ask them questions like what would you have liked to know when you moved here what are the things that were missing for you and even now how are you working your way into the community so that you'll want to stay here we also invited a team of young professionals in from another community for a first impression tour and they went through a rather elaborate process a formal process of coming in on a saturday and just from their own vantage point rating us on a number of categories and now just so you know i know now that i have the key to changing the slides and i had it before so my apologies to my brilliant staff members all right and it works first of all we found out to no one's surprise that we're a very well-kept secret that we have big city amenities with a small town feel they found friendly people and i can certainly attest to that i tell the story about arriving here on the badger the first time i ever came and it was the first trip of the year it was sleeting it was 40 degrees and i could hear the faint sound of a band playing we were greeted by a live band and school children with signs that said welcome i mean they probably thought they were tears in my eyes because i felt very moved by it it was probably the sleet but but what an amazing place this was from the first time i stepped off the boat which sounds really interesting um people across the board said they had difficulty finding temporary housing and at the chamber we know this too we get calls all the time difficulty finding their way around and thank god for gps i mean i i can recall so many times and having lived in michigan you know you're out you always think you're going the wrong way here because the lake is always on the wrong side but now after 10 years i can tell you the lake is on the right side now so it's okay lack of shopping opportunities and a weak online presence that really they felt didn't reflect the quality that they found here so we got to work we developed a brand and and in doing so we wanted something that was compelling and intriguing we wanted something that didn't give us away right away because people have some preconceived notions about wisconsin and about the area that we live in and we didn't want those to get in the way of them having a fresh look at who we are we wanted it to be bright and fun and we wanted it to be primarily images things that gave people quick impressions of the wonderful places and assets that we have we wanted to be able to show and tell so this became our brand and you notice it doesn't even say sheboygan anywhere and the reason for that is we want to we want to create some curiosity we want someone who may be dissatisfied with some aspect of their life and looking to change jobs we'd like them to take a look this is the publication that we printed and put together it you know it was a lot of work but the most amazing thing about it is that finally in one place you can see all of our communities highlighted in their individual characters you can see all kinds of fabulous color photos of people of all family styles lifestyles enjoying the waterfront enjoying all the activities here i am flipping through the book these are available at the chamber so just give a call when you would like to have some to share with people that you're recruiting and then we have this amazing website how many of you have been to someplace better dot org all right good start how many of you have then taken that link and talked about wonderful things here that you found and sent it out on facebook or linked in okay so we got to work on that a little bit i'm going to show you this website because there are some areas in it i want you to be aware of and so that you will know to go there this is where they do need to help me it's coming i always have to look around okay so first we're going to go to the career section because i want you to see that we do have these 2,800 jobs that are posted here now if your company wants to post a job the simplest least expensive way is to be a member of the chamber and post it on our site and it will get pulled right into this site the other means of posting are indeed and some of the other engines that you use already so what you see up here in the corner we have 2,600 is it 2,850 jobs now so that's gone up in the two weeks from 2,400 so and it's starting to build of course we have our as we come into the summer period we have more and more and more build up of positions that are open if you scroll down to the bottom of this page you can see that someone can put their name their email address and some key words and they'll receive emails when new positions are posted on this site so this is the first time that all of our jobs have ever been brought into one place and specific to sheboygan county within 25 miles okay so next thought we could look at yep here we go so people who moved here want apartments can't find them apartments are full so they don't advertise they don't really promote themselves but now you can go to this site and let's just try let's hit apartments and let's just go to that mid-range apartment there so here they see what a typical mid-range apartment is but what it looks like what it offers you and then below if you scroll down you'll see all of the apartments that are in that category on a listing at the bottom and most of them are linked to websites so that people can get direct access to them and make those calls and see if they have openings i'm going to show the school districts because i think that's a really interesting part of this too okay sheboygan area school district just one example they're all on here people usually look for where they're going to live based on the school district so up here we have some statistics about the school we have their atc act composite um student to teacher ratio percentage of college bound kids none if you keep going there's a wisconsin academic performance report you can click on general um information about the school district and way at the bottom there's a place that is like a public site where people review school districts called niche dot com i encourage all of you to go out there and make great comments about our school districts because this is a live piece so it's real comments from real people real time and then last but not least under lifestyle how many of you hear people say wow there's nothing to do here nothing to do i don't agree but you know i have a hard time choosing but i did come from a smaller town so if you look at this site you realize how how incredible the amount of things to do are so let's just go to sports and clubs up on the left and we break it down again youth club youth sports adult sports spectator sports civic organizations hit civic organizations we'll see what's there so anything anyone might want to join to help out in the community so i mean this this site as is as important for you and me as it is for people who are moving here this has become this will become a central resource for all of us to get information but i think you know more important than anything is the message you know that i have today is to to spread that message you know put it out there put it out there we've seen responses from from the three weeks that we put this out within what was it within a week we had 7500 hits to the website and within two days we had 1.6 million impressions logged in terms of our media presence but now we have to count on the inside out we have to engage the people who live here in spreading the word and we all have those tools just post a photo of something you did today in sheboyan county and put someplace better.org and it'll it'll populate and send it out to your friends and family you just never know you never know if somebody's looking for something new what's next well the scedc is hard at work with job fairs when there is a closing when there is a a movement i understand north dakota they're really working hard to encourage the people in the oil industry there who have lost jobs to consider moving to our area um the hispanic chamber of commerce is engaging in a program with our employers locally um to train and deploy a workforce of people who are unemployed or underemployed here they provide training they do all kinds of things to bring them to the point where they're employable there's a church project in milwaukee that you've probably heard about that's bringing people they have purchased buses they bring them here they also put them through training and soft skills training and hard skills all the kinds of things they need to be good employees and these people are enthusiastic i mean i saw the video of their program it was just amazing um to see the looks on their faces and how much dignity and pride they felt at having a job what else oh thank you sorry i had to switch back to using it um there are tools for human resources people or people who are hiring who own companies um those are all at at some place better you'll find a section there just for you where you can download links you can download photos and use them that they're beautiful photos of our area things you should put on your career section of your websites um so that people can see all of the grandeur that we have last summer we hosted a pilot uh tour around the county for hr professionals and this was very successful we'll be doing it again in august but it's all because not because people who live here don't appreciate it it's because when you live in a place you have a certain pattern about your life you know you're exposed to certain things and you the other things kind of fall away because you don't have time so if we can re-energize people and reconnect them to the things here that are beautiful then they'll be able to better sell our area like they sell their companies yes yes and oh and by the way we have an hr a fabulous hr roundtable um facilitated by the chamber by john rogers on tuesday mornings every other month but you can see john at sheboygan.org for that um we have our first speed networking dinner for new employees to the area and you'll be seeing more about that it's coming up very quickly um that'll be a pilot also we can take up to 50 people for that event it'll be a lot of fun because it's been shown that people who move to an area often connect with other people who've moved to that area um the people who live there already have friends they already have commitments um and often they open their homes and hearts but but for that first round to get people rooted here it's good to root them together um we are going to we're also talking about the possibility of quarterly tours for new employees these would be similar to the hr tours where they get a good quick look at the county and the different things they can participate in and then of course we have leadership sheboygan county how many of you have been through that program yeah that's a like cornerstone program of sheboygan county chamber one that um i think we've graduated probably close to 500 people now and um this is also something that your new employees who you believe are on the way up and you want to keep them it's an amazing program to engage people to create relationships between people who live here um so you can see us about that so your job should i do it or this is your job talk it up you know get out there start using the phrase i love the way everybody up here said someplace better there's just something about when people start using that and you start hearing it coming back you know that's where it becomes important tell your stories make it personal what do you love here put that in facebook that's let's just create a movement here and i want to thank our panelists again i want to thank governor walker for being with us today and thank all of you for coming to this event that you know we we've kept you a little longer but um we sure appreciate you coming thank you