Category: Business/Technology

Eaton is part of a group of local companies in the power energy and controls sector that have formed the Wisconsin Energy Research Consortium to facilitate local R&D and workforce development efforts for such businesses located primarily in the greater Milwaukee area.

The consortium pairs the three engineering schools in Milwaukee as well as the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

It used to be that before people embarked on a trip to an unfamiliar place ? whether it was across the country or just across town ? they would haul out maps and chart their course. Today, a traveler is more likely to depend on a favorite website or a GPS device for directions. Founded in 1984 by Onno Brouwer, then director of the UW-Madison Cartography Lab, Mapping Specialists has about 20 employees and annual revenues of $1.7 million to $2 million.

Madison has been named among the country?s leading high-tech metro areas by a group affiliated with Richard Florida, a well-known economic competitiveness expert.

Madison has been ranked a leading high-tech hub nationally on a new list measuring economic competitiveness in the technology field. The Technology Index, created by economic researcher Richard Florida, ranked cities and metropolitan areas based on concentration of high-tech companies, patents per capita and average annual patent growth. Madison tied with Minneapolis-St. Paul for No. 17 on the top-20 list. Florida singled out Madison?s ?budding tech hub? around UW-Madison.

Two young Madison tech companies, Murfie and Vidmaker, got a big boost this spring when they were accepted into TechStars ? and one came back with a virtual pocketful of cash. TechStars is a prestigious, three-month accelerator program.

Gus Schultz has been working for The Boldt Co. on Madison-area construction projects since before the state?s largest general contractor opened an office in the city. Schultz, 46, joined Boldt in 1990. He was based in the Milwaukee area until a permanent office was opened in Madison in 1998, but he had a hand in many important local building projects before that, starting with expansion jobs at St. Mary?s Hospital and including the construction of the Kohl Center, which opened in 1998 and remains among his favorites.
Boldt is involved in three major jobs (on campus): the Wisconsin Institutes for Medical Research, the Charter Street heating plant conversion and the expansion of Memorial Union and its shoreline restoration.

John Morgridge, former chairman and chief executive officer of Cisco Systems, and G. Steven Burrill, chief executive officer of Burrill & Co., are among the teachers at an entrepreneurial boot camp at the University of Wisconsin-Madison this week.

Age: 25. Executive chef at: UW-Madison University Club, 803 State St., which is open to the public. How long have you been at the restaurant? Since November 2007. How long have you been cooking? Since I was 14.

Madison is getting a new tech business accelerator: gener8tor. Its goal: To provide money and mentoring to young tech companies early on, before they?ve gotten any other outside investment, and give them a running start, said Joe Kirgues, a co-founder of gener8tor. In fact, two of gener8tor?s organizers, Kirgues and Joel Abraham, were with 94Labs. Joining them in the new project are Dan Armbrust, president of Granite Microsystems, and Troy Vosseller, founder of Sconnie Beer and co-founder of Sconnie Nation.?We got together and decided we wanted to work to help startups in the state,? said Kirgues, a Milwaukee native and a UW-Madison law school graduate.

Madison?s Alcohol License Review Committee will allow Segredo, a bar and nightclub on University Avenue, to keep its liquor and entertainment licenses. That?s only if the business follows a few stipulations. Segredo has to contact police weekly with an incident report, and provide a copy of a revised employee handbook that reflects their message of how to cooperate with police.

It?s the type of story any computer or video game-loving teenager would envy: Create a game that becomes a giant hit and morphs into a company that brings in more than $1 million a year in revenues. That is Justin Beck?s story.

Q: You own another company that has nothing to do with boats. What is it? A: It?s all entrepreneurship. After graduating with an MBA from UW-Madison in 2008, I became an owner of ProactiCare, a company that is developing a patient monitoring device to prevent pressure ulcers and falls. Since then, I?ve helped write the business plan, put together the company?s strategic direction, set up the marketing and sales program and raised seed financing.

Downtown leaders are joining Madison officials in a push to improve safety in response to violence ? especially brazen behavior with guns ? in the central city. Some of the things being considered include putting more police on the street late at night and on weekends, enacting tougher rules on loitering and panhandling, seeking more cooperation between police and bar owners, and a grassroots initiative asking residents and others to report crime and suspicious behavior.

Only five months after approving a request to make Segredo among the largest entertainment venues in Madison, the city?s Alcohol License Review Committee now will review the Downtown bar?s liquor license as police probe two gun-related incidents in the last month.

A woman who was among at least three people shot early Saturday outside Segredo on University Avenue said one of the shooters was a rap performer who recently invited and paid for her and others to go to the bar. Kristina McQueen, 26, a nursing student at Madison Area Technical College and mother of a 4-year-old son, said she was shot in the back while fleeing the gunfire police say came from shooters around 1 a.m. in the 600 block of University Avenue.

Madison officials are vowing more police presence and other safety measures after shots were fired into a crowd outside bars on the 600 block of University Avenue early Saturday morning. Mayor Paul Soglin said Monday that the city is doubling funding to $100,000 for the Downtown Safety Initiative, which puts extra cops on duty on weekend nights. He also said he?s exploring changes to the city?s loitering, behavior and panhandling laws. Soglin said the city is also acting to help rid neighborhoods of those who choose to plague residents with crime, drugs and violence. The city is employing neighborhood resource teams and law enforcement, he said.

This story stretches from a long ago Madison clothing store to this week?s finale of “Dancing with the Stars,” and if you think that?s a reach, you don?t have the proper faith in the mustard seed. Jennifer Connor, the star of our story, has all the faith she needs. So does Donald Driver, the Green Bay Packers receiver turned celebrity dancer, who plays a supporting role. Connor, 38, a state native and UW-Madison graduate, is proprietor of the Mustard Girl line of mustards, currently manufactured in Pleasant Prairie and available in some 750 grocery stores around the Midwest.

Citing a study showing that all net new job growth comes from young companies, a Madison biotech industry executive Friday urged Milwaukee-area business leaders to support bipartisan policies that promote innovation and entrepreneurship.

A heroin user who needed money to buy more of the narcotic allegedly stole a tip jar from a food cart on the UW-Madison Library Mall before being chased by a cart employee and eventually arrested by Madison police. Dustin Skinner, 21, Waukesha, was tentatively charged with possession of heroin, possession of drug paraphernalia and theft, according to a police news release.

The lost-and-found bin will be smaller if an idea by a UW-Madison graduate takes off. Zach Haller, a Minnesota native, has expanded his lost-and-found service into Madison. Haller, 28, who still works full time as a paralegal in Chicago, created Found in Town in 2011. The service provides an easy way for people who find lost keys, cellphones and other valuables to contact the owner through a website ? www.foundintown.com.