Envision Greater Fond du Lac Director Talks WI Manufacturing + Chamber of Commerce

What Is a Chamber of Commerce?

Adam: So Envision — you came on board
at Envision four or five years ago, yeah? And that was — I said — shortly after
they fused it was...

Joe: Just before. Yeah, I got hired in
the midst of — I was sold a bill of goods. Man, I came on and it was like, oh
yeah, we're completely changing this organization and everything's up for
grabs. It was interesting because I had little understanding of what a chamber
of commerce was even at that time. Learned that on the — because there's pretty
much a chamber of commerce in most cities.

Adam: Most cities of a certain size
are going to have that. So chamber of commerce — what is their MO? Typically
what are they designed to do?

Joe: There's a saying that if you've
seen one chamber of commerce, you've seen one chamber of commerce, because it's
a variation of so many different scopes. A lot of the smaller communities,
their chamber of commerce is more about — I would call it more of a tourism or
a marketing-type agency, where they're trying to attract people to come and
spend money at these businesses. There's an element too of networking, getting
your businesses together and understanding more about each other and maybe
creating some partnerships or efficiencies. That's pretty much bread and
butter. Functions like business-after-hours gatherings and networking things.
But some chambers will really take the approach of — trying to think how they
say it — the three P's: parades, parties, and — I can't remember the third P —
it's more of being the convener for residents to connect with the business
community. Then you get to chambers of commerce that are more on the level of
Envision, who are more serving the business community. So we don't take as much
of the event to bring more community exposure — and I'm talking about residents
in the community — we're doing more of connecting businesses to one another.
Serving the — that's our constituency — is the business community. So how do we
solve common problems, how do we advocate for good outcomes for our businesses
so that they can grow and be prosperous? Because we recognize that economic
development then filters down to the resident level, and if you have a thriving
business community, then you're going to have a thriving citizenship.

Fond du Lac County's Economic Base

Adam: What does your average business
in Fond du Lac County look like?

Joe: We have — well, as you know in
your manufacturing — we have a pretty heavy manufacturing and agricultural
corridor here. That's a big base of our tax base. I don't have the percentages
or numbers, but we're also pretty strong in the financial realm. Just in Fond
du Lac, you've got headquarters for a couple of pretty heavy-hitting banks and
credit unions, so this has become a bit of an interesting hub for that. Of
course, we have Mercury Marine, and that makes us the outboard engine capital
of the world.

Adam: Right, and then the entire
supply chain locally for that. People don't realize how big that ripples out.

Joe: And even Oshkosh Corporation just
up the road has a pretty heavy supply chain here. There were conversations with
both of those organizations within the last 12 years of potential for
relocating headquarters or operations to other communities, other states. And
that brought to light just how wide that supply chain is and how many people
are involved and how much money is involved. So it's interesting to see the
economic driver that just one large corporation can be.

Adam: Yeah, everything's connected.
Like you said, that ripple effect down to the hardware suppliers or the
fabrication shops or electricians, contractors — there's so many. When you
think about Mercury Marine on a daily or weekly basis, how many local contractors
are there supporting that operation and processes for their components? There's
so much that they do in-house, but there's then that much more that they don't
— that they outsource to a local service provider. Could be a job machine shop,
where they've got some customization they need 72 parts machined next day, and
there's probably four shops in the area that get that.

Joe: Exactly. Yep.

Adam: It spreads out wide.

Joe: And there's a few that that's all
they do. 90% of their work comes from one customer that's right here. So you've
got a number of those.

Branding a Manufacturing Community

Adam: It's interesting to see — you
know, we're not just manufacturing, but it sure is a lot of what we do here,
and we do it well. I don't know how you kind of brand yourself as a
manufacturing-first kind of community. That's what I'm really interested in.

Joe: That's one thing that we've tried
to do. That was just an observation that I made growing up in the area, where
it seems that we're making, with the exception of Mercury and Oshkosh and some
other larger — Alliance Laundry Alliance, Kohler — they have their own branded
products. But in a lot of cases, the manufacturing that's done, as we just
talked about, are parts that are going into other people's products.

Adam: So what I've wanted to do at
Wisconsin Lighting Lab is — we want to make our own stuff, but we want to
associate our brand with it. There are a couple really good examples locally,
but you can capture more of that value that I think is getting created throughout
the manufacturing process.

Joe: Absolutely. I wish that more
would follow that lead, because you're right, there are so many cool things
that are happening.

Adam: You think about the engineering,
the manufacturing — it could be computerized manufacturing or automation. There
are a lot of things that aren't always appreciated, and it's hard to roll that
up into a brand or into a package where it gets interest from a variety of
people. I think there are some good local examples, and it would be good for
more people to head in that direction.

Location & The Media Gap

Adam: So does the location of Fond du
Lac come up a lot from a manufacturing advantage standpoint? It's such a great
location between Madison and Milwaukee and the Valley. I had the opportunity to
tour McNeilus Steel a few months ago, and it's like — oh, it makes perfect
sense why you guys are right here. You're right next to the highway, you can
feed all the metal fabricators both to the north and the south. Is that
something that comes up a lot?

Joe: It does. Our proximity to the
biggest markets in the state is not lost on developers. They know that we're
right on the 41 corridor. At the same time, we're on the Highway 23 and Highway
151 corridor. We have rail access, and that makes us sort of a sweet spot.
Sometimes we sort of look at that as a detriment because we're in the middle
and we don't have a media market here — we're between all of them — so we look
at that as a disadvantage.

Adam: What do you mean by media
market?

Joe: From the perspective of major
media outlets — you have Milwaukee, you have Madison, you have Green Bay. From
television stations — radius. You know what the internet is for.

Adam: Exactly, right.

Joe: And that's where we look. We say,
okay, how do we own the stories that are being told about Fond du Lac area,
because largely they're not being told by those other entities in the state,
because we're at the far reach of their broadcasting network or whatnot. So
Envision has sort of looked at — how do we tell the stories of the good things
the business community is doing here? We're not seen in the same conversation
as those larger communities around.

Adam: So you're talking like stories
that might be in the Business Journal or the Journal Sentinel?

Joe: Yeah. There's a lot of things to
be proud of — you're talking about how great it is to do business here from a
transportation standpoint and your access to those things — but also talking
about the good companies here and the wages that are very competitive and the
manufacturing growth that we've seen in the past few years. Pretty much this
area throughout the COVID period has not skipped a beat when it comes to job
growth, wage growth, the whole works. We were seen on a national scale — I hope
you saw it.

Adam: Yeah, you guys sent it over.

Joe: We were number one in the nation
in manufacturing growth during 2020, during COVID, however they defined that
parameter. And wage growth too — I think we were in the top five in the country
of metropolitan areas in wage growth, because of the growth in the
manufacturing sector. An interesting thing that I've heard said — and I don't
have the data on hand to back it up, but it's thrown around by a couple of
people — is the number of engineers per capita in Fond du Lac County is the
highest of anywhere in the state.

Adam: And possibly — that is not
surprising. It isn't.

Joe: When you look at the
corporations, look at who's here — absolutely. That's the sort of thing that I
want to put out there and lead with when we talk about what is Fond du Lac's
identity.

Adam: 100%. I think the technical jobs
are becoming — you have companies like Tesla and SpaceX and some of these other
companies that have somehow turned their brand into engineering brands. I can
see similar things happening with other companies. There's no reason not to do
that at the city scale as well. A lot of times — and I think it's very
unfortunate, I hope it changes — but the things that are happening in the
background, the actual making of the products, the designing of the products —
people care about the finished product. In our world, it's when the sports
field switches on, it's the lights, it's the turf on the field, it's the whole
application. But everything that goes into that — like we talked — I think it's
finding ways to showcase that stuff more. And again, I think the world is
switching towards a more technical direction in a lot of respects. The
engineers-per-capita number does not surprise me.

Joe: It's amazing. People think about
farming — that's bread and butter, that's the baseline if we're from Wisconsin
or this area, it's agriculture. But that manufacturing is what we need to shine
more of a light on, to tell people this is a huge economic driver in this area,
and it's bringing people to the area too.

Talent Attraction & Trailing Spouses

Joe: What we're seeing is, as we're
trying to put together programs and processes for relocating — because we
understand that workforce is a critical need — we're seeing all the other
positions that come in line and rippling with a trailing spouse or family. When
you employ an engineer and you relocate them to the Midwest — to Fond du Lac
County from somewhere else — they're also bringing with them, in a lot of
cases, someone else that's also in the workforce. That's another boon to the
economy here. So that's been a focus of ours in the last year-plus — how do we
meaningfully impact worker attraction for the most valuable commodity in our
business climate right now, which is talent? Finding people.

Adam: For sure. As far as engineering
positions, do you know what type of engineering? I would imagine it's a lot of
mechanical. You know, the software, the embedded systems, you see a lot more
down in the Milwaukee area. But mechanical engineering, the casting companies
and the fabrication companies and the injection molding companies — I would
imagine pretty high per capita with that skill set.

Joe: Yeah, it is. And we do have Excel
Engineering in town here, who are growing like crazy. That's on the
construction side of things, and they've got a lot of folks and they're looking
to hire plenty more. But just from a manufacturing standpoint, what we're
seeing is so much of the trend of automation and what that's doing to the need
for more skilled workers and upskilling. We have a number of programs that we
partner with our local technical college here, Moraine Park, on — and they do a
wonderful job of offering boot camps and things to help upskill your current
workforce, because we're recognizing that these processes change as we automate
and as we advance our technology. So it creates efficiencies, but it doesn't
eliminate the need for people.

Adam: Oh, no, absolutely. I think
that's one of the most common misconceptions — that as an operation becomes
more efficient, in a lot of ways it creates way more jobs than it eliminates.
It's just — you're using resources in a much more effective way. It'll be
interesting as more and more automation happens, how that trend continues, and
is it more automation engineers in the area? Just what that kind of engineering
breakdown looks like.

Envision's Development Process

Adam: So what does the development
process look like for you guys? I know a lot of the stuff you can't get into
specifics on, but what is the beginning of a development process when
somebody's expanding or new companies are coming to town? When we recently worked
with you guys on a building expansion, that was very helpful. But on the
product side of things, we see a lot of development across the country — but in
many cases the plans that we get and the products that we help specify, that's
years after the initial discussions have started. What does that process look
like for Envision?

Joe: People don't understand the
amount of work that goes into some of these things, because the average person
just sees a building go up. Or they see a light — it's just a light and it's
on, and it wasn't on before, but now it's on. So how did it happen? I was the
same way before I started working with Envision — I just thought some of this
stuff just happens. I didn't realize that nothing just happens. Nothing just
comes together. There are a lot of organizations like ours, and then also at
the municipal level and the developers, that are coming together and putting
these processes in place years before, as you said. The space where we play is
really as a connector and a convener. We can do a lot of what needs to be done
on the back end before a shovel hits the ground — which is, for one,
advertising available commercial space. We have a number of business parks in
the county and we can market those at trade shows across the Midwest and even
where we choose. We've also done something called Gold Shovel Certification for
our Aeronautic Park here in Fond du Lac on the west side. What that means is,
we've set this park up so that for a developer to come here, we've cut out, I
don't know, six months of bureaucratic processes that would have otherwise
needed to be done before you could actually break ground. So that's what that
Gold Shovel Certification is. We have in another business park, and perhaps in
all of them, a virtual building option that has already been pre-approved
through zoning and through all the bureaucratic —

Adam: I remember seeing that when we
started our process. It helps, because that's all stuff that you would have to
do otherwise.

Joe: Regardless of your politics, the
speed of government is slow. Whenever it's involved in a government agency or
entity, that takes time. What developers don't want is just a string of these
hoops to jump through. So that's part of the value we can add in that process,
taking it from that concept. And there are other tools that are available
throughout that process. Envision is sort of unique because of the partnership
we have with Fond du Lac County and the trust that we have from Fond du Lac
County from a developing standpoint. They route some funding through us to get
projects done through economic development. That means that we can come to the
table and, through a couple of tools that we have, we could administer what we
would call gap financing for a project to get to the finish line. If a lender
is able to allocate a certain amount but the project costs this much more, then
we can come into that space, and as long as this project meets the criteria for
job creation and economic growth, we can offer the financing that it takes to
get that project finished. So that's an important tool too. It's wonderful to
be working in a political climate in Fond du Lac County that puts their trust
and has that foresight and is forward-thinking about economic development. So
that's a real asset to us as well.

Adam: We had never done any type of
building project like this before. Any building-related things that we've done
is really — we've taken a do-it-yourself type approach. With the size and the
scale of the project that we'll be starting or breaking ground on next year,
you guys were super, super helpful. I don't know how we would have done it
without pulling you guys in. You guys connected us with the right builder,
worked with the city, came to city meetings. Regardless of how easy it is to do
business in a certain area, or the politics, if your business is making lights
and it's not building — you know, doubling the size of a manufacturing plant —
you're just not good at it the first time. It's just the way it is. So that was
very helpful. You guys were extremely responsive. No regrets whatsoever getting
involved a couple of years ago.

Joe: Good. That's the value we can
add, and that's what I try to tell people. My role is the dot-connector. I'm
the networker, and I'm trying to be a funnel of — when I hear things, I bring
it back to the organization, vice versa. So ultimately I'm doing business-to-business
sales because I'm going out and I'm getting more members to the organization,
getting more engagement through programs. So I'm out there trying to uncover
opportunities but also bring back the funding that supports the organization so
we can do this. The more capacity we have in-house, the more people that can
get involved in a project, the quicker and the more responsive we can be.

Adam: I think it's, in my mind, an
indirect way of helping with funding as well. We ended up not using you guys on
the funding side of things, but the ease of making the process just that much
easier — that in and of itself is an indirect way of funding. Again, just not
having to rely on those skill sets in-house was great.

Joe: When you're at the level of
Envision — every chamber of commerce is different, your specialties are
different — but when you get to a certain level, you understand that the needs
of business are broad and are at a higher level than just, hey, wouldn't it be
great if we had a festival downtown that could bring more people in and spend
more money? That's great, and there are organizations that can do that, but
we've found that it's more important for us to be having more of the
higher-level conversations and to be more of a convener, more of a champion for
this area, because that's the work that's going to be moving the needle more
substantially and more long-term.

Adam: Definitely. More sustainable,
more real.

Supply Chain & Workforce Challenges

Adam: So what are some of the
challenges for the area? We talked about the things that this area is very good
at and has been good at for a long time — the agricultural side of things, the
manufacturing side of things, the location, the great things that you guys do
as an organization. What are some of the challenges?

Joe: Well, anyone that I'm talking to
right now — and this is interesting because it's regardless of industry — every
industry out there has two major thrusts of complaint. It's supply chain and
it's workforce availability. Everything seems to fall into one of those two
buckets. “If I could hire more people, the demand is there.” “If I could get my
product on time, if I could get this reliably, I could do this.” “If I could
get more people, I could do this.” I've talked to several organizations that
have said, “I could outgrow my facility within this year if I was confident in
my ability to hire enough people.” That makes it a difficult decision for them,
because now they're putting off expanding, putting off capital investment back
into the community. And in reality, both of those problems are people problems.

Adam: For us, we have several people —
the equivalent of several people — that have had to shift toward supply chain
and managing supply chain. We're fortunate. We're just large enough where we
can devote those resources to helping that. We've been trying to stock up on
parts and expand manufacturing capacity and do every single thing we can. We
have multiple vendors right now where we're buying as many parts as they can
make for us. I think there are these positions that have emerged in the last 18
months or so. Maybe smaller companies are having a hard time keeping up, where
you could historically rely on the supply chain to do its job on a consistent
basis. Here's my safety stock of parts, here's my reorder point, with a
plus-or-minus one-week tolerance. We're going to turn that into product, and it
just kind of operated, and a lot of people took it for granted. Now, overnight,
you have small to medium-sized companies that are kind of forced to have a
supply chain team and a purchasing team. The options are out there — we've
found new vendors, we've found new relationships, we've been able to devote
time to it — but it's not surprising that's a common issue.

Joe: It hits everyone. The scale might
be bigger for some, but it does hit that small to mid-size pretty hard now,
because they don't have the ability like a larger manufacturer. One that I was
just talking with acquired a business that was in their supply chain
previously, so that they had control. In essence, to be frank, it's actually
good for larger companies, because it's eliminating competition where you have,
you know, just pick up your standard machine shop in Wisconsin — could be a
relatively small team. They're not in the supply chain business. They expect
their bar stock and their sheet stock and their parts to show up, and they buy
drill bits and they pay their utility bill and they have their CNC equipment
and it operates that way. They're not large enough to make the parts and find
the parts all at the same time.

Adam: We've talked to a lot of vendors
where you can tell the vendors that are doing okay because they can keep up
with price increases. The ones where they haven't had a price increase in six
months, whenever all your other vendors have had six price increases — it comes
down to the fact they cannot devote administrative overhead to actually
managing their prices. That's my biggest concern for some of the small and
medium-sized fabrication shops in the area — being able to get through these
times on the supply side, because those are some of the most valuable companies
in the area. You can't automate that stuff — there's a lot of important
knowledge that's in the heads of folks that can do the custom part or can
respond to that demand. That is the same thing that happened to restaurants
early on. I see it now — as there is a supply crunch and a labor crunch, it's
harder to get parts. That would be my biggest concern, for the small to
medium-sized shops.

Joe: It goes into other industries
because, as you talk about being able to tolerate price increases, there's a
similar thing going on in the labor market, where many of our manufacturers are
able to increase wages at a quicker rate than, let's say, a restaurant or
someone in hospitality who operates on thinner margins and isn't able to be as
nimble in increasing wages. And so we had this — and this is not unique to our
area at all — there's been this huge exodus from those service jobs into more
of those manufacturing-type jobs, because they were able to elevate wages
quicker than these others. That leaves our hospitality, our restaurants, our
service industries really struggling for people.

Childcare & Workforce

Joe: It comes full circle when what
we're talking about now — and what our focus will be in the next year — is
childcare availability and affordability. Traditionally a very low-paying line
of work, operating on a razor-thin margin, because the numbers have to make
sense. So for the working adult that has to earn this wage in order to cover
this cost, when that cost goes up, let's say that person leaves the workforce.
We're seeing a lot of that in the lack of availability in the area and the lack
of affordability. Our conversations now have pivoted to how to solve, in some
part, that problem — which is a common concern. We know people are not
re-entering the labor pool after COVID, or are staying out altogether when they
have that concern.

Adam: That hits home for me personally
too. I've got two little kids. I know exactly where that's at. We've been
really fortunate to have consistent and affordable childcare. But if that
option went away tomorrow, it would significantly change our ability to both be
in the workforce. It happened to thousands of families in various periods over
the last 18 months.

Joe: You've got some forward-thinking
businesses who have recognized that and who are willing to get involved and put
their shoulder to the wheel here and try to come up with a solution that makes
sense. That's really what inspires me about the work I'm doing in Envision —
because we constantly are convening and looking for, what are the common
problems that our entire business community, our community, is facing? Then,
how do we meaningfully impact those problems for common solutions? That's the
idea behind a chamber of commerce. That's why chambers of commerce were started
— business community said, hey, we are focusing on our operations, we're
looking at how to run our business. We understand that there are things that
affect our ability to be successful, but we're not experts in it. So through
the power of coming together and having a chamber, a collective resource, we
can have that entity working on solutions to our common problems so that we can
focus on running our business.

Adam: That's a great way to summarize
what a chamber is, or what an economic development corporation is.

Development & Investment in Fond du Lac

Adam: So there are developers that are
investing in the area. Do you guys see outside investment funds as well — could
be venture capital funds, or other types of private equity funds? Developers
typically invest in property, plant, equipment, real estate — it could be
subdivisions, it could be other commercial buildings, retail. Do you see
outside interest from other types of investment?

Joe: There are a lot of speculating
developers out there in what's going on. In Fond du Lac proper right now, the
redevelopment on the west side — the mall district, the former Shopko building
— the next domino that will fall in that district is the Home Depot that's been
vacant for many years, because that property will start moving here in the next
couple of years, because the long-term lease expires. That area is really hot
right now. At the state level, Fond du Lac is on the map with the development
community and the state economic development agency. We're seen right now as a
real opportunity zone for commerce.

Adam: So that would be commercial
retail, not necessarily manufacturing?

Joe: That area would be more for your
mixed-use, possibly some residential, but it would be your retail, your
hospitality, your — you know, those sorts of industries, which are really
important. As you look at the traffic patterns on Interstate 41, that's the
intersection of 41 and 23.

Adam: That's a pretty serious
intersection.

Joe: It sure is. That's an important
one. And that's an impression that's left on anyone that's visiting as well.
For a long time, a big vacant mall and a big vacant Home Depot building were
the first things to greet you as you exited from Interstate 41. That's an
impression that's left. We recognize that that's not what we want visitors or
anybody seeing first, because it's unlikely that you come in through that and
you make it all the way to downtown, where your impression might change. So
we're thinking about that as sort of the corridor, the gateway into the city
for a lot of people.

Adam: Well, the Meijer is a great —
it's a great addition.

Joe: Yeah. A lot of what is to come is
hinging on a couple of those large development agreements coming together and
shovels going into the ground. When that domino falls, you'll see a lot more
development that's staged and ready.

Adam: And that's development — so that
would be the property and the buildings and the commercial spaces. And then
beyond that, it's, alright, go lease the spaces? Or do you see a combination of
— do they already know what's going to be going in those spaces, or some
speculation?

Joe: Some speculation and some —
that's some of what we work with. That's where we can be at the table and
convening some of those groups. Because the complicated part — not to go into
too much detail — the complicated part with the former Forest Mall is, you have
a thousand-page real estate agreement that was formed between all of the
various entities, and there are still half a dozen entities that own properties
there. Everything had to be signed off collectively for anything to change.

Adam: It's quite the decision-making
matrix. Hard to wrangle.

Joe: Hard to wrangle. And again,
that's why you have an organization — and props to the City of Fond du Lac
Community Development Director for being involved in these conversations too.
It takes a lot of partners to move the needle on these things to actually get
to the point where you have signed agreements, and then you can move forward.
But it's important work, because otherwise it does just sit and you don't have
movement, because it seems like, oh, that's too difficult, that's someone
else's job to handle, someone else will get involved. Those are the things
that, like I said before, people assume just happens, and a lot of times it
doesn't make financial sense. That's the argument behind a TID — tax
incremental district — which has been established out there. For example, the
financing has to make sense for a developer to be able to see a return on their
investment. Otherwise, the property doesn't make sense and it'll sit. Those are
the sorts of tools that we work with the municipality on, to be able to
incentivize and to encourage development that will ultimately prove very
fruitful — in the example of a large manufacturer here that has increased and
invested, I can't remember the exact figure, but to the tune of billions of
dollars now of investment into this community through expansion, after a
tumultuous time when there was a chance of them leaving probably about 10 years
ago.

Lakeside Park & Placemaking

Adam: Well, I guess we'll end on the
Lakeside Park.

Joe: Oh, great. I love it.

Adam: Are you guys involved in that? I
would imagine it's not necessarily business-related, but I'm sure there are a
lot of businesses involved with donations.

Joe: This is one of those tangential
issues that comes out of the conversation of placemaking. Placemaking is seen
as: how do you better attract talent to the area? How do you retain talent to
the area? For example, we run a really successful young professionals group as
part of Envision Greater Fond du Lac. We see a lot of young people that will
enter this community from outside because they took a job with one of our
corporations, and we'll see them get involved in that group to try to find some
connections. The common trend is people will come to the community, and once
winter hits, a lot of times, if they have not put down roots, if they haven't
found it to be an engaging area, they'll leave again. You see a lot of that,
and it gets you thinking, okay, how do we become more of a sticky community?
How do we offer more amenities that a younger generation finds valuable? At the
same time, conversations have been going on for many, many years — how do we
better take advantage of the resources that we have here? One of them being the
water.

Adam: Yeah.

Joe: So Lakeside Park has been talked
about for decades as an underutilized gem.

Adam: An asset, absolutely.

Joe: The conversations that came to a
head over the last several years were how to better develop that piece of land
to offer more amenities to the general public than what it currently does — and
specifically to the boating public, who are coming from other communities up
the lake and are completely bypassing Fond du Lac because it's just not seen as
an area to do anything. It's not seen as an area to visit from the water. There
are a lot of boats that sit in our harbor, and all of them go north. All of them
leave, because there aren't enough places here.

Adam: It must be a more cost-effective
place to store the boat.

Joe: It's been a — yeah, for a long
time. This was the response of the business community saying, we will get
involved, because we see a vested interest in attracting more talent because
it's our biggest need right now.

Remote Work & Broadband

Adam: Do you think that — there are
certain positions that have to be on site every day, manufacturing positions,
manufacturing engineering. We've gone to really maybe one or two days a week
now for folks in the office that pretty much everybody's here. Other than that,
we have lots and lots of people working remotely. When COVID first hit, we had
40 people working remotely overnight. It was March 17th, 2020, St. Patrick's
Day.

Joe: We did the Friday or the Monday —
I can't remember exactly which one it was.

Adam: So employers need people. Do you
see employers branching out to attract the work-from-home, the remote work? Is
it actually a positive for the community, with that kind of cultural shift
towards remote work being more accepting? How do you see most people reacting?

Joe: It can be, if it's leveraged
correctly. That's where we do think about these amenities that we have here —
maximization of amenities like Lakeside Park, for example. But also we've
identified that within the county we have a serious need in some areas for
broadband access. If we're to better attract remote workers — let's say, from
the Northern Illinois market — who can continue to work at that company but
would much prefer the pace of life that we have here. In order to attract them
to live here and to grow our tax base, we need to have some of those amenities
in place. That's been a bit of a pivot too, and some of our work this last year
has been in broadband expansion.

Adam: Got to get those Starlink
satellites fired up.

Joe: It's an interesting — you may
know more about this than me — it's an interesting, rapidly changing climate
there. I'll give the example of an entire continent in Africa that basically
skipped over landline telephones — they were very slow to develop that
infrastructure, and then when cell phones popped up, they were right on it.
They completely skipped a generation. I wonder — and this is just me — if
that's going to be the way of fiber-optic cables and whatnot, if that's going
to become somewhat obsolete.

Adam: I think that's the intent with
the SpaceX Starlink — it's not replacing fiber optic or even some of the 5G
stuff, but in the rural communities where there is no infrastructure, it's
going to be serving those folks. It could be good. We've tested it — we've got
a Starlink satellite, we've had that for almost a year, and we've been testing
it even for certain lighting applications to be able to do data communication.

Joe: In the meantime, our work locally
has been actually expanding the fiber network in the county. In partnership
with the county and with a local internet provider, using our resources here to
create what's called the middle mile, which is a fiber ring that is created
throughout the county that the last mile can connect into. So it's a relay
system. There's a map out there that you can find of the actual physical
infrastructure that's going to be laid around the county that, conceivably, any
household within Fond du Lac County or business can then tap into for that last
mile, which is also where some of the government ARPA funds, I believe, can be
utilized. That's a pretty good initiative — took a lot of people too. We had to
do some serious heavy lifting of actually surveying different households
throughout the county. We had a nice response on a broadband access survey. I
was reading on this article — I think it was the Wall Street Journal — but they
had said that because of the way broadband was mapped previously, they had said
something about, if one household has access, then it's considered that that
entire area conceivably has access. I don't know what “area” meant, if that was
a square mile or something. Their conclusion was that we have better mapping of
the surface of Mars than we do of our own broadband infrastructure network here
in rural America. So that was a big part of our effort — how do we tangibly put
data together that says what households do and do not have reliable access at
what speeds? Then we can take that and apply for grant money at the state
level, at the federal level, bring in some resources, because we've done the
proper analysis of the need. So it's all in a day's work.

Adam: Seems like some great stuff.

Joe: It's always different. It's a
good challenge. It gives me a lot to talk about, so I appreciate you having me.

Adam: Well, thank you very much for
coming on.

Joe: Yeah, it's a pleasure.

Adam: Alright, we'll talk soon.