WisBusiness: Juneau County development director sows seeds of entrepreneurship

By Brian E. Clark

WisBusiness.com

In an earlier phase of his career, Terry Whipple was a fixer, flying off to California, Arizona or New York to help turn around distressed companies for wealthy, dissatisfied investors.

But around seven years ago, he tired of spending so much time away from his family and began looking for a job where he didn’t have to travel so much.

He found it in central Wisconsin as executive director for Juneau County’s Economic Development Department.  He now works in Mauston and has a relatively short 30-mile commute from Tomah, where he has lived for 12 years.

“The corporate turnaround job was a lot of fun, though stressful,” he said.

But in the end, he tired of the travel and missing his three daughters.

“I needed to get out of that job to watch my daughters grow up,” he said.

Whipple, an Iowa native, was also looking for a new challenge.

Juneau County, population 25,000, offered that in spades.  

“It had 14 percent unemployment, the lowest-educated workforce in the state and lowest level of workforce participation,” he said. “So I jumped on in.”

Whipple points to the 50-million-gallon capacity ethanol plant that opened this winter in Necedah, the North American headquarters for Castle Rock Renewable Fuels and a new 3,000-head dairy that — besides a lot of milk — produces enough energy from a methane digester to power for 6,000 homes as some of the successes during his tenure.

Another Juneau County success story is KT Engineering, in partnership with Walker Stainless, which is building a segmented launch vehicle for the space program. The so-called “Milk Trucks in Space” garnered a lot of attention for the region in 2006, he said.

“Things like that are providing some higher-tech jobs for Juneau County and given us a little status, too,” he said.

Whipple also has been instrumental in setting up the Inventors’ and Entrepreneurs’ Club in Juneau County and 50 others around the state, which some have described as “Rotary for the creative set.”

Whipple said the clubs have also brought attention to Juneau County, to say nothing of 60 fledgling businesses.

“We are going into a time of rapid change,” mused Whipple, who said Wisconsin ranks 47th in the nation for grasping new opportunities. “It’s a cultural thing here in the Midwest. Iowa ranks 50th in that same area.

“But we’re looking at a time when some of our largest corporations like Ford or Firestone or Sears may disappear this year or at least change dramatically,” he said. “The old dies away and new things emerge.

“We have some of the most creative people right here in the Midwest, but we just weren’t capitalizing on the opportunities,” he added.

Whipple said the clubs are a first effort to get people moving and connect them with other resources that are available here in Wisconsin.

“States often have all kinds of programs to help inventors and entrepreneurs, though they often can be hard to find,” he said. “But what we were lacking was a grass-roots program that would teach people the proper steps to explore an idea.

“We also bring people together to motivate them to start businesses, because we all know life gets in the way. And to top into each others’ networks.”

Whipple cited Brain Fruit, a La Crosse-based company, as an outgrowth of one of the clubs.

“Brain Fruit exemplifies what we wanted to happen,” he said. “It shows that Wisconsin is developing an entrepreneur and innovation culture. Brain Fruit was the idea of Lars Nilsson, who was a struggling artist and software developer.

“He came to one of our meetings and we helped him move his product and get some seed capital,” he said. The club also directed him to the Wisconsin Entrepreneurs’ Network and helped him find an advisor to help with Brain Fruit’s software product, which is a high-end desktop media channel to simplify computer and Internet use.

“We believe that is a product that they can turn into a successful company for the state of Wisconsin,” he said.