By Brian E. Clark
WisBusiness.com
Ask residents of Green Bay, Racine, Eau Claire or Platteville what people do for a living in Dane County and chances are good they’ll say they work for the University of Wisconsin or state government.
“That’s certainly the stereotype, but it leaves out a lot of folks,” said Terry Ludeman, chief labor economist for the state Department of Workforce Development.
Take the manufacturing sector and its 27,000 workers, for example.
While none of them may have high profiles like Gov. Jim Doyle or Badger football coach Barry Alvarez, they earn a collective $1.1 billion a year. That’s a norm of $44,000, slightly higher than the average Wisconsin annual salary of $42,000.
By comparison, the university has 16,300 workers who earn about $47,000 each a year, and state government has roughly 32,000 employees, who earn an average of about $46,000 annually. All totaled, these public workers take home $2.2 billion a year.
For a somewhat hidden workforce, Ludeman said manufacturing in Dane County is an important part of the regional and state economy, coming in behind only the manufacturing sectors of metropolitan Milwaukee and the Fox Cities.
“Twenty seven thousand is a big number, no doubt about that,” said Ludeman. “It is a large component of Dane County economic activity, even if it doesn’t have that high a profile.”
Manufacturers range from Middleton’s TomoTherapy, a relatively new company that builds image-guided cancer treatment machines that sell for more than $1 million each, to Bernsten International, a 35-year-old Madison firm that makes survey markers that are shipped all over the globe to the Oscar Mayer plant, which employs 1,400. (Another 750 work in the corporate headquarters.)
In between are nearly 600 other firms, some of which use cutting edge technology not long out of labs at UW-Madison.
“That’s one of the benefits of locating here,” said Ludeman. “You get access to some of the best minds in science and engineering."
Tom Wildgen, vice president of Bernsten, called Madison and Dane County a good place to do business.
“We don’t mind being overshadowed by government or the university,” he said. “But what could be improved is the availability of skilled labor.”
He said the company is always looking for machine operators and he wishes technical colleges would train more machinists.
“Everyone is enamored with high-tech – and it certainly is important – but there is also a need for lower-tech machining, too,” he said.
Fred Foster, chief executive officer of Electronic Theater Controls – which makes computer-controlled lighting systems in Middleton – said low unemployment in the area can make attracting qualified people difficult.
“Additionally, the typically low rate of unemployment in the area can make attracting qualified people more difficult,” he said.
“This has a positive side benefit, however, in that it makes companies work harder at retaining employees, which in turn makes for better working conditions,” said Foster.
The lack of local job shops also forced the company to produce nearly all of its equipment in-house, he added.
The key to ETC’s success, he said, has been attracting bright people – something Dane County does not lack.
“There would be no signature ETC technology without the extraordinary intelligence, passion and tenacity of everyone at ETC,” he said.
“It’s a special group that has fortunately always attracted more of the same. ETC has a unique corporate culture made up of unique people. They think up and deliver great stuff.”
Foster, who started the company with his brother 30 years ago, said ETC had revenues in 2004 of $155 million. The firm – one of the leaders in its sector – has 585 employees. Roughly 455 work in Middleton, while the rest are in offices ranging from Orlando to Los Angeles to Hong Kong.
Foster acknowledged that ETC, which recently opened a $20 million factory, is far from the entertainment lighting centers of the world.
“I used to receive a surprised reaction from people when the company was young and breaking into the industry,” he said. “It’s less of an issue now, as ETC has become well-established.”
Though manufacturing is often overshadowed by education and state government, Foster said he doesn’t feel neglected.
“ETC has been very well supported and acknowledged by the City of Middleton,” he said.
Michael Klonsinski, executive director of the Madison-based Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership, said no single industry dominates the Dane County manufacturing scene.
“You’ll find a lot of suppliers here,” said Klonsinski, whose partnership helps companies become more efficient. “Oshkosh Truck, Harley-Davidson and John Deere spent $100 million in Dane County. There’s also a growing biotech industry here, too.”
Though high-tech gets the most notice, Klonsinski said many old-line manufacturers have had to adopt modern techniques and equipment to stay competitive in the global economy.
In part because its manufacturing sector is newer, Klonsinski said Dane County fared better during the latest recession than Milwaukee County, which lost more than 60,000 industrial jobs.
“Dane County didn’t see much of a drop,” he said. “And even with the job loss, Wisconsin’s manufacturing gross product dollar value was flat. It was $44 billion last year and is projected to increase to $53 billion by 2008.”
Though the county is a hotbed of cutting-edge technology and good access to markets and suppliers and markets because of its location on the interstate, Klonsinski said manufacturers sometimes feel a bit like stepchildren.
“There isn’t always as much vision or appreciation as they might like,” he said. “But the upside of being in Dane County is that there is a lot of management talent, scientific and engineering knowledge here.”
The challenge in the future, he said, will be for manufacturers to find workers with the skill sets they need, such as welders with up-to-date training.
“That will be one of the big needs for all of Wisconsin industries in the years to come,” he said. “In that case, Dane County is no exception.”
“We also could use some more changes in the tax and regulatory environment, but there have been reforms in areas such as permitting that have made things more flexible while accomplishing the same social and environmental goals,” he added.
"That benefits manufacturing in Dane and every other county in the state."
