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FOND DU LAC - Trucking firm to add 55 jobs in Fond du Lac  
Con-way Freight will construct a new $8 million terminal and add 55 jobs in Fond du Lac.

The trucking company selected a 21-acre property in Fond du Lac’s Fox Ridge Business Park for a new facility that will serve as its local hub.

“We are very excited that Con-way has selected Fond du Lac for its new freight operations center,” said Sam Meyer, Fond du Lac City Council president. “The Con-way facility will create some excellent jobs for our community while providing important transportation and logistics support services for the local and state economies.”

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GREEN BAY- Ministry Health Care plans more than 200 layoffs  
Milwaukee-based Ministry Health Care plans layoffs that will be the equivalent of 225 to 250 full-time jobs, citing a decline in patients and reimbursement rates as well as the impact of the federal sequestration bill.

In Northeastern Wisconsin, Ministry operates three clinics in Door County and one in Algoma, along with Ministry Door County Medical Center in Sturgeon Bay, St. Elizabeth Hospital in Appleton, Mercy Medical Center in Oshkosh and Calumet Health Center in Chilton.

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MADISON – Budget committee passes foodshare work requirement  
Wisconsin would become the sixth state to have a statewide work requirement for able-bodied adults without dependents in order to receive full federal food benefits, under a proposal by Gov. Scott Walker was endorsed after a bitter debate by the Legislature’s budget committee Tuesday.

The measure would require an estimated 62,698 recipients to work or participate in job training at least 20 hours a week to get full FoodShare benefits.

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MADISON – Budget committee approves modified proposal for state property sales  
The Legislature’s powerful budget committee voted Tuesday to modify Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to sell or lease state property by adding oversight to the process.

The proposal would give the state Department of Administration and the state Building Commission, which Walker chairs, broad authority to sell or lease state property “with or without the approval of the agency with jurisdiction over the property.”

But the measure, which the Joint Finance Committee recommended for approval Tuesday on a  party-line 12-4 vote, would require final approval by the budget committee and a cost-benefit analysis before any transaction could be completed.

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MADISON - Natural gas boom fuels frac sand mining, political spending  
Just as frac sand mines have popped up across western Wisconsin in the past half decade, so too has political spending from the sand and natural gas industries.

Since 2007, contributions from industry interests ballooned more than 21 times, from just $18,762 to more than $413,000 last year, according to analysis by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.

According to the state’s Legislative Fiscal Bureau, there are now 105 mines, mostly in western Wisconsin, and another 65 plants processing the fine grain sand used in a method of drilling for gas and oil known as hydraulic fracturing — or fracking. That’s more than twice the number reported by the Department of Natural Resources in 2012.

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WHITEHALL - Trempealeau County balks at frac moratorium  
A move to halt new frac mines in Trempealeau County fell just one vote short late Monday night after an emotional, nearly four-hour debate.

Passing the one-year moratorium on new mines would have dealt a significant blow to the booming sand industry. More than a quarter of the state’s 100 frac mines are in the county, which has some of the most lenient mining regulations in the region.

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SUPERIOR - Miner's breaks ground on new store  
Miner’s Inc. is breaking ground on a project that has been years in the making.

Ground is being broken for a new Super One Foods Store in Superior’s East End. The store is being constructed adjacent to and facing East Second Street between 22nd and 23rd avenues east. The company purchased 28 homes and a business to make room for the new 59,000-square-foot grocery store with 20,500 square feet of retail rental space.

The $10 million project is slated to be complete next year. About 100 full- and part-time employees will operate the store.

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CHIPPEWA FALLS - City OKs Wissota Shores development  
A section of Wissota Greet will soon have new development, as the Chippewa Falls City Council voted Tuesday night to approve a multi-family housing project.

The 17-acre parcel will have 15 eight-plex housing units built in Wissota Green, on the city's northeast side.

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MADISON – Willy Street Co-Op eyes upgrade and another store  
Talk of a third location for Willy Street Co-Op isn’t new, but few expected movement to occur this soon.

In an effort to relieve pressure from its cramped store at 1221 Williamson St., which has almost 15,000 transactions a week, a committee is being formed to study sites for a third store.

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OSHKOSH - Developers seek grant for Morgan land  
The new owners of the former Morgan Door property hope to win a state grant that could accelerate their timetable for demolition of the aging complex of buildings that housed the historic Oshkosh manufacturer and most recently Jeld-Wen Windows & Doors.

Grant Schwab and Peter Lang, of Six Rivers Investments, said a $150,000 Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. Site Assessment Grant would help cover costs associated with soil tests beneath the existing buildings.

The grant, if awarded, would be administered by the city. The group would have to spend at least $300,000 to utilize the full amount. Lang said he expects the group, which purchased the property from Jeld-Wen earlier this year, will spend that and more.

“The intent is to help us assess the property there: Where to build roads. Where to put buildings,” Lang said.

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JANESVILLE - Manufacturer moves into Innovation Center  
The Janesville Innovation Center has added its first manufacturing tenant.

Simply Solutions, owned by John Goepfert and other local investors, started leasing space May 1 and plans to start production later this month. The company makes lubricants for personal and medical uses such as catheterizations and ultrasounds. The products are sold in natural product stores throughout the United States and Canada. It is in the final stages of getting additional products approved by the Food & Drug Administration for use in medical applications in the United States. The company is also developing other natural products such as antifungal creams, hand lotion and first-aid creams.

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ARCADIA - Mexican bakery grows at new Arcadia location  
Zimri Ramirez and his wife, Emma, began their bakery business by selling tres leches (three milk) cakes that they made at their home in Marshfield, Wis., after Emma was laid off from her factory job in Neillsville in 2005.

They moved to Arcadia in 2010 to work at the Ashley Furniture factory and in April 2012 opened a small Mexican bakery in part of a building that housed a laundromat in downtown Arcadia. The couple left their jobs at Ashley a few months later to devote all of their time to the bakery. And last November, Are’s Panaderia Cakes and Bakery moved into its new, much larger location at 329 W. Main St. in downtown Arcadia.

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MADISON - Some food stamp recipients would have to work under Walker's plan  
An estimated 63,000 able-bodied adults without dependents would have to work or participate in training at least 20 hours a week to get full food stamps benefits under a proposal by Gov. Scott Walker to be debated today by the Legislature's budget committee.

About 50 percent of such recipients likely would drop out of the food stamp program, called FoodShare in Wisconsin, if the requirement were enacted, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau estimates.

Although the federal FoodShare program has a work provision, most states waive it, which Wisconsin has done since 2002.

The proposal is part of a package of get-tough measures being contemplated by the Legislature related to FoodShare, including proposed new penalties for illegally trafficking food stamp benefits and proposed limits to the types of groceries that could be purchased under the program.

Walker's proposed work requirement would not apply to recipients who are younger than 18 or older than 50; are physically or mentally unfit for employment; are parents of a child in their home who is under 18; are caretakers of a child age 6 or younger; or who are pregnant. The requirement would affect 62,698 of the current 856,943 FoodShare recipients in Wisconsin.

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MARINETTE - New digs at Marinette Marine cap $74 million upgrade  
The clank of steel on steel resumed shortly after the speeches faded as workers returned to the task of building structures for one of the U.S. Navy’s future Littoral Combat Ships.

Marinette Marine Corp. and area officials on Monday celebrated the completion of a $74 million investment at the shipyard with the dedication of a 29,000-square-foot building. The upgrades are aimed at streamlining production and increasing efficiencies.

The building, the Grand Module Construction building, is one of the yard’s five newly built or expanded facilities since 2010. Its completion marks the end of the improvement project. Many of the changes at Marinette — nine buildings were razed to make way for the new construction — were made to support the U.S. Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship program.

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MIDDLETON – West Corp. to add 45 more jobs  
West Corp. said Monday it will add 45 employees at its Middleton offices by the end of August.

The customer service and sales positions will pay $12.50 an hour, with possible bonuses, human resources manager Jennifer Nichols said.

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Cudahy receives Lifetime Achievement AwardMichael Cudahy receives BizTimes Lifetime Achievement Award
Aside from city founders Solomon Juneau, Byron Kilbourn and George Walker, few people, if any, have had more impact on Milwaukee than entrepreneur, community advocate and philanthropist Michael J. Cudahy.
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