Automation Arts, a custom electronic integration company based in Middleton, has expanded its reach into the Milwaukee market with an office and warehouse in Brown Deer.
Automation Arts installs home theater and audio/video systems, information technology and security solutions in both commercial and residential spaces. The company opened the warehouse portion of the 3,000-square-foot Brown Deer space about a year ago, and now has also opened an office at 9058 N. Deerbrook Trail, according to president Eric Scharpf.
“This gives us a good kind of footprint for what we want out of the Milwaukee market,” Scharpf said. “We were able to use the warehouse and storage space for kind of fitting the need.”
Ron Moore was hired as Milwaukee vice president to lead the firm’s market growth in February. He has more than 25 years of experience in construction and technology.
“He’s a wealth of industry knowledge out there, so we were very fortunate for him to come on and join the team,” Scharpf said.
Automation Arts completed its first big Milwaukee commercial project for Baker Tilly in the U.S. Bank Center in 2012, and since then has continued to book an increasing amount of work in Milwaukee through word of mouth, he said.
“We’re working with now a handful of clients in the U.S. Bank building, and through those projects 833 East obviously popped up right next to it,” Scharpf said. “It’s really been organic growth in Milwaukee.”
“The decision (to open the Brown Deer office) was easy,” he said. “Milwaukee’s a growing market with a lot of room for growth as it becomes more and more corporate and there’s more corporate growth. The companies that are in Milwaukee are high-end companies that want to do it right and that’s what we do.”
Automation Arts’ Brown Deer office currently has three employees, and Scharpf expects to have eight to 10 employees there by the end of the year.
