Business transitions

The AIS Group has established an affiliation with the Paul Arbinger Agency in West Bend. The AIS Group, a full-service insurance agency, has other offices in Menomonee Falls, Hartford and Beaver Dam. The Paul Arbinger Agency is at 246 S. 5th Ave. in West Bend.
The Milwaukee-based Davis & Kuelthau law firm has expanded its business and corporate practice group to its Sbeboygan office.
The expansion was made through the hiring of attorney Shawn G. Rice, who is now a shareholder in the firm. His work will complement that done by labor and litigation attorneys already at the firm’s Sheboygan, Oshkosh and Green Bay offices.
Davis & Kuelthau, with main offices at 111 E. Kilbourn Ave. in downtown Milwaukee, also has offices in Elm Grove and Madison.
The CPA firm of Piasecki, Strutz & Wojtycski, formerly located on Lincoln Avenue in West Allis, has undergone a name change to Freuck, Strutz & Wojtycski, and has moved its offices to 4811 S. 76th St. in the State Financial Bank building near Southridge Mall. Its new telephone number is 44-325-1040.
The group of companies initiated by the Kolb Lauwasser CPA firm in West Allis is now known at Kolb+Co. The companies include Kolb Lauwasser+Co. – Business Advisers/CPAs; Kolb+Co.-Financial Advisers; Kolb+Co. Medical Billing; Kolb+Co. Performance Advisers; Kolb+Co. Retirement Plan Services; and Kolb+Co. Technology Advisers.
The firms are located at 2400 S. 102nd St. Their new Web site is www.kolbco.com.
Professional Computer Solutions, Inc. has merged with SVA Consulting. PCSI was established in 1987 as a provider of Great Plains software. SVA Consulting is the information technology division of the SVA group of companies, which also includes Sub, Von Haden & Associates, a certified public accounting firm with offices in Brookfield, Madison and Rockford; and SVA Planners, Inc., Registered Investment Advisor.
Bryan K. Stutzki, CPA has created a new accounting firm named Neptune Financial and Management Services. Neptune provides three main services: income tax preparation for individuals and small businesses, year-around accounting services and consulting services for financial software and business creation. Stutzki has more than 10 years of experience in the accounting field. His previous experience has been in the real estate and investment fields and includes a recent position as a controller of a real estate development company. Neptune Financial and Management Services is located at 13105 W. Bluemound Rd., Suite 150, Brookfield.
HGA Architects & Engineers has added Jill Cody to its staff in Milwaukee, bringing lighting design to its offerings.
Chamness Consulting, Inc. (www.chamnessconsulting.com), a 13-year-old business-consulting firm, has moved into new office space. The firm now occupies three stories of a Historic Walker’s Point town house just south of downtown Milwaukee.
Owner Diane Chamness, who also lives in the 1855 cream city brick building, said the space was made available at exactly the right time. “We’ve added IT and creative services offerings to our suite of services, have acquired several new clients, and expanded our staff. A new space was part of our strategic plan to meet our vision for growth in 2002. It just worked out perfectly that we could move right next door, it’s an ideal space for us.”
Former Waukesha Freeman reporter Jenn Danko has launched a business, SparkleHouse Media, an independent, urban writing house based in downtown Milwaukee. She is providing feature and technical writing to corporations, businesses and publishing houses. Additional services include copyediting, overwriting, and proofreading.
Danko holds an honors degree in English-creative writing from Beloit College. More information can be found at www.sparklehousemedia.com.
An employee group has purchased the drugstore management division of a San Francisco company and has returned the company’s headquarters to Milwaukee, where it was founded in 1980. Ten managers were involved in the purchase of what they now call Hamacher Resource Group.
The company, formerly known as D.P. Hamacher & Associates, and more recently as the Hamacher Division of Nonstop Solutions, was originally established by David P. Hamacher, a graduate of the UW-Madison School of Pharmacy and longtime executive with the former Stein Drugs. At the time of his retirement in 2000, the company was sold to Nonstop Solutions, which focuses on the deployment of enterprise-level, demand chain management software for retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers. Nonstop kept the Milwaukee operation intact as a divison.
Leading the buyout were Dawn Vogelsang, who is now president of Hamacher Resource Group, and David Wendland, who is vice president. Vogelsang had been general manager of the Hamacher Division of Nonstop.
Other managers involved in the purchase include Julie Bonnell, production manager; Tom Boyer, national account manager; Steve Brester, IT manager; Kat Fronek, category research and analysis manager; Chris Hensel, client services coordinator; Gail Konrath, accounting and logistics coordinator; Cindy Lutz, manager, human resources and administration; and Craig Thompson, national account manager.
Vogelsand said Hamacher Resource Group will build on its heritage of developing and delivering merchandising, category management, marketing and productivity tools for independent and chain retail operations.
The firm operates from a 25,00-square-foot office building at 8801 W. Heather Ave. on Milwaukee’s northwest side and is on the Web at www.hamacher.com. It currently employs 45 people.
Milwaukee-based Haker-Zellmer Investment Management has changed its name to Northern Oak Capital Management, according to Mark Zellmer, company president. The name change was executed to reflect a new direction in company leadership. William Haker, who founded the company in 1986, remains as chairman. Zellmer joined the firm in 1989. All operations remain intact. It reports having more than $200 million in assets under management.
NAI MLG Commercial has launched a Madison office, in the Inacom building at 3001 W. Beltline Highway. The Brookfield-based company has been doing business in Madison for some time, but without a full-service Madison office. The firm gained a significant Madison presence last year when The Brewer Group was merged into NAI MLG Commercial.
Diversified Insurance Services of Waukesha is merging with Fringe Benefit Planning, Inc., of Milwaukee, an employee benefits firm owned by William A. Little.
According to James E. McCormack, chairman and CEO of Diversified, “The merger of the two firms will allow Bill Little and his team to remain intact, give his clients access to additional services provided by Diversified, and give us a downtown Milwaukee presence at 839 N. Jefferson on Cathedral Square.” Diversified also has an office in Oshkosh.
Little, a 40-year veteran of the insurance industry said, “This merger with Diversified is a natural progression of our company’s 25-year history of continuous service improvement for our clients. I have known Jim MeCormack for more than 25 years and am aware of his substantial investment in evolving and new services such as state-of-the-art health claims analysis, excellent employee communications tools, integrated payroll systems, human resource assistance, and a soon-to-be-announced advanced employee benefit software program.”
Towne Realty of Milwaukee has received trademark registration approval from the U.S. Patent and Trademark office for its Homes by Towne brand name, which is uses to market single-family homes throughout the country. “This registration will allow us to continue the consolidation of all of our single-family sales in the United States under a single brand name,” said Art Wigchers, president of Towne Realty.
Towne builds single-family homes in Arizona, California, Florida, Hawaii and Texas.
ScheerGame Sports Development of Milwaukee (www.sheergame.com) has been retained to create the development plan for a proposed bew multi-purpose sports and entertainment arena in the Augusta, Ga. area. “We intend to build a roadmao that shows where and why to build a new facility, what to build, and how best to pay for it,” said ScheerGame managing director Martin J. Greenberg.
Delafield State Bank has opened a branch in Madison, called Town Bank. The branch serves as a loan production office for residential mortgages and commercial real estate loans in the Dane County market.
Delafield State Bank was founded in 1998 and now has assets of more than $100 million.
The law firm of von Briesen, Purtell & Roper and the Madison-based consulting firm of Bright Consulting have formed an alliance. Bright Consulting, ranked as one of the top 10 lobbying firms in the state, offers clients public policy advocacy, grassroots, coalition, legislative and executive communication campaigns.
St. Nicholas Hospital in Sheboygan has partnered with the Medical College of Wisconsin to bring endocrinology services to the community. Three physicians from the college are now working with St. Nicholas to provide endocrinology care, both on site at the hospital and on a consulting basis.
Comstar (www.comstarllc.com) has expanded its office facilities, doubling its size at its current location in Waukesha. The additional space was needed to accommodate Comstar’s recent staff additions and growing business. In addition, Comstar has installed the latest in backup generator technology.
“At Comstar, we are committed to providing our clients with the best e-business services in southeastern Wisconsin,” said Jeffrey Kirk, president. “The additional space, in combination with the installation of the backup generator, further strengthens our ability to provide top quality services for all of our clients.”
CedarNet (www.cedar.net) has moved to a new, larger location in the heart of downtown Waukesha — 831 North Grand Ave. CedarNet has provided residential and business Internet services in the Milwaukee and Waukesha areas since 1994.
February 1, 2002 Small Business Times, Milwaukee