Ideas

The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago reports in its latest “Beige Book” that the economic conditions in the Seventh District, which includes Wisconsin and most of the upper Midwest, continue to improve, although the pace of growth has slowed.

VictorySpark, Inc., in association with Milwaukee-based VETransfer has received a grant from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation to launch a seed accelerator focused Veteran-initiated startups.

ManpowerGroup and Competitive Wisconsin Inc. (CWI) are partnering to help Wisconsin's business, government and academic leaders address the state's short-term skills gap and its longer-term need to build a sustainable and globally competitive talent pool that empowers workers and meets employers' needs.

Southeastern Wisconsin business executives are more optimistic about the direction of their companies in the second half of the year than they were when the year began, according to the latest BizTimes Business Dashboard Survey.

Northern Trust Bank has appointed Carl Tannenbaum, a banking industry leader in economics and risk management, as its chief economist.

Dennis Ellmaurer recently wrote an article that appeared in the May 14–27 edition of Biz Times entitled, “You Can’t Help But Ask: Are CEO’s idiots?” Talk about an attention grabber! Mr. Ellmaurer went on to cite several examples of once highly-successful companies that failed…companies like Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company, Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company, and Midwest Express Airlines to name a few. The balance of his article stated several reasons why these companies failed including “Bad Strategy, Rotten Execution”, and “People (in wrong jobs).” However, the caption “The Reality Check” caught my eye and provided the spark to write this article. In this caption, Mr. Ellmaurer states, “my guess is the CEO’s of some of these failed companies would have been better served with a strong board of directors that knew when and how to challenge the strategic thinking of the CEO.”

Hot Water Products, a Milwaukee water heating products company, has acquired American Mechanical Services, a Milwaukee steam products company.

Appleton Papers Inc. announced is discontinuing its proposal to be acquired by Hicks Acquisition Company II Inc., a special purpose acquisition company operated by billionaire Thomas Hicks.

Waterford-based Runzheimer International, a global leader in Total Employee Mobility solutions, has acquired Canadian GPS technology firm SatLogix Inc., an innovator of vehicle mileage tracking devices and cloud-based mileage management platforms.

Data Dimensions, a Janesville-based producer of business process automation (BPA) solutions, announced it has acquired Data Exchange Center Inc. located in Brown Deer.