Ideas

Train manufacturer Talgo this week has begun the legal process of notifying its workforce and the state that it will lay off employees at its Milwaukee facility. The company has about 80 employees in Milwaukee.

Badger Meter Inc. will hold its 2012 annual meeting of shareholders at Racine Federated Inc. on Friday, April 27 at 8:30 a.m.

Polaris Industries Inc. plans to add 89 jobs in the western Wisconsin city of Osceola as it boosts production of Indian motorcycles.

The United Performing Arts Fund has announced its 2012 goal of raising $10 million by mid-June. The 2012 UPAF Campaign co-chairs are David J. Lubar, president and chief executive officer of Lubar & Co. and Carlene Ziegler, managing director of Artisan Partners Limited Partnership. Dollars raised by UPAF support 36 performing arts groups in southeastern Wisconsin.

Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele will discuss how to foster a better business climate in the county when he is the featured guest at an event hosted by the Independent Business Association of Wisconsin (IBA ).

Did you know that one in four students – more than one million a year – fails to graduate with their class?

The national unemployment rate dipped to 8.2 percent in March, even though the economy only added 120,000 new jobs, failing to top the 200,000 mark for the first time since November.

The Northwestern Mutual Foundation recently donated 26 grants totaling nearly $1.4 million to 23 Wisconsin nonprofits that promote childhood literacy and increase access to higher education.

The number of first-time unemployment claims in the United States fell to a four-year low last week, as employers continued to hire at a healthy pace.

Michael Grandillo has been named the new president of Lakeland College in Sheboygan. Grandillo, 54 succeeds Stephen Gould, who was named Lakeland’s president in 1998 and will retire in May after serving the college for 42 years as a teacher and administrator. Grandillo is the 15th president of Lakeland.