Former Republican Congressman Mark Neumann has built a profitable company
centered on preserving green space and contributing to cleaner air and water.
Neumann established Pewaukee-based Neumann Enterprises Inc. six years ago when he
left his position in Congress after an unsuccessful campaign against Russ Feingold for
U.S. Senate.
The Neumann Enterprises company slogan is, "Preserving land through development in
harmony with nature."
Neumann Enterprises focuses on purchasing land, retiring nearly 50 percent of it to
permanent green space and then re-selling the property in bulk to home builders.
The company works with developers in three different ways. When the amount of green
space exceeds 50 percent within a development, the owner of the development owns the
green space, Neumann said. When about 50 percent of the development is green space,
then the homeowners association owns the green space. The third alternative would be
for the land designated for green space to be left open for a single individual to own,
Neumann said.
Neumann built Neumann Enterprises into a company with $15.4 million in annual
revenues and 597 percent growth over the past three years. The company was ranked
181st in Inc. magazine’s annual Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing companies in the
nation.
Neumann Enterprises also concentrates on maintaining an environmentally conscious
construction site while excavating land, building retention ponds and designing land
plats, Neumann said. For instance, trucks are filled with clean diesel fuel that results in
less emission than standard diesel fuel. A water truck drives around the site during
construction to minimize particles contaminating the air, Matt Matrise, environmental
compliance specialist for Neumann Enterprises, said.
Neumann Enterprises also partakes in a wetland creation project in which, through flood
plain scraping and a seed mixture, the company is providing more opportunities for
wetlands to occur, Matrise said.
This environmentally-friendly approach to urban sprawl is not necessarily unique in the
construction industry but is definitely a positive attempt at conserving land and
promoting clean air and water, said Brett Hulsey, a Dane County Board supervisor and
senior Midwest representative for the Sierra Club.
For Neumann, the idea of preserving green space goes back to when he was a young
child and planted pine tree seedlings with his father.
"It was natural to carry the idea over to this and follow through with it," Neumann said.
Neumann, who was a conservative Republican when in Congress, said he formed
Neumann Enterprises in part to show that without the use of tax dollars, the company
could set aside 1,000 acres of green space as part of a solution to the problem of urban
sprawl.
Since the company’s inception, Neumann found that 1,000 acres is too small of a goal.
"This is a profitable enterprise," Neumann said. "The point is that if someone puts their
mind to it, (he or she) can preserve green space and still be economically viable."
Small Business Times, December 16, 2005, Milwaukee, WI
