Milwaukee’s civic, business, health care and educational leaders gathered this morning to kick off the Well City Milwaukee’s “Going 4 the Gold,” a drive to expand wellness throughout the city.
Milwaukee is the largest city in the nation and one of only nine cities overall to achieve a Well City USA Silver Award. To gain the designation, Well City Milwaukee recruited enough organizations to provide wellness programs to 30 percent of the city’s workforce.
To become a Gold City, Milwaukee will need to expand the wellness participation to 50 percent of the city’s workforce by 2014, according to Janet McMahon, executive director of Well City Milwaukee.
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett applauded the effort and joked at the ceremony today, “Come to Milwaukee and be buff.”
Milwaukee Health Commissioner Bevan Baker said, “We’re going to make Milwaukee the healthiest city in the nation.”
Tim Sheehy, president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, and Julia Taylor, president of the Greater Milwaukee Committee, said the Well City status provides a competitive advantage for Milwaukee’s business community.
Well City testimonials were provided today by Mary Meehan, president of Alverno College, and Dave Werner, president of Park Bank.
Arvid “Dick” Tilmar, founding member of the Well City project, introduced keynote speaker Karen Timberlake, director of the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, who said that for employers, every $1 spent on employee wellness produces $3.27 in health care cost reductions.
“Wellness is an obvious, critical strategy to improving the company’s bottom line,” Timberlake said.
Jessica Raddemann and Theresa Islo of the Wellness Council of Wisconsin presented Well Workplace Accreditation Awards to the American Society for Quality, Aurora Health Care, Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, Educators Credit Union, the MMAC, PyraMax Bank, the Starr Group and United Healthcare.
