Baird receives manufacturing awards
Baird Investment Banking has been named "Manufacturing Adviser of the Year" by Acquisitions Monthly, a U.K.-based publication of Thomson Financial. The division of R.W. Baird & Co. also won two manufacturing deal awards – “U.S. Middle Market Industrial Deal of the Year” and “U.S. Middle Market Consumer Deal of the Year” – from The M&A Advisor.
Johnson Financial Group named Best Company
Johnson Financial Group, the $5 billion financial services parent company of Johnson Bank and Johnson Insurance, was recently ranked #37 on Fortune’s annual "100 Best Companies to Work for" list. The full list appeared in the magazine’s Feb. 4 issue.
Thrivent provides financing to build new high school in Hartland
Thrivent Financial for Lutherans will provide $20.5 million in financing to help build a new Lake Country Lutheran High School in Hartland.
The Lutheran High School Association of Greater Milwaukee selected Thrivent to provide the financing needed to build the $30 million project. The school currently rents a former YMCA building in Oconomowoc. Construction has begun on the new high school campus at the intersection of Highways 16 and 83, and is expected to be complete by the spring semester of 2009.
Marquette’s College of Engineering to receive another $25 million donation
The family of a Marquette engineering alumnus will donate an additional $25 million to Marquette University’s College of Engineering, doubling a previous donation, the Rev. Robert Wild, S.J., university president, recently announced.
The alumnus and his wife, who asked to remain anonymous, announced a legacy gift of $25 million to the Marquette College of Engineering in December 2006. Wild said the couple’s family members have now decided to add another $25 million to that gift to challenge other benefactors to assist in the transformation of engineering education underway at Marquette.
In addition to the $50 million from this family, the Marquette College of Engineering has received several other gifts to support Jaskolski’s initiatives:
October 2007 – $15 million from Robert Kern, founder of Generac, Inc., and his wife, Patricia, donated toward construction of Marquette’s new engineering facility
May 2006 – $5 million from Robert Greenheck, chairman emeritus of the board and co-founder of Greenheck Fan Corporation in Schofield, Wis., donated to endow a faculty chair in engineering design
January 2007 – $5 million from Jim and Kelly McShane of the McShane Companies in Rosemont, Ill., donated to fund a faculty chair in construction engineering and management.
Farmers Insurance to open centers in Brookfield and Madison
Los Angeles-based Farmers Group Inc. announced that it will open two new recruiting and development centers, one in Brookfield and one in Madison. The centers will create more than 1,000 jobs in the state.
The Milwaukee Farmers Insurance Recruiting and Development Center will be located at 300 N. Corporate Dr., Suite 100, in Brookfield. It will focus on recruiting and training 400 new Farmers Insurance agents in the metro Milwaukee area.
The Madison recruiting and development center will open at 2310 Crossroads Drive in Madison.
Combined, the two new Wisconsin centers will create more than 1,000 new jobs statewide and will mean an investment of more than $20 million into the Wisconsin economy, said Scott Stice, senior vice president of field operations for Farmers
Insurance Group.
WellPoint posts robust year
WellPoint Inc., the independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, including Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Wisconsin, reported net income of $3.3 billion, or $5.56 per share, for the full year, up from $3.1 billion, or $4.82 per share, for 2006.
The Indianapolis-based company’s total revenues in 2007 grew to $61.1 billion from $57.0 billion in the previous year.
Waukesha accounting firm changes name
Stephen C. VanderBloemen, CPA, announced that the name of his Waukesha-based certified public accounting firm has been changed from from VanderBloemen Rodrigues to The VanderBloemen Group, LLC.
Jon Hilgendorf, CPA, and John VanderBloemen, CPA, were admitted as partners/members of the firm and Eric Carlson, CPA, has rejoined the VanderBloemen Group as a senior manager after spending two years at a large regional firm. Carlson previously spent 10 years with VanderBloemen.
