Counties: Brown • Calumet • Door • Florence • Fond Du Lac • Green Lake • Kewaunee • Manitowoc • Marinette • Marquette • Menominee • Oconto • Outagamie Shawano • Sheboygan • Waupaca • Waushara • Winnebago
With 1.23 million people in Northeast Wisconsin’s New North Region, its 20 renowned universities and technical colleges, and sophisticated business friendly regional infrastructure, the branded tag line for the region of “North of what you expect,” will set the tone for those unfamiliar with the New North Region.
New North, Inc. is a regional marketing and economic development organization created to foster collaboration among private and public sector leaders throughout the 18 counties of Northeast Wisconsin. The organization serves as a regional point of contact connecting strategic economic development effort at both the state and local level.
In keeping with Wisconsin’s perennially strong performance in manufacturing, the New North’s economy is dominated by a diverse range of it – from metals, plastics and wood fiber to other base materials – the region holds a strong and diverse range of OEMs and suppliers to OEMs.
According to New North, Inc. executive director, Jerry Murphy, “Manufacturing may be diminishing elsewhere, but not in Wisconsin or the New North.”
The majority of manufacturing operations in Northeast Wisconsin aren’t the assembly lines of old. The region’s industrial firms represent a variety of skilled manufacturing sectors, including defense, marine, agriculture/food production, wood products, paper/paper converting, and electrical equipment.
“The manufacturers are design-build operations that produce products with highly specialized engineering content,” Murphy said.
Prominent companies in the region include Oshkosh Corporation, Bemis Manufacturing, The Manitowoc Company, Menasha Corporation, Marinette Marine; Schreiber Foods; Schneider National; Plexus, Kohler, Georgia-Pacific, Sargento Foods and Mercury Marine.
“We can take diverse manufacturing capacities and reposition them to fit new products and new technologies, to meet domestic and international demand for design-build manufactured products.”
New types of businesses, such as those that manufacture components for the wind energy market, have bolstered the region’s economy.
“There are huge amounts of opportunity around energy,” he said. To that end, the New North has established Wisconsin Wind Works, a consortium of over 300 suppliers and manufacturers working collaboratively to satisfy foreign and domestic wind power supply chain needs.
The New North also offers benefits for companies looking for locations for data centers, which use large amounts of energy and can benefit from the cooler climes of Northeast Wisconsin by saving money on cooling sensitive server equipment.
“New technology in data centers now takes advantage of cool ambient air here to cool servers,” Murphy said.
Health care innovation also is at the center of the action in the New North. Murphy pointed to John Toussaint, CEO of the Appleton-based ThedaCare Center for HealthCare Value, as an innovator in the field. ThedaCare, a five-hospital system in Northeast Wisconsin, has redesigned its health care delivery system through a lean transformation.
ThedaCare set out on its lean mission with several goals, including lowering costs in order to lower the price paid for services. ThedaCare claims its efforts have slashed medical errors, improved patient outcomes, raised staff morale, and saved millions of dollars in costs without layoffs. The experience led Toussaint and Roger Gerard, chief learning office at ThedaCare, to write a book “On the Mend: Revolutionizing Healthcare to Save Lives and Transform the Industry.” As of 2010, ThedaCare had saved $27 million through the first seven years of its lean effort, according to Toussaint.
Late last year, ThedaCare and its partner Bellin Health, along with a network of 700 independent physicians, were selected to participate in an innovative Medicare pilot payment program designed to improve health care services for patients.
By working together, the counties in the New North leverage the region’s assets and strategically advancer economic development and business retention and attraction efforts.
New North Economic Development
The New North, Inc.
1716 Lawrence Dr., De Pere, WI 54115 | (920) 336-3860
www.thenewnorth.com
Executive director: Jerry Murphy
Summary: The New North is a regional marketing and economic development organization for the northeast part of the state including MSAs of: Appleton, Fond du Lac, Green Bay, Oshkosh-Neenah, Sheboygan.
Counties (18): Brown, Calumet, Door, Florence, Fond du Lac, Green Lake, Kewaunee, Manitowoc, Marinette, Marquette, Menominee, Oconto, Outagamie, Shawano, Sheboygan, Waupaca, Waushara, Winnebago.
Notable businesses: Associated Bank, Bemis Manufacturing Company, Georgia-Pacific Corp., Green Bay Packers, Kimberly-Clark Corp., Kohler Co., Manitowoc Company, Marinette Marine Corp., Menasha Corp., Mercury Marine Corp., Oshkosh Corp., Plexus Corp., Sargento Foods Inc., Schneider National, Schreiber Foods, U.S. Venture, Waupaca Foundry
Population: 1.23 million
Major airports: Austin Straubel International Airport (Green Bay), Outagamie County Regional Airport (Appleton)
Major seaports: Port of Green Bay, Port of Sturgeon Bay
Colleges and universities (19): Bellin College, College of Menominee Nation, Fox Valley Technical College, Lakeland College, Lakeshore Technical College, Lawrence University, Marian University, Moraine Park Technical College, Northeast Wisconsin Technical College, Ripon College, Silver Lake College, St. Norbert College, UW-Fond du Lac, UW-Fox Valley, UW-Green Bay, UW-Manitowoc, UW-Marinette, UW-Oshkosh, UW-Sheboygan
Top industries: Paper, paper converting; machinery; plastics/films; tourism and hospitality; defense, marine, agriculture and food production; power and energy ; electronics/circuitry ; trucking/logistics; insurance, healthcare; education; wood products; fixtures; construction/real estate development
