Deb Carey, co-founder and president of New Glarus Brewing Co., recently received the Ken Hendricks Memorial ‘Seize the Day’ award at the annual Wisconsin Entrepreneurs Conference, held in Milwaukee. After accepting her award, Carey participated in a Q&A with Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council. New Glarus’ beers are distributed exclusively in Wisconsin and the company expects to produce about 240,000 barrels of beer this year.
- “I never thought we would be this big. That wasn’t the goal. Our goal is just to make world class beer and take care of the people around us.”
- “Anybody who wants to work for us has to come to work for three days first. Everybody who works with them rates them. This gives everybody a voice in who gets hired. The flip side is they also have ownership in making this person successful.”
- “People sometimes don’t understand when they think about business just in regards to money. I see it as, we have a success team. Not a week goes by that somebody doesn’t call and say, ‘Don’t you want to bid out your insurance?’ Or ‘Don’t you need a new banking relationship?’ Why? No, I’m not going to dump the people who have brought me here. We are part of a team.”
- “There is always space in the market that is about dollars, for sure. But that isn’t the space where you’re going to create profit. In order for me to be able to make world class beer, I need a team that I can depend on.”
- “When we have a new beer that’s coming out, in my mind I’m thinking of different names. It’s hard to come up with a name that fits for our area and fits for the beer. So, I just try them out on unsuspecting customers. I wait to see what their reaction is.”
- “We have the ability to change the lives of the people around us in a very positive way. We all want to be treated respectfully. We all need health insurance. We all want a paycheck we can depend on. And those are the things that we are able to give to our people and that will resonate through the community and create change for others. So, I hope (business leaders) will continue to invest in their people, in education and in our great state of Wisconsin.”
