BizTimes Media recently recognized some of southeastern Wisconsin’s top entrepreneurs and most innovative companies at its annual Innovation + Entrepreneurship Forum. Awards were presented to four individuals for excellence in entrepreneurship, to four companies for excellence in innovation, a Regional Spirit Award was presented to Water Council president and CEO Dean
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BizTimes Media recently recognized some of southeastern Wisconsin's top entrepreneurs and most innovative companies at its annual Innovation + Entrepreneurship Forum.
Awards were presented to four individuals for excellence in entrepreneurship, to four companies for excellence in innovation, a Regional Spirit Award was presented to Water Council president and CEO Dean Amhaus for going above and beyond to promote Milwaukee as a great place to do business, and an award for Lifetime Achievement in entrepreneurship was presented to Jerry Jendusa, owner of BreakthrU Coaching, chairman of Muskego-based Xiogenix and co-founder of EMTEQ.
This year’s Innovation Award winners shared insights on how they developed new products and overcame challenges in the process of bringing them to market. See below for videos of their remarks (introductions by BizTimes Milwaukee reporter Ashley Smart):
Michael Anton Adam, CEO of Adam Aerospace Corp.
“Our technology that was born here in Milwaukee is now on military aircraft all over the United States and all over the world. Our newest contract with the United States Air Force and Space Force is going to be one of the most important technologies to be released to service members probably within the last 10 years.”
Jim Zaiser, president and CEO of Hydro-Thermal
“Some people ask me, to be the leader, does that mean you’re the largest (company)? To us, it doesn’t mean you’re the largest. To us, it means you’re the thought leader. The thought leader means you’re the most influential in your industry. To be innovative, you really have to exercise that muscle of creativity.”
Adrian Deasy, founder and CEO of Octane Coffee
“Now, we’re growing our team and thinking about our culture. Setting that stage of now we’re hiring people, are they a good cultural fit. Are they a good innovator? Are they a good thinker and leader in this field? The people that we hire today to be at this ground floor at Octane Coffee are going to be the future leadership time. It’s critical that we take innovation and culture very seriously.”
Corey Jaskolski, CEO of Synthetaic
“When you start an AI company here in Wisconsin, the first thing all your friends from Silicon Valley do is ask, ‘So, you’re moving to Silicon Valley, right?’” I said no, we’re going to do this thing in Wisconsin. There were quite a few people who didn’t believe we could do it -- so many that I had a little bit of self-doubt. I’m a firm believer in the concept that talent is distributed evenly, but in the AI world, it does tend to end up in Silicon Valley. The pandemic actually did us a great favor here in Wisconsin. People started moving back to work remotely.”
