How can two outstanding communities prosper, share success, and lead the way in the 5P Industries? By supporting a new engineering building at UW-Madison. Unfortunately, the Wisconsin Joint Finance Committee withheld approval for a new College of Engineering building, despite $150M of the project’s $347M budget coming from private donations. The current College of Engineering building was constructed in 1907.
Ian Robertson, Grainger Dean of the UW-Madison College of Engineering, has an urgent request for CEOs in the 5P Industries. He’s asking you to consider signing a letter to present to state legislators, expressing support for a new building for the College of Engineering. If you are willing to add your name and company to this letter, please email russ.johnson@wisc.edu by Thursday, June 15.
Currently, the Green Bay Innovation Group is involved in two high-impact UW-Madison initiatives. GBIG is collaborating with George Huber, Professor of Chemical Engineering at UW-Madison and director of the $12.5 million Center for Chemical Upcycling of Waste Plastics (CUWP). CUWP is working with plastic converters to convert hard-to-recycle plastic into high quality resins. After CUWP successfully completes this pilot project, CUWP plans to design the first commercial converting facility in Green Bay. Green Bay has an opportunity to gain national recognition for plastic recycling. Currently, over 45,000 Wisconsin residents are employed in the Plastics Industry, plus 25,000 in Flexible Packaging, Nonwoven, supporting Manufacturing, and Construction! A new commercial plastic recycling center would be a great financial benefit to Green Bay and the State of Wisconsin.
Another remarkable innovation stemming from UW-Madison is an experimental fusion machine which produces sustainable, locally generated process heat. Recently, Dr. Ben Lindley, Assistant Professor of Nuclear Engineering & Engineering Physics at UW-Wisconsin, sent an update regarding this research project. Read Dr. Lindley’s letter. Dr. Lindley is working with a local startup company to develop a lower cost and less complex modular fusion reactor utilizing abundant fuel sources to provide a new, zero-carbon source of heat and power. The financial and environmental impact would be huge for Wisconsin industries! Dr. Lindley sent me a request for introductions to the paper and pulp companies in Northeast Wisconsin, and we are moving forward on it.
These are just two examples of the exceptional research underway at UW-Madison. What other breakthroughs are possible? Wisconsin needs to come together in a non-bipartisan manner to vote YES to approve a new Engineering Building. Without it, UW-Madison will lose professors, students, and major engineering innovations to other universities.
I lived in the Green Bay area for 27 years, and I lived in the Madison area for 27 years. In both communities, I have been involved in the business community. I am extremely comfortable and well-connected in both communities by building strong, trusting relationships.
Northeastern Wisconsin is a world class innovative manufacturing center with a big emphasis on the 5P (Paper, Pulp, Plastic, Print and Packaging) and Converting industries. Green Bay has earned the title of the “Toilet Paper Capital of the World” and the “Converting Corridor of the United States.” U.S. News & World Report recently ranked Green Bay as the No. 1 metro area in the nation to live.
Madison ranked as one of the best places in the United States to live, against the backdrop of the acclaimed institution, UW-Wisconsin. The college is ranked as one of the best educational institutions in the world! The Madison area has an abundance of Advanced Manufacturing, Agriculture, Food, Healthcare, Information Technology and Bioscience.
The State of Wisconsin is in dire need of engineers in all fields, to continue to build on our manufacturing success across Wisconsin. Contact your State Representatives, and ask them to VOTE YES to building the new state-of-the-art College of Engineering facility.
