BUILDING WISCONSIN INTO THE SILICON VALLEY OF WATER TECHNOLOGY

Rich Meeusen, The Water Council, discussed how southeastern Wisconsin was built on the back of wet industries.  These are the industries that came to Wisconsin because we have 21% of the world’s freshwater outside our back door – the Great Lakes.  Milwaukee was not only the beer capital but there were also tanneries, papermaking, lumber, steel and meatpacking.  Milwaukee has lost many of these industries.  In 1848, Germany consisted of independent kingdoms.  People started uprising against the kingdoms to throw out the royalty because they wanted independence.  It was the skilled craftsmen who led these revolts which failed.  There was a mass exodus out of Germany to Milwaukee which was a German city.  As a result, many machine shops or water technology companies started.  In 1922, Milwaukee’s forefathers knew that they were about water – how to move, process, pump and clean it.  About 5 years ago, the Milwaukee region was struggling with its identity and needed to determine what it was good at.  Meeusen suggested that they were about water.  No one really wanted to focus on water.  He went to Julia Taylor, Greater Milwaukee Committee, to explore this idea.  They went to U. W. Milwaukee to have graduate students find out how many water technology companies there were in southeastern Wisconsin and if there was any greater concentration of water technology companies in the world.  The students found out that there were 150 water technology companies and there was no place in the world that had this many.  These companies are all involved in the process of finding water, cleaning it, delivering it, using it wisely and returning it to nature.  Meeusen and Taylor wanted to bring these companies together to make southeastern Wisconsin the silicon valley of water technology.  Taylor suggested that to do this Meeusen needed to come up with a city that tried to do this and failed and another city that tried this and succeeded.  Meeusen used the example of Disneyland that opened in 1955 in Anaheim, California.  Anaheim wanted to turn into the tourist capital of the world but for the next 20 years did nothing. Disney then went to Orlando and opened Disney World. In 1972, the city leaders in Orlando got together and talked about it becoming the tourist capital of the world.  They got the tourist industry to work with venture capitalists, the universities, government and nonprofits.  Today, they have Sea World, Universal Studios, a large convention center, expanded airport and the University of Central Florida is the #2 rated school for tourism and hospitality management. Orlando accomplished their goal.  Meeusen convinced Governor Doyle to create the School of Fresh Water Sciences at U. W. Milwaukee.  Today, there are 50 students enrolled in this program.  The new school is under construction and will serve 200 students (1,000 students were turned away).  U. W. Whitewater offers a minor in water with any business degree.  Marquette offers courses in Eastern Water Law.  MATC offers a 2 year degree in water technology.  Paid internships were also created.  By bringing these educational institutions together, a talent pipeline has been created.  Water is becoming a major problem everywhere and it is only going to get worse.  The United Nations reports that a child dies every 20 seconds from lack of fresh water.  With the companies and talent that are being built, technology can be developed to solve the world’s water problems.  Meeusen went to Israel and visited a company that offered free office/lab space to any entrepreneur who has an idea about water technology.  After this trip, he thought that this would be a good to create this in Milwaukee.  Two years ago, a building was purchased in order to build the Global Water Technology Center.  It will be finished in August.  It will contain the School of Fresh Water Sciences, U. W. Milwaukee School of Engineering, The Water Council, a law office, an accounting office, U. W. Whitewater graduate students, Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (that will offer free rent to develop water technology, six $50,000 grants and free apartments), water technology companies, confluence gallery, flow lab and research facility.  Meeusen believes that The Water Council can grow this region around water and stop a child from dying every 20 seconds from lack of fresh water.