FEBRUARY FEATURE
Partners in Progress
Madison Gas and Electric, Venture Investors LLC, Quarles & Brady LLP, QTI Group, and M&I Bank discuss the value of partnering with UW-Madison’s Office of Corporate Relations.
What do an energy company, an investment firm, a law office, a recruiting business and a financial institution — all in Madison — have in common?
The answer is a working partnership with the UW–Madison Office of Corporate Relations (OCR) — the “front door” to campus resources for business and industry, which offers companies such as Madison Gas and Electric (MGE), Venture Investors LLC, Quarles & Brady LLP, QTI Group and M&I Bank opportunities to become more closely aligned with one of the nation’s great public research universities. And often, that relationship gives the firms access to UW–Madison resources, enabling them to address the challenges of managing and growing a solid organization.
Recently, Madison Gas and Electric joined with OCR to produce Brains, Beauty, Brawn, BioTech, Buzz and Bucks, an exciting new publication that highlights the reasons why more and more companies and entrepreneurs are starting, or expanding, their businesses in the Madison and Dane County area. “We share a mission in many respects,” says Phyllis Wilhelm, MGE’s director of economic development, pictured below.
“Our partnership with OCR helps us leverage our resources,” explains Phyllis Wilhelm, MGE’s director of economic development. “We share a mission in many respects. We view our role as connecting people to more business resources. OCR also connects people to resources, particularly those within the university system.”
Wilhelm’s company is among a handful of other area businesses that have taken advantage of a unique collaboration with OCR by serving as one of OCR’s primary Web sponsors. MGE’s banner appears prominently on the OCR home page. That page highlights OCR’s UW Business News Wire, as well as its suite of services that are available to Wisconsin businesses, including recruitment of student interns and recent graduates, professional development opportunities, access to UW faculty and staff, technology licensing options, insight into the global marketplace and resources for entrepreneurs.
Jill Dohnal, QTI’s corporate development and marketing manager, also has formed a partnership between her company and OCR. “When we do anything, we try to seek out strategic partnerships with our core mission,” she says. “This partnership helps us reach the type of people we’re seeking — professors, alumni, and current students. The people who are at the UW or are coming out of it ... tend to be highly educated, and these are our core areas of recruitment.”
QTI places people in jobs “blue collar to boardroom,” Dohnal explains. “We believe this is an important partnership for the support [that OCR] provides the community. It matches really well ... it’s a good fit.”
Mark Ehrmann, partner and head of the private equity and venture capital group at Quarles & Brady, says the law firm’s association with OCR started in 2005. “They ... serve as a referral source for us,” he says. “They may know of someone who needs an attorney and then they call us. We also do a lot of work for WARF [the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation] and OCR knows all about what goes on at WARF.”
Ehrmann says his firm is trying to expand throughout the Madison business community and that OCR “seems to have the same objective. They really help things out.”
John Neis, managing director of Venture Investors LLC, a venture capital firm, says his organization is primarily focused on backing companies that are formed to commercialize technologies developed at major universities in the Midwest. “Naturally, being in the backyard of the nation’s second largest research university, we’ve disproportionately backed companies coming out of UW–Madison,” he says. “So the Office of Corporate Relations is obviously one of the conduits between the researchers and those trying to communicate.”
“Naturally, being in the backyard of the nation’s second largest research university, we’ve disproportionately backed companies coming out of the UW–Madison,“ says John Neis, managing director of Venture Investors LLC, a Midwest venture capital firm. Pictured, left to right, are members of the firm: Scott Button, Roger Ganser, Kevin McPherson, George Arida, Neis, Winslow Sargeant, Jim Adox and Paul Weiss. (Photo courtesy Venture Investors)
Neis says his firm backed the first company in which WARF took equity and license fees — which he considers a big accomplishment.
Today, he says, OCR “provides a linkage between us and those doing the work. It’s a key resource for us.”
All of this is good news to Charles Hoslet, managing director of OCR. “These strong relationships help us to stay better connected and be more attentive to the needs of business and industry,” he says. “We not only appreciate their support, but we value their partnership. We hope to make these partner opportunities available to other companies as well. Working together, we can help build a thriving 21st-century Wisconsin economy.”
Doug Nelson, president of M&I Bank Southwest Wisconsin Region, echoes Hoslet’s sentiments. “M&I Bank and the UW Office of Corporate Relations share a common interest in creating a better economic environment for the corporate community and the university,” Nelson says. “Our association with OCR over the past year keeps us connected with the community at large and has given us additional resources when hiring recent graduates.”
Visit our archives to read articles from previous issues of the UW Business Wire.