WisBusiness: Milwaukee professor says city is a hotbed for employers

By Ryan Cardarella
WisBusiness.com

In a lecture Tuesday, UW-Milwaukee Professor Sammis White highlighted the efforts of the Milwaukee 7 in creating a more vibrant regional business environment, stressing a stronger relationship with Chicago, and continued efforts to boost a sagging workforce.

The Milwaukee 7 is the group of counties surrounding and including the city, dedicated to improving the local business climate and ensuring unity within the area in terms of recruitment and development.

White, an Urban Planning professor at the university, emphasized the need to integrate with the Chicago community and highlight the glaring advantages in terms of resources and access that the Milwaukee-Chicago region can offer for business expansion and development. White spoke of trying to reduce the barrier between the two major cities.

“People are beginning to see the proximity as more of an advantage than a disadvantage,” said White. “We ought to explore that partnership.”

The Milwaukee area is also a hotbed for potential employers, with the 6th greatest ratio of college students per capita in the country. Nonetheless, White cited finding and retaining a strong workforce as the greatest challenge for regional business.

“Many of those graduates go elsewhere,” said White, adding that the state does a poor job of attracting out of state graduates themselves.

In spite of the stigma that the city is still lagging behind as a business community, Milwaukee is enjoying the early signs of a renaissance, with modest job growth thus far in 2007 after years of losses. However, White was adamant that much more work must be done to maximize area business growth potential.