FRI AM News: WisBusiness: the Podcast with Roxanne Baumann, Baumann Global; GMAR report shows ‘good start’ to 2025 for regional housing market

February 14, 2025

— This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: the Podcast” is with Roxanne Baumann, global business strategist and owner of Baumann Global.

Baumann recently launched her company after spending decades in international commerce, and now offers export services, project consulting and more for clients. She’s previously worked for Harley-Davidson, and draws on her experiences overseeing sales in Canada, Europe, South America, Australia, Asia and elsewhere.

“I love working with manufacturing companies,” she said, noting her clients are typically businesses with between $5 million and $100 million in revenue, though that can go higher in some cases.

She helps C-suite executives “overcome barriers to international expansion” and other export challenges, noting some business leaders tend to take a “reactive” approach to exporting.

“They’ve never really sat back and said, ‘Gee, why am I getting that order, how can I make that happen further?’ And as they move to try to do more, without some experience, without some strategy, they basically can waste a lot of time, have some costly mistakes,” she said.

Her approach incorporates “best practices” of strategic exporters, Baumann explains, from focusing on countries that present the best opportunities to accelerating the process of getting a return on investment.

Bringing a domestic business to the global stage can seem daunting to many business leaders, according to Baumann. Her process seeks to hone in on clients’ unique value proposition, the most promising markets to target and how to drive expansion revenue, among other factors.

“If they get strategic, you know, I’ve had companies average almost $1 million in new revenue in the first year,” she said.

Baumann also discusses government resources and loans available to companies looking to export and how she helps clients navigate this landscape.

“So wherever they are, we’ll try to figure out how we can get through the barriers and get them moving,” she said.

Listen to the podcast and see the full list of WisBusiness.com podcasts.

— January home sales in the greater Milwaukee region rose 7.1% over the year, marking a “good start” to 2025.

That’s according to the latest update from the Greater Milwaukee Association of Realtors, which shows 908 homes were sold across Milwaukee, Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington counties last month. That’s up from 848 in January 2024.

“While not in the one thousand sales range the market saw from 2018 to 2022, nine hundred sales, in January, is a great way to start the year,” the group wrote in the report.

At the same time, new listings in January were 10.9% higher over the year. But GMAR says sales and listings still aren’t high enough to meet demand, noting 2023 and 2024 were “miserable years, so 2025 has almost nowhere to go but up.”

Listings in the region have risen for eight of the last 13 months, but that follows the “worst period of listings” the market has seen in decades, report authors note. Along with fewer homeowners looking to sell, a lack of new construction is also limiting supply.

Through the end of last year, GMAR tracked 2,151 permits for new construction in the region, “well below” the 4,000-or-so needed each year to meet demand.

The average home sale price rose 14% over the year in January, from about $328,000 to $323,000, as low supply coupled with high demand continue to drive prices upward.

“That demand is being created by buyers who want all of the quality of life benefits that homeownership offers, so they are stretching to qualify for a loan, or come up with enough cash to get a house,” authors wrote.

See the report.

— Both sides of the fight over legislation that would give utilities a leg up in bidding for new infrastructure projects announced new coalitions in a sign the debate this session over “ROFR” will intensify.

WisPolitics previously reported last session’s version of the right of first refusal bill was the most lobbied piece of legislation over the first 18 months of the 2023-24 session, with groups pouring 5,071 hours into influencing lawmakers.

Yesterday, each side of the debate released lists of groups that will be part of this session’s lobbying effort, with at least a half-dozen groups in each camp joining the debate.

The group that dubbed itself “Wisconsin for ROFR” includes utilities that were part of the debate last session. The organization also added groups such as Kwik Trip and the Wisconsin Counties Association to the ranks of those that will push for the bill.

The conservative Americans for Prosperity-Wisconsin helped lead the opposition to the legislation last session. The anti-ROFR coalition includes groups such as Quad Graphics and the American Economic Liberties Project.

The new organizations in each camp didn’t register for or against the bill last session.

The renewed push on the bill — which cleared the Assembly on a voice vote, but died in the Senate last session — comes as the 14-state Midcontinent Independent System Operator is poised to send out the first requests for new projects.

The regional electric grid that covers the upper Midwest in December approved a $21.8 billion investment for 24 projects across the region with the expectation they will go into service from 2032-34. The initial batch of work is expected to include about $1.8 billion of projects in Wisconsin.

The bill would give utilities already doing business in Wisconsin the right of first refusal to construct, own and maintain a new transmission line that connects to one of their existing ones.

Utilities late last year began making a pitch to lawmakers that approving ROFR would allow them to spread out operational costs to more ratepayers outside Wisconsin. They argue that while both incumbent utilities and new competitors would be able to share infrastructure costs across the region, ROFR was needed to defer more of the operational costs.

That argument was reflected in an overview the pro-ROFR group released arguing it would save Wisconsin ratepayers $1 billion.

Those opposed to the bill, meanwhile, pushed back on that assertion in a handout of their own, arguing anyone who builds a coming transmission line would be able to spread the operational costs to ratepayers outside Wisconsin. Their handout also argues competition in bidding projects would result in lower costs.

The Assembly version of the bill, AB 25, was formally introduced yesterday and referred to the Energy and Utilities Committee.

— SHINE Technologies is getting federal funding to develop a method for handling and recycling spent nuclear fuel, the Janesville company announced.

Through a program of the U.S. Department of Energy, SHINE is getting support for its REDUCE method, which stands for Recover Elements, Destroy Undesirables, Create Energy. This approach aims to reduce the “volume, longevity, and hazards” of nuclear waste while also recovering valuable elements like uranium and plutonium, for usse in advanced reactor fuel.

SHINE says its approach can “significantly reduce” the environmental footprint of the nuclear energy industry.

Ross Radel, chief technology officer of SHINE Technologies, says used nuclear fuel still holds untapped energy potential that can be leveraged by the REDUCE method.

“By recovering valuable elements and transmuting remaining materials, we’re developing a more sustainable cycle for nuclear energy — one that creates value while minimizing environmental impact,” Radel said in a statement.

Funding comes from the DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, through the Nuclear Energy Waste Transmutation Optimized Now program, or NEWTON. The overall program is putting $40 million into 11 different projects, but the amount going to SHINE wasn’t disclosed.

Evelyn Wang, director of ARPA-E, notes the challenge presented by the United States’ stockpile of used commercial nuclear fuel, even as she calls nuclear technology “essential” to meeting growing U.S. energy demand.

“NEWTON technologies aim to use transmutation to shorten [used nuclear fuel] disposal timelines and reduce the long-term costs of disposal facilities,” Wang said. “This would also help reduce the price of this valuable source of baseload power.”

See more in the release.

— UW-Milwaukee is touting its R1 research institution status, which the university has now earned for the fourth time.

The university yesterday announced it has again received the highest rating for research from the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education for the fourth time, after previously getting it in 2016, 2019 and 2022. Before that, it had been in the second-tier category, R2.

The only other R1 institution in Wisconsin is UW-Madison. The release notes just 187 of about 4,000 institutions considered for the ranking were placed in this tier.

“This recognition reaffirms UWM’s role as a leader in research and positions Milwaukee as an innovation hub,” UWM Chancellor Mark Mone said in a statement. “Our faculty, students and staff are driving discoveries that address critical challenges, strengthen our economy and improve lives in Wisconsin and beyond.”

See the release.

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