— This week’s episode of “WisBusinesss: the Podcast” is with Kelly Thompson, president and chief operating officer of First Choice Dental.
The dental clinic operator yesterday announced three practices under Milwaukee Dental Partners have joined its group. As of this week, Oakbrook Dental in West Bend, Jackson Family Dentistry in Jackson and Sauk Trail Dental in Saukville are part of its network, which now has 20 locations.
First Choice Dental was founded in 1996 when a group of three dentists in the Madison area combined their practices, and has largely grown by starting up new clinics over the years.
Thompson says “now we’ve entered into a new avenue” with the acquisition of the Milwaukee sites. The company opened its first office in Rock County earlier this year, and also brought on a corporate development specialist to handle mergers and acquisitions.
“We really wanted to expand our opportunities outside of Dane County … and knew that we wanted to be moving closer to the Milwaukee market, working our way east,” he said.
Looking ahead, the business aims to continue growing through acquisitions and is targeting opening another new office in the Pewaukee area in the near future.
“We want to complement that growth in Milwaukee … and we’ll continue to look through the state for other opportunities, for like-minded practice leaders that look and feel like a First Choice Dental office,” Thompson said.
The conversation explores some of the factors the company’s leaders look at when assessing a particular market.
“Is it a growing community? Is it an underserved community? Do we feel we can add providers, and add access in those communities as well,” he said.
Meanwhile, Thompson weighs in on a shortage of dental hygienists the industry has been grappling with for years. The COVID-19 pandemic worsened the issue, he said, but emphasized First Choice Dental’s efforts to recruit and retain these professionals at its offices.
“The more rural you get, the more challenged you are with provider staffing,” he said.
Listen to the podcast here and see the full list of WisBusiness podcasts.
— WEC Energy Group’s massive data center customers are driving the $10 billion increase to the company’s five-year capital plan, which coincides with rising demand forecasts.
That’s according to Scott Lauber, chairman, president and CEO of WEC Energy Group, which operates We Energies and Wisconsin Public Service. He spoke yesterday during the company’s earnings call for the third quarter.
“We have designed our new capital plan to reliably serve our customers while supporting the significant growth we continue to see across our service areas,” he said.
The company now plans to invest $47.5 billion in capital projects between 2027 and 2031, an increase of $10 billion or more than 26% from its previous five-year plan. That includes an $8.4 billion increase in generation and a $1.2 billion increase in transmission.
“The majority of this increase is being driven, and therefore paid for, by our very large customers,” Lauber said.
Within the next five years, the company plans to invest in more natural gas, battery storage and renewable energy production. From 2027-2031, WEC Energy Group says it will spend an incremental $6.8 billion in natural gas generation compared to the prior plan, including a combined cycle turbine project coming online near the end of this period.
While it’s boosting battery storage by $3 billion, planned solar and wind investments have been reduced by $1.9 billion, Lauber said.
Meanwhile, the business now expects electric demand to grow by 4.9 gigawatts from 2026-2031, marking an increase of 1 GW compared to the previous plan.
Yesterday’s presentation referenced the demand driven by Microsoft’s large data center complex in Mount Pleasant, with Lauber noting WEC is “preparing to serve forecasted demand of 3.2 gigawatts in the I-94 region through 2031, with opportunity for further expansion.” That’s an increase of 600 megawatts from the previous plan.
Lauber also hinted at a coming announcement, pointing to an additional 400 MW in the new capital plan.
“We’re making good progress with another customer, and you can expect more details in the future,” he said.
At the same time, construction on Vantage’s $15 billion Oracle data center project is underway north of Milwaukee. WEC now expects 1.3 GW in demand for this site through 2031, though Lauber said that could rise to 3.5 GW over time.
See more in the company’s latest earnings report.
— Several utilities are preparing to challenge the developer of the proposed BECI transmission line’s application to become a Wisconsin utility.
Midcontinent Grid Solutions will need to be approved as a public utility by the Public Service Commission before it can apply for a permit to build a proposed extra-high voltage, 190-mile transmission line across western and southern Wisconsin.
In recent weeks, concerned landowners, local governments and a school district have sought to intervene in MGS’s application for utility status amid a broader backlash against the proposal for the towering 765-kV power line.
But several utilities have indicated they plan to challenge MGS’s application on the terms by which it seeks to become a utility.
MGS’s application argues the would-be utility’s corporate owners should be exempt from regulation that bars a transmission operator’s “holding company” from owning a significant stake in other, non-transmission public utilities.
It’s also arguing it should not be subject to terms under the Wisconsin Utilities Holding Company Act that limit how much a public utility holding company can invest in non-utility businesses.
MGS’s upstream ownership includes the Ohio-based American Electric Power Company – one of the nation’s largest electricity generators and owner of the nation’s largest transmission system – and BHE Transmission, a subsidiary of multinational conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway.
Existing utilities seeking to intervene in MGS’s application have argued the developer’s interpretation of state law would change how transmission companies are regulated and limit the PSC’s ability to regulate transmission companies in the future.
The Wisconsin Utilities Association, which represents investor-owned electric and gas utilities, argued in one filing that MGS “seeks regulation as a public utility and a transmission company, while at the same time asking the Commission to entirely forgo regulating it like one.”
The state’s largest transmission operator, American Transmission Company, as well as WPPI Energy, Dairyland Power Cooperative – which plans to build the extra-high voltage MariBell transmission line – and a coalition of municipal utilities have also raised concerns about how the transmission developer has interpreted state law around its corporate ownership.
MGS in a response filing to WUA and WPPI argued those utilities are seeking to “preserve the status quo, without identifying a legally protected interest in the status quo.”
The company in a statement said it “look(s) forward to participating in the Commission’s process, presenting the facts supporting our application, and demonstrating why MGS should be recognized as a utility in Wisconsin.”
MGS is also facing pushback from municipalities and county governments, which have raised concerns about how the route of the proposed BECI line will impact their land use and development plans. Several landowner coalitions have also voiced concerns about how the proposed line will impact property values and quality of life.
Sauk Prairie School District has also requested to intervene over concerns about the proposed route crossing school property, creating noise and visual disruption, as well as broader opposition to the short public input timeline for the project.
It’s unclear whether any of those groups will be accepted as intervenors, since the PSC docket addresses whether MGS can become a utility, not where the BECI line will be built.
Watchdog group the Citizens Utility Board of Wisconsin is also seeking to intervene in the PSC docket.
An administrative law judge will decide what groups can become intervenors.
The period to apply to become an intervenor closed late last night.
— Appleton has been named the top housing market in the country by the Wall Street Journal and Realtor.com, which point to the city’s low cost of living, steady demand and strong local economy as key factors.
The Housing Market Ranking report, released yesterday, assessed the 200 most populous metro areas in the country for their local real estate market as well as broader measures of economic health and quality of life.
The Appleton area is the smallest market in the report’s top 20 with about 250,000 residents, while the city proper has about 75,000 based on census figures.
Its median listing price was $404,940 in September, which is up 1.3% over the year but below the national median of $419,250. Active listings more than doubled over the year to 695 homes, and Appleton-area homes remained on the market for 40 days on average — about three weeks less than the national average.
Meanwhile, the report touts Appleton’s 2.8% unemployment being below the 4.2% average across the 200 metros included in the analysis. Plus, the city’s cost of living was about 8% lower than the national average.
Hannah Jones, senior economist for Realtor.com, notes higher mortgage rates have “made the affordability challenge more acute” while also driving buyers to seek higher-value markets. The 30-year fixed rate has risen to 7.4% from 6.27% at this point last year.
“Appleton’s top ranking reflects a broad set of strengths rather than one standout metric, including a strong local economy, relatively low housing and living costs, steady demand, improving inventory and a high quality of life,” Jones said in a statement.
— WEDC has authorized up to $450,000 in state tax credits for Sartori Company’s planned $47 million expansion of its whey-converting site in Plymouth.
The cheesemaker plans to add 68,000 square feet to a 106,254-square-foot facility, expanding with five new production lines, according to the announcement from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp.
Sartori can earn the state income tax credits over the next three years by hitting certain job creation and capital investment targets. The company says the project will create up to 27 new jobs and support its next five years of growth.
CEO Bert Sartori says the expansion will boost production capacity and open up opportunities for innovation, noting “our business has experienced significant growth over the past decade.” It was founded in 1939 and remains in Plymouth, which produces more than 14% of all cheese consumed in the United States, according to WEDC.
“Wisconsin has an incredible dairy heritage, and we’re fortunate that our milk comes from local Wisconsin family farms,” Sartori said in the agency’s announcement.
— Wisconsin’s rate of workers being hospitalized due to severe workplace injuries is 72% above the national average, according to an analysis by High Rise Financial.
This California-based legal funding company this week issued a report detailing workplace injury hospitalization trends across the country. It found Wisconsin had 9.13 workers hospitalized per 100,000 workers annually over a 10-year period ending in 2025.
That’s well above the national average of 5.3 per 100,000, averaging 274.3 hospitalizations per year out of the state’s workforce of about 3 million people.
Report authors note “the workday begins early” for many workers in Wisconsin, from the state’s dairy plants to foundries in Milwaukee as well as paper mills and shipyards.
“For most workers, the shift ends the way it began, with a drive home and a plan to return the next morning,” they wrote. “For others, a slip on an icy dock, a hand caught in machinery, or a load that shifts without warning turns an ordinary day into one that ends in a hospital bed.”
Wisconsin’s rate is also 21% higher than neighboring Illinois’ rate of 7.52 per 100,000.
Authors also emphasize the “heavy toll by volume” Wisconsin faces, as it had 3,107 workers hospitalized due to workplace injuries between 2015 and 2025. That’s the eighth-highest number in the country and more than 42 other states, including 11 that have larger workforces.
By comparison, some other nearby Midwest states have far lower rates of workplace injuries leading to hospitalization.
The four states with the lowest rates include Indiana at No. 50 with 0.11 hospitalizations per 100,000 workers, Michigan at No. 49 with 0.12, Iowa at No. 48 with 0.18 and Minnesota at No. 47, also with 0.18.
Meanwhile, North Dakota came in at No. 1 on the list with the highest rate in the country, 16.22 per 100,000 workers. It has a far smaller workforce than others in the top 10, with just over 400,000, and its average number of workers hospitalized was 65.5 per year.
The report is based on data from OSHA Severe Injury Reports between Jan. 1, 2015, and Nov. 30, 2025.
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— Gov. Tony Evers has proclaimed today Brewers “Won Our Way” Day in Wisconsin to celebrate the first World Series title in the Milwaukee franchise’s history.
The proclamation coincides with the team’s plans for a parade in Milwaukee to celebrate winning the series 4-1 over the Tampa Bay Rays.
“Win our way” has been the Brewers’ motto this season.
Evers posted on X yesterday, “Look, I’m not saying I can give you the day off tomorrow… I don’t think it’s in my executive powers as governor to do that, but I am saying you can show this to your boss and see what happens. It’s worth a shot.”
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TOPICS
AGRIBUSINESS
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ECONOMY
– Some Wisconsin churches turn old buildings into housing and rethink community spaces
EDUCATION
– When a new UW system president will be chosen
ENVIRONMENT
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LABOR
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LEGAL
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MANUFACTURING
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– Electric motorcycle company LiveWire in peril as company issues going-concern warning
– Sartori’s $47 million expansion of Plymouth plant will create up to 27 new jobs
MEDIA
– More than a dozen laid off at TMJ4 as part of wider Scripps cutback
REAL ESTATE
– Three Leaf eyes $80 million apartment project in Pleasant Prairie
RETAIL
– Harley-Davidson retail sales increased 5% but profits plunged in third quarter
SMALL BUSINESS
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SPORTS
– Milwaukee Brewers win first-ever World Series title
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HOSPITALITY & TOURISM
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PRESS RELEASES
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First Choice Dental and Milwaukee Dental Partners: Join forces to expand Wisconsin network
