|
Foreword - Welcome to the premier issue of the Chippewa Valley Business Report!
We’ve designed this publication with you in mind. Inside these pages, you’ll find interesting stories about the people, companies, institutions and issues that significantly impact the Chippewa Valley and beyond.
The Chippewa Valley Business Report serves a distinctive role. Each quarterly publication will take the pulse of the strong and lively business community in western Wisconsin.
You will notice that the Business Report is uniquely upbeat. It examines the bigger, unseen picture. Businesses will always face challenges. The best rise to the occasion through a never-ending process of innovation and change — all the better to serve their customers.
The theme of our first issue is “It’s not business-as-usual anymore in the Chippewa Valley.” As you’ll see inside, there are numerous stories proving that thesis: Companies and communities are forging new paths to meet the challenges of today’s marketplace. People, institutions, companies, and communities are working together in new ways, abandoning the old “high school sports team” mentality, as one local leader put it. They are taking well-established ideas and using them in new ways.
First, some background on how this special publication came into being.
A year ago, Chippewa Valley Newspapers began looking for ways to expand its publications into the market. (Chippewa Valley Newspapers, a division of Lee Enterprises, owns seven publications in this market — the Chippewa Herald, Chippewa County Advertiser, Your Family Shopper, Dunn County News, Dunn County Shopper, Dunn County Reminder and Tradin’ Post — as well as Triangle Press Commercial Printing and associated web sites.)
It quickly became evident that one area severely underserved is business reporting in western Wisconsin. While individual news organizations in the Valley carry day-to-day items — a business lays off 100 workers, a new CEO joins an area firm, or a company decides to move production facilities to this market — no one was presenting the big picture, all the wondrous business creativity that blooms and thrives every day.
That creativity keeps the Chippewa Valley moving forward, providing jobs, capital, opportunity and the spark that maintains our exceptional quality of life.
Plans for the Chippewa Valley Business Report began to percolate internally in our company. About the same time, Momentum Chippewa Valley’s Business Development Committee began looking into starting a regional business-to-business report. It felt other regions, which had high-quality business publications, had a leg up on the Chippewa Valley in crafting an appealing image and getting their story out to a broader audience.
Working with James Hanke of the Business Development Committee, we began exploring ways to make Chippewa Valley Business Report happen. Slowly but surely, it grew from concept to proposal to reality.
Chippewa Valley Business Report is modeled upon other successful business-to-business publications run by Lee Enterprises in other markets. In fact, we are indebted to John Pfeifer and Dennis Treu of River Valley Newspaper Group in La Crosse for helping provide the framework for our business-to-business publication.
The Lee model utilizes a half dozen or more business partners, who play a key role in developing the concept behind each issue. We are privileged to have eight companies and institutions as partners in the Chippewa Valley Business Report Editorial Board. The businesses and their representatives include:
— Wipfli Ullrich Bertleson - Tina Sundly, business development coordinator.
— RCU - Vicki J. Hoehn, executive vice president - marketing.
— Marshfield Clinic - Nancy Yule, regional marketing specialist.
— Momentum Chippewa Valley - Darcy Way, executive director.
— University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire - Mike Rindo, director of communications.
— University of Wisconsin-Stout - Dr. Charles Sorenson, chancellor.
— Chippewa Valley Technical College - Dr. Bill Ihlenfeldt, president.
— Xcel Energy - Linda Clark, economic development manager.
Filling out the editorial board are four members of Lee Enterprises in western Wisconsin: Mark Gunderman, business editor of the Chippewa Herald and editor of the Chippewa Valley Business Report; Steve Jahn, publisher of the Dunn County News and vice president of sales for Chippewa Valley Newspapers; Tom Sanders, director of advertising for Chippewa Valley Newspapers; and yours truly.
At our first editorial board meeting, we hashed out what we want from the Chippewa Valley Business Report. Dr. Bill Ihlenfeldt put it succinctly: The goal of this publication is to:
A. Re-establish the identity of the Chippewa Valley.
B. Focus on how the Valley needs to change to move into the future.
C. Inspire those who read it.
Special thanks to Vicki Hoehn of RCU, who came up with the theme of this issue. After much discussion, she summed up what she felt it should focus on: “It’s not business as usual anymore in the Chippewa Valley.” Tell about the businesses that are breaking new ground and finding new ways to move forward, and they’ll inspire other businesses to do the same, she pointed out. In further brainstorming, it didn’t take long to identify a number of great story subjects, be they people, issues or businesses. What you are holding today is the culmination of this cooperative effort.
I want to personally thank all of our business partners and the many advertisers who are in this new publication. It is because of their pioneer spirit — of being unafraid to take a chance — that our free enterprise system is the best and strongest in the world.
Please feel free to let us know what you think of the Chippewa Valley Business Report, or contact one of the editorial board members with ideas for future issues. Once again, thank you, and enjoy this issue of the Chippewa Valley Business Report.
Mark Baker
Group Publisher, Chippewa Valley Newspapers
Email this story
Print this story
|
