The Capital Times

DODGEVILLE —?Michelle Schilling recalled the exact point where politics pushed her family dynamics to the breaking point. It was on a trip to Canada in the wake of the 2016 election when the discussion turned to her mother’s support of former President Donald Trump. The conversation did not go well. “There was no talking about it,” Schilling, who lives north of Dodgeville in Iowa County, said. “It is postmodern. You can’t agree on what’s true.” Things have only worsened since then, with a pandemic and two presidential election cycles straining friendships, neighborhood chats and family dinners in this relatively purple slice of southwest Wisconsin. To Cameron Swallow, it doesn’t have to be this way. Swallow is a past co-coordinator of the Wisconsin chapter of Braver Angels, which was founded in the wake of the 2016 election to help Americans of different political persuasions find common ground and reduce political polarization. Swallow still works for the organization, training people on how to talk with their family about politics. This is Swallow’s busy season. Between now and Election Day, she'll lead six training sessions on behalf of Braver Angels. That included the one Oct. 7 in Dodgeville.

A new engineering building cleared one of its biggest hurdles last winter when state lawmakers and university leaders?brokered a deal?over funding. But a few steps remain before construction can begin at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The design phase is nearly done. Then, the college will take the plans for the new facility to the UW system Board of Regents and State Building Commission, said UW-Madison College of Engineering Dean Ian Robertson. “They will be the final ones to say we can move ahead with the project,” he said. Classes are expected to begin in the new engineering building in fall 2028, with thousands more students added to the college by then. While that goal may seem a long way off, “that’s actually quite a tight timeline for a building of this size,” Robertson said. The 395,000 square-foot?Phillip A. Levy Engineering Center?will stand seven stories above ground and one below. The structure will house classrooms, research labs and space for industry partners. Construction will hopefully start next year, Robertson said. The Cap Times sat down with Robertson this month to discuss the historic $75 million donation the college received for the new building, construction work already underway and what the long-awaited building will allow the college to accomplish.

“There’s Will!” a kid shouted pointing across the park at Mentoring Positives leader Will Green. Nearly all of the kids in the Darbo-Worthington neighborhood on Madison’s east side recognize Green’s car when it pulls up to a basketball court or Green arrives to drop in on one of Mentoring Positives’ youth groups. “Will Green is like a local celebrity,” said Keara Schweiger, education program coordinator with Mentoring Positives, a youth program that teaches kids socio-emotional skills. “He walks in or they see him across the park or court, they scream, 'Hey, it’s Will!' at the top of their lungs. He drops into the group every once in a while.” Over the past two decades, Green has had such an impact on the lives of neighborhood kids and teens that Schweiger says even the kids who don’t know him directly still know about him. “What he’s done for the neighborhood is more of a feeling at this point than actual things he is doing,” Schweiger said. “And all of them feel that. Will’s big thing is his mom raised him with so much love. He wants every kid to feel that much love. So, this young kid turning to me and saying, ‘Aw, there’s Will,’ is because of his presence.” Green patterns his interactions with Madison’s youth around the ones he had growing up with his mother, Muriel Pipkins. Pipkins died in 2004. Green began Mentoring Positives in her memory, using her initials as inspiration for the organization’s name. On Oct. 10, Mentoring Positives plans to host its 20-year anniversary with an event at the Goodman Community Center’s Brassworks building. WKOW anchor Brandon Taylor will emcee the event, featuring actor Ajani Carr as keynote speaker.

After 30 years leading the Omega School, Oscar Mireles says he’s leaving the nonprofit in good hands. Mireles is set to retire in December from his position as executive director of the south side school, which helps adults complete their high school education through individualized classes. In January, Omega will merge with the Literacy Network, located a half mile away. The Madison nonprofit offers tutoring and other educational programming to adults, many of whom are learning English. The transition will be “seamless,” Mireles said. Once students from the Literacy Network finish their English language classes, they will be able to easily transition to Omega for help obtaining their high school diploma or General Education Development certificate, he added. “The expanded agency will be in a position to reach more students. The capacity will increase, and then there'll be opportunities to cross pollinate,” Mireles said. “We just think that there’s a lot of synergy, a little more connective tissue.” A former Madison poet laureate, Mireles said he will remain busy in retirement with his creative pursuits. He’ll continue to run the nonprofit he founded in 2016, Latinos Organizing for Understanding and Development. The organization aims to support the work of Latino artists statewide. The Cap Times spoke with Mireles to reflect on his 30-year career at the Omega School and the legacy he hopes to leave behind upon his retirement.?

As fast food chains across the country?replace workers with screens, the owner of Wisconsin-born burger-and-custard chain Culver's Restaurants says he has no plans to automate his restaurants. “I think we have a competitive edge actually staying away from some of that stuff,”?co-founder Craig Culver said in moderated conversation with Mark Richardson Thursday at the Cap Times’ Power Hour, an event series featuring heads of major Wisconsin companies. Culver opened the chain’s first location with his then-wife, Lea, and his parents, George and Ruth, in Sauk City in 1984. Since then, he said, the company has grown to 988 locations in 26 states by prioritizing quality in both food and customer service. He still recalls something his dad told him years ago: “It's not important how many restaurants we have. What's important is how many great restaurants we have.” Photos by Beck Henreckson. Read more at https://lnkd.in/gtRXpjTu.

In a single month this summer, three milestone events underscored why Wisconsin scientists are so excited about the future of nuclear fusion as a viable source of clean energy. On July 15, at a lab in Stoughton, one group of scientists reported generating a beam of superheated plasma for the first time,?moving them closer?to developing an efficient method of nuclear fusion. A week later, another group of scientists in Janesville?touted their particle accelerator?producing 50 trillion nuclear fusion neutrons per second, making the device among the world’s most powerful of its kind. Then, on the last day of July, a Tennessee-based company announced it had raised over?$82 million in seed funding?for a fusion prototype based on the work of scientists at its Madison office. In Stoughton, Janesville and Madison, the federal government and private firms are pouring millions of dollars into the development of nuclear fusion technologies. The funding is partially driven by hopes of establishing a reliable, carbon-free source of energy that could help address climate change. Among eight firms nationwide, Madison-based Realta Fusion and Tennessee-based Type One Energy are participating in a $46 million federal program that provides incentives for?proven fusion?advancements by the end of the decade. Type One Energy has four offices in North America, including the one on West Washington Street in downtown Madison. SHINE Technologies in Janesville has also received?$32 million?in federal funding for producing medical isotopes, which helps pay for its fusion energy research. The fifth oldest private fusion endeavor in the world,?according to a trade association, SHINE is now among the globe’s most funded. Together, scientists at?Realta?Fusion, Type One Energy and SHINE make Wisconsin an unusual hub for private fusion research on the international stage.

A cracker worthy of Wisconsin’s iconic cheese. Cake mix safe for people with food allergies. A canned cocktail for people avoiding alcohol. Kombucha fit for a trendy cafe. Even with a compelling product to offer, it can be tough for food businesses to find investors to help them reach new markets. That was the message from four Wisconsin entrepreneurs, presenting on a panel at the 2024 Food Finance Forum & Expo. The expo was hosted by the Food Finance Institute, a Universities of Wisconsin outfit that helps food-related businesses “raise the money they need to grow.” Each panelist received training through the institute. Nubian Simmons owns The Pink Bakery, Inc, a Milwaukee company that makes baking mixes without the 14 most common allergens, including gluten, eggs and milk. An engineer by training, Simmons started the company 10 years ago to help people like her, with severe food allergies. She took the company to Memphis, then back home to Milwaukee. She even tried baking and selling her own treats, despite her misgivings. “I hated it,” Simmons said. “I wanted to do the science.” Eventually, her mixes caught the interest of colleges, and dining hall operators ordered larger, 25-pound bags. Simmons started eyeing the big food service companies like Sodexo and Aramark, hoping she could stop hustling to sell her products at five different farmers’ markets. “I wasn't trying to get the farmers’ market money anymore,” she said. “I was trying to get to this big money.” Simmons knew the market for her products was growing. The?number of people with food allergies has risen sharply in recent years, and so has demand for allergen-free food. But getting bigger deals, Simmons said, required a “big money plan” she didn’t have. So she got a loan through WWBIC and met an advisor who helped her hone her finances and craft her brand. After nearly a decade in business, Simmons found her first investor, a Black woman like herself. Less than 0.5% of U.S. venture capital in 2023?went to Black-led startups, according to data from Crunchbase. The share of funding going to companies led by Black women is even smaller. “When my investor came along, what I thought she was attracted to was the beautiful brand that I created,” Simmons said, but “she said she loved me. She loved the tenacity, the desire, the passion.”

Increasing tree coverage in urban neighborhoods improves climate resiliency, adds green spaces for residents and provides important natural shade. Those are the goals of two Madison projects that will use federal money from the Inflation Reduction Act to add tree canopy to underserved areas in and around the city. Two nonprofits, URBAN TREE ALLIANCE and Operation Fresh Start, will each get money to plant and maintain trees in areas of Madison that are under-forested. “There’s this connection nationally, in almost all metropolitan centers, of low canopy coverage linked to a variety of income demographics, racial demographics, all these types of things,” said Urban Tree Alliance Director Jeremy Kane. “I think that we see the same trend (in Madison).” The Urban Tree Alliance grant project has already begun, but the roughly $450,000 in federal funding will allow it to continue, Kane said. Through partnerships with other local organizations such as Wisconsin EcoLatinos, Urban Triage, Inc. and the Capital Area Regional Planning Commission, Kane and his organization have been able to map out which neighborhoods are most lacking in natural canopy cover.?

Transgender adults are twice as likely to be unemployed as their cisgender counterparts, and they earn about 24% less each year, even when they have similar or higher education levels, according to a?2021 McKinsey & Company report. Now, a local organization is trying to change things for Madison-area workers by providing networking opportunities and one-on-one career support for trans women. The OPEN Foundation launched about a year ago as an offshoot of the OPEN Madison - Out Professional Engagement Network, a membership-based nonprofit that has supported LGBTQ+ professionals since 2006. While the original organization focused on people who were already working in their desired field, the new project aims to help unemployed and underemployed people from the LGBTQ+ community find jobs or change careers. On Oct. 3, the OPEN Foundation will host a career fair designed for LGBTQ+ job seekers. In February, the foundation teamed up with OutReach LGBTQ+ Community Center to start a program called Transform, which offers months of career coaching and training for trans women and transfeminine nonbinary individuals. The six participants in the first cohort are enrolled through the end of the year.?

Follow your dreams without listening to anyone else. That was the message Tuesday night from?several Madison-area entrepreneurs of color as part of a Cap Times Idea Fest panel, moderated by Cap Times reporter Natalie Yahr. The featured speakers were Josey Chu, owner of Madame Chu; Jason Boatright, owner of B. Right Barbershop; Cle Gray, CEO of Prodigal Building Systems; Awa Sibi, owner of Les Delices De Awa; and Brian Espinosa, owner of Adapt Marketing Consulting. The discussion focused on the journeys of entrepreneurs who went into business against the odds. Wisconsin lacks businesses owned by people of color. Madison also has long been a place with limited opportunity for upward mobility for entrepreneurs of color. Chu told the audience at Madison Area Technical College’s Goodman South Campus that people need to believe in their product if they are going to start their own business. Espinosa said it takes strong planning. Boatright said go it alone if you have to. “Do not listen to anyone but yourself, period,” Boatright said. “Your vision is not what they see. Nobody sees it but you.”