In 2017 Wisconsin’s workforce and business climate went toe to toe with other states to compete for 13,000 new jobs and $10 billion of capital investment from Foxconn’s new state-of-the-art display manufacturing campus. Wisconsin won. Governor Walker’s former Department of Administration (DOA) Secretary Scott Neitzel served as a senior member on the recruitment team for Foxconn and will share insights of the negotiations and how the project will positively impact Wisconsin for generations.

Scott Neitzel served as DOA Secretary from March 2015 – March 2018. In addition to working with Foxconn, during his tenure he worked on two state budgets and served as Chair of the Wisconsin Center District overseeing lease negotiations for the new Bucks arena. Scott was previously a Senior Vice President at Madison Gas and Electric Co. and a Commissioner at the Wisconsin Public Service Commission.

Why do some people make it big while others, equally experienced, talented, and credentialed, fall by the wayside? One study shows that half to two-thirds of all managers will be fired, demoted, or plateau at some point in their careers. Further, the cost of those derailments to companies can be more than twenty times that of the employee’s salary. Carter Cast’s book, The Right (and Wrong) Stuff: How Brilliant Careers are Made and Unmade looks into the rules and rituals of business life and what high performers do differently than the rest.

Carter is also a professor of innovation and entrepreneurship at the Kellogg School of Management, where he’s received the Faculty Impact Award from 2012-17 by his students. When not teaching, he is a venture partner at Pritzker Group Venture Capital, which invests in early stage technology companies.

This was joint program with the Kellogg Alumni Club of Wisconsin.

Join us to hear the highly acclaimed journalist Sam Quinones, author of Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic. In his book Quinones weaves together two classic tales of capitalism run amok whose unintentional collision has been catastrophic. The unfettered prescribing of pain medications during the 1990s reached its peak in Purdue Pharma’s campaign to market OxyContin, its new, expensive—and extremely addictive—miracle painkiller. Meanwhile a massive influx of black tar heroin—cheap, potent, and originating from one small county on Mexico’s west coast, independent of any drug cartel—assaulted small towns and midsized cities across the country, driven by a brilliant, almost unbeatable marketing and distribution system. Together these phenomena continue to lay waste to communities from Tennessee to Oregon, Indiana to New Mexico. Dreamland is a revelatory account of the corrosive threat facing America and its heartland.

This program is brought to Rotary by the generosity of the Zilber Family Foundation.

Wisconsin is known for its culture of prudence and risk aversion. So, it is not surprising that I hear people say, ‘I think Bitcoin and cyrptocurrencies are a fraud.’ But when pushed, they can’t explain blockchain technology or bitcoin. It might be a cop-out to cry foul because blockchain and bitcoin are potentially one of world’s biggest collaborative math projects that could transform the global economy in a manner similar to the impact of the Internet. Cryptocurrencies and blockchain can fundamentally rewrite many business models, especially in banking and financial services – which is why we all need to understand this new, emerging technology. Professor David Krause of Marquette University will provide more insight.