Manufacturing key to north-side jobs

Recruiting people for welding jobs, business executive Tim Sullivan once spent Saturday mornings hanging out in church basements on Milwaukee’s north side, where the jobless rate was high and work that paid a family-supporting wage was especially scarce.

Sullivan, then president and CEO of Bucyrus International, said he probably should have opened a weld shop on the north side, since many prospective hires were reluctant to make the trip to South Milwaukee where Bucyrus, since acquired by Caterpillar Inc., built mining equipment.

“I would have had all of the labor I needed,” he said.

Now, Sullivan is the top executive of REV Group, a $2.2 billion Milwaukee-based manufacturer of specialty vehicles. He and other community leaders are trying to address the lack of jobs on the north side, an issue they believe is a root cause for the recent unrest and violence in neighborhoods where manufacturers once provided work that gave residents economic stability and hope.

“All you have to do is go back and piece together where everything started going wrong, and it’s when the jobs went away. Now there are almost zero opportunities for reasonable employment on the north side,” Sullivan said.

Development work continues on W. Burleigh St.

If REV Group wins a $6.3 billion contract to replace some 180,000 aging U.S. Postal Service trucks, the company has said it would build a north-side factory that would employ approximately 1,000 people — a game changer for an impoverished area of the city.

“Until we get jobs on the north side of Milwaukee, nothing is going to change,” Sullivan said.

There are more than a dozen bidders for the USPS contract, including Oshkosh Corp. and other companies bigger than REV Group, so it’s probably a long shot that the work will come to Milwaukee.

Yet REV Group has 16 plants across the United States, and like other manufacturers, it wants to consolidate locations and find new hires as a wave of older talent retires in the next decade.

“You basically have to go where the labor is these days, and there’s a huge labor pool on the north side of Milwaukee,” Sullivan said.

“One way or the other, I am happy to get in there and do something if we have the demand and geographically it makes sense,” he added.

REV Group would build its vehicle assembly plant in Century City, which is the redevelopment of a large portion of the former A.O. Smith/Tower Automotive Inc. complex into a business park and other new uses – with the first building located just south of W. Capitol Drive near N. 31st. St.

The recent violence in the Sherman Park neighborhood, that erupted after a police officer shot and killed a young man who police said refused to drop a stolen gun, could hurt the city’s efforts to recruit companies to Century City and the surrounding area.

COMPLETE COVERAGE: Milwaukee Sherman Park turmoil

Even large firms like Master Lock Co., which has 400 employees on the north side, were worried about the recent events that included the burning of a BMO Harris Bank branch that housed the offices of the 30th Street Industrial Corridor, which promotes neighborhood development.

“The Master Lock Company has been closely monitoring the situation and ensuring the safety of our employees while at our facility, as well as having a safe route to and from work. We have increased security … and have continued to stay in contact with local law enforcement,” the company said following the Aug. 13 violence.

Yet the unrest also underscores the importance of industrial jobs in the metropolitan area where barely half of working-age black men were employed in 2014, according to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data.

Furthermore, for the sixth consecutive year, jobs in the skilled trades are the hardest to fill in the U.S., according to 2016 research from ManpowerGroup Inc.

“My hope is that we can get the business community more engaged,” said Bill Krugler, president of Milwaukee JobsWork, a nonprofit that helps individuals overcome obstacles to employment.

“It seems like we take care of people in poverty but we aren’t doing much to actually provide them a pathway out of it, for those who want to be independent and economically self-sufficient,” he said.

Century City could have a large manufacturing plant as its centerpiece, like the vehicle assembly operation that REV Group has proposed. The business park also could accommodate a mix of smaller companies.

“The better way to look at it is how many jobs could be generated. I think, at a minimum, we want to see 800, and I think we can get 1,500 on the site,” said Rocky Marcoux, commissioner of the Department of City Development.

“There are a lot of folks talking about the Milwaukee that we really are, and that we aspire to be,” Marcoux said. "When manufacturers look at Century City, I tell them we have a cadre of folks who could bring value, almost immediately, to to any company that would locate there."

City officials acquired the industrial site in 2009 and have spent millions of dollars on demolition, environmental remediation and other work to get the property ready for tenants.

“This is a first-class business park. It’s not a ramshackle collection of buildings,” Marcoux said.

Master Lock, DRS Technologies, Clarke Manufacturing and Capitol Stampings are among nearby companies. Even with the north side’s high jobless rate, there’s a depth of manufacturing talent and decades of manufacturing experience in the area, said Cheryl Blue, interim executive director of the 30th Street Industrial Corridor.

“The vast majority of people are hardworking, law-abiding citizens,” Blue said.

Also on the city’s north side, Astronautics Corporation of America, at 4115 N. Teutonia Ave., is planning an aerospace and aviation center that would bring together industry and academic professionals to develop and test new aerospace and cybersecurity systems.

A coalition of aviation and aerospace companies, industry associations and Wisconsin colleges is exploring the establishment of the center at Astronautics headquarters.

The center could provide resources needed to start businesses in the industry, said Astronautics President Chad Cundiff.

The north side has its advantages, Cundiff said, including its proximity to University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Marquette University, Milwaukee School of Engineering and Milwaukee Area Technical College.

“We are closely aligned with the universities and technical colleges,” Cundiff said.

Over the years, Milwaukee has shed thousands of manufacturing jobs through recessions and fundamental shifts in the American and global economy. Yet it doesn't diminish the importance of manufacturing and efforts like Century City.

“Economic vitality and employment is fundamental to solving the problems we are having on the city’s north side, and the south side as well,” said Austin Ramirez, president and CEO of Husco International, a Waukesha manufacturer of hydraulic controls.

Husco is a $400 million privately held company. Ramirez recently partnered with Milwaukee JobsWork and the nonprofit Step Industries to do some assembly operations for the company.

For many years, the Ramirez family has been heavily involved in Milwaukee philanthropies, including organizations dedicated to academic excellence.

Ramirez, however, isn’t planning on establishing a factory in Milwaukee because Husco has done well in other areas and doesn't need another plant. Also, he said, Waukesha has a more favorable business climate when it comes to things like regulations and a skilled workforce.

“You can’t look at Husco and say that we don’t care about Milwaukee, given the investments we have made in the city. … But we can’t set up plants where it doesn’t make sense to do so,” Ramirez said.