Milwaukee YMCA names Carrie Wall president; Richard Schmidt to lead board

Carrie Wall is returning home to the YMCA of Metropolitan Milwaukee.

Wall, who worked at the Milwaukee Y for 20 years, was named Thursday as the organization's new president and CEO. She succeeds the Milwaukee Y's interim leader, Jack Takerian, and will begin work July 1.

The move marks a new chapter for the Milwaukee Y, which emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy more than two years ago.

"I look at what the team did here," Wall said. "They saved the YMCA for this community. The reality is I want to make sure it's here for the next generation."

Wall is currently the president and chief executive of the YMCA of Dane County, a post she has held since 2010. She also worked for three years as the vice president of operations for the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago.

A Milwaukee native, Wall graduated from Pius XI High School and Alverno College. Wall began her career at the Milwaukee Y in financial development and rose to direct a branch before taking a senior executive position.

Wall said that before his death, her father worked for several years on the early shift at the downtown YMCA.

"Everyone knew him as Carl, the guy handing out keys," she said.

"I like the way she deals with people and how she's comfortable talking about the mission of the Y," said Richard "Rick" Schmidt, who led the search committee.

There were 52 applicants for the post, nine people were brought in for interviews and Wall emerged from a final field of three.

In another leadership move, Schmidt, who oversees C.G. Schmidt, a family-owned construction management and contracting firm, was appointed as chairman of the board of directors. Schmidt succeeds Richard Canter, who will remain on the board.

Canter and others helped guide the Milwaukee Y through bankruptcy and its aftermath, while also embracing an urban mission for the organization.

"That urban mission still needs a lot of definition," Canter said.

The Milwaukee Y now has a smaller footprint of five branches — Downtown, Northside, Northwest, Parklawn and Rite-Hite Family YMCA in Brown Deer — and Camp Minikani on the shores of Lake Amy Belle in Hubertus.

In 2016, the Milwaukee Y had a surplus of $946,000, with the organization's revenue boosted by a public-private consortium of supporters.

While at the YMCA of Dane County, Wall oversaw more than $2 million in facilities improvements and boosted fundraising and strategic partnerships.

She had to make some tough choices in late 2013, cutting $1.2 million in expenses that included 13 administrative positions.

She also faced the ire of parents over a change in practice hours for a popular swim team program.

Also in 2013, problems within the YMCA of Dane County's child care programs led to the city of Madison placing the administration of the system on probation for six months. The organization is the largest provider of child care and early education in Dane County.

The board saluted Takerian for remaining on the job and helping the Milwaukee Y through its transition. He'll join a real estate and building management firm in Racine.

Takerian said the Milwaukee Y is "strong and vibrant. From an operational standpoint, we are stable."