By Dave Fidlin
Correspondent
After a rocket-fueled launch, leaders of the Whitewater Innovation Center and Technology Park are hoping to take the development’s success to newer heights in the road ahead.
Mark Johnson, director of the center, delivered a report on the three-year-old facility’s status at a Common Council meeting Oct. 20.
“What’s remarkable about this is we were two years ahead of schedule,” Johnson said. “We thought it would take five years to get to this point.”
As has been reported in the past, the Innovation Center reached a milestone earlier this year when it reached the 100-percent capacity mark. While there has been an influx of incubator businesses at the site since its inception, Johnson emphatically stated interest remains strong.
“Whitewater is really becoming a destination city for entrepreneurship,” Johnson said. “There are exciting things going on.”
The Innovation Center largely functions as a partnership between the city and University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, which has long been known as a school for business students.
To date, there are 17 tenants operating out of the Innovation Center, and they represent disparate industries. A sampling includes software development, education, industrial technology, healthcare and software development and data analytics.
In all, the incubator companies have brought about 100 jobs to Whitewater, Johnson said.
In his report, Johnson emphasized the facility is a community asset. He pointed to the frequent lectures, open to all interested participants, as an example of how the center is an amenity for all residents.
For now, Johnson said recruitment and retention activities remain at the heart of the Innovation Center’s operations plan. The entity is operating in the black, he noted.
