A leading Wisconsin executive and longtime key figure in the state’s economic development efforts reiterated his belief that those efforts have failed embarrassingly, but offered few ideas on how Wisconsin can improve an economy he calls grim.

Century-old historical landmarks and ‘green’ buildings might seem worlds apart, but hidden within the ornate, steeplelike Milwaukee City Hall, constructed in 1895 and recently renovated to the tune of $70 million, is a 21st-century success story: The City Hall complex, which includes two attached office buildings, has earned silver LEED certification for energy efficiency.

As sweeping new legislation regarding disposal of electronic waste moves through the Legislature, some technology groups and recycling businesses are lauding the measure even as electronics manufacturers say it places an impossible task on them to control what happens to their products once in the hands of consumers.

A call to offer free municipal water to attract new employers and a push to expand the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee beyond its east side campus dominated a panel discussion Thursday morning on the future of Milwaukee’s 30th Street industrial corridor.

Wisconsin’s real estate trade association had vigorously backed Scott Walker’s bid for governor, but individual real estate professionals appear underwhelmed by Walker’s proposed tax break on health savings accounts and divided over his decision to kill high speed rail. Although real estate professionals, who are largely self-employed, say any break on health insurancecosts is a step in the right direction, they say job growth and mortgage loan incentives would be more likely to rescue their struggling industry.

Milwaukee-area entrepreneurs hoping to apply for funds to get their start-up companies off the ground got a dose of hard reality on Thursday from representatives of Wisconsin’s 2-year-old Super Angel Fund. “It’s not enough to have a great idea,” said Tom Schuster, the fund’s general managing partner,
who addressed about 75 businessmen and women at a Wisconsin Innovation Network luncheon in Wauwatosa.

In 1993, Mark Moody was thrilled to be offered a chance to live and work for two years in New Zealand, where the country was undergoing a radical change to its longtime health care system. He was there, working for Aetna, when New Zealand decided to experiment with expanding privatization within its longtime government-run national health care system.

Former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told WisBusiness.com on Tuesday it would be “disingenuous” for the U.S. Supreme Court to conclude that health care subsidies under Obamacare are illegal in three dozen states, including Wisconsin. “I hope the court will read the law in its whole and rule that what was intended is clearly what was set up,” she said in an interview in Milwaukee.

As Americans increasingly clamor for renewable energy sources to supplement utility power grids, Glendale-based Johnson Controls is exploring a possible new product line: energy storage hubs. “We have a building efficiency business, we have a battery business and we have automotive,” said Brian Dillard, executive director of systems electronics and integration for Johnson Controls. “Energy storage kind of fits somewhere in between buildings and batteries for us. It’s a new area that we’re focused on.”