MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Dick Leinenkugel has had a full plate during his eight months as Wisconsin's commerce secretary.
Gov. Jim Doyle's top economic development official has tried to convince companies ranging from General Motors to Thomas Industries in Sheboygan to keep jobs here amid the recession.
He is managing a department of 400 workers going through severe budget cuts, has battled filmmakers over lucrative tax credits he calls wasteful and exchanged words with the state's business lobby over Wisconsin's business climate. He's traveled to Spain to learn about high-speed rail, which he wants to bring to Wisconsin.
On a personal level, he is coping with the September death of his father Bill Leinenkugel, who expanded the family's brewery into a powerful company in the beer industry.
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During an interview, the former vice president for sales and marketing for Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Co. talked about telling his father he was quitting the family business, how it's different working in the public sector and why he's optimistic about the economy.
Q. You've been commerce secretary for eight months during a tough economic time. How's the job going?
A. I was up to a challenge. Of course, I didn't know it was going to be a challenge of this magnitude. When I was first announced on Sept. 5 by Gov. Doyle, we were in pretty good shape. By the time I first set foot in this office on Sept. 29, the financial markets had crashed ... It was almost like an ultimate tsunami coming at us. But we're nothing but resilient in the state of Wisconsin. Things are going to get better and we need to position our companies so that when the economy is turned around we're in a position to grow.
Q: Has it been a difficult adjustment working in the public sector compared to the family business?
A: Ultimately, it's still about managing people. As a leader of the organization, you have to motivate, inspire, make people feel really good about coming into work every day and doing their jobs. I think the key difference is ... there isn't that sense in government of a profit motive where you can point to a bottom line and say whether you're winning or losing. There's other mechanisms to do that. It's a little bit different as well in that you can't motivate people through incentives. You can't reward people for doing a really good job by offering them a bonus. In fact we've had to take some very tough steps here in terms of not awarding a 2 percent pay increase that was scheduled to go into effect. I went through three downsizings at Miller Brewing Co. so I've been through this before.
Q: How do you judge whether the department has been winning or losing?
A: Our business development area exists to create job growth in Wisconsin. Right now it's very difficult with the economy. We are doing more retention projects than we are job creation or growth. We also have some really exciting things happening. Agriculture has stayed fairly strong. We've been able to institute a new meat processing tax credit, a new dairy manufacturing cooperative tax credit, which is going to bring about more jobs ... The other thing you can look at, even in the down economy, is to position companies for growth in the future. I initiated, with our export division, a new program that's going to help small- and medium- size manufacturing firms that don't know how to go about exporting.
Q: You spend a lot of time on job retention these days. How many calls do you get in a week from business leaders pleading for help?
A: It varies every week. We're working with several large manufacturers and other smaller companies in terms of projects. When I say retention that might also mean consolidation...These are companies, primarily in the manufacturing area, that have numerous plants and they are looking to consolidate operations, they are looking to remove capacity. We need to make sure we have an attractive package for them to consider consolidating in Wisconsin.
Q: What are the chances of the GM plant in Janesville and the Chrysler plant in Kenosha staying open?
A: I think they are better today than they were a month ago...Everything we've been working for has been to get to this point. GM has put Janesville on their standby list. We're one of 3 plants that have been identified for the new small car plant. We're delighted to have a shot at it. With Kenosha and the Chrysler bankruptcy and a new company emerging, we'll have a shot to tell them we why think we should retain the Kenosha engine plant.
Q: Is there reason to be optimistic about the economy?
A: Absolutely. There's a lot of things turning around right now. I believe we've seen a bottom in housing ... That's key. Manufacturing overall, I've been speaking with people about inventory and they think there is going to be a pent-up demand in this economy that will drive more orders and that's going to lead to increased manufacturing. The stimulus package is leading to some good things in Wisconsin. We are developing a number of renewable energy businesses.
Q: Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce recently contended that Wisconsin is one of the worst states to do business and cited some rankings by national publications to that effect. Do their comments hurt your efforts?
A: It does hurt what we are trying to do at the Department of Commerce... In terms of economic development, you need to have major trade groups promoting the state. You've got to talk about education, which is one of the great benefits of this state. You have a work force that is second to none. I would urge WMC to take a position that we need to work together to sell the great things about Wisconsin, why so many companies have flourished here.
Q: You've been doing all this while coping with the death of your father. How are you dealing with that?
A: I didn't tell anybody in my family except my wife that I was going to take this job or interview with the governor. I had decided to take the job, I called my brother Jake and he said, 'You've got to be 'blanking me'. He was very supportive after he and I talked about it. We coordinated the press announcement with Miller Brewing and the governor's team. Two days prior to that, the tourism campaign broke that featured the Leinenkugel family. My dad was actually part of that commercial. We had it filmed in early August. It was right before his 87th birthday and four days after that he went down and couldn't get out of bed. He was literally on his death bed. Jake said, 'You know you're going to have to tell Dad'. I said, 'Gosh, do I really? Can't the guy die in peace?' 'No, you're going to have to tell him because he's still reading newspapers and he'll find out.' My wife and I drove to Chippewa Falls, I walked into my dad's bedroom, it was on Labor Day. He had two chairs next to his hospital bed. I recall vividly thinking, 'Here I am 50 years old and I'm still afraid of my dad. How am I going to tell him this that I'm leaving the family business to enter Governor Doyle's cabinet?' He asked me, 'what are you thinking?' I took him through my rationale. He never gave me his blessing that day, but he would be very proud of what I'm doing. One of the biggest things he'd be most proud of is the high-speed rail network. My dad was a railroad buff. When he retired he joined the local rail commission in the northwestern part of the state to bring back passenger rail. He didn't know I took this trip to Spain but he would have been thrilled knowing that I joined the governor to try to bring back high-speed rail in the corridor from Chicago to Minneapolis.