Veolia Opens New Office, Celebrates W+E Forward Partnership

Meeting room at Veolia North America Milwaukee office. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

Veolia North America celebrated opening its new Milwaukee office Thursday, and from it local officials hope several more businesses will grow.

The company held a joint event Thursday evening, a celebration of the new 30,000-square-foot space in the ASQ Center and a signing of a memorandum of understanding between the company and The Water Council to develop a new partnership known as Water + Energy Forward (W+E Forward) to support small and medium business growth.

The new office, known as the shared support center, was relocated from the Honey Creek Corporate Center on the city’s west side. It includes 170 employees in finance, human resources, legal and information technology who support the company’s 10,000 employees.

“Veolia is a purpose-driven company. We are in water, we are in hazardous waste, we are in local decarbonizing, ” said CEO Fred Van Heems. “And we are really purpose-driven, which means we are trying to have a positive impact in everything we’re doing for all our shareholders, customers, employees, communities.”

Veolia is best known locally for serving as the private operator of the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District, including the massive Jones Island facility which Veolia now calls an “ecofactory.” But through its various operations, which include hazardous waste disposal, the company has approximately 600 employees in the state said the CEO.

Van Heems teased that even more jobs could be coming. “We could move more from New Jersey and other areas in the years to come,” said the CEO, praising the revitalization of Downtown. “It is the place to be somehow and we want to be here in order to attract and even retain even more companies.”

“I heard mention of possibly having some folks from New Jersey and other places join us here, I will drink to that,” said Mayor Cavalier Johnson.

The mayor said Veolia’s interest in sustainability and being in the heart of the city is a sign that Milwaukee is poised to grow to his vision of one million residents. More jobs, he said, would produce a virtuous cycle of more spending and more residents. “I am going to continue to be a champion to support that kind of growth,” he said.

Veolia North America’s office is one of five hubs the company maintains on the continent. Its others are its headquarters in Boston, Houston, Paramus, New Jersey and Montreal. The company is a subsidiary of the massive French conglomerate Veolia.

The new office reflects a now-established trend of building offices for hybrid work environments. Employees in the Milwaukee office are only required to be in person two days a week, and, as a result, don’t have assigned cubicles. Instead, each service area has its own cubicle cluster and employees can utilize lockers and other storage areas while grabbing the workspace that fits their needs for the day. And a wide variety of away-from-the-desk collaborative areas are included, including numerous small meeting rooms, a west-facing deck, a game room, and large meeting rooms with views up the Milwaukee River and east down Wisconsin Avenue.

The company has 10 job openings in Milwaukee, said a spokesperson.

Veolia isn’t the only company moving to the building, 648 N. Plankinton Ave. Enerpac Tool Group Corp is moving its headquarters to the building, adding a riverfront balcony and rebranding the complex as the Enerpac Center. The complex, which also includes a hotel, was built in phases for Gimbels and redeveloped into offices in the early 2000s.

W+E Forward with The Water Council

While a new office and downtown jobs were plenty to celebrate, it is possible that the end of the event contained the most important thing.

Van Heems joined Dean Amhaus, CEO of The Water Council, to sign a memorandum of understanding advancing Veolia’s commitment to participate in the nonprofit’s W+E Forward program.

“This effort is going to bring together a consortium of more than 50 universities, nonprofits, utilities and companies large and small to help manufacturers and utilities find the water and energy solutions they need,” said Water Council board chair Scott Beightol, a partner at Michael Best. “These entities are under increasing pressure to reduce their carbon footprint and we’re going to be helping them.”

The effort was launched in 2023 with a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation. The Water Council, which has focused on freshwater technology development for more than a decade, is now pursuing $160 million in additional federal funding.

“Collaboration is the key to this endeavor,” said Beightol. Other partners include Rockwell Automation, Microsoft, UW-Madison, UW-Milwaukee and Marquette University.

Veolia will work with the initiative to develop the “Water & Wastewater Workforce Center” to address sector-wide workforce challenges.

MMSD’s new $13 million water technology lab would also be leveraged by the initiative.

The program has an explicit goal of providing financing and other resources to help small and medium-sized companies.

Others attending the ceremony Thursday included Congressman Bryan Steil, Congresswoman Gwen Moore, Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation deputy director Sam Rikkers and MMSD Executive Director Kevin Shafer.

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ASQ Center

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