Northwestern Mutual Building Project On Track to Exceed Hiring Goals

We’re proud to announce our progress on hiring commitments for construction of the Northwestern Mutual Tower and Commons. The city now has the first report detailing our work.

We’ve promised to utilize small business enterprises (SBEs) for 25 percent of the project costs and tap city residents, through the Resident Preference Program (RPP), for 40 percent of the hours worked on the project. According to data compiled by Prism Technical Management & Marketing Services, we’ve already utilized SBEs for 24.1 percent of project costs through March 31, and we’ve actually contracted with SBEs for more than 35 percent of the costs. Nearly 44 percent of the overall work was performed by Milwaukee residents, exceeding the goal by more than 1,400 hours. Read the report here.

“We’re excited to see how our construction project has already had a significant impact on small businesses and local residents,” says Sandy Botcher, vice president and project leader. “We believe this report provides evidence of our commitment to the city, and we look forward to demonstrating continued strong results in the future.”

To reach these goals, we’re working closely with our project manager, Hines, as well as Prism Technical and the general contractor team, Gilbane | C.G. Schmidt, to put in place a comprehensive outreach program to share opportunities for SBEs and Milwaukee residents. That outreach included proactively engaging local chambers of commerce, numerous industry representatives, and more than 100 community-based organizations to help ensure the project includes significant participation from diverse segments of the Milwaukee community.

Additionally, 15 informational sessions were held to highlight contracting opportunities, including four sessions for SBEs and two matchmaking sessions, all of which were attended by more than 300 businesses and organizations. The company also worked closely with the Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership/Big Step on five workforce fairs for city residents and the start of two apprenticeship training cohorts.

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.