A shining ‘Star’ of restoration and community philanthropy

Rachel Kroeger

Staff

January 6, 2025

WAUSAU – Jay Cricks – co-owner of NorthStar Restoration Services – said it sometimes feels like he and his business partner, Shawn Millikin, started the company so they could give back to their community.

NorthStar, Cricks said, provides a one-stop-shop for restoration services and is known for being heavily involved in community philanthropy.

After sponsoring several events across the North Central region, Cricks said they found a disconnect between the money raised and the money donated.

“We have been doing a couple of different charity events for different nonprofits that raise money for (various) police entities,” he said. “We’ve done a Crime Stoppers event, and we did this event for the Marathon County (Deputy Sheriff’s Benevolent Association). We discovered that the majority of the money was going to the promotion company that was promoting the event, and not much of it was flowing through to Crime Stoppers and Marathon County Benevolent.”

After that discovery, Cricks said he approached NorthStar’s VP of business development, Clay Rice, and asked if there was an event their company could personally host to benefit the local police department.

Already hosting an annual charity golf outing that raises funds for the Wausau Firefighters Community Assistance Foundation, Cricks said he felt like they could do more.

“I thought, ‘You know what? We’re already working with the firefighters,’” he said. “‘Let’s find something to do for our police officers in the area.’”

Cricks said that’s when NorthStar found the Blue Hearts organization.

NorthStar + Blue Hearts

The Blue Hearts organization – according to bluehearts1274.org – raises money “to support local law enforcement officers and their families, the community they live in, as well as law enforcement agencies with fallen officers nationwide.” 

Cricks said when NorthStar contacted Blue Hearts they discovered it was founded by the widow of Jason Weiland – an Everest Metro Police Detective who was killed in the line of duty while responding to an active shooting.

Kara Weiland, Cricks said, had been trying to establish her nonprofit for several years and though she had held a few events, she didn’t have a major sponsor behind her to really help get it off the ground.

That’s when Cricks said NorthStar had the idea for the 2024 Jingle Ball Rock the Hall charity concert.

“We reached out to the Grand Theater in Wausau and inquired about renting the entire Grand Theater, bringing in a band and promoting (Blue Hearts),” he said. “They were on board, and ended up getting some other corporate sponsors on board.”

The Jingle Ball Rock the Hall event was held Dec. 22, and according to NorthStar’s Facebook page, the community event raised nearly $64,000 “for future first responders in Central Wisconsin, honoring the memory of Detective Jason Weiland and Blue Hearts.”

Cricks said the Mayor of Wausau, Doug Diny, also attended the event – making a mayoral proclamation declaring Dec. 22 as the city’s official Jingle Ball day in honor of the event and the Weiland family.

Beyond Blue Hearts

Aside from the Jingle Ball Rock the Hall event, Cricks said NorthStar is also involved in other forms of community philanthropy.

This year, he said, will be the 12th consecutive year of the aforementioned charity golf outing to benefit the Wausau Firefighters Community Assistance Foundation (WFCAF).

“It’s called the Restoring Kindness Open,” he said. “I came across these guys years ago. I saw their mission, what they were trying to do and it completely aligns with what we’re doing here at NorthStar.”

Cricks said the foundation – similarly to Blue Hearts – had held smaller events, raising a few thousand dollars before partnering with NorthStar.

“We hooked up with WFCAF, and we started the Restoring Kindness Open and it has been hugely successful,” he said. “We typically raise between $40,000 and $60,000 each year.”

WFACF, Cricks said, has several different missions it supports – one being its gift card program, which provides first responders with gift cards to distribute to people in need while responding to emergency calls.

“For example,” he said, “if they show up at an elderly person’s home and this individual keeps falling in the bathroom, they can use the gift card program to put grab bars in the bathroom.”

Cricks said WFCAF also uses the money raised at the Restoring Kindness Outing to buy Thanksgiving meals and Christmas gifts for families in need, fund a scholarship program for those seeking firefighter training through Northcentral Technical College and send families of fallen first responders on a dream vacation – something Cricks said the Weiland family received after Jason’s passing.

“They sent Kara on a dream vacation when the family (was) ready to start the healing process and take a step forward,” he said.

Another organization Cricks said NorthStar regularly supports is the American Red Cross – annually hosting a charity car show that benefits both it and the WFCAF.

“We give (WFCAF) some of the proceeds because the firefighters show up and help, they volunteer,” he said. “And then the Red Cross also shows up at our car show and they volunteer.”

The Red Cross helps those in need in many different ways, but the service that Cricks said is “near and dear” to NorthStar is its SAF (service to armed forces) program.

“What they do is they find and locate in-need and homeless veterans and veteran families in the Central Wisconsin region,” he said. “We try to outfit them with winter weather clothing, fresh socks, underwear, T-shirts – so it’s a car show but it’s also a big clothing drive as well.”

The car show is in its seventh year, Cricks said, having originally started in the NorthStar parking lot before quickly outgrowing the space.

“We reached out to Harley-Davidson down in Rothschild and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got this charity car show we do, (and) we were wondering if you guys would want to partner with us, and by the way, can we use your parking lot?’” he said.

Cricks said Harley-Davidson happily obliged their request.

He said Camping World has also joined as a major sponsor of the ever-growing charity event.

“It’s now (called) the Central Wisconsin Rod & Bike Show,” he said. “We’re hoping to make it one of the largest regional car shows in the area and use the power of gathering those people together for a good cause.”

Cricks said through its work as a full-service restoration business, when they process clothing, bedding “and things like that, we will launder it, repackage it and then get it out to the Red Cross.”

Cricks – who serves as a board member for the North Central Wisconsin Chapter of the Red Cross – said NorthStar also hosts its own blood drives.

“We do three blood drives in our facility a year,” he said. “About every 16-17 weeks, we’ve got a blood drive in our facility, and to date, we’ve collected 294 life-saving units of blood.”

Cricks said he and Millikin believe the good you give comes back around, and they want to serve as an example for their community.

“When they see NorthStar – hear the NorthStar name – we want people to know that it has a positive connotation to it,” he said.

More about NorthStar

Cricks said NorthStar is a catch-all restoration company that “makes the process easier,” with three separate entities doing “all the things” needed to restore a home: NorthStar Restoration Services, NorthStar Builds and NorthStar Contents Services.

After a fire, Cricks said homeowners are left with a soaking wet structure, burnt belongings and lots of questions as to what to do next.

“People get pretty stressed out when this happens,” he said. “You’ll have one company come in and maybe do the cleanup, and then another company comes in and takes your clothes, and then another company comes in and takes your electronics and cleans them, and then a third company would come in and collect your hard contents, and then another company is going to come in and give you some quotes on putting your roof on, and then you might have to have another company come in and give you a quote on the electrical or the plumbing.”

NorthStar, Cricks said, alleviates that stress by providing homeowners with a central resource to achieve all that needs to be done to make the house liveable again.

“You’re a homeowner, you’re not a general contractor,” he said. “Some people are very ‘roll-up-their-sleeves’ and ‘I can handle it,’ (but) some people are like a deer in the headlights… That’s where we like to step in and sort of hold their hand through the process and explain it from A to Z.”

Cricks said NorthStar will pack up all of a homeowner’s belongings and bring them to their facility for processing.

“We’ve got a climate-controlled warehouse, and we’ve got a complete contents processing plant where we can unload your stuff and clean it,” he said. “We barcode everything. Everything gets loaded up in big storage vaults, and then it goes into our back warehouse facility that’s (also) climate controlled… so everything’s taken care of.”

After their belongings are removed, Cricks said NorthStar will then consult the homeowner on the state of their house and what needs to be done to restore it.

“That’s when we would remove any of the burnt-up debris and start the drying process and the cleaning and the disinfecting of the home,” he said. “When stuff like plastics and a lot of these man-made textiles burn, they give off what are called VOCs (volatile organic compounds), and this is stuff that’s very toxic to breathe (in) and be around.”

Because of the toxicity of the chemicals often released during a house fire, Cricks said “there’s a whole process of cleaning and restoring the integrity of the structure.”

The final step, he said, is designing plans to restore the house to the homeowner’s liking.

“We are a general contractor,” he said. “We create fresh blueprints of the home. We lay everything out on a big flat screen, and we can do a virtual walk-through with the homeowner. We can help them pick out new colors, new furnishings. We handle basically the reconstruction process from beginning to end. So ultimately, we can clean everything from your socks and underwear to putting the shingles on your house.”

NorthStar’s employees, Cricks said, are certified in the various steps of the restoration process through the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification (IICRC).

According to its website, the IICRC offers training and certification for nearly 30 different restoration services.

“After you’ve collected all of these different certifications you can apply to become a journeyman, and then you become a master,” Cricks said. “There are different master certifications that you can get – you’ve got your master water restorer, you’ve got a master fire and smoke restorer and then there’s a master textile restorer.”

Cricks said those who obtain all three master certifications become what’s known as a triple master.

“We have multiple triple masters here at NorthStar – that is extremely rare,” he said. “You might find maybe one triple master at a company – typically, it’s one of the owners – and that’s usually it… We’ve got, I believe, three triple masters.”

NorthStar University

Determined to be “one of the more highly-trained companies in the area,” Cricks said NorthStar started NorthStar University – which is focused on furthering the education of their own employees and those of other companies.

“We originally started that because we were looking for a space that we didn’t have to rent… We wanted to have our own space,” he said. “When we moved into our new building coming up on four years ago, we redesigned the layout. So we completely came in and renovated this building, and we made sure that we carved out a space that was large enough to seat 60-70 people comfortably.”

That state-of-the-art space, Cricks said, has dual 15-foot drop-down screens and fully integrated sound and projector systems.

“We can host continued education, not only for our staff, but we bring in other restoration companies and do training for them (as well),” he said. “We’ve been doing this for literally 10 years – we’ve been hosting continued education for insurance agents.”

Cricks said in the restoration process, NorthStar employees work closely with insurance agents who also require continuing education (CE) credits.

NorthStar, he said, hosts “three really large CE days,” where insurance agents in the area can come in for “top-notch” instruction and live demonstrations.

Cricks said the space is further used to host NorthStar’s annual blood drives and as a community gathering space utilized by various organizations in the Wausau area.

“There’s literally a different entity or nonprofit using the space two to three times a week, and sometimes even on the weekends, and we lend it out free of charge,” he said.

Recently, Cricks said his business partner came up with an idea called the “12 months of giving,” in which NorthStar will nominate one nonprofit, charity or cause every month to benefit from the use of NorthStar University.

“There’s a bucket that we put out with information, and if you’re using our room, we ask that you find it in your heart to throw a few bucks in the bucket,” he said.

For the inaugural month of the program, Cricks said NorthStar selected a family whose daughter was struck and killed in a traffic accident on her bike.

“This (happened) right in the neighborhood that this family lives, and they absolutely could not bear to go past that spot (where) their little one was killed, and they did not have the means to just pick up and move,” he said. “So we saw their plea for help, and… we helped raise the funds to get that family packed up and moved.”

Cricks said the program looks to those who use their space to help those in need, and that NorthStar University can be used to not only “bring value to the people that are using it, but we can use it to bring value to those around us as well.”

20 years and counting

NorthStar recently celebrated a major milestone, Cricks said, celebrating 20 years in business Jan.1 between its Wausau and Green Bay locations.

The Green Bay location, Cricks said, is owned and operated by his original business partner – and older brother – Nick.

“Originally, we were NorthStar Cleaning and Restoration, and then on Jan. 1, 2012, myself and… Shawn created NorthStar Restoration Services,” he said.

Now after two decades in business, Cricks said the NorthStar team is looking forward to the continued years of restoration and community service that lie ahead.