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April 21, 2025
NORTHEAST WISCONSIN – This year, New North Inc. – a local nonprofit that aims to promote economic development – is celebrating two decades of driving collaboration, diversity and opportunity in Wisconsin’s northeast region.
New North President and CEO Barb LaMue said, though she’s only been leading the organization for six years, she’s been a proud resident of the region for decades.
“(It’s) a large enough region where you have everything you need – from a professional standpoint, from a recreational standpoint, from a family standpoint,” she said, “and yet it’s still small enough where you can make connections and you can really make a difference here. It’s a very special place.”
With a nearly 30-year career in economic development, LaMue said she came into her leadership role at New North Inc. with the goal of ensuring it stayed true to its mission.
“We were founded on business investment and attraction, (as well as) talent attraction,” she said. “So… when I came in, we did restructure the organization, and I brought on a new team to align their focus with those particular areas of engagement.”
Diversity in leadership
Reporting to a board of 42 local business leaders, LaMue said New North’s operational direction relies on its expertise in the region’s private business sector.
“The board really drives the organization,” she said. “They set the direction (that) we, as a New North team, (use to plan) our work, our fiscal operations plan and what we need to accomplish.”
LaMue said “most economic development corporations receive municipal dollars” – however, New North differs due to how the organization is intended to be led.
“We do have an annual contract with WEDC to do some initiatives in which they don’t have staff in the region to perform, but outside of that, when we were created – at the very onset and still to this day – (we) felt that we needed (this) organization (to be) led by the private sector,” she said. “(That means) private sector financing, private sector board of directors and private sector direction with regard to how we grow the region.”
At the time of New North’s inception in 2005 by its then Co-founders and Chairs – Bob DeKoch, past president of Boldt; and Kathi Seifert, a recent retiree from Kimberly Clark – LaMue said, as she understood it, “the region had some layoffs (and) some plant closures.”
“The private sector (leaders at that time) felt we needed to create a regional entity to take a much broader, more comprehensive approach (to) how we get back business investment and talent into the region,” she said. “Hence, New North was created.”
LaMue said New North has always maintained its co-chair board leadership structure because the two senior executives provide support for each other.
“We always have co-chairs,” she said. “We have found that senior executives are very busy people, and the two kind of feed off one another. We’ve only had eight co-chairs in the existence of New North – over the past 20 years – but we’ve had 112 different board members.”
LaMue said New North’s Board is complemented by its executive committee – which was initially headed by its first executive director, Jerry Murphy, from 2005-19.
“When he retired, that’s when I came on scene,” she said. “We’ve been very blessed that we have a very synchronized method with regard to our co-chairs.”
With “1.3 million people – about a quarter of the state(’s population)” – calling the northeast region home, LaMue said New North ensures its board is diverse and representative of the whole region.
“We make sure that we’re diverse with regard to geography, we’re diverse in gender, we’re diverse in ethnic diversity, we’re diverse in industry,” she said. “So, you have manufacturers at the table, you have finance professionals at the table, you have insurance, you have health care, you have construction, (etc.).”
Its diversity, LaMue said, is what powers the board to make informed decisions regarding the economic growth of Wisconsin’s Northeast region.
“We give them updates on where we are financially if we’re going to launch a new program, but with that talent sitting around the boardroom, we want to make sure that we have a lot of open conversations on what can and should we do to build a better region,” she said. “And, oftentimes, not only do they sit on our board, but they might be the chair of the local United Way board or the community foundation or a local chamber. So, they’re able to bring that level of discussion and conversation into our boardroom dialog.”
Facing an extensive waitlist of “CEOs that want to” be on New North’s Board, LaMue said sitting members are regularly cycled out to keep the voices, decisions and representation of the board fresh.
“We do have a process by which the names would first go to board development – a task force of the board,” she said. “They take a look at, again, making sure we have this diversity… We want to make sure (the board) is a very good representation of the communities of which we serve.”
Another way in which New North’s Board is diverse, LaMue said, is in the size of companies represented at the table.
“We have board representatives of a two-person operation to (those with) hundreds of employees,” she said. “So it is very mixed.”
Furthermore, LaMue said there are also seats at the table for Northeast Wisconsin’s native tribal entities.
“Out of the 11 tribes in Wisconsin, six of them are in our region,” she said. “So we do have leadership from Menominee Nation and from Oneida Nation to make sure we are engaging, understanding and embracing diversity coming from our tribal entities.”
Measurable achievement
By the nature of New North’s work, LaMue said the credit for Northeast Wisconsin’s economic growth belongs to the companies.
“We, ourselves, don’t create jobs besides the ones that are a part of New North, so we want to make sure, as we reflect upon our work, that we’re certainly giving credit to the companies that are taking the risk,” she said. “They’re the ones hiring the jobs.”
The role New North plays, LaMue said, lies in serving as a conduit for collaboration among private business leaders aiming to discover and enact efforts that benefit the region’s general business and civil population.
Every year, she said New North releases two reports on the economic state of the region, as well as the organization’s initiatives and achievements.
“We have dashboard indicators that measure our unemployment rate, it measures our job growth, it measures our construction starts, it measures the investment in property, new taxes that are being generated – and it’s a rolling snapshot,” she said. “So every year you can see the change from one year to the other.”
LaMue said New North’s mid-year and annual reports also measure the growth and prosperity of the region’s higher education institutions and their diversity, making for “a lot of different metrics that we benchmark ourselves against.”
According to the New North Inc. 2024 Annual Report – available on the organization’s website (thenewnorth.com) – the organization personally achieved:
- The Accredited Economic Development Organization designation from the International Economic Development Council – one of only 83 across the U.S.
- Providing more than 4,500 business and residential locations with access to high-speed internet through $2.7 million in PSC Wisconsin Broadband Office Grants, secured by the New North Broadband Alliance, and a nearly $20 million donation match.
- The Community & Economic Development Award from Wisconsin Economic Development Association for its talent attraction campaigns’ multi-channel marketing approach.
The report also highlighted the growth and achievements of New North’s investor businesses – spanning across the industries of health care, manufacturing, construction, infrastructure, finance, higher education, tech, arts, entertainment and more – in 2024, which resulted in:
- On average, more than 11,500 unique monthly job postings across various industry employers
- A 4.6% increase in direct visitor spending and a 2.1% increase in tourism-related employment from 2023
- A $4.7 million increase in gross regional product and a $5 million increase in regional exports from 2023
Community collaboration
The way New North helps businesses achieve their goals, LaMue said, is by creating alliances among key voices to bolster resources in any specific industry.
“(For example), we need more plumbers and more electricians that also feed into the construction industry, (so) New North oversees the NEW Construction Alliance,” she said. “It gets very granular in the industry of what we can do collectively across our region. One of the measures is, how do we get more people into the trades?”
A different example of industry-specific collaboration, LaMue said, is New North’s NEW Digital Alliance.
“We know technology touches everything, and more recently, the NEW Digital Alliance launched a program with Microsoft (that provides) AI skills (training) to organizational leaders so that we understand how AI can benefit our organization and what to be aware of,” she said.
LaMue said New North’s alliances respond to the needs of the region and its business community.
“We are just launching a Healthcare Alliance, because our (region’s) healthcare organizations – our hospitals and clinics as well – are really feeling the pinch of not having enough (staff),” she said. “It’s very helpful with the Medical College of Wisconsin here, (because) as students go on for their residency, once they’ve worked in a more rural setting, the chances of them staying in a rural setting are higher than if they haven’t had that experience.”
This summer, during the organization’s New North Summit set for June 5 at Lambeau Field, LaMue said New North is unveiling a new higher education campaign that incorporates both public and private colleges and universities in the Northeast region.
“(It’s) called Growing Roots, Finding Wings,” she said. “We know the perception of higher education has changed, and that frequently happens when you have a very tight labor market where people coming out of high school, young adults, (who) can move right into the workforce and not continue their education… So our messaging is all about how critically important it is that people become lifelong learners.”
As part of the new campaign, LaMue said New North is interviewing local business leaders who’ve obtained their higher education in the Northeast region and chose to stay after the fact.
“At our summit, we’ve invited the mascots of the universities and the colleges, and we want it to be (a) social media moment,” she said. “(For example), I graduated from Lakeland College for my undergrad, and then (obtained) my master’s degree through the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. So, I could pose with the Muskie (mascot) and use that to say, ‘I’m so grateful that I was able to receive this education that has supported me throughout my career and now in my role as president and CEO of New North.’”
Community collaboration among New North, private businesses and public entities, LaMue said, is what drives the growth and success of Northeast Wisconsin.
In the last year, she said New North has formalized its no-membership-required, economic development professional collaboration group – now known as the New North Economic Development Council.
“We cover 18 counties – 1.3 million people – and as we look at our local partners, (we ask), ‘how can we better support them?’” she said. “So for the last six years, we’ve had our New North local partner huddle (where) every other Friday… whoever’s involved in economic development (meets to) touch base.”
LaMue said all New North’s initiatives – from its programs and campaigns to its alliances – are intended to make the region a more diverse, attractive and inclusive place to live.
“DEI right now can be a very polarized word out there, but the mission of what’s underneath that is so important,” she said. “It’s not about advancing one group (or) one population group over another, it’s about extending the reach. I like to say opportunity is everywhere, but access is not. So we feel it is our role at New North to make sure we are extending opportunities, and access to those opportunities, to our rural communities, to diverse individuals, to women, to veterans, (etc.).”
Above all – now and throughout its two decades of existence – LaMue said New North’s work has only been possible through its own organizational talent and its imperative community partnerships.
“I’ve got a great team – really very talented,” she said. “We’re only seven people that cover 18 counties, and the reason we’re able to do what we do is working with many of our partners and the talented staff and board that we have.”
