Rhinelander Brewing Company brewing up success in ‘Hodag’ country
Green Bay Public Market expected to fall short of 2025 NFL Draft deadline
June 1, 2026
OSHKOSH – Of the 1,400 square miles GoldCross Ambulance Services covers in Northeast Wisconsin, Executive Director Nick Romenesko said one of the organization’s most exciting developments is taking shape in Oshkosh, where a historic building is being renovated into a new emergency service station.
“We’re going to have a beautiful building there that’s going to house an ambulance 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” he said. “It’s going to allow us to have efficient and timely service.”
After opening its new medical center at 250 W. 6th Ave., Jenny Nikolai – vice president of ThedaCare Medical Centers-Fond du Lac and Oshkosh – said the health system began exploring “opportunities to develop [a] property” nearby.
“We know that nearly 75% of [Oshkosh] residents live east of Interstate 41 [while] most healthcare services [are] located west of I-41, leaving our east-side residents more than 15 minutes away from emergency care,” she said.
When the new hospital opened its doors in January, Romenesko said GoldCross installed a “makeshift station” in a strip mall on Washburn Street.
“But we [only] signed a year lease knowing [there] was potential [for a new station to] come to fruition,” he said.
Romenesko said 911 dispatch calls make up roughly 80% of GoldCross’s work.
However, Nikolai said this new service station in Oshkosh is designated to assist with inter-hospital transposition.
“[Its purpose is], primarily, interfacility support for several of our medical centers within the region, so Oshkosh, Fond du Lac and Berlin,” she said, “[We’re] really focused on ensuring patients receive care at the right place at the right time.”
Located just down the road at 356 W. 6th Ave., Romenesko said the building currently under renovation dates back to the early 1900s.
“A lot of individuals who are long-standing citizens in that sixth ward district really find value in having it there, so they left it and didn’t really have a plan,” he said. “Some leaders at ThedaCare had mentioned there was this building available, [so] we went and toured it, and it was in rough shape.”
Despite its condition, Nikolai said the building offers a lot of potential and local historical significance.
“Choosing to restore an historic building… really reflects a deeper commitment to our community’s identity,” she said. “It’s a former service station. We know at one point it served as an office homebase for contractors or residents, so the community knows this building.”
With renovations well underway, Nikolai said Froedtert ThedaCare and GoldCross “are working toward an expected completion in September.”
“The new service station really is in thanks to a generous [donation] to our ThedaCare family of foundations [from] Bergstrom Automotive, Oshkosh dealerships,” she said. “So, we’re incredibly thankful for their generosity and their commitment to the Oshkosh community.”
The No. 1 priority
Romenesko said GoldCross is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit supported in part by Froedtert ThedaCare and Ascension Healthcare – an arrangement that helps the organizations align their efforts across care environments.
“Fifty percent of our board is made up of ThedaCare administrators and physicians, and the other 50% is made up of Ascension administrators and physicians,” he said. “How patients are treated, the protocols and the patient care pathways we go down when we encounter patients in the field are in alignment with what the best practices are in the hospital systems.”
Prior to joining GoldCross, Romenesko said he served as an EMT in Milwaukee.
“Then I moved up [to Northeast Wisconsin] when I got my paramedic license,” he said. “[I] operated in the field for about seven years, and then [have been on the] leadership operation side of things for seven, eight years now.”
The functional difference between being in the field versus in leadership, Romenesko said, is the positions’ scope.
“My focus when I was in the field was on that one patient, that one encounter and what I needed to do for that one individual,” he said. “Now, I’m in charge of the entire system.”
Operating 21 ambulances across the region, Romenesko said ensuring the success of his team is priority No. 1 – because if they aren’t supported, patients go untreated.
“We’re not a manufacturing company, we don’t develop software, so really, the product we put out into the field is the people who are in those ambulances and the training, education and skills that they bring to the table,” he said. “My job is to make sure the people who are out there have everything they need to be successful.”
With GoldCross responding to “almost 32,000 calls on an annual basis,” Romenesko said the efforts of its leadership help ensure the continuation of its life-saving service.
“An unfortunate side of health care [is] that we really have to focus on finances,” he said. “At the end of the day, you want to make sure when you call 911, you have a reliable service that’s going to show up at your doorstep [with] the right equipment and the right people to make sure we have good outcomes.”
Local response, connected care
Nikolai said conversations about a new GoldCross station in Oshkosh started a little more than a year ago, amid “increasing demand for emergency care and response in the area.”
“That’s really what led to a lot of our work around adding the new service station,” she said. “This new station will very much positively impact our response times, and that’s important, because we know in an emergency, minutes matter.”
Nikolai said ThedaCare Medical Center-Oshkosh provides 24/7 emergency care, among other services, such as:
- Inpatient and outpatient surgery
- Pediatrics, orthopedics and primary care
- Retail pharmacy
- Imaging and lab analysis
Once complete, Romenesko said the new service station will also be staffed 24/7 for when patients need emergent transportation to another facility.
“As [ThedaCare-Oshkosh was] putting together some of the patient care pathways and how they were going to get patients treated, we were pulled into the conversation to serve as the interfacility transfer piece,” he said. “Obviously, this hospital has a ton of capabilities, but they are limited in the scope of services they can provide.”
Regardless of when an emergency happens, Romenesko said “the requirement for efficient services doesn’t change.”
“It was really important for us to [have] that ambulance and that footprint there 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” he said.
Though Froedtert ThedaCare’s goal is to provide care locally, Nikolai said its ability to connect patients with other providers is a strength of the organization.
“Part of our mission within ThedaCare is to help every individual live their unique, best life,” she said. “I think what’s really great about Froedtert ThedaCare is we… [are] connected to a broader health system, such that whatever your needs might be, we can get you where you need to go.”
As health care continues to evolve, Romenesko said transport services are becoming more and more crucial.
“There just aren’t as many specialty care facilities as there used to be, so they’re creating these centralized hubs that have all the specialists right in one area,” he said. “It’s a one-stop shop for their patients, but that does result in a need to move them from smaller facilities to these bigger facilities. That’s where services like GoldCross come into play.”
Because plans for the new service station include living accommodations for its 24/7 staff, Romenesko said specific steps are being taken to ensure the century-old building is approved for occupancy.
“It needed somebody who was willing to invest [in] it, and luckily, with ThedaCare’s close relationship with the Bergstrom Foundation, they were able to put up some money to get this off the ground,” he said.
Ahead of its completion, Romenesko said GoldCross staff are eagerly standing by to serve the emergent medical needs of the surrounding community.
“We’re very grateful for the partnership with ThedaCare, and obviously the Bergstrom Foundation [for funding] a beautiful building that I think our staff is super excited about being able to utilize,” he said. “[We’re] certainly grateful for the opportunity to be able to serve the Oshkosh market in this way and [are] looking forward to the impact it’s going to have.”
Navigate to ThedaCare’s Facebook page for updates on the project, and for more on GoldCross and its services, visit goldcross.org.
