LEDGEVIEW, WI (WTAQ) – While Foxconn plans to build its new $10,000,000,000 manufacturing facility at an undisclosed location in Southern Wisconsin, Ledgeview Representative John Macco believes it will also benefit his part of the state.
“They’ll have the need for contractors, construction people, sub-contractors of every kind. It’s going to be unprecedented.”
Foxconn’s Wisconsin location is expected to initially add 3,000 jobs, with the potential of that number growing to 13,000 over time.
UW-Green Bay Director of Engineering and Technology Patricia Terry believes her school can provide some of those workers, saying employer feedback has prompted them to expand manufacturing-related offerings in recent years.
“We have bachelor programs now in electrical, mechanical, and environmental engineering technology.”
Terry says students have been able to get real-life experience during their college careers.
“We have an advisory board that’s made up of about 50 companies and technical colleges across the region. They’ve been providing internships.”
She notes the university’s focus has been on teaching students more than just engineering skills.
“They want people who have good communication skills, good writing skills, who are good critical and analytical thinkers.”
Terry hopes the expansion of the last three years continues going forward, citing talks of building a new Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) innovation center on the UWGB campus by 2019.
“The new building will house the new mechanical engineering program, the Einstein Project, other things to start getting kids interested in STEM-type education.”
Macco believes the increased opportunities will help many Northeast Wisconsin graduates land family-supporting careers.
“The engineers that will come out of UWGB will probably start at around $60,000 and go up from there.”
In addition to the job opportunities for some of its residents, Macco predicts Foxconn’s economic impact will lead to plenty of direct and indirect spending in his part of the state, including from employees who vacation at destinations like Door County.”
“Just from a purely tax base, that entity will generate $700,000,000 in just wages alone.”
Foxconn’s proposed 20,000,000 square foot facility joins the Kenosha facility Amazon opened in 2015 and Haribo’s planned Pleasant Prairie Factory as those targeting Southern Wisconsin.
To attract those kinds of companies to Northeast Wisconsin, Macco believes it starts with having necessary transportation mechanisms in place.
“Infrastructure. We have to have amazing beltways like we have on Highway 41. I’m acutely involved in trying to get a southern bridge between De Pere and Wrightstown.”
To secure the deal, Wisconsin lawmakers will have to pass an incentive package that would grant up to $3,000,000,000 in performance-based tax credits to Foxconn over the next 15 years.
