[Music]
Major funding for In Wisconsin is provided by the
people of Alliance Energy who bring safe, reliable and
environmentally friendly energy to keep homes, neighborhoods
and life in Wisconsin running smoothly.
Alliance Energy, offering energy saving ideas on the web.
[Music]
Hello and welcome to In Wisconsin.
I'm Patty Low.
Tonight we travel to Manitawak where some of the workers
from a plant that closed down have started production
rolling again.
We'll also take you through the cultural
history of the Mung People.
They're journey from the mountains of Laos to a
new life in Wisconsin.
Our first story tonight is said in the snow covered landscape of
the Shawamagan National Forest.
Here a group of determined individuals is working
hard to restore a piece of our state's past.
It's an effort that seems to be succeeding.
[Music]
It's a fridge a January morning in a place
called the North Woods.
Here in the Shawamagan National Forest near Clam Lake, a group
of DNR staff and volunteers gather round for what sounds
like a secret strategy session.
What we're going to do, we're going to move all the
animals in the transfer tub and close the
sliding door on them.
The animals inside this mysterious enclosure are a
site still rare in Wisconsin.
They're elk.
Easy girl.
Last known native elk here were killed by commercial hunters
more than a century ago.
And that illustrates what happened to our elk.
Those elk were being shipped to the cities to the market.
Easy girl.
Easy. Nine years ago a group of
private citizens decided to try to bring elk back to Wisconsin.
The late professor Ray Anderson from UW-Stevens
Point led the effort.
The group got permission from the DNR and the
U.S. Forest Service to release 25 elk in
the Shawamagan National Forest near Clam Lake.
Most of the funding for the reintroduction came from
private sources like the Rocky Mountain elk foundation.
The bottom line when we knew we could have elk in our
state for our kids to enjoy, that was the reason I
wanted this to happen.
The Rocky Mountain elk foundation is a national
organization with almost 7,000 members in Wisconsin.
Bernie Lemmon was one of the first to join back in 1987.
Lemmon was instrumental in organizing a series
of annual prints to fund the reintroduction.
To date the foundation has raised $650,000
for Wisconsin's elk.
Lemmon is clearly wild about these animals.
And even if you go and you only get to see a
hoof print in the sand, or as I have commented
on, those precious Shawamagan rubies knowing
that they have been here, I mean that's a gift
from Shawamagan.
There's two cans without cars, yeah.
The DNR assumed management of the herd in the year 2000.
At that time Ojibwe Elder Eugene Bege welcomed the
return of the elk with a sacred pipe ceremony.
They asked me to come and do a spiritually significant
ceremony of our people that would bring harmony
and goodwill to the arrival once again of the Odick.
When I went out to the grounds, I held up my
pipe and my tobacco.
And I thanked the great spirit for the life of our people.
The coming back again to this area of the first
four-legged that was created.
[birds chirping]
Today the largest source of funding for the elk
project is Indian Gaming.
This revenue funneled through the state helps pay
for the cost of trapping and collaring the animals.
The elk are lured into traps using the sweet scent
of apples and alfalfa.
Then they're fitted with radio collars.
These are calf collars, VHF radio collars that we
use for our telemetry work.
This particular one being a calf collar, you know,
that's the most vulnerable cohort of this population.
So it's important to get as many calves with
collars on as possible.
[gunfire]
Collaring these large frightened animals is no easy task.
Helper start by collapsing the walls of the enclosure,
moving the elk toward a small holding pen.
Then one by one, they coax the animals into a covered shoot.
[gunfire]
Here they attempt to comb the elk while slipping on a collar.
After the elk are quiet, DNR Wildlife Health Specialist
Carrie Beeller injects them with vitamins and antibiotics.
She also takes a blood sample.
We're doing a health survey on the elk herd.
And so we test them for as a variety of bacterial
and viral diseases.
Just living in this environment, they're exposed
to a variety of diseases.
One of them is Eastern Equine and Sepulitis.
Two years ago, there was an outbreak of that in this
particular area of Wisconsin.
It's fatal to horses.
Another disease in their environment that they have to
live with is West Nile Virus.
And that again can also be fatal to horses.
After the elk have been collared, they're set free.
A few of the collars contain a global positioning chip.
The data from the chip is analyzed by a team at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison.
This is the actual GPS unit itself here that collects
the data from the satellites and stores the data.
And then we download it at the end of the year.
The UW-Madison team is part of a consortium of universities
in the US and Canada that are studying how
elk use the landscape.
What's interesting is that in 1995 when the
elk were introduced, they had essentially an open
landscape and where they have set up their home ranges
is largely driven by predation risk, the presence of wolves.
The red areas show areas of relative high density of wolves.
And they have selected to set up their home ranges
away from the wolves.
The DNR also collects data on the herd using VHF
signals from the collars.
They get a fix on the signal with a truck modified
with a large antenna.
Then they tune in each animal's frequency with
a portable receiver.
Okay, this is Kyle 63.
And she's over here.
This is one of the cows that we just let go.
We not only get locations, but once a week we'll also grow out
and just run through all the frequencies, check to see
where all the animals are.
When an animal is healthy and moving around, we get
a beep once every second.
If the animal should die or is killed, once
that collar is still, it changes signal from
one beep per second to two beats per second.
If the signal changes to two beats per second, the DNR
investigates the cause of death.
So far, wolves and bears have taken about eight
elk, most of them calves.
Winter has also taken a toll, but the most serious threat
to date has been from humans.
We've investigated 33 mortalities with the elk,
and nine of those have been due to vehicle collisions.
And they aren't vehicle collisions with people's
personal vehicles.
They're vehicle collisions with large vehicles, large trucks.
There are currently 120 elk in the herd.
The DNR plans to cap the herd's growth at about 1400 animals.
The population will be controlled by hunting.
All of the alternatives are less attractive than
the hunting activity.
If we wait until they starve, it's the worst
thing you can imagine.
If we let them go, till they're out in the middle of the road,
and people are complaining, it's even worse yet.
Elk hunting will generate funds for the state in the future,
but groups in the Shawamagan area are already seeing an
economic benefit from the herd.
Growing numbers of outdoor enthusiasts are drawn
to the area each fall, hoping to see an elusive elk.
Research has found that when bulls bugle a
lot, it synchronizes estrus with the cows,
so you have a much more efficient shorter
breeding season.
Autumn is mating season when bull elk bugle
out their unusual call.
DNR biologist Lane Stoel led a group from the Cable Natural
History Museum into the forest, trying to call out the
territorial male elk with a call of his own.
[Bell ringing]
On that day, the group was too large and too noisy to
successfully fool an elk, an important lesson
in elk etiquette.
We've learned another lesson about elk in our state, the
hard way, the lesson of loss.
But with the help of private citizens, the
government and the tribes, elk have returned to
Wisconsin, a return welcomed by everyone who values these
wild, majestic creatures.
[Bell ringing]
As you heard in that report, black bears and
wolves have killed the small number of elk calves.
The DNR, along with researchers from UW-Stevens Point,
have been monitoring these deaths closely.
In fact, researchers at UW-Stevens Point have
been studying black bears in Wisconsin
for more than 25 years.
Their predator prey survey is helping us learn about the
changing dynamics in our forests since elk have
returned to Wisconsin.
[Bell ringing]
The most recent job statistics showed the number of
people employed nationwide was up sharply in March.
But one sector of the economy showed no growth, manufacturing.
For years, manufacturing jobs drove the economy in Manitowac.
Today, the county on the Lake Shore has an unemployment rate,
3.5 percent above the statewide average.
1,000 manufacturing jobs left Manitowac for Mexico last fall,
when a mural company shut down its cookware plant.
In Wisconsin, producer Art Hackett says some of those
jobs may be on the way back.
This is what's left when a company moves jobs to Mexico,
a huge building, nearly a million square feet.
Most of the former mural plant is in a state
of suspended animation.
It's a place where coffee breaks last forever.
The clock on the wall has stopped.
The equipment that used to turn out pots and pans is all there.
It just needs to be plugged in.
What was the last day you worked there?
September 12th last year.
Gary Miller was president of the Steel Workers' Local,
which represented about 650 of Miro's 1,000 employees.
He started work at Miro 30 years ago when he was 19.
He's now training to be a machinist at Lake
Shore Technical College.
His job at Miro was operating this rolling mill.
We could see things going overseas
and we just didn't think it would be around that long,
but never thought it was going to be as quick as it did,
basically within about a year.
Miller says the conglomerate that owned Miro,
a new-rubber-made company, had lost interest in the business.
No, just wanted to get out of it completely.
The only thing that wanted to be out of the state
had nothing to do with it up here.
I mean, they were still making profit.
We were in the double digits, 10, 12 percent.
They wanted more.
Tim Martinez thought the Manitouac plant
could still make money.
He, along with some of Miro's former workers,
decided to buy the factory and keep at least part
of it in operation.
Why did I do it?
The simple answer is, I got mad.
I got tired of hearing about people in my
community getting laid off.
Martinez is not an industrialist.
He's a realtor.
What I was doing was developing subdivisions and it's tough
to sell new vacant lots to people who don't
have an income.
As the realtor, Martinez saw the plant as an
industrial scale fixer-upper.
The plant was for sale cheap.
Four and a half million dollars for what industry people look at
is somewhere worth between 50 and 100 million dollars.
It's so ridiculous and it's premise that a
lot of people reject it as there must be something
wrong if it's that cheap.
Michael Gottfried teaches operations management at U.W.A.
Ashkash. He says there's a reason plants like
this are for sale cheap.
A big part of what Miro was doing was assembly work.
They're obviously assembling cookware and so forth.
Again, that type of work can be shipped out to
Mexico, India, China.
Much of that work is leaving out there.
Martinez saw potential in the part of the plant
called the hot mill.
Aluminum ingots and scrap are melted in a furnace.
The aluminum is then molded into 3,000 pound blocks
which are allowed to cool until they look solid but
are still squishy soft.
The blocks are placed onto what's called the rolling
mill where they're pressed thinner and thinner.
To buy the plant, Martinez asked the city for
a million dollar loan from federal community
development block grant funds.
Because of the impacts in northeastern Wisconsin,
the number of manufacturing jobs lost in northeastern Wisconsin
that has its greater share than other areas of the state.
The state focused on us and so we use this
fed money to help Miro.
The rest of the money to buy the plant came
from the sale of stock.
Martinez bought 53% of the shares.
Former Miro workers like Bob Marotic, who
hired on with Martinez, also invested money.
Some of the money came from
retirement accounts from their years at Miro.
I was told not to do it but there were anyways,
a couple of people probably not pretty risky.
Gary Miller could have bought stock but decided against it.
You don't know what's going to happen.
It's a very shaky ground.
You don't know this nut and you want to take 10
grand or maybe more and invest it from your 401k.
They most of them say, "No, don't do it."
But the people that are working there could
see what was going on and they believe in their heart
that it could take off and it was going to be profitable.
Otherwise, I know they want to have done it.
Miro, no more, the plant operates under a new name,
Kenigand Vitz, in honor of two early aluminum
manufacturers in Manitwock.
So far, the gamble is paying off.
Kenigand Vitz has found customers for coils of
role-deluminum, including Miro.
These round blanks will be shipped to Miro's
plant in Mexico for stamping into kitchenware.
Last month, in this month, we doubled production.
In next month, we'll double production again.
We're ahead of our business plan.
There's a twist in this story.
Martinez held the majority of Kenigand Vitz's stock.
Last week, he sold that controlling interest to Orion
Energy Systems of Plymouth.
Orion's president, Neil Verferth, says the
company will still produce aluminum coil stock,
but his plans are for much more than that.
Orion sells high-efficiency lighting systems.
Orion takes down old fixtures, which are made of aluminum,
and installs new ones.
Well, the old light fixtures that we take out
are made of primarily aluminum, copper and steel.
So the interest in the amount of aluminum in the old fixtures,
almost equal to that of the new fixtures.
So we're going to take the old fixture, the round hood,
crush it, melt the down, put it in the furnace,
and then out the other end of the building will come
a brand new light fixture.
Orion's fixtures are assembled from components
made all over the place.
We have tooling in China.
We have tooling in Taiwan.
We have tooling in half a dozen sites throughout the Midwest.
Now we're going to start bringing those tooling from
the Midwest and other areas, parts of North America.
And then ultimately from overseas up to Manitouac
and producing a Manitouac.
Right now, only about 40 people work for King-Igan Vitz.
Vairforth says Orion will be able to create still more jobs.
UW-Ashkash Business Professor Michael Gottfried says
Orion needs to make sure they're not the type of
jobs, Miro, eliminated.
The basic assembly work is going to be gone for Wisconsin.
There's no value added in that.
That can be shipped out to Mexico, can
be shipped out to China.
Vairforth, who's business is selling energy-efficient
lighting, says energy efficiency is the key to making the
Manitouac plant profitable.
We've identified numerous opportunities to reduce
energy costs as much as 30% overall in the facility.
Vairforth says Orion is prepared to invest as much as $20
million renovating the plant.
He's also on the line to repay the million dollar loan
to the city of Manitouac.
But Mayor Kevin Crawford says there is a lot more riding
on this deal than money.
And once we lose that middle class, we're never
going to get it back.
And there are a number of nations that have designs
on our middle class.
We deserve to keep them here.
Recently, the U.S.
government approved a plan that would
allow several thousand Hmong refugees to join
their families who are living in America.
Starting back in the 1980s, many Hmong refugees ended their
journey of escape in Wisconsin.
The story of their journey is filled with
fear, sorrow, and loss.
But also new beginnings.
That story, along with a celebration
of their cultural heritage, have been crafted into an
exhibit for the Madison Children's Museum, an exhibit
called "Mong at Heart."
Producer Andy Solt takes a son of tour.
While Americans fought a war in Vietnam in
the 60s and early 70s, their government was also
fighting a secret war in the neighboring country of Laos.
The soldiers in this war were not Americans, but members of a
mountain tribe called the Hmong.
They were recruited by the CIA to battle a laation in North
Vietnamese communist forces.
While the war may have ended badly for America,
the secret war ended horribly for the Hmong.
They pushed us to the jungle.
My family spent a year in the jungle without wringling food.
The Hmong were hunted down by communist soldiers.
Many Hmong tried to escape to Thailand.
The most dangerous is the by the Mekong River.
We have to make a cross.
That's a very, very huge river.
Across the Mekong, Leia hastily built Refugee Camp.
And for some, after they spent years waiting in the camp,
a bus ride and a plane ticket to America.
The story of the Hmong's journey to America involves government
deception and brutal oppression.
So it's perhaps surprising that it's being told here at
the Madison Children's Museum.
When you hear about the Hmong, you always hear about, "Oh,
you know, they help fight against communists.
They're a covert," or a "secret
army in the war in Vietnam."
And that's about the extent you hear about them.
You don't hear about their rich culture,
the beauty about their culture.
But it's that culture that's on display at the museum,
especially at the exhibit's opening celebration.
[Music]
The children of Refugees perform traditional dances
and play the music of their parents' homeland.
[Music]
That home is here on display as well.
Enter the exhibit called "Mong at Heart" and you
travel to a village in the mountains of Laos.
The centerpiece is a traditional house built using the
expertise of Hmong elders.
This is the elders telling us their story and the
museum was just a place for their voices to be heard.
[Music]
Back in Laos, our parents worked very hard all of the time.
So it was my choice to pound the rice enough to feed the family.
I was too small to pound the rice, so I would have
to wear a backpack and fill it with rocks or corn,
so I would weigh enough to operate the rice pounder.
Whether it's pounding rice, tending chickens, or trying
out the tools of among shaman, Hmong at Heart offers a
hands-on taste of life in Laos.
[Music]
But the exhibit is not only about the life once led,
it is also about the journey and survival of a people.
And the next stop is a refugee camp in Thailand.
The Hmong people exist without a country.
It is a much more stark and minimal place where things like
mail from families who've made it to America become vital.
Hello, older brother and sister-in-law.
We finally got to America.
My brother sent me audio tapes, photos.
That's how we communicate back and forth.
Then the exhibit follows the Hmong refugees to
America, represented here by a white-clabbered house.
[Music]
I feel like I'm kind of reborn at that time.
It is a totally new environment, new people,
new language, new cultures.
A new culture, but what of the old?
Is it to be left in Laos or mixed in the melting pot
into something entirely new?
That's up to the next generation.
The young people today think on moms and nitty-ditty pants.
I don't know how to do this move before MC
Hammer could do this move.
I'm just going to show us how they grind the rice in Laos.
[Music]
I never really thought about it.
I was like, was that more Hmong or American?
It's kind of like that myself.
Kind of made me want to learn more about my own culture.
[Music]
It makes our children interested in learning about
our lives in Laos and in the objects found in the exhibit.
They wonder to themselves how tough life was for our parents.
Or was it that our parents were intelligent enough
to have invented these objects to help them?
I was like really amazed at what they could
do with what they had.
Like there was this bamboo mouse trap and I thought
that was really cool.
They had ability to solve whatever problem was there.
Hmong children who were born in America have
never seen such objects.
But now by seeing the actual objects they can relate to the
stories their parents tell them.
Objects that tell stories are what museums are all about.
And the story told by Mungat Hart is one of a
unique culture's survival against great odds.
[Music]
You can find more information on the Mungat Hart exhibit
by logging on to our website at www.org/inwisconsin.
You can also see the exhibit for yourself.
It's on display through May 30th at the Madison
Children's Museum.
That's our program for this week.
We leave you with visions of warmer days ahead,
a summer day in Iowa counties of Vocca Prairie.
For Inwisconsin, I'm Patty Lo.
Good night.
[Music]
Major funding for Inwisconsin is provided by the people of
Alliance Energy who bring safe, reliable and environmentally
friendly energy to keep homes, neighborhoods and life in
Wisconsin running smoothly.
Alliance Energy, offering energy saving ideas on the web.
[Music]