I like to go to cancer wards.  I understand why other people don’t, but as a cancer survivor I want to make sure those working hard to save lives know the impact they have every day as patients combat one of life’s hardest challenges.  This week I took that mission to Southwest Health in Platteville and Crossing Rivers Health in Prairie du Chien.  Both facilities represent the cutting edge of rural healthcare in Wisconsin and add to what already makes us the third best healthcare in the nation—a factoid you hear from me often! Nothing brings me greater joy than knowing that Wisconsin residents have access to great care during some of life’s most difficult days. 

As many of you know, between my careers as a journalist and as Wisconsin’s Lt. Governor, I was a stay-at-home mom running my own small marketing business from the family dining table during the time I could get between my newborn’s and toddler's naps. (Those kids somehow are 10 and 13 now!) In Racine, I joined women at a “Strong Women Strong Coffee” breakfast hosted by WWBIC.  It brought me back to when I first met Karen, who with her own recipe and ingenuity started KP Toffee in Sturtevant, right next door to Racine.  You maybe have seen her toffee on grocery store displays but what you don’t see are the several employees enjoying their confectionary jobs because of the business she created.  It’s entrepreneurs like Karen who prove what we say all the time -- “Wisconsin is open for business”.

It’s never a dull day when you get to visit a technical college in Wisconsin and this time, I teamed up with our WEDC, UW-Oshkosh, Fox Valley Technical College, and the East Central Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission to accept a $3 million federal grant that will help diversify our industry sectors along the I-41 corridor in the Fox Valley.  If you didn’t get the chance to see the coverage from the nightly news, check out the story here and see even how this diversification is good for the future of aerospace in the region!