Milwaukee Talks: Spirit of Milwaukee's Dean Amhaus

While, technically, we all work to make Milwaukee the place that it is, there are some people in town for whom hyping and bettering Brew City is a full-time job. One of those people is Dean Amhaus, president of Spirit of Milwaukee.

Amhaus, a Milwaukee native, has spent enough time away from the city to know what others think when they hear the name "Milwaukee" and that, combined with his marketing background, make him well qualified to pitch Milwaukee as a great place to live, work and play.

We asked Amhaus to tell us a bit about the creation and mission of Spirit of Milwaukee and about the challenges he faces in his job as something of a Milwaukee cheerleader.

OMC: Maybe you can give us the quick history of Spirit of Milwaukee. I didn't know, for example, that it was launched by Midwest Airlines.

DA: Spirit of Milwaukee was started about 8-9 years ago as part of the naming rights agreement for the Midwest Airlines Center. When the center was being proposed a few civic leaders had approached Midwest Airlines about placing the company's name on the building. The thought was that it was a natural fit since the airline would be flying people into the city for conventions. The idea was to use the naming rights funds to help market the new center to conventions and build awareness of Milwaukee among potential visitors.

Tim Hoeksema, the Chairman, President and CEO of Midwest Airlines, agreed with the general idea but was equally interested in marketing to another audience. At that time and to this day when Midwest Airlines tries to attract talent to work for the company Tim has found that one of the basic roadblocks in securing talent is the fact that many of the recruits have no knowledge or a negative perception about moving to the Milwaukee area. In talking with other business leaders in the Milwaukee area he found that they were and continue to face this same problem. Early on Tim realized that if he could get the recruit to come to Milwaukee and see what was taking place in the community he could sell them on living and working in Milwaukee. His challenge was just overcoming that first humongous barrier which was a person's perception.

So, when Tim agreed to place Midwest Airlines name on the building he wanted to channel the funds through a non-profit organization, i.e. Spirit of Milwaukee, that was not only interested in improving Milwaukee's perception with visitors but also with potential talent and their families, business expansion decision-makers, students, media, etc. from outside of the Milwaukee region. Tim's idea was that you need to market the whole Milwaukee package not just one facet of visiting, working, living or learning in the area.

OMC: How do you approach promoting Milwaukee? Do you travel outside the city or work on people who come in to visit for work or play?

DA: We take a very different approach than the traditional idea of marketing a place. The norm is to spend money on advertising but to be truly effective with this approach you need to spend tens of millions of dollars; millions that this community does not have to spend nor would I suggest should be spent. Sure, we can create a great ad with nice pictures and compelling copy but look through any magazine and you can see that any city in the country can do the same thing. Just because an ad says that a city offers a "great quality of life" does not necessarily mean that it is so. Therefore spending that kind of money on advertising becomes a tremendous waste as it not very effective.

With that in mind we rarely travel outside of the Milwaukee region to promote this place. Why would I talk with a business leader or a reporter in another city and show them a nice brochure with pretty pictures? It does not work. If I am going to try and sell a new food product I don't want the person to just look at a picture I want them to sample it. Therefore rather than talk with someone in their city I want them to come to the Milwaukee area. Because of the dramatic advancements that have taken place in this community and the numerous choices that are now easily available we are extremely confident that we have a great product to sell. It is very easy to change a person's perception once they are here and see what is taking place in Milwaukee. Every single time we have a new visitor they end up saying "I had no idea."

OMC: What are the greatest hurdles?

DA: It is all about the perceptions that people have built up over time and a lack of exposure to reality. This is not only from outsiders but also from people who live in the region. For instance from the outside, you run into people from the East or West Coasts and they not only have no notion of what is taking place in Milwaukee they don't even know where it is located. I can't count how many times I have heard that Milwaukee is near Minneapolis or the really geographically challenged who put Milwaukee near Pennsylvania or Montana.

Locally, we have too many people who don't reach out beyond the few miles where they live or work. It is true that we are our own worse enemy when it comes to our impressions of the region. Too many people don't fully appreciate the richness of this region compared with other places in this country. We are way too quick to criticize Milwaukee and don't realize that many people across the country would welcome our tremendous quality of life which ranges from the arts to commuting times and yes, weather.

OMC: Do you find it's an uphill battle trying to overcome the stereotypes?

DA: Truthfully it is getting much easier because our product keeps getting better and better from the choices in industries to housing to restaurants. It is not that Milwaukee has negative stereotypes as much as we don't have any stereotypes. People are more likely to shrug their shoulders when asked to describe Milwaukee. Once again, all we need to do is to get them here and they are always amazed at the activity that is taking place. Give me an hour with someone and I can guarantee they will form a whole new, positive stereotype of Milwaukee.

OMC: Does it ever seem useful to play up some of those "Laverne and Shirley"-type things?

DA: I am not sure what those things might be. Frankly my interpretation is that the show had very little to do with Milwaukee. The opening showed Milwaukee's City Hall and the inside of a brewery -- that was it. The show was about two working women and their two goofy male friends. Except for the fact that they worked in a brewery the show could have been set in Anywhere, U.S.A. One of my pet peeves is that we keep on not wanting to associate ourselves with that show but then we keep bringing it up time after time. For that reason I have taken a personal pledge to avoid saying the name of the TV show.

OMC: There are certainly examples to show how Milwaukee has been reinventing itself, like the MAM expansion. Are those useful?

DA: The Calatrava addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum is an unbelievable marketing asset for Milwaukee. It is extremely helpful to have national advertisers like Hewlett-Packard, Porsche and Toyota use the Milwaukee Art Museum as a way to convey cutting-edge technology and sleek coolness. When people realize that that building is located in Milwaukee there is a direct spill-over in creating a positive image for this city. People think that if a city can build something as remarkable as the Milwaukee Art Museum that there must be something more that is taking place. The great thing is that there is. All one needs to do is to look at the shifts that are taking place with our industry mix and our transformation from relying primarily on manufacturing to an industry base that now also includes technology, financial services, higher education, tourism and the arts.

OMC: How does Milwaukee compare to other formerly industrial cities that had poor -- or no -- reputations? Cities like Cleveland, Turin, Manchester (England) and Bilbao spring to mind.

DA: Unfortunately, of those cities I have only been to Cleveland and that was a number of years ago. Cleveland is certainly an example of a city that turned itself around in terms of its image. From a city that was viewed as a place where the river caught on fire to the hip side with the creation of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. A couple of weeks ago I saw a friend from Virginia who recently visited with some of her friends in Cleveland. The people in Cleveland seemed to think that that city was starting to slip a little bit. When the person from Virginia saw what was taking place in Milwaukee she said it was clear that Milwaukee was exceeding Cleveland in terms of growth.

It is interesting that when thinking of the other three cities I don't think of them so much as industrial cities but more in terms of recent events such as the Winter Olympics with Turin and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. The opening shot of the Guggenheim Museum in one of the James Bond movies was huge for Bilbao. Imagine a scene in an upcoming James Bond movie that included the Milwaukee Art Museum.

OMC: Are there lessons to be learned from those cities?

DA: I guess what comes to mind is that what I perceived happened in those cities was that civic leaders came together and were focused to be united in building a better city. I am not sure if that is true but it certainly leaves me with an impression that civic leaders were determined to move their city's forward and to do so they needed to take some bold, creative, aggressive steps. There was a vision for a better city.

OMC: Do we do a good enough job of getting the message across about Milwaukee and Milwaukeeans these days?

DA: We are doing a better job than in the past thanks to a lot of valuable partners such as the various business improvement districts, Visit Milwaukee, Greater Milwaukee Committee, Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, and, of course, OnMilwaukee.com. This community has built a great product and now there are many more messages getting to people in the region and outside of the area. Now what people have to do is actually experience the reality of the choices that are now offered. Of course, the promotion of Milwaukee internally and externally will be something that will never be able to end and if it is financially possible it definitely should be ratcheted up.

OMC: You're a Milwaukee native, right? What was the city like when you were growing up?

DA: I grew up Cudahy in the 1960s and '70s. This was a city that was sliding downward fast. I don't know if this was an indication of what was taking place but I remember when I came downtown there was always this horrible stench from the fish that were not swimming in the river but floating on top and seeming to congregate in corners.

Back then my world was pretty limited. I was one of those individuals whose life was centered around a few miles where I lived and went to school. Therefore I had very little exposure to what was taking place. If anything I guess what left a negative impression on me was when my dad got laid-off from his job at Delco in Oak Creek in the early '70s. It was a big setback for him. I remember the long period of time that he was out of work. It left me with the view that this city was dying and I needed to get out.

OMC: But you left, why?

DA: A few reasons, mostly a job and weather. When I graduated from UW-Platteville I wanted to get into theater management and the place to go was New York City. I landed a marketing internship at the Brooklyn Academy of Music which opened up some contacts for me. After six months in the Big City I came back to Wisconsin to get my M.B.A. from UW-Whitewater. The job searches in the early '80s lead me nowhere. I remember my roommates and me tacking our rejection letters on the walls in the house where we lived. Milwaukee was not even an option to consider if you wanted to do anything.

One of the contacts that I made in New York ended up helping me land a job in Washington, D.C. with the Congressional Arts Caucus and after a short stint at the National Endowment for the Arts I spent the next seven years as a lobbyist. Following my time in D.C., I spent another 10 years in Madison working in a few different government positions.

With respect to weather, when I was getting out of college I was just tired of too many days in a row where the temperature never reached zero degrees. I needed a change from having ice on my beard. On the flip side, I learned that Washington, D.C. is beastly hot and humid for five months out of the year. I have visited the southwest part of the country in summer and you have to run from one air conditioner to the next for half of the year. Whatever the reason might be, now, 20 years later, the colder weather in Milwaukee is not as bad as I remember.

OMC: Did spending some years away from Milwaukee give you some special skills in understanding how to promote the city to outsiders?

DA:I am not sure if it gave me special skills but it was very important for me to appreciate Milwaukee and to better understand people.

As I stated earlier, when growing up in Cudahy I led a very isolated life. Growing up in a German household I thought that ethnic diversity were my friends of Polish heritage. When I lived in New York and Washington, D.C. I was right in the cities and I came to discover all kinds of different people from geographic areas from around the world and different ethnic groups. I learned to respect and admire people's differences -- something that will stay with me for the rest of my life. I also came to understand what REAL traffic is like as well as the cost of trying to rent a decent apartment or buying a small home. FYI: there is NO real traffic congestion in Milwaukee.

This may be a bit controversial in light of the ongoing discussion of the brain drain but I think anyone who has grown up in Milwaukee their entire life should try living somewhere else in the country. It is the best learning experience to round someone out as a person. It opens your mind about a lot of things. We desperately need that in Milwaukee.

From my own experience, as well as that of others that I know, people will also gravitate back to the Milwaukee region as their lives change and they seek a better quality of life -- a little bit wiser and a greater appreciator of what this city now offers.

OMC: What are some projects Spirit of Milwaukee is currently engaged in?

DA: Spirit is deeply involved with the Milwaukee 7 initiative that is aimed at attracting businesses and talent to the seven-county region. We are specifically working on the branding piece. The initial work on this initiative included the development of the corporate identity work or Milwaukee 7 logo. The latest activity has concentrated on the brand message that we want to convey to ourselves within the region as well as across the country and world. The next phase is the actual implementation.

Of course, we continue to promote the new Milwaukee logo which is focused on the Milwaukee Art Museum and the name "Milwaukee." We receive ongoing interest from businesses and organizations that want to utilize the logo in promotional materials. One of the most exciting aspects that will begin to be seen later in the year is the Gateway Signage program that incorporates the logo. This signage, which is three-sided and ranges in height from 8 to 20 feet, will be a great addition and will serve as a further statement to people that Milwaukee is evolving into a new city. Our lead sponsors for this program includes the Milwaukee Brewers, We Energies, Marcus Hotels/Marcus Theatres and Funjet/Mark Travel.

OMC: What recent or upcoming development most excites you? (for example, Pier Wisconsin, etc. etc.)

DA: The one project or shall I say projects that I see as being most important is the housing that is taking place in Downtown Milwaukee. This is a very, very big statement. It means that people are choosing to live downtown because it is meeting their lifestyle needs. This translates to more development and strength in the entertainment, retail and jobs. All of the projects such as Discovery World to the Harley-Davidson Museum are important to drawing people to the city but when people are living in the city this means people are starting to plant roots. Having lived in big cities you need people working and living right smack downtown. The energy that is produced is amazing and it is infectious.

OMC: Tell us about Dean Amhaus' Milwaukee. If you have a visitor coming from someplace else, where do you take him?

DA: First things first, if I have a guest that is flying in, if at all possible, I want to make sure that they are flying Midwest Airlines. This way their "Milwaukee experience" starts even before they arrive. Of course, I always pick them up at the airport. Regardless of where they are headed I like to drive them along the lake through the Bay View neighborhood. There are some great mental pictures along the way before I head across the Hoan Bridge and give the person a great view of the Downtown. Get off of the bridge and give a quick look at the Milwaukee Art Museum (hopefully timing it when the wings are opening) before heading down Lake Drive to UW-Milwaukee. I then head back Downtown taking a variety of routes so I can swing down Brady Street and head over to Marquette University and ultimately to downtown and tour the housing developments before grabbing a bite to eat. The real challenge is actually trying to figure out how to pack all the different things about Milwaukee into a limited amount of time.

OMC: Are you a tourist in your own town?

DA: I am but honestly I wish I had more time to do more things. I think that is probably the same problem most people have once they discover Milwaukee. I have to admit that what I most enjoy doing is exploring new restaurants in town. I comment that in the past it was a challenge to find some good restaurants in Milwaukee. It is still a challenge but now it is tough to pick one from all of the different choices.