Wisconsin ESL Institute puts out call for host families

MADISON (WKOW) — The Wisconsin ESL Institute (WESLI) is looking for host families for their international students this summer.

14- to 17-year-old international students will be visiting Wisconsin to study English and do fun activities like going to local festivals, visiting Devil’s Lake State Park and kayaking.

But, when the kids aren’t learning and having fun, they’ll need a place to stay, so WESLI is looking for host families.

“As a homestay, your job would just be to welcome them home after their activities in the afternoon, usually around five or six and then eat dinner together as a family and hang out and then make sure they have a safe place to sleep,” Maija Sikora, WESLI Housing and Activities Coordinator, said.

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One Community Bank Breaks Ground in Cottage Grove

June 1, 2023
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Jamie Balsiger
One Community Bank
608-838-3141
jbalsiger@onecommunity.bank

One Community Bank Breaks Ground in Cottage Grove

(June 2023) – As a growing organization, One Community Bank recently announced a new bank location in the Cottage Grove community. The new bank will be located at 1565 Landmark Drive between Commerce Parkway and Limestone Pass.

On Thursday, April 27, One Community Bank held a groundbreaking ceremony to celebrate this exciting new phase of the project. Local community members as well as OCB colleagues, directors, and partners gathered for the ceremony at the location of the future bank. Attendees included: Village of Cottage Grove president and staff, leaders from the Cottage Grove Chamber of Commerce, and several of our partners from Ideal Builders, OPN Architects, and many of our subcontractor firms.

“One Community Bank believes in serving clients, supporting colleagues, and investing in our communities. Cottage Grove has a strong community presence, and our colleagues are excited to participate in events and support local businesses,” said Steve Peotter, President and CEO. “OCB has been fortunate to have worked closely with many Cottage Grove clients throughout the years. We are proud to bring OCB’s ‘Feel Good Banking’ to Cottage Grove.”

One Community Bank is working closely with Ideal Builders and OPN Architects on the new 6,000 square foot location at Landmark Drive.

“What we’ve seen in the communities that we’ve served with One Community Bank is they back up what they say,” said Tim Cleary, Executive Vice President of Ideal Builders. “They’ve been wonderful community participants to the schools, the business community, and to countless other non-profits. The Cottage Grove community is winning by having this employer here and I’m excited to see what they do here.”

“We are honored to be One Community Bank’s architect for the new Cottage Grove location, our third bank location together”, said Wesley Reynolds, Principal, OPN Architects. “Our long-time partnership is proof that OCB is committed to designing buildings that elevate the communities in which they live, work, and invest.”

One Community Bank – Cottage Grove will offer full-service banking capabilities to current and future clients in Cottage Grove and surrounding communities. The new location will include a drive-through lane with a teller window and a remote interactive teller machine (ITM). The ITM will be available extended hours. The location will have several office spaces and a conference room for colleagues to serve clients. It will also include a welcoming spacious lobby for clients to enjoy.

Online account opening capabilities enable anyone to open an account on OCB’s website today, instead of waiting until the new Cottage Grove location opens.

OCB – Cottage Grove is expected to open its doors in early 2024.

Pictured (left to right): Ryan Frank, Project Architect, OPN Architects; Jeff Versluys, Executive Vice President, One Community Bank; Wesley Reynolds, Principal, OPN Architects; Shelley Edgington, Sr. Vice President – Retail Banking, One Community Bank; Steve Peotter, President and CEO, One Community Bank; Britt Leach, Executive Director, Cottage Grove Chamber of Commerce; John Williams, Village President, Village of Cottage Grove; and Tim Cleary, Executive Vice President, Ideal Builders.

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One Community Bank is one of the largest community banks in south central Wisconsin. The locally owned bank has 10 bank locations and $1.8 billion in assets. It provides both personal and business banking solutions, with an intense focus on serving clients, supporting colleagues, and investing in its communities. Five years in a row named one of Madison’s best places to work, One Community Bank serves the communities of Oregon, McFarland, Waunakee, Stoughton, Sun Prairie, Middleton, Adams, Oxford, and Grand Marsh.

SuiteDynamics: Taking Business Ethics to a New Level

Not long ago, Jake Kleiner noticed a lack of honesty in the ERP world. So, he formed a company to fix it.

In 2016, SuiteDynamics founder Jake Kleiner felt aggravated. He was working with too many ERP implementation partners who couldn’t deliver quality work on time.

But one man’s failure is another man’s opportunity. So, in 2021, Jake established SuiteDynamics to provide ERP consulting based on real-world experience with business and financial systems. And he felt determined to deploy those ERPs with integrity and consideration for a company’s budget and timeline.

Essentially, Jake established a business to save others from his frustration.

“I’d love to be the first implementation partner that companies engage with, so they never have my experience,” he explains.

Identifying a Lack of Honesty in the ERP World

Before exploring ERPs, Jake had a background in management systems development, financial management, and business. He had worked as an analyst at RedPrairie Software and the Board of Trade in Chicago. And from 2016 to 2021, he served as CEO of a quilting accessory company called Paper Pieces.

While operating Paper Pieces, Jake struggled with disparate data silos, broken and unstable program integrations, and systems that simply didn’t work together. Fed up, he contracted implementation partners to deploy an ERP and fix those problems. But sadly, he discovered that not every partner is created equal.

“The quality of their work was not good,” Jake says. “We had to do a lot of it ourselves. We had to rework a lot of the ERP just across the board.”

The implementation process became a mess. And the lack of genuine partnership Jake experienced with so-called “implementation partners” rubbed against his sense of morality.

So, he figured out ERP implementation on his own. Jake drew on his knowledge of computer systems to learn the modules and coding one day at a time. He used trial and error to establish a system that fit Paper Pieces’ needs. And he chose to learn NetSuite because it was the only ERP with a native e-commerce solution.

Meeting a Need for Integrity and Financial Experience

In 2019, Jake and his wife moved from Paducah, Kentucky—the small river city where Paper Pieces was headquartered—to his hometown of Madison, Wisconsin. There, he established SuiteDynamics as a business that could help deploy NetSuite ERPs with the honesty he craved during his own implementation journey.

Jake also realized his financial experience at the Chicago Board of Trade and Paper Pieces gave SuiteDynamics an edge. Many implementation partners knew NetSuite inside and out but had little to no knowledge of accounting systems. That weakness caused chaos.

“At the end of the day, NetSuite’s, above all, an accounting and finance software,” Jake explains. “And I saw a lot of development teams or third parties bolting on a customization or an integration without understanding what that would cause as far as downstream impacts on the software.”

Jake, however, understood financial systems and how they should operate. Consequently, he had more to offer than much of his competition.

So, he earned NetSuite’s ERP Administrator, Suite Foundation, and SuiteCloud certifications and opened SuiteDynamics, a registered NetSuite implementation partner. By the summer of 2021, he had completed his first ERP implementation for Autocado, an auto products company. He helped the client automate financial processes, and the company’s satisfied COO dubbed SuiteDynamics “a crucial business partner.”

From that moment, SuiteDynamics began to grow. Fast.

Cuing Exponential Growth

Jake hired his first employee, developer Derek Kalvin, in the summer of 2021. But demand for SuiteDynamics’ implementation services and financial expertise grew. And by the winter of 2022, Jake employed roughly 20 people, including CFO Grace Martin. Her background also married computer programming with financial expertise and strengthened the company’s ability to implement working NetSuite solutions.

Yet, Grace and the other staff weren’t typical software company hires. They weren’t just tech experts; they were self-starters, life-long learners, and people with strong “Midwestern values.”

“Do what you say you’re going to do to the best of your ability,” Jake says, describing the values he wants his staff to uphold. “Deliver on time. Be honest. Deliver in a quality way. Say when something isn’t possible. Make something right when it’s wrong. It all sounds so simple, but if you work enough within the partner network, you’ll quickly find how many other companies don’t meet those expectations.”

As SuiteDynamics grew, it hired more employees who could offer clients real-world experience—particularly in the financial field. And those hires have now paid off.

“We are routinely saving implementations,” Jake says. “And that’s one thing we pride ourselves on—getting people to go live.”

Becoming More Than a NetSuite Solutions Provider

Now, SuiteDynamics has become a go-to company for NetSuite financial implementations. In fact, other implementation partners are contracting its services to ensure successful deployment for their clients’ financial ERP modules.

“We liken ourselves more to partners than consultants,” Jake says. “When we’re creating solutions, we’re really thinking about the long-term impacts versus an immediate or quick fix. And so, we’re really looking, I think, long-term at the most stable and quality solutions that are possible.”

And, of course, SuiteDynamics is also making its own long-term plans, which involve the development of new software applications to enhance NetSuite Cloud ERPs.

But for now, the company is focused on hiring more experts and helping more businesses succeed.

Naviant, Inc. Partners with Reveille Software to Offer ECM Monitoring Solutions

Naviant unveils new solution to drive customers’ business agility, efficiency, and ROI

VERONA, Wis; ROSWELL, G.A. – May 24, 2023 – Naviant, Inc., a leading provider of intelligent automation solutions by Hyland and ABBYY, has announced that it has partnered with Reveille Software to offer ECM monitoring solutions. Reveille is a leading solution for managing and monitoring business-critical Enterprise Content Management (ECM) systems.

Reveille’s software offerings fill the ECM monitoring and managing gap so organizations can optimize the ROI of their ECM solutions. This technology accomplishes this by providing full visibility into ECM application health, automated alert notifications, tools that analyze user activity comprehensively, and more.

As a top Hyland partner, Naviant has been named an OnBase Platinum and Diamond Support partner consistently year after year with a thriving and happy client base. “We are very excited to be working with Reveille Software and believe that this partnership will align with Naviant’s strong commitment to exceptional support and delivery for our clients,” Greg Albert, SVP of Operations at Naviant, said. “ECM monitoring technology is a strategic priority for Naviant, and we view it as an excellent complement to the Hyland and ABBYY platforms with its rich portfolio of integration and monitoring tools.”

Bob Estes, CEO of Reveille Software, said, “We are pleased to announce our partnership with Naviant, as we share the same core commitment to customer success. With our extensive out-of-the-box capabilities, we are confident that Reveille Software solutions will be extremely beneficial for Naviant clients in their digital transformation journeys.”

Since 1986, Naviant has partnered with clients to help them do more with less and reach their business goals. The partnership positions Naviant to further lead the industry-wide evolution towards intelligent hyperautomation and make an even bigger impact on digital transformations.

About Naviant

Naviant is a nationally recognized intelligent automation solutions integrator and business process consulting organization with over 35 years of experience. We help our clients do more with less by using technology to streamline processes and gain visibility into the data they need to make better decisions.

Our “process-first” approach emphasizes the importance of process improvement before implementing technology solutions such as OnBase, Brainware, the ABBYY intelligent capture platform, and Hyland RPA. We also offer flexible Managed IT Services, where our team of experts can manage, enhance, or expand our clients’ OnBase or ABBYY solutions. To learn more about Naviant, please visit Naviant.com. Process focus. Excellence.

About Reveille Software

Reveille is a leading provider of out-of-the-box monitoring for Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solutions for business IT and MSPs. With a wake-up call to the need for comprehensive visibility into content processes, Reveille has filled the ECM monitoring gap and is trusted by hundreds of organizations worldwide. Reveille’s purpose-built software empowers teams to understand their ECM environment and avoid costly issues, ensuring critical processes keep running.

The company’s solutions are built to monitor and provide early notification for content systems, analyze user activity, and connect ECM visibility to current tools to optimize platforms and maximize productivity. Contact Reveille at https://www.reveillesoftware.com or + 1 877 897 2579 | EXT 1.

Don Griffin Joins Bank of Sun Prairie as AVP Residential Mortgage Lender

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 31, 2023

Contact: Jimmy Kauffman, President and CEO,
Chairman of the Board of Directors
Bank of Sun Prairie
608.837.4511 ● jimmy.kauffman@bankofsunprairie.com
www.bankofsunprairie.com

Don Griffin Joins Bank of Sun Prairie as AVP Residential Mortgage Lender
Lender provides customers with expert experience working with specific home goals

Sun Prairie, Wis.— Bank of Sun Prairie welcomes Don Griffin, a 29-year experienced financial services veteran as their new assistant vice president, residential mortgage lender. Since 1994, Griffin has made significant contributions to the banking and mortgage fields.

Griffin graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater with a bachelor’s degree in finance. Since then, he gained experience managing retail banks and mortgage teams, along with taking the role as a residential mortgage lender since 2012. Now, he has joined Bank of Sun Prairie to further his ability to provide a full financial picture approach for their customers.

“We couldn’t be more excited to welcome Don Griffin to Bank of Sun Prairie’s mortgage team. He is a great addition, bringing in his extensive residential lending experience and strong connections across Dane County.” shared Gabrielle Loeffler, Bank of Sun Prairie’s vice president, residential lending manager. “Don offers customers a personalized experience to match each of their specific home-buying needs.”

Don Griffin is based in the bank’s Grand Avenue branch in Sun Prairie. Bank of Sun Prairie is a locally owned, full-service community bank with $677 million in assets and five branches in Sun Prairie and Cottage Grove, Wis. Its mission is to be trusted advisor for families, businesses and communities offering a complete range of services, while delivering fair returns for stockholders. Member FDIC. Equal Opportunity Lender.

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