By Sarah Maio
The Wisconsin Center District (WCD), in partnership with Cross Management Services, Inc. (CMSI) and Prism Technical Management & Marketing Services (Prism), unveiled their plans for tracking and verifying diversity and inclusion procedures throughout construction of the Wisconsin Center expansion. Both CMSI and Prism have a thorough process for monitoring and tracking commitments to inclusion efforts for both businesses and the workforce, respectively.
“The Wisconsin Center expansion will create thousands of jobs during construction and again once opened, 
and it’s important to us that a variety of these jobs are held by Milwaukee residents and representative of our community,” said Marty Brooks, president and CEO of the Wisconsin Center District. “Prism and CMSI will ensure that we’re keeping our promise to the community and meeting the inclusion goals we’ve committed to.”
The WCD has committed to contracting with at least 25 percent minority-owned businesses, five percent women-owned businesses, and one percent disabled veteran-owned businesses for construction, along with a Residential Preference Program (RPP), mandating at least 40 percent of on-site construction labor hours will be performed by trade workers residing in the city of Milwaukee. Upon opening, the expanded Wisconsin Center is expected to support 2,300 full-time equivalent jobs throughout the state of Wisconsin.
The WCD is prepared to meet these inclusion and diversity goals and is currently on track to maintain them. Final business inclusion goal results will be available in Q4 2021.
“At CMSI, we use creativity and business savvy to meet and exceed our clients’ inclusion goals. Policies of diversity and inclusion help build better businesses, and a stronger community. We are happy to partner with the WCD to ensure easy, effective, and verifiable compliance with their business inclusion process,” said Carla Cross, president and CEO of Cross Management Services, Inc. “Our unique quality control systems provide multiple checks for information accuracy and onsite visits authenticate the performance of a commercially useful function by certified firms.”
While CMSI will ensure contracted businesses meet the WCD’s goal for minority-owned, women-owned, and disabled veteran-owned companies, Prism will monitor diversity in the workforce. The bidding process for subcontractors has already begun, but there are still many open construction jobs. To help fill these roles, Prism representatives attended Northcott Neighborhood House’s Juneteenth event on Saturday, June 19, where they shared information about the Wisconsin Center expansion and collected contact information and work history of those interested in joining the construction team.
“The Wisconsin Center expansion will have a profound impact on the Milwaukee community, and we’re looking forward to partnering with the WCD team to make sure inclusion goals and milestones are met throughout the construction process,” said Randy Crump, CEO of Prism Technical Management & Marketing Services. “We have an abundance of untapped talent in southeast Wisconsin, and there’s no better place to start recruiting that talent than within our own city.”
Sarah Maio is Vice President of Marketing and Communications for the Wisconsin Center District.
