Top Craft Pick

Coming to Northeast Wisconsin live from the Civic Media Studios and featuring TV and radio broadcast veteran John Minow along with the City of Green Bay's longest-serving mayor Jim Schmidt.

This is Minow and the Mayor.

And here are your hosts, John Minow and Jim Schmidt.

And W I SS of course 97.9 FM WGBW in Green Bay area in 98.3 at Appleton the civic media app 1100 a.m.

1590 a.m.

38 in Green Bay 37 in Appleton 36 in Oshkosh high in the upper 40s today with showers We didn't mention it Steven say Gall's birthday today And I saw a thing where he was picked as the worst person to work with in all of Hollywood the worst person to work with and not

One

person

disputed that.

No.

Saturday Night Live did a thing.

He was the worst guest they ever had.

Wow.

Did you see that?

And

he's a weird

dude.

He's that weird guy who wants to almost be the character he plays in the movies.

He's become that guy.

Did you see a picture of him lately?

Yes.

Bizarre.

That dude's like,

what,

350,

400 pounds?

Yes.

Bizarre.

I just always think it's funny that we sit here talking about other people, and then it's like, look at us.

Well, he

isn't.

I don't think he's talking about us right now.

Right.

But he.

Well, way to put down our guest ear.

I've got a face for it.

He was talking about you

and not us.

Isn't he like, is he like banned out of the.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's just a crazy guy.

Chilling in Russia or something?

Yeah.

Hailey Joel Osment, he did not have a good post.

No.

After he said, I see dead people.

That was pretty much it.

That was,

he never topped that.

No.

Who is Charlie Hunnam who turns 45 today?

You know what?

I specifically wanted to share that one and now I can't remember who he is.

All right, in there's that.

Yeah.

No idea.

All right.

Orrith Ian Wenger, he does not know a lot about the birthday list today.

But he does a lot about crafting brewery and beers.

Fifth Ward Brewing Company, part of the top craft pick.

And we're on our last call for this.

I gotta say the one thing that I've been so impressed with with you folks is your marketing.

Everybody that we're dealing with, cool labels on their cans.

Cool swag in their gear.

That's a big part of your image, isn't it?

You guys, it wasn't just, okay, not just, but I mean, let's create some great beers, but let's make sure we market the hell out of this

in other ways.

Yeah, absolutely.

Especially the Craft Beer Week stuff, specifically.

I got to give a lot of credit to Discover Oshkosh for helping us put this all together.

Not Pat Tracy.

Don't give him credit.

The whole crew down there.

That's

when he comes in a few minutes.

He's gonna give himself credit.

Oh boy.

So

it's just piling on Ian

with the outfit he's got

on

today.

Oh, I can imagine.

I got

there.

Bet there's a lot of bling in that.

Yeah, but, um, but no, so, you know, they do a really good job at just sort of kind of hyping this whole thing up and, um, it's got a really clean, great look that the craft beer week stuff.

And, but yeah, I mean, as a craft brewer, you know, it's, it's really about setting yourself apart with great beer and, you know, the whole image, I think, and the vibe of it all kind of comes along with that.

So the cool merch, you know, the cool.

labels, the whole nine yards.

It's a cool whole genre of young people that have really got in on this ground floor and you've taken it over, haven't you?

Yeah.

Let's change it from the inside out.

Exactly.

Make it happen.

So the

packaging, who is that?

Internal external

yeah, so I do all the labels actually I took my biology degree and applied it to in Adobe illustrator Yeah, yeah, I graduated in UW here in 2013 with bio degree and that's kind of how I got my interest in fermentation I was gonna say

I could see some things coming hand-in-hand

with that.

Yeah.

Yeah, definitely the general chemistry things like that But obviously, you know branding marketing outsourcing that stuff is pretty expensive and as a owner operated business, you know, we want to keep as much

of that internally as we could to save costs and also just kind of keep the, as you mentioned, the brand, keep it all kind of on one common thread.

So, yeah, just kind of download Adobe Illustrator and over the course of a few months, like watching YouTube videos and whatever, sort of taught myself the basics.

I can just talk to you in a quick text we just got here.

I absolutely love Fifth Ward, cool vibe and staff.

Great brews, Rich.

Love it.

Thanks, Rich.

Is that your partner?

No, it's my

dad's.

With this, there's a lot of, not competition, there's a lot of competition.

We'll just

use that

word, but there's a lot of craft brewers out

there.

Tell me about, you're the scientist, or let's say chemistry degree.

Brumeister.

Brumeister.

Tell me about the.

test marketing like how does that work is it you and your partners or do you have a focus groups do you

need people to volunteer

so the beauty of the breakfast club yeah right the beauty what we do is we're small enough that we don't necessarily have to latch on to the large

um, kind of national trends and things like that.

Obviously it's something that we watched.

We want to be informed and we want to make sure that we're kind of heading the right direction of that.

But most of it really is just sort of getting in the market and tasting the beers, especially locally.

I think that, uh, the coasts obviously with a lot of things, culture really tend to move, um, a little bit, you know, a few years ahead of what, you know, the middle of the country here.

So, um, kind of watching what they're doing in California, especially with craft beers, sort of the Mecca.

If I can

go back a little bit with the craft beers when they first started, it was like,

And I wanted to embrace them.

But you know, you'd order one.

It's like, I just don't like this.

Yeah.

And because they were all so bittery and kind of whatever, whatever.

OK.

And then you have other people said, oh, I like the timber of this with the.

And it's like, OK, I don't know them well enough to appreciate some of this stuff.

But then they started coming out with a lot of different types of things and fruit became involved in different things.

So when did that do you know what I mean?

When did it

turn from?

Yeah, I mean.

Historically, there really were a few waves.

You know, craft beer, I think, got its start with a lot of, believe it or not, it was a lot of soldiers coming over that were stationed in Europe.

Kind of after the Korean War Vietnam that sort of stuff.

Okay, I see that we're drinking all those really really high-end German beers over there's classically produced when they got back here They realized they couldn't get good beer like that anymore probably tasted boring over here, right?

That was sort of the era of home brewing starting to write and a lot of that first-generation home brewers were the original craft brewers then right wow, you know the Sierra Nevada's the Sam Adams You know here in Wisconsin.

We have lakefront.

You know that they've been around for just about 30 years now.

I believe

So it's a lot of these that first generation and then you fast forward to early 2000s and I think that's sort of that era of Race 2 is making as bitter as you can

right

was how many hops can you jam into this IPA and That kind of seceded you're like sort of

Washed away a little bit too and we had a little dip in the mid 2000s and then I'm right around 2010 2015 I think things started really ramping up and that's still kind of where we are right now is Pushing the limits, you know, we're learning a lot of new hot varieties and flavors, too We've got a lot more tools in our toolkit than they but thank

you that I'm not the only one where it's like I know I'm supposed to like this back

No, I mean that's that's the beauty.

You know, there's a beer for everybody out there.

So you don't have to like one, you know, we have right

22 beers on tap at our place and a few extra ones in cans at any given time.

And so there's, you know, I promise you there's something there for you.

That's awesome.

And you talked about right now the fruit is.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, definitely.

So like we do a lot of fruited beers.

We've definitely gotten pretty well known.

We have we call them fruit nannies because it's a hoot nanny of fruits, you know, sort of it's a party of fruits in that can.

But something that we noticed over the past few years because we're using such high volumes of this fruit is it's we're really sensitive to the prices of that sort of stuff and it really comes down to like environmental stuff.

So about two years ago, they had the droughts and fires out west and there was a huge spike in berry prices, right?

So like raspberry, blackberry, those sort of things.

So that year we did a lot of tangerine beers, a lot of pineapple, you know, using some of these, the fruits that were on the cheaper end and last year happened to be a really great year for berries.

So this year we're doing a lot of berry beers.

because price is down.

Do

you come up with your own recipes?

Yeah.

Yep.

So you did a lot of home brewing ahead of this.

And before we got to be a lot of experimentation, it really is.

And, you know, we used our for the first few years that we were open, we had a little like one keg system that we would test recipes on.

At this point, we kind of know the ingredients and we know, you know, how much is too much, how much is not enough of certain ingredients and flavors and hops and whatever.

So we kind of have a better grasp on that.

And I kind of do your question too about the recipe development stuff.

It's

It's doing a lot of like back-end research before we start to jump in.

You know, we're kind of keeping up with the new trends and the techniques and things like that that other brewers are using.

So when you come up with the secret sauce, do you patent that?

Is that yours or could you?

No.

No.

But I always tell people like...

You know we couldn't brew Guinness we they could show us everything the whole nine yards every you know We could source all their ingredients we could do everything But they make it there and we make beer here and geographically There's something about it the water we're using you know beautiful Lake Winnebago We're using Oshkosh city water, you know, and it happens to be really really good for brewing for our purposes and what we do But no I you know, I I've given my recipe to other brewers actually just you know, they make a beer

Yeah, you know, like I

said, we talked about it before we went on the air.

The I think it's great how you guys know the youth or if it's the confidence, whatever it

is,

you guys do work together.

Yeah, definitely.

Like I mentioned earlier, you know, the industry is craft beer, you know, the craft beer drinkers that we believe really appreciate variety.

And so we have a lot of our own beers, but if we're getting people coming from out of town and things like that, they're coming up to Oshkosh, they're going to Fox River, they're going to Bear Bones, they're checking out some of the craft beer bars in town, and they're coming to our place.

So we're all benefiting from...

everybody having their own individual thing while all being in the same industry.

Yeah,

I wanted to ask you because Oshkosh has a long history of beer making, right?

Beer creating.

Is there any, do you ever feel any responsibility because of that?

Like with what you're doing

or are you

tied into that at all?

Well, as a matter of fact, so when we were coming up with a name for the brewery, Fifth Ward is actually a nod to a historical brewery here in town.

It was the Fifth Ward brewery.

Was sort of on the campus area is that's also where my business partner Zach and I learned how to brew was at his college house So when we were looking up the names and things that realized that there was this fifth word brewery about a block and a half from the house that we were brewing in the basement in there And we figured you know what a perfect way to sort of bring that brewing history to the forefront here in Oshkosh just with new techniques, you know, you know, we always kind of say it's

pushing the boundaries and the limits of what beer can be, but like staying true to the traditional values.

Well, it's

got to be kind of, I mean, if you want to, we're talking about this a lot, the history of beer in Oshkosh.

And I didn't realize until within the last year, you know, learning more about coming down here to different breweries, the unbelievable legacy.

So that's got to be kind of cool.

I don't know what generation you'd say you would be, but if it started with 1850s, Todd.

Yeah.

So I mean

goes way back.

You know what I

mean?

And you're you're that next generation.

That's got to be a cool feeling.

Yeah, it's awesome.

I mean, it's a real long line of, you know, people serving the community and providing spaces and, you know, beverages and things that the people would stop.

It's in the exact

same buildings.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You're not wrong.

Yeah.

Love it.

So.

You're you're working on new products.

I take it because isn't your industry a lot of new products?

Yes,

definitely.

And.

Do you want to share with us

anything?

One of my favorite things we do is like, you know, I like I mentioned we make a lot of fruit beers right like that We have our hazy IPA is their love it.

That's our flagship beer really popular.

I love it Tell me what that it's hazy hazy IPA.

So what does that mean?

So basically going back to this bitterness thing, right?

So hazy IPA is I think we're reaction to those super bitter beers And they're actually brewed in all the ways you wouldn't

think you would supposed to be brewing an IPA technically from the brewing standpoint.

But basically, you're treating these hops, you want to get as much aroma out of them without imparting any bitterness to the beer.

And just by doing that, the beers tend to be hazy in the long run, sort of after the package and things.

But yeah, the idea is just bigger aroma, citrus, tropical, you know, fruit, whatever.

Minimal bitterness, so easy drinking, more pillowy on the mouth feel and not as sharp and crisp.

Can we get

center quick,

Brooke?

We come

back.

I want to talk a little bit about the grassroots way you and your buddy started this.

Sure.

I mean, we need to hear.

I want to just

talk a little bit about bottles versus cans, because it's always a thing.

Yup, back after

this.

I was out on the west coast trying to make a buck.

And things didn't work out.

Hey, welcome back.

Mine in America coming

away from downtown Oshkosh, 96.5 FM and 98.3.

WISS, of course, the Civic Media app, 97.9 FM, WGBW.

Got some quick text rolling in.

Happy Trucker Thursday, honk honk.

The dispensary says morning, fellas, listening in.

We're with Ian Wenger, fifth ward brewing here in Oshkosh.

Really interesting story.

And again, this is so fascinating.

be relatively young this whole

businesses being in the mainstream.

You know, they're always like the little places where the, you know, where the guy would have his own mug on the wall, you know, or a thing like that.

But it's amazing how mainstream craft beer has become.

And the cool thing about it, I think, is that, you know, like, I know a lot of husbands and wives, they'll take like a summer vacation.

They'll travel to different places, checking out all these different ones.

They have their whole vacation planned.

Craft beer here, craft beer there.

It's become almost like a, like a middle class cult type thing, hasn't it though?

How did that

evolve?

We're part of the day trip cruise.

Yes.

You know, it's the people coming up from surrounding areas.

And I think we kind of mentioned it.

It's like we see people up from Milwaukee, you know, coming up, making a day out of it, kind of making the swing up through Green Bay and back down, making the loop.

Even through the U.P.

they do.

Yeah, yeah,

exactly.

Yeah, there's craft brew in every city.

I think there's something like the average mayor or like on average, no American is more than 10 miles away from a craft brewery.

So yeah, it's it's a.

There's a cultural shift around beer,

I think.

If I can

ask, you have

parents, I would imagine.

I do, yeah, yeah,

two of

them.

Yeah, and when you were on your way to your biology degree and you say, hey, I don't think I'm gonna go to med school or whatever, but I'm gonna make

beer.

How was that?

So I never had a plan truly from what I was going to do out of school.

So when my business partner, not at the time, but we were working together in a kitchen here in town, he approached me and said, hey, you want to start making beer with me?

I said, yeah, that sounds great.

Why not?

And I can honestly say by maybe the second batch, we had already had our business plan outline sort of printed out.

And every time we'd brew another batch, we were filling in little sections really very naively up

front there.

I can never pronounce the word negativity or whatever.

Okay, that is so wonderful for young people because people our age, it was just the opposite.

20 people tell you how you couldn't do it, why you couldn't do it, and you'd have to go over hurdle, hurdle, hurdle.

And you guys, this generation just says.

Let's just

say no one had told us no yet But yeah, so then yeah had the business plan really started hammered away We I got to give a lot of credit to the small business development center here at Oshkosh UWO Utilizing their resources.

They really kind of pointed us in the right direction gave us the context we needed to sort of move the whole thing forward You know, we went through a little blind date phase.

We called it where we brought our polished up business plan just met people through

Whether it was the homebrew club here in town, shout out to the SOB's, one of the oldest homebrew clubs in America.

Oh, wow.

Started in 1991.

They got a really cool history, too.

But so people from there, you know, they all, everybody wants to start their own craft brewery as soon as you make your first batch of homebrew through family.

I mean, eventually we ended up getting hooked up with a guy named Maurice Berglund here in town.

And he's, he was, you know, kind of became our third partner, facilitated a lot of what the startup stuff needed.

And, you know, he's our...

You saved the day,

you know exactly so

Yeah, so we really appreciate him and then basically spent you know We bought the building down here downtown on South Main here in Oshkosh before we actually had the the bank financing or anything lined up We just didn't want to lose the opportunity to have a Main Street address and be able to refurb a building here in Oshkosh

You

know kind of we were talking about that whole history of

that's that Oshkosh vibe.

Yeah, you know, there's enough really neat cool old buildings in this town that need love and

Yeah, a purpose.

And we saw an opportunity with this one that we're at now.

So kind of jumped in there and we held on to it, cleaned it up a little bit for those about a year and a half before we actually secured the total financing that we needed to get open in.

And then once we did that, it was all systems go.

We spent about a year and a half doing all of our own demolition as much as we could.

And then brought the contractor in, did the whole build out phase.

We were looking at the tile on the back bar.

I'll say it's the the one and only tile job we've ever done.

It looks great.

Yeah, I had the picture.

Yeah,

I got my wife asking if we can tile the kitchen.

I know.

But um, yeah,

so or did you open a box that you'll never get?

Yeah,

right.

But uh, but basically, you know, we had so much support from the city kind of leading up to that, you know, you know, it's a new business in town.

Obviously, you know,

the chamber and you know everybody else in town wants people to know what's happening here so we had a lot of support from all you know just the the businesses that were already around here you know we part of that small business development center we did a few programs through them and one of them required us to go and talk to a hundred people in our industry and interview them and kind of just get to know our industry better and we ended up

Literally going door-to-door here in Oshkosh to every bar and restaurant.

We could get in and You know get the ear of the owner or the manager the beer purchaser or whatever and really just get to know just

Yeah, you know so

by the time we open because we always knew we wanted to be distributing brewery to not just a taproom But have beer out in kegs and cans at the grocery stores and the bars and things

if that's what it takes, right?

I mean, I guess you've said a lot in that last couple minutes, but I mean that's

That's awesome.

Instead of just a

modern young business

person, relationship

building.

It is.

I kind of teach this stuff.

And that's what more businesses should do instead of just sitting around a table and this is what we're going to do.

I mean,

I just think that's great.

Ashgosh did this.

And I'm glad Maurice came into your life.

Sounds like

it.

Everybody needs one of those in their

life.

And

it sounds like you guys were focused on the business and not

Sometimes you didn't get let you know perfect get in the way of good good enough.

I mean you got you know,

well, great And it's a you know, we've talked a lot about how craft beer is evolved over the years And I think it's one of those industries that evolves faster than most

know

the taste change really clearly

Yeah, one thing though that some people would find is a

negative

Most of the light beers I drank on my life tastes like Kool-Aid now after drinking.

Oh, that's true.

That's

true.

It's

like, how did I ever enjoy this?

It's a

one-way street.

And we always knew

that.

You don't go from drinking craft beer to, you know, I decided I don't like that anymore.

I'm going to drink Bushlight.

Once you get out of that rut, once you get out of that light beer rut, I think you really tend to not enjoy this.

And I'll be honest, I drink Miller High Life if I'm out and about.

Because you can't drink pints of fruit

and sour.

One or two is it?

Yeah, exactly.

So we do have those.

I

don't know.

I've done pretty well.

Todd's out of the

equation.

Well, one more question with the plethora of craft words.

The distribution.

I mean, there's quick trips.

There's festivals.

Tell me about and you can buy it at your place as well.

Yeah, so.

I'll tell you, like our angle from it, we knew before we opened that we wanted to be a distributing brewery.

You know, the taproom was gonna be key to getting our brand out there and getting people, you know, our beer is enjoyed best in our taproom, right?

It's as close as you'll ever get to where it's made.

I think fresh beer is the best beer.

But we knew that we wanted to be in the market.

We wanted to be bigger than just a taproom.

So we went into it with a big enough system to be able to service the market and enough equipment that we could start off doing that.

And we actually spent the first five years self-distributing.

built up our brand, building those relationships everywhere from, you know, Door County, Green Bay, down to Sheboygan, Manitowoc, and, you know, as far east as sort of Wausau.

And then that's awesome.

You guys are working hard.

You deserve the success you're having.

Thanks

for being a part of this.

Ian Wenger, fifth ward brewing right here in downtown Oshkosh.

Top craft pick.

It's your last call for that.

Thanks for being a part of this and congratulations.

Yeah.

Thanks for having me.

Love the future of what you guys do.

For WGBW and WISS News, I'm Lisa Hale.

In March, the Department of Homeland Security for the Trump Administration announced the termination of the Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela parole program, which gives temporary legal immigration status to about half a million people throughout the country.

That policy change prompted a protest in New London yesterday in front of Tyson Foods.

Protester Emily Seffo says people here legally who are living, working, and paying taxes have been asked to self-deport by April 24th.

More international students across Wisconsin have had their student visas revoked.

Savannah Tome Olsen has more on that story.

Earlier this week we reported that the federal government canceled the visas of 13 students and alumni on employment visas.

That was just at UW Madison.

Now the UW system confirms to me they know of at least 14 more students whose visas have been revoked.

Those international students are all over the system.

That brings the total to at least 27 students and alumni in Wisconsin.

and who lost their visas.

According to the New York Times, it's now happened to about 300 students across the nation.

Until now, if a visa was canceled, that only meant people couldn't leave the U.S.

and regain entry they would have to apply for a new visa.

They were usually allowed to keep their status as a legal resident, according to the Associated Press.

But the outlet reports some students are also losing their status as legal residents.

When that happens, they could risk being arrested by ICE if they do not leave immediately.

For Civic

Media News, I'm Savannah Tome Olsen.

Hey, welcome back.

My name is Mike.

I'm coming

your way.

We've had a great, great lineup.

By the way, we're just talking with Craft Beer there with Ian from Fifth Ward Brewing of the Top Craft Pick.

He says, my favorite beer is around in Germany.

Banana, Vison, and McZitty by Carlsberg.

Thank you

for that German accent like I'm not sure that I don't think that was close.

No, I don't know.

I'm with him on this one.

John.

Yeah.

Vincent.

Vincent.

Can

I just ask you a quick question?

How

about a show of hands?

Which of the people in this room were on stage at Oktoberfest in Frankfurt, Germany?

Okay, only one.

And how many people who were on stage, who was on stage in Germany and said something that made no sense to the group in German?

Probably the whole time it was in Germany.

What did you say?

You said I am Germany?

I've been Deutschland.

So I am Germany.

I thought it was saying I love Germany.

Yeah.

Didn't work out very well.

Total silence.

About 5,000 people just stared at me.

And then somebody gave it a cry.

Oh, yeah, you had

a

very political class guy at the stage.

Yeah.

True story.

Jim?

So we have a, when we talk about.

nonprofits and there's a lot of them out there.

This is Autism Acceptance Month and we have community leaders that step up on that and Josh Kuhn from Northwest Mutual is the guy here in Oshkosh.

That's nice of you to do both.

Your business at Northwest, you're a financial planner or you're the guy that we come to see and you

help us retire rich or what do you do?

Yeah, so I'm a financial advisor.

My primary function is to help individuals, help families, help businesses, help help groups determine where they're at financially and then how to get to where they want to be the most efficiently.

And by the most efficiently is like, how do we make sure that that whatever your goals are, you achieve them on time with the highest probability success and the least amount of taxes along the way.

Has that gotten harder over the years to come up with those plans?

Or has it become harder to do that to make these plans for families as time goes by and money's tougher to come by?

Or what are you seeing?

A lot of what we start with is starting with financial basics.

I mean, building a budget, managing cash flow.

The demands on your average family, yeah, they've gotten a little bit more complex than they may have been.

years ago, but it's still the same basic principle.

We have enough to pay our bills today.

What do we have to set aside for tomorrow?

And then where's our fund money?

And if we can allocate the right amount in every situation, most folks can find some level of financial comfort, financial security, so long as we have that basic bedrock principles and we can adhere to them.

Not always an easy task, but for most people, we can manage that.

The trick is

Are they willing to take those first steps?

So, Josh, if someone wants to come and see you over at Northwestern, what should they have?

What should their portfolio look like?

You know what I mean?

So my client base, my personal client place is anywhere from the ages of, my youngest is 19, and the oldest I think just turned 73.

There's no minimum requirement or anything that I have to work with somebody.

And really, I don't want them to bring anything to that initial conversation other than an openness, a willingness to be open with me in having a conversation about, Hey, where are you today?

What are your goals for the future?

And then my job is to help determine whether or not I'm a good fit to help them get there.

If I'm not, that's okay.

There are there are other entities, there may be other

resources that they can use, they have to be comfortable working with me too, because if we're talking about making someone wealthy, while that's your life savings we're talking about, you better trust me.

Right.

Is there too early of an age to talk to a person like you?

No.

I mean, you mentioned the 19-year-old, I'm just saying, you know.

That individual tried to start a Roth IRA at 14 years old.

You know what?

His parents wouldn't participate.

He tried to start...

contributing to his 401k through his employer at 18.

He was too young for the employer's plan rules.

So he came to me.

And here's the interesting part about that case.

Turns out he has a and I won't give any specifics, but he's got a chronic illness that will shorten his life expectancy.

Oh my gosh.

So he was trying to plan for retirement and we adjusted the plan so that it wasn't retirement specific because most retirement right 62 or whatever it's 59 and a half before you

and clear some of those tax ramifications.

So we altered his plan from retirement to, hey, here's some quality years before your condition starts to take the heaviest amount.

Wow, fascinating.

So you're the Dave Ramsey of Oshkosh.

I mean, I think these, this starting young, I think that's a good question.

Cause I think sometimes people think, you know, married kids house, that's when you should go see you.

And you start younger, it's incredible.

Cause you see these things and I don't know how true they are, but had you done this, this, this and this, you know,

couple million dollars that's a lot of money and I just think it doesn't hurt to see someone at a young age and you like you said sometimes there's a match and sometimes there may not be but they've got to make a commitment to you as you will to

them well and certainly I'm make it clear I'm not trying to solicit you know middle school students or anything like

that I just didn't know even you know 25 26 when kids get out and and what an opportunity they missed if they're not

Just even planning the 401k especially

come on.

I've yet to meet the client that wish they had met me five years later

So anyway, I just think that

might be

a

new tagline for

Yeah, because it's you know, I mean I think

we all you know things are kind of volatile obviously in the world right now What does that do for the phone calls coming into your the text coming into you on a daily basis?

I I actually had a

a client reach out to me.

This is a couple of weeks ago and ask if their portfolio was Trump proof.

And I don't get into the politics.

No, I'm just saying it is what it is because money is money is right.

It's not yet or blue.

Yep.

And the type of planning that we do typically will transcend any individual environment.

And that includes political environment, economic environment, market volatility, people.

If you look at, if you zoom out on the market from an investment standpoint and you look at it, the chart goes from the bottom left to the top right.

But if you zoom in, there are some big peaks and valleys.

The trick is understanding that that will happen.

That will happen over your lifetime.

That will happen over your retirement span.

And if you have it baked into your plan, you don't know when it's gonna happen.

But if you have a hedge, you have an alternative, you have it.

you understand that that's going to be a thing, then you don't have to sweat it when the market

gets

volatile.

If you don't have that plan in place and you're strictly relying on your investments to always be on the up and up, that's when you get into trouble, that's when you get nervous.

I was with some friends, and I want to move on to autism, but I just want to say that I was with some friends this weekend and this guy was just total meltdown.

He's 63, 63 is a little younger than I am.

And I said, did you sell it today?

Is that why did you sell this?

Did you sell your 401?

Did you sell your retirement plan today?

You know and he didn't I said just don't hang in there But you know it would have been a bad day for him to sell it I will say that but I mean I think you got to kind of stay the course a little bit and I just imagine those guys a hundred years ago It's like he shouldn't have jumped,

you know Is it ever too late to start?

Is it ever too early?

I'm sitting here 55 years old.

Is it ever too late?

That's not too late.

I'll tell you that

no no, I mean

It will make things if you have a specific goal if you're at a certain age and your goal is seven years from now and you're just starting today He

wants to own his own craft brewery bar That nobody else is allowed to

come to it's just me it's just so him

and his buddies and that's all it's gonna be that's his life if you join that

at home Brewers Association come down to the

the bruise on the bay.

Yes.

They will have sampling from time to time.

Oh, fantastic

stuff.

But the answer to that is it's never too late, right?

No, it's never too late.

Again, time is your friend.

So the earlier you can begin, the more runway you give yourself to land the big plane.

And we talk about retirement as one of the biggest planes.

Why?

You can't borrow for it.

You got to pay in advance.

And it's probably the biggest purchase you make in your life.

Yeah.

And, you know, factor in, I mean, you do that, that's your

stuff.

Let me ask

you somebody, I had a guy tell me one time, I can't remember which one went, was it more, is it more important to say for your retirement or for your kid's education?

Is it more important for you?

Yeah, what is, yeah, what's the best thing to do?

Because he said, you can always take out loans for college education and you can't for your retirement.

I would say which is the more important for you.

What's going to make you feel better?

Okay.

What's going to make you personal choice that you have more time typically for retirement, depending on how old you are when you have kids.

Yeah, you have more time for retirement.

But it one of our favorite answers in this industry is it depends.

Why?

Because some people want to retire, sit on their back porch in the rocking chair with the Arnold Palmer, watching the grandkids play in the yard.

Some people want to retire six months out of the year in Boca Raton.

Yeah.

And there's a different

price.

Got it.

Both

of

those got it.

All right.

Let's talk a little bit something else.

So you're involved with the community here with it with a tremendous organization.

Well, he does he does services.

We were talking about autism acceptance month this month.

Right.

And that's just something that you can help families kind of plan for as these individuals get older.

Yeah.

So.

One of my specialties is working with families that have a loved one with special needs.

autism, other diagnoses.

And even like the young man you were talking about.

Right.

You know, you know, different abilities.

Right.

And one of the unique challenges that they face is that there's some additional consideration in their financial plans.

Let me use autism as the example.

The average cost to raise a child with autism from three to 18 according to the CDC is $1.72 to $2.4 million.

Wow.

more than a typically developing child.

Now, let's assume that that child reaches full independence in adulthood, you know, into financial living, et cetera, et cetera.

If those parents raised that child and had to, you know, miss work and have additional transportation, care costs, et cetera, and it costs them $2 million out of their retirement portfolio, that makes it a pretty big challenge.

Now what happens if that child never reaches full financial independence?

Now you have

one generation that is the financial horsepower to power two generations worth of financial plan for their entire lives.

So that type of planning is is pretty complex because we are also dealing with state and federal benefits that may or may not be impacted depending on how we pool resources, how we use these funds, how we how we plan.

And so what I seek to do is help understand again, their unique situation.

And how we can build that plan so that they reach those goals like any family wants to.

That's awesome.

You're going to be on top of state and federal benefits.

Oh, yes.

Because that that changes in Wisconsin.

I want to give Wisconsin pretty good marks on that.

Yes.

So I

work with a lot of other entities because I'm no expert in everything.

Nobody can be.

So we build a team of professionals with families that are in this situation.

for federal benefits, for care coordination for all of those things.

Outstanding.

Stick with us.

We got a lot more to talk about.

Josh Kuhn, Northwest Mutual.

And some of the great things you're doing around this area are just, you know, in Green Bay and Oshkosh, they're two different communities.

But the one thing is, man, there are people like you that don't want to just sit back in their business.

They want to help out the less fortunate.

So this is great.

Stay with us and be right

back.

Hey, welcome back.

My name

is Mayor

coming away from downtown Oshkosh right now, WISS, of course, the Civic Media app, and WGBW 97.9 in...

this afternoon Milwaukee Brewers taking the Colorado Rockies.

135 on W I S S worth a very interesting fella.

Josh Coon Northwestern Mutual.

You're opening our eyes up on a lot of things, which is fascinating.

Todd, you got a text there.

We did.

Mandy just texted and said I appreciate this guest have learned so much in the last 10 minutes.

Thank you.

How can I reach out?

Well, I appreciate that.

I can certainly share my my contact information directly.

I don't know if that's over there.

I give up

mine all the time.

You can reach me at joshua.coon.

That's j-o-s-h-u-a dot k-o-o-n at n-m dot com.

Or you can call me directly 920-831-6442.

Nice.

We'll put that in

our.

But

we're talking about some of these afflictions that no one on the mainstream.

I mean, we hear about, you know, some of the big ones and no disrespect.

But I mean, you know, the CPs of the world, the cancers of the world, whatever.

And you're telling us about these other afflictions that people have that we've never heard of.

The parents had never heard of them, but they've got this, you know, to deal with as much as they love their child.

It's still something else that they didn't plan for when these two newlyweds, you know, got together, whatever.

How is it dealing with those types of?

I almost don't want to say clients.

That seems cold.

But those kind of people.

So in any situation, everybody's life sends them some unexpected curveballs.

I mean, I had a child young.

I was in college.

I got married young.

I got divorced.

And none of that was actually ever part of the plan, so to speak.

These families that have someone that has a different ability or has a has a diagnosis that's going to impact them for for life.

Right.

it tends to be a lot longer time frame that we have to consider.

And some of the conversations in these households get pretty personal.

I've had a few couples, we were talking money, and I've had a couple couples that argue in front of me about money.

Not uncommon.

I have had some tears shed because we're having a conversation about...

with your child's condition, do you expect them to outlive you?

Because as a parent, you want your kids to outlive you.

You never want their child.

Nothing worse

than the other way,

right?

But if you have a child with Down syndrome, for instance, or some of these other conditions, their life expectancy is much shorter than a typically developing person, and that's going to...

That's going to impact who's gonna take care of them down the road or who's gonna take care of you if if you need Yeah in an advanced age, and they're not capable or even here to do it boy.

That's I

didn't

even mean either I mean conversations.

You just don't have you know Wow, and you're you're you're in it man.

You're up to your neck in this That's all the credit the world to you, and I know it's your business.

That's your job It pays your rent or whatever your mortgage or whatever, but it's still you could have taken a different path that wasn't so

You had a gut branching in some ways.

Well, if I may, I had a career before I started this, this practice.

I was in automotive.

I mentioned having a child young.

I needed to make money.

I sold cars for a living.

Okay.

And that was 15 years of my work in life.

And it, it paid the bills.

I was, I was pretty successful in the automotive industry, but I didn't find it fulfilling.

Right.

And at the end, I needed to have my work fulfill me.

So I found something that I can help people in a tangible way.

the look on someone's face when you can tell them you thought 10 years from now as your retirement and you can work another 10 years.

Don't get me wrong.

But we can get it done in two.

Wow.

Where were

you 10 years ago?

The weight off their shoulders or hey, even if something catastrophic happens to you, your family's going to be okay.

How does that make someone feel?

That's what I do what I do.

That's awesome.

I

think the other thing you bring to the

table is we got

to

have this conversation.

Oh, yes.

And, you know, they're uncomfortable, but you feel a lot better after you have it.

And I think that's really, really, really healthy.

I think some people don't have it.

I wish we'd talk about this.

We're going to

talk about it right now.

And I think that's that's fine.

Bring it to the surface.

Right.

About two thirds of Americans, American adults.

Believe that they should be doing something more or better or different to improve their financial state But only about 22% of those folks ever actually reach out to talk to a financial professional about what to do

There's a few things like that They would like to plan there what's gonna happen when I die and they don't want to talk about that I think that's that's almost higher than that like almost an 80-20 thing where wow and I need to do that But I haven't done it.

Well, so anyway, I think that's great that you you do two things.

I mean

a little bit of a counselor and you're obviously a very strong financial planner.

But it comes

from the heart.

And that's when we ever talked to somebody like yesterday when we had somebody I remember Todd and I said, where does that come from?

Because it was the military thing.

Who was it?

Remember Jim?

Yeah.

And it's like, OK, wait a minute.

Most people we have

on here.

Sleep in heavenly.

Sleep in

heavenly.

Yeah, he builds beds

for kids that are home or don't have

beds, OK?

And we're talking about.

what they do for veterans and different things like that.

And what he lost his wife.

And it's like, there's got to be that certain something on the inside that really powers you, isn't there?

I think that's great what you're doing.

And I, you know, yeah, I just that's awesome.

We need people like you in this world, you know, and the

guy from Verizon.

That's correct.

That's correct.

Vietnam that they just wiped out $3 million in debt.

Yeah, that's right.

That's right.

So, so, Jim.

I gotta ask, it's been bugging me here, looking at him.

Who does he look a little bit like?

I hope that's okay.

He's heard it before because he's laughing.

From a TV show that you and I both like.

Office?

Suits?

The one guy who's a little bit mean

to the young guy.

You know when you never watch suits?

I can't say that I have.

Oh, come on.

Yeah, a little bit.

You know what

I

mean?

He's a little thinner,

though,

but

yeah.

But this is great, man.

And these are the kind of people that you need in a community to make a community great.

And I really truly mean that.

You help people.

And, you know, just I hope you feel as good as we do.

Just interviewing you.

Yeah, this is good stuff.

I appreciate you having me on.

Thank you very

much.

Once again, Ian Coon.