Riley Construction Breaks Ground on Likewise Partners Project in Madison

New industrial development has immediate leasing opportunities

Riley Construction is building Phase 1 of the Tradesmen Commerce Park in collaboration with Likewise Partners and The Ackerberg Group. Located at 5525 Tradesmen Drive, Madison, WI, the 131,000 square-foot, class A industrial building will include highlights such as 32’ clear height, 16 loading docks, state-of-the-art sprinkler system, unit heaters, high-bay LED light fixtures, and ample car and trailer parking stalls. Tradesmen Commerce Park is conveniently accessible from the Stoughton Road exit of the Beltline Highway.

Riley recently broke ground on this project and pre-cast panel erection is complete with steel and roofing work to follow. Phase 2 of the park is anticipated to start in early 2024 and will incorporate an additional 150,000 square foot building.

This project brings much needed industrial space to the Madison area due to historically low vacancy rates. The projected completion for the project is July 2023. The development team is currently accepting lease proposals from prospective tenants. For additional leasing information contact Chase Brieman or James West at the CBRE real estate office in Madison.

For more information on Riley Construction visit rileycon.com or call Riley’s Project Development Manager, Alex Egan at 414-405-5713.

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About Riley Construction

One of the largest construction management and general construction firms in Wisconsin and Illinois, Riley Construction is headquartered in Kenosha, WI, with four offices strategically located throughout the region. The company provides services in the municipal, industrial/manufacturing, healthcare, corporate/commercial, education, and pharmaceutical markets. Projects include new, expansion, renovation and restoration for a variety of building types. The firm’s core values of Humility, Integrity, Flexibility, and Initiative (HIFI) have led to a strong reputation and an 80% repeat customer base.

SuiteDynamics COO Ben Sherman on Making an Impact as One of the Country’s Top NetSuite Solution Companies

Before joining this company, Ben Sherman made a career of streamlining and expanding businesses. Now, he plans to establish SuiteDynamics as the #1 source for honest and experienced NetSuite consultants.

More than anything else, Ben Sherman has life experience.

He was born in Sweden and spent much of his early life in Israel. He pursued higher education in the USA and Sweden. He speaks four languages (three fluently). And he has started or led multiple companies in a career that has spanned over 20 years. Now, he plans to use that varied background to help SuiteDynamics impact the ERP consulting industry.

As a co-owner and the new COO, Ben aims to streamline business operations and help cement SuiteDynamics’ place as one of the top NetSuite solution companies.

“I’ve always just been interested in improving the organizations I’ve been with, coming up with new business and marketing strategies,” he says. “Perhaps that just comes from growing up in an entrepreneurial, innovative culture. And I feel like I bring that innovation and entrepreneurship to every role.”

And Ben believes he’s working with plenty of potential at SuiteDynamics. He describes the business as a group of fresh-faced tech experts and NetSuite consultants driven to see their company thrive.

“They’re a super talented group of individuals who are loyal to the company and passionate about supporting our customer base,” he says. “They go out of their way to help customers when they’re having specific issues or about to go live. They’re new and flexible, adapting to whatever a situation requires.”

He also feels strongly that those qualities can do more than perform efficient ERP implementations, customizations, consultations, and training. Instead, they can change how clients see NetSuite solution providers and help them view implementers as long-term business partners instead of one-time service providers.

Making an Impact as NetSuite Consultants

After building businesses for over two decades, Ben has become fascinated with a company’s potential to impact society. So, in 2003, he established Outfit Ltd. This Jerusalem-based tech company employed staff and served clients from Israel and Palestine. He wanted to see if business could bring cultural enemies together.

“I quickly realized that I was able to build more genuine relationships between the two sides of the conflict through a company on a local business, grassroots level than perhaps I would have been able to do through political efforts,” he explains.

That experiment constituted Ben’s first foray into the business world. Since then, he has undertaken various leadership roles to help shape other companies into efficient teams. Along the way, he has also looked for more opportunities to make a difference through business.

For example, he helped a friend start a pizzeria and bakery in a small Panamanian village. The enterprise gave locals fresh opportunities to earn income and learn new skills. One worker, Ben says, even put his wife through college using his bakery income.

This endeavor showed Ben that business is about more than making money. It’s about improving life for employees, clients, and society. Now, he can prove this idea with SuiteDynamics and help shape a new type of NetSuite consultant.

Ranking Among the Top NetSuite Solution Companies

Ben has been interested in SuiteDynamics ever since CEO Jake Kleiner explained the company mission—to become one of the top NetSuite solution companies through the simple concepts of integrity and transparency. As COO, Ben wants to help establish an honest, hard-working NetSuite solution provider in a field where many clients feel disappointed with service.

And as a bonus, he can help several businesses grow at once.

“There is a massive demand for NetSuite implementation and NetSuite consultants in multiple industries and insufficient skilled resources to fill the need,” Ben says. “Industries have a critical need today for a single modern platform to manage their operations. And they need a true partner with the expertise to help them customize and implement an ERP platform.”

He plans for that partner to be SuiteDynamics.

To start, Ben will focus on shepherding the company through its current season of growth and scaling operations to continue meeting client needs. He has helped multiple businesses expand in the past and plans to use the same principles to guide SuiteDynamics. He also enjoys mentoring leaders and building teams, helping them identify and bolster their strengths.

And he expects to guide the company through many exciting developments in the next five to ten years.

“I believe that SuiteDynamics can not only become a leader within the ERP consultation space but can also build advanced products that support organizations,” he says. “I’m excited to be a part of solutions in the coming months and years.”

As his staff, we’re excited about that, too.

SuiteDynamics is one of the top NetSuite solution companies specializing in custom ERP implementations. Our experts can help your company determine what kind of system you want and customize a NetSuite ERP program to meet your needs. Contact us to schedule a free demo.

All Comfort Services Turns 50 This Year!

Help Us Celebrate Our 50th Anniversary

It’s 2023, All Comfort and the Davies are celebrating their 50th year of business in Madison with a very special gift to their employees, their customers, and our town. Larry Davies, owner of All Comfort Services, sold all of his 100% percent stock to his own employees on December 31, 2022, creating an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP). In doing so, All Comfort Services joins a unique group of companies that are 100% employee-owned.

In 1973, Larry and Susan Davies started a company known today as All Comfort Services in their basement while raising their three children in Fitchburg and later McFarland.

Founded under the name Air Comfort, the Davies’ upstart focused on the repair of heating, air conditioning, and refrigeration equipment for residential and commercial customers. Life was good.

Like their children, the company grew quickly and the Davies’ soon relocated its headquarters from their basement to a building on Bjorksten Place in Fitchburg. Day after day, job upon job, the company earned a reputation for its focus on the customer and its growing fleet of bright yellow trucks.

In 2000, Air Comfort added electrical and plumbing divisions to complement its heating and cooling services. In 2004, the company changed its name to All Comfort Services to reflect its mission of taking care of a customer’s whole home to provide total comfort. With continued growth, All Comfort Services moved from Fitchburg to its current location on Voges Road in Madison.

In 2005 Kendall Richards was hired as president of the company. Under Kendall and Larry’s leadership, the company has grown to over 50 people.

Alan and Karyn Lord retired from Air Quality System in February 2022, Larry Davies, the owner of All Comfort Services, who had been 50% owner of Air Quality since the beginning and worked out an agreement to support and service Air Quality’s customers. Larry Davies and Alan have been working together for over 40 years.

In 2022, just one year from turning 50, the company rededicated itself to its customers, and revitalized the core values at the heart of its success: Community, Expertise, and Respect. To these they added a purpose statement to rally around: “create awesome experiences every day.”

New Promega Chemistry Will Enable Forensic DNA Labs to Solve More Challenging Cold Cases, Sexual Assault Cases

Eight-color STR multiplex system provides more information per casework sample

MADISON, Wis.–New chemistry for DNA analysis will empower forensic laboratories to overcome common challenges including degraded and contaminated samples. PowerPlex® 35GY System, launched today by Promega Corporation, is a first-of-its-kind eight-color DNA analysis kit that helps forensic laboratories get more information out of their most challenging samples. The kit works in tandem with Spectrum CE System, a capillary electrophoresis instrument launched by Promega in 2022.

“Together, PowerPlex® 35GY System used with Spectrum CE System provide the most advanced forensic analysis available,” says Rohaizah James, Senior Product Manager at Promega. “The eight-color chemistry used in PowerPlex® 35GY System gives more information per sample, even with degraded DNA.”

Next-generation eight-color STR kit

PowerPlex® 35GY System is the first of a series of next-generation eight-color STR kits that Promega is producing to take full advantage of the Spectrum CE System’s eight-color capability. The biotechnology manufacturer has been developing and providing products for DNA-based human identification for more than 25 years.

Short tandem repeat (STR) analysis is the most widely used tool in human identification efforts. Currently available kits rely on five or six colors of dyes to mark regions of DNA that can help identify a match. PowerPlex® 35GY System is the first STR multiplex to include eight dyes. This major improvement in chemistry is made possible by the Spectrum CE System, the first commercially available capillary electrophoresis instrument equipped for eight-color fragment analysis.

“Mini-STRs” for enhanced resolution

PowerPlex® 35GY System includes the amplicons of 15 loci that have been reduced in size to less than 250 base pairs in length. These “mini-STRs” are less likely to “drop out” or disappear during STR analysis, which helps ensure data is not lost. This is especially important in cold case samples where DNA may be degraded or where there may be a limited amount of sample to work with.

Y-STRs for sexual assault investigation and familial searching

PowerPlex® 35GY System is also ideal for working with sexual assault samples or for identifying unknown matches through familial searching. The kit includes 11 STR loci that are located on Y-chromosomes. These Y-STRs, along with the increased sensitivity of the kit, can help labs more easily determine how many individuals’ DNA are present in a sample.

Quality Indicators for Improved Efficiency

Finally, PowerPlex® 35GY System includes two Quality Indicators to help forensics labs work efficiently by quickly identifying sources of failure. These indicators let DNA analysts quickly determine if a sample is degraded or if there was a problem during their analysis. This information can help labs decide if they need to re-analyze samples or if they should move on to the next sample. By combining these Quality Indicators with the high-throughput capabilities of Spectrum CE System, PowerPlex® 35GY System can help forensics labs efficiently work through their sexual assault kit backlog, for example.

Learn more about PowerPlex® 35GY System at www.promega.com/Introducing35GY

About Promega Corporation

Promega Corporation is a global leader in providing high-quality solutions and technical support to the life science industry. Over its 44-year history, Promega has built a portfolio featuring more than 4,000 catalog and custom products supporting cellular and molecular biology. Today, bioluminescent and other technologies developed at Promega drive innovation in fields such as live cell analysis, drug discovery, molecular diagnostics and human identification and are used by scientists and technicians in labs for academic and government research, forensics, pharmaceuticals, clinical diagnostics and agricultural and environmental testing. Promega is headquartered in Madison, WI, USA with branches in 16 countries and over 50 global distributors. For more information, visit www.promega.com and connect with Promega on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and the Promega Connections blog.

Contacts

Penny Patterson
VP, Corporate Affairs
Promega Corporation
Phone: (608) 274-4330
E-mail: penny.patterson@promega.com

All Comfort Services: Local HVAC Firm Becomes Madison’s Newest Employee-Owned Company

MADISON, WI: 01-18-2023– Larry Davies, owner of All Comfort Services, sold all of his 100% percent stock to his own employees on December 31, 2022, creating an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP). In doing so, All Comfort Services joins a unique group of companies that are 100% employee owned.

“Only a few of the heating contractors that were in business when I started are still around,” says Davies. “We’ve stood the test of time, and I think doing this will help us to keep doing so.”

Transitioning the company to an ESOP allows employees to benefit directly from profits and get involved in the many decisions that guide a company. It also grants employees a very real “piece of the pie.”

According to employee-owners of other ESOP companies, a new ownership role fundamentally alters the way they think about and do their jobs. Over a 10-year period, ESOP companies have 25%* higher job growth than comparable companies without an ESOP.

“This area has given me, my family and this company so much over the years,” says Davies. “This doesn’t just create an ESOP company for the employees of All Comfort, but an ESOP for the community. And that’s usually a pretty good thing.”

Davies and his wife Susan established the company in March 1973. There are currently over fifty employees. The company marks its fifty years by revitalizing its core values — Community, Expertise, and Respect — and purpose statement to “create awesome experiences every day.”

In 2019 Davies was awarded as the first Madison Area Mechanical and Sheet Metal Contractors and Madison Association of Plumbing Contractors (MSC/MAPC) Legacy Award recipient. The MSC/MAPC created the award to honor and recognize those individuals in the heating, cooling, and plumbing industry who have made significant contributions to the Madison Association.

All Comfort Services serves the greater Madison area offering heating, cooling, indoor air quality, plumbing, and electrical services to residential and commercial customers. The company is committed to providing the best-in-town customer experience, products, team, and work environment.

*Statistics from the National Center for Employee Ownership

Contact Information:
Kendall Richards
President
All Comfort Services
5245 Voges Road
Madison, WI 53718
Phone: 608-247-5587
Email: krichards@allcomfortservices.com

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