Dear Friends of BrightStar:

This past week marks the 3-year anniversary of our filing the articles of incorporation for BrightStar Wisconsin Foundation. Thus, it seems appropriate to send out a brief letter to our list of 700 people that receive our press releases and annual report distribution. A short recap if you will.

On one hand it seems such a long, long time ago that we incorporated. On the other hand some events around that time still seem so very fresh… my meeting in Madison with WEDC COO Ryan Murray and his enthusiasm for the unique BrightStar idea; Jeff Harris and I having lunch with Mark Burish, Jeff Rusinow, Mike Drescher and George Mosher, successfully enlisting them as co-founders; calls to my supportive siblings with positive results; remembering the guarded optimism of attorneys Tony Handzlik and Amy Barnes for our chances at getting a novel IRS determination letter; one of our well-attended organizational lunch meetings at Turners Hall–where Kathleen “Pulitzer” Gallagher of the Journal/Sentinel and Lisa Johnson of WEDC did not even allow us to buy them a salad due to conflict requirements of their employers; the hiring of our inaugural employee, Fred Raasch, and his “setting up shop” from scratch; and Ab Nicholas being our first test case confirming that people who gave money to education were also inclined to help provide high paying jobs to those students they had helped educate. Read the full press release here.