This year, the 110-year partnership responsible for the establishment of UW-Eau Claire received statewide recognition.
On Jan. 30, 2025, the UW-Eau Claire and the Eau Claire Area Chamber of Commerce were presented with the Regents Business Partnership Award for their ongoing work in community advancement and collaboration with local businesses.
“It was very special to the university for the regents to recognize the Chamber at their annual meeting, at their 110th year,” Jake Wrasse said. “The university wouldn’t be here without the Chamber and its predecessors.”
Wrasse has served as the legislative and community relations liaison for UW-Eau Claire since 2018. He outlined the lengthy history of the Eau Claire Chamber and its synergistic relationship to the university.
“The roots of this collaboration start before the university was even here,” Wrasse said. “The business community of Eau Claire organized efforts to lobby the state legislature in the early 1900s to get a teacher education school built in Eau Claire — they were called ‘normal schools.’”
Wrasse said the effort to obtain funding for a ‘normal school’ in Eau Claire brought this group of advocates, who would later form the Chamber, to the Wisconsin State Legislature in the early 1900s.
The group persuaded members of the Wisconsin State Legislature to provide the funding for a “normal school” to be built in Eau Claire. This, in turn, led to the construction of present-day Schofield Hall.
In the century that followed, UW-Eau Claire continued to expand into the university that it is today.
David Minor is the president and CEO for the Chamber. He said the longtime partnership now involves a large number of people in various roles.
“From the Chancellor down to the professors to Jake in his role, it takes a lot of different people to work together as a university system and as a business community,” Minor said. “It’s about finding a way that we can all succeed while making our community stronger.”
Wrasse said he has been involved with the Chamber since 2019, when he became a member of the entity’s Governmental Affairs committee. This committee holds monthly stakeholder meetings to discuss the political climate and potential impacts on local businesses.
Through his role, Wrasse said, he works as a representative of UW-Eau Claire to several areas of government, including the State Legislature, Congress and Executive Branch Agencies.
Wrasse said the university works closely with the Chamber and other economic development organizations to open up opportunities such as internships for UW-Eau Claire students.
“Understanding the needs of area organizations informs how the university designs its curriculum,” Wrasse said. “Having strong connections with individual organizations helps us ensure that there is a steady supply of internship opportunities for students looking to break into those fields.”
Wrasse said providing local career opportunities to Eau Claire graduates allows the impact of the university to “ripple out” into the community.
According to Wrasse, the Chamber represents over 1,200 employers in Eau Claire. These businesses collectively have between 40 and 50 thousand people working for them.
“The Chamber is a really invaluable place where the urgent and important needs of area organizations come together really quickly,” Wrasse said. “The partnership helps the university stay abreast of what factors are influencing hiring decisions and business growth in Eau Claire.”
As Wrasse and Minor both said, the collaborative efforts of the Chamber and University played an integral role in some large-scale projects within the community, particularly in the last 20 years.
The organizations’ endeavors contributed to the construction of the Pablo Center at the Confluence, the recently-opened Sonnentag Center and the new Science and Health Sciences building.
According to Wrasse, UW-Eau Claire hosted a Board of Regents meeting in 2022 showcasing the work of local and regional businesses in the Chippewa Valley.
“The panel really resonated with the regents,” Wrasse said. “The following year, they created this partnership award as a way of very publicly recognizing some of the great organizations, businesses and nonprofits who work very closely with universities across the state.”
Minor said while the recognition is beneficial in showing the importance of the partnership, the goal of the Chamber’s work is not to win awards.
“I don’t do these things for awards or pats on the back — I do it because it’s the right thing to do,” he said. “But for our community, they see the validation from the board of regents and the fact that they want to honor our community and our Chamber by giving us that kind of award.”
Looking ahead at future priorities, both Minor and Wrasse said because of recent hospital closures in the area, there is a need to address rural healthcare options.
“I think we’re at an opportunity in our community and our area to really take a hard look at where we’ve had our success, but also to make sure that we have a very clear vision going forward of how we build on the success that we’ve seen,” Minor said.
Wojahn can be reached at wojahnal7429@uwec.edu.
