Demo Day for The Branch to highlight efforts by student team

WAUSAU — The Branch will host a Demo Day at 6 p.m. on Thursday, December 7 in the Timberwolf Conference Center at Northcentral Technical College in Wausau. The event will include a presentation by college students to the leadership team from Church Mutual Insurance Company. Over the span of nine weeks, students in The Branch have worked as teams on an innovation challenge for the Merrill business.

“The Branch’s Demo Day is a real example of business, higher education and our Chamber working together to help our students build their resumes and to give them opportunities to work with businesses.” said Lori Weyers, President of Northcentral Technical College.

The Branch is a workforce development initiative introduced by the Wausau Region Chamber of Commerce, Northcentral Technical College and Church Mutual in 2016. The program is a skills accelerator which will both help to build businesses and retain talent in central Wisconsin. The program’s previous Demo Day events and testimonials from students and mentors can be viewed on The Branch’s YouTube channel.

“The Branch asks students from around the region to solve complex problems and to be entrepreneurial while connecting to the companies that need this local talent.” said Dave Eckmann, President/CEO of the Wausau Region Chamber of Commerce. “We live in a very talent-competitive economy and will for the next 25 years, making this program very important.”

Along with River Valley Bank and AROW Global, Church Mutual Insurance Company is a sponsor of the program and Westphal Staffing Inc a supporter.

For more information or to register as a student, mentor or business for the spring 2018 session, visit The Branch’s website. Those interested in attending Demo Day should register at WausauChamber.com or RSVP by Friday, December 1 to Brian Otten, marketing manager at the Wausau Region Chamber of Commerce at [email protected] or 715-848-5947.

Interested students, educators and business people are also invited to an open house on The Branch which will be held at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, November 14 in the Information Technology Entrepreneurial Center at Northcentral Technical College in Wausau. Contact Ciana Rose, a graduate of the program, for more information.