Dohmen Co. brings tech training program to Milwaukee
$1.6 million will help youth from disadvantaged background learn tech, business, leadership skills
Dohmen Co. is committing $1.6 million to bring a program to Milwaukee that gives young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds immersive training in technology, business and leadership.
The program, i.c.stars, is intensive, structured — and successful.
Founded in Chicago in 1999, i.c.stars resembles a coding “boot camp” but teaches technology and other skills by focusing on specific projects from local employers, blurring the line between classroom training and work. There also is no cost for the students. The students, called interns, receive a $150-a-week stipend. The four-month program is followed by two years of coaching, professional development and support. And it includes an innovative program to help its graduates find jobs.
“This is more than a sponsorship. This is an investment in our community,” Cynthia LaConte, chief executive officer of Milwaukee-based Dohmen, said in a statement.
“This program creates equitable access to opportunity through technology training and placement at a time when Milwaukee needs both.”
The private program, which is highly selective, gives bright, talented adults a path to careers in technology and business they otherwise would not have — and, in the process, develops a new pool of workers with technology skills.
The program initially will share space with Red Arrow Labs, Dohmen’s health care software company, in Milwaukee’s Historic Third Ward.
The program — which was founded by Sandee Kastrul and Leslie Beller — trains about 60 young adults a year in Chicago and was brought to Columbus, Ohio, in 2016.
“I just saw so many bright and talentThe ed kids coming from our underserved community without a real opportunity to plug into the economic mainstream,” said Kastrul, a former teacher and president of i.c.stars.
The students also were creative and adept at critical thinking and solving problems — in part from their having to navigate different worlds.
They had at least one additional trait. “The kids I had been working with were incredibly resilient, and that resilience was built up over years of having to face adversity,” Kastrul said.
The program is highly selective — i.c. stars said it receives 400 or more applications for the 20 slots in each fourmonth program.
“What we are really good at is finding talent, training talent and putting talent to work,” Kastrul said.
The program also is intensive, with students working from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. five days a week.
The classroom training is projectbased, with students working in teams on a project, such as a software application, from a local employer.
The teams are supported by people from local employers who serve as mentors and technical advisers.
“I really believe that what separates good education from not as good is what we learn and whom we learn with,” Kastrul said.
Chicago graduates of the program have gone on to work for companies such as Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, Allstate, Accenture, Siemens, Northern Trust, Microsoft, PepsiCo, CNA, Exelon and Loyola University Chicago.
‘Try before you buy’
The program, which receives no government funding, says it has a 90% placement rate.
It also generates revenue through a temporary employment agency staffed by its graduates.
“It becomes a nice ‘try-before-you-buy’ model,” Kastrul said.
The agency also enables graduates who don’t immediately get permanent jobs to earn a middle-class wage while gaining work experience.
In 2016, i.c.stars brought its program to Columbus, Ohio, through an affiliate whose sponsors include JP Morgan Chase & Co., Accenture and Nationwide.
And the program has drawn more attention in recent years from researchers at the Brookings Institution, a respected think tank in Washington, D.C., who have cited it as a model.
William Caraher, chief information officer of von Briesen & Roper in Milwaukee, has been working on building relationships with employers to support the i.c.stars program for more than a year, according to Melanie Cannon of Dohmen.
Dohmen also has been working with community partners such as the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Technology and Trade School, Maximus Workforce Center and Milwaukee Pulse to build awareness of the program and recruit applicants.
Family history
Red Arrow Labs, where the program initially will be based, and Dohmen’s headquarters are a few blocks from where Frederick Dohmen, a German immigrant, opened an apothecary that would become the drug wholesaler F. Dohmen Co.
The $1.6 million commitment was announced as Dohmen was closing on the sale of its Dohmen Life Science Services subsidiary to Water Street Healthcare Partners and JLL Partners, a private equity firm, for an undisclosed price.
Dohmen Life Sciences Services and Water Street Healthcare Partners provide an array of services that help drug and medical device companies bring their products to market.
It is the third company that Dohmen — a family-owned company founded in 1858 and now in its fifth generation of family leadership — has sold in the past 12 years.
The company sold its wholesale drug distribution business to Cardinal Health in 2006 for more than $100 million.
And it sold RESTAT, a prescription benefits management company, to Catamaran Corp. in 2013 for $409.5 million.
Both sales probably were timely given the subsequent consolidation in both industries.
The family has a history of generous contributions to a range of organizations in the Milwaukee area, including the International Crane Foundation, the Milwaukee Ballet, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Pharmacy, Concordia University Wisconsin School of Pharmacy and international health organizations.
Since 2008, the Dohmen Company Foundation has given $10 million to various organizations, with an emphasis on health care.
The foundation also has focused on the growing inequality in today’s economy — and it is committing $1.6 million on its belief that i.c.stars can help lessen that in the coming years.