The University of Wisconsin Oshkosh Foundation will hold its seventh annual report to the community and breakfast Sept. 18. to celebrate collaborations and partnerships that help advance the state’s third-largest university.
This year, Blois Olson, a 1994 graduate with a bachelor’s degree in political science and journalism, will deliver the keynote address to the hundreds of guests expected to attend the event at Reeve Memorial Union. Olson is the principal of Fluence Media, a Minneapolis-based strategic communications firm that provides high-level media and communications strategy, visualization and insights, content creation and distribution and marketing.
Olson said he’s very excited to be back on the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh campus to see all the changes and developments. Following the breakfast, Olson and attendees of the breakfast will be invited to tour Horizon Village, UW Oshkosh’s new suite-style residence hall.
See a two-year, time-lapse video of the Horizon Village project in the video below…
httpv://youtu.be/FnIio1i9UhM
The breakfast will also include a report to the community by UW Oshkosh Foundation President Arthur H. Rathjen and remarks by Chancellor Richard H. Wells.
The presentation of the annual Collaboration in Action award, which is annually given to an individual or an organization in Wisconsin who advances the mission of the University, will also be presented.
This year’s award will go to Oshkosh Mayor Burk Tower and City Manager Mark Rohloff for the role the City of Oshkosh played in moving the purchase of the downtown hotel forward. As part of the ongoing renovation project, the Oshkosh Common Council approved $3 million in public assistance. The downtown hotel was purchased in February through a partnership between the UW Oshkosh Foundation and local hoteliers Richard Batley of RB Hospitality and John Pfefferle Companies, Inc. The commitment by the City of Oshkosh assistance helped secure financing to make the sale a reality, revitalize a key property along the city’s waterfront and plant the seed for immediate and future job growth, tied to the hotel itself and within the greater downtown.
Last year’s recipient, BIOFerm Energy Systems of Madison, was recognized for helping the Foundation and the University establish the first-ever dry fermentation anaerobic biodigester in the Americas.
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