Awards recognize growth, leadership in Saukville

By KRISTYN HALBIG ZIEHM

Ozaukee Press staff

Jeneil Biotech, which been a stalwart of the Saukville business park for years, has been named Business of the Year and Saukville Village President Barb Dickmann Individual of the Year by the Saukville Chamber of Commerce.

The Chamber also named Mel’s Charities the Organization of the Year and is awarding the Government Achievement Award to retired village employees Mary Kay Baumann and Michelle Jaeger.

Jeneil Biotech is a global leader in biotechnological innovation, supplying natural dairy flavors, dairy-type flavors for plant-based foods, natural flavor molecules, probiotics and cultures and fermentation-derived bioproducts to companies around the world, Chamber Executive Director Mike Cosgrove said.

The family-owned business, which was founded in 1995, recently recommitted itself to Saukville with a $48 million, three-phase expansion project, he noted.

That project, approved by the village in 2020, includes expansion of the company’s fermentation and equipment rooms, new office space, an 81,000-square-foot warehouse and a new utility building.

Jeneil Biotech was founded by N. R. Gandhi, an internationally recognized expert in microbiology and dairy processes, and Josephine N. Gandhi and named after their two children, Jennifer and Neil.

Mr. Gandhi died in 2018. Mrs. Gandhi is the company’s chief executive officer and their son is its president.

Dickmann, whose tenure with the village goes back more than 25 years, has been “a great friend and ambassador to Saukville,” Cosgrove said.

Dickmann, who is stepping down from village government next month, has been village president for 20 years and before that was a village trustee for four years and a member of the library board for three years.

She is “ending her career on a high note with all of the new development in the village,” Cosgrove said.

Those developments include The Crossroads, a residential subdivision on the village’s west side that will have 63 single-family homes and nine multifamily buildings, and the mixed-use Northern Gateway Community Collective Development on the east side of the community — the largest development in the village’s history — which will have as many as 620 housing units, an office and commercial area, 30-acre business park that includes a 130,000-square-foot building for a high-tech employer, a 110-room hotel, day care facility, indoor sports facility, green space and walking trails.

Mel’s Charities is a major part of the Gateway development — a quarter of its housing units are for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities and all the businesses have ties to Mel’s Charities and have agreed to hire these residents.

Mel’s Charities, which is currently housed in Cedarburg, will also be moving its headquarters to the development.

“Mel’s charities is about the best example of one guy with a huge heart and a huge vision growing exponentially,” Cosgrove said, referring to founder and executive director Tom Stanton. “Saukville could not be happier that part of that vision includes the huge development in our community. It is going to be transformational for both the intellectually and developmentally disabled community and the Saukville community as a whole.”

Baumann, who was the village clerk for many years, and Jaeger, who was the village administrative assistant, recently retired “after distinguished careers working for the village, ‘ Cosgrove said. “During their careers, they have been great friends of the Chamber as well as incredible employees.”

The awards will be presented during a 5 p.m. Thursday, April 20, dinner at the Landt-Thiel American Legion Hall. Tickets are $30 for Chamber members and $35 for nonmembers.

For tickets, visit www.eventbrite.com/e/2023-chamber-awards-dinner-tickets-560812775107.