July 11, 2016

Lauri A. Millot Resigning

Lauri Millot has announced that she will be leaving the WERC staff in July 2016 to accept a position as Executive Director of the Office of Institutional Equity at New Mexico State University.

For the past 16 years, Lauri has served with distinction as a WERC mediator, arbitrator and hearing examiner. When announcing her departure to her colleagues at the Commission, Lauri commented, “I have been blessed to not only experience challenging and rewarding work, but to interact with dedicated, skillful, creative and honorable colleagues and practitioners.”

The Commission and WERC staff wish Lauri and her family all the best in her new endeavor.

January 5, 2016

Danielle L. Carne Hired as Staff Attorney

Danielle L. Carne will become a Commission Staff Attorney effective January 10, 2016.

Carne previously served as a member of the Commission’s staff from 2006 through 2013. In June of 2013, Carne was appointed Chief Legal Counsel of the Wisconsin Office of State Employment Relations, the agency that establishes and monitors state government personnel policies and procedures. In January of 2015, Carne was promoted to become OSER’s Deputy Director. Prior to her first tenure with the WERC, Carne specialized in the practice of labor and employment law with the firm of Hawks Quindel Ehlke & Perry, SC, in its Madison office. She received her Juris Doctor, with honors, in 2002 from the University of Iowa College of Law and her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1996 from Grinnell College.

December 22, 2015

Bill Houlihan Retiring

After more than 37 years of exceptional service to Wisconsin’s labor/management community, Bill Houlihan is retiring at the end of 2015.

Widely recognized as a highly skilled and universally accepted mediator and arbitrator, Bill’s caseload at the WERC has long been filled with joint requests from labor and management for his services. As a consequence, Bill provided mediation and arbitration services in many of the most difficult and important labor disputes that fell within the Commission’s jurisdiction. In his limited spare time, Bill also served as an adjunct professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School teaching a class on grievance arbitration.

After retiring, Bill will continue to provide disputes resolution services in a private capacity when travel plans and baseball games permit.
The Commission and staff wish Bill and wife Mary good health and happiness.

October 7, 2015

Peter Davis Receives UW-Milwaukee Lurie Prize

Peter Davis of the Commission’s staff has been awarded the 2015 Melvin Lurie Labor Management Cooperation Prize by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Masters in Human Resources and Labor Relations (MHRLR) Program. The prize, which was presented at a ceremony at the UWM Hefter Conference Center on September 28, recognizes outstanding service in promoting, creating or researching labor-management cooperation.

Davis has worked as a mediator, arbitrator, and hearing examiner for the Commission since 1975, and as its General Counsel (now called Chief Legal Counsel) since 1981. He has also been a lecturer at the UW Law School in Public Sector Labor Law since 1999. The Commission and staff congratulate Peter on this well-deserved honor.

July 17, 2015

Karl R. Hanson Hired as Staff Attorney

Karl R. Hanson became a Commission Staff Attorney effective on July 12, 2015.

Since 2010, Hanson has worked as an attorney in both the private and public sectors. He received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Wisconsin Law School, a Masters degree in Public Administration from Western Kentucky University, and a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Military Academy at West Point. Prior to entering the legal profession, Hanson served for ten years as an officer in the US Army and then the Wisconsin Army National Guard, including a peacekeeping tour in Bosnia and two tours of duty in Iraq.

June 18, 2015

Chairman Scott and Commissioner Pasch Reappointed and James Daley Appointed as Commission Members

On April 23, Governor Walker announced the following appointments to what are newly-created 2/3 time WERC Commissioner positions:

  • Reappointment of WERC Chairman James Scott, of Dousman, to serve for the term ending March 1, 2021, beginning on April 20, 2015.
  • Appointment of Mayor James Daley, of Oconomowoc, to serve as WERC Commissioner for the term ending March 1, 2019, beginning on June 1, 2015.
  • Reappointment of WERC Commissioner Rodney Pasch, of Fond du Lac, to serve for the term ending March 1, 2017, beginning on April 20, 2015.

Those appointments took effect on the dates noted because each involved a newly-created position. The State Senate confirmed all three on June 9, 2015.

Chairman Scott’s former full-time term nominally concluded on March 1, after which he served on a holdover basis until the April 20 effective date of his new appointment. Commissioner Pasch resigned from his former full-time Commissioner position immediately prior to the April 20 effective date of his new appointment. Mayor Daley announced his intention to resign as Mayor of Oconomowoc, effective at the end of May, 2015, in order to permit him to serve as a member of the WERC.

James Daley resides in Oconomowoc where he grew up, graduated from Oconomowoc High School, has owned small businesses for several years, and was elected Mayor for three terms, serving in that office beginning in April of 2010. Prior to being elected Mayor, Daley received an undergraduate degree in political science and history from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee in 1997 and a law degree from Drake University Law School in 2000. Following law school, Daley worked for the Iowa State Senate as lead majority staff for both the Judiciary Committee and the Business and Labor Committee as well as the Appropriations Subcommittee for Justice Systems. Daley then worked in Washington DC for the US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee as Oversight Counsel working closely with US Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, investigating government programs for waste. Following this, he served as an Assistant US Attorney in Raleigh, North Carolina, in the Just Department’s Criminal Division, with emphasis on felony firearm, identification theft bank robbery,and white-collar cases. Commissioner Daley has been a member of the State Bar of Wisconsin since 2003.