Rising Star Mill - Nelsonville, Wisconsin

The Nelsonville Mill is one of the oldest mills in central Wisconsin and the last of its kind in Portage County. On September 10, 1855, Jerome Nelson purchased land and water rights from Anna and Charles Stoltenberg on which to “construct and maintain a mill dam.” Nelson, for whom Nelsonville is named, built the dam and sawmill upon his return from serving in the Civil War. The Mill was built around 1860 by Jerome Nelson, and operated as a business until 1984. Of particular interest is the Woodward Governor on the turbine, which was ordered in 1917 for the Jackson Milling Company. 

Wisconsin Power and Light took over the mill in 1929. In 1936 they closed down the Nelsonville Mill because it was unable to produce enough electricity economically.  The Department of Natural Resources purchased the land and the mill in 1984 in order to gain control of the dam. The building was sold to the Portage County Historical Society in January of 1985. The Dept. of Natural Resources removed the spillway in 1988 to restore almost a mile of the Tomorrow River to a Class A trout stream.

This image was obtained during Spring. Brown tones of last year’s growth nicely contrasted with  new spring green.  An early morning fog was just in the process of burning off, allowing the early morning sun to highlight the mill.

Inaugural Post

Welcome to my inaugural post on MD Leader.  

 

The focus of my observations will be physician leadership and electronic health records.  The opinions and observations on this Blog are purely mine and do not necessarily represent my employer or my superiors. I am in the midst of a major EHR implementation while attending the Physician Executive MBA Program at the University of Tennessee.  The idea of a Blog is a result of a Leadership Development Program exercise. I have been journaling my experiences as a way of focusing on developing specific leadership skills. A Blog seemed to be a natural outgrowth of journaling. I hope you will find value as I share my observations.

 

My interest in leadership goes back many years.  I was the founder and managing partner of a family physician group in Wisconsin.  We were believers in advanced access before the term was coined and implemented one of the first electronic medical records (Practice Partner) in Wisconsin. I have had extensive experience as Utilization Review Advisor for our local hospital and for many years served as a facilitator for Sentinel Event root cause analysis.

 

We were acquired by Ministry Health Care about 10 years ago.  Since then I have held a number of leadership positions including Department Chairman, Chief Medical Officer, Regional VP of a medical group, and now DMIO.   I am currently in the midst of implementing an EHR for a large geographically dispersed medical group and visioning our future data warehouse needs.

 

This past year I began to attend the Physician Executive Management MBA Program at the University of Tennessee. I will write more about my experience at a future date, but if you are considering formal management training, be sure to consider PEMBA.