JUNEAU, Wis. — It was 2008 when a new company here hired Dan Wegener to fix some lights in an old building that had been used to make wooden pallets. At first, Wegener, an electrician who owns his own company, was skeptical about the new tenant and figured the venture in the city's industrial park on a hill overlooking Dodgeland High School would last only a few months.
After all, who would spend more than $500 on a globe-shaped, self-cleaning robotic litter box for a cat? Esmilk Rodriguez installs a tray to catch clumps of used litter in the Litter-Robot. The combination litter box and automated litter cleaning systems have been manufactured in Juneau since 2009 by Whisker and have created more than 430 jobs in the Dodge County community. Wegener, now the city's mayor, has a clear answer.
And it has meant huge investments and hundreds of jobs in his Dodge County community of 2,658 people. "It just baffles my mind. I don't think the community ever anticipated this" said Wegener, a life-long resident.
"It's been nothing but a positive for the city of Juneau. I see a lot of people retiring here. This will be the last place they ever work.
" Over the last 16 years, that company, Whisker, has spent more than $14 million in improvements, expansions and additions for what is now more than 200,000-square-feet of manufacturing, warehouse and office space with a workforce here of more than 430 people. The company recently purchased an adjacent five acres for future expansion and is t.
