The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has announced four co-chairs for its first significant comprehensive campaign in more than a decade, with the goal of raising $100 million.

The four co-chairs all received their undergraduate degrees from UWM and currently serve as chief executive officers for four major Milwaukee corporations. The chairs are Gale E. Klappa, chairman, president and CEO of Wisconsin Energy Corp.; Dennis J. Kuester, chairman and CEO of Marshall & Ilsley Corp.; James L. Ziemer, president and CEO of Harley-Davidson, Inc.; and Edward J. Zore, president and CEO of Northwestern Mutual.

Klappa is a 1972 cum laude graduate with a bachelor’s degree in mass communication. Kuester graduated from the UWM School of Business in 1966 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a focus on accounting. He also received an honorary doctorate in commercial science from UWM in 1996. Ziemer graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business administration in 1975 and received an executive master’s degree in 1986. Zore earned a bachelor’s degree in 1968 and a master’s degree in 1970, both in economics. He received an honorary doctorate in commercial science in May 2005.

The university also announced Sheldon B. Lubar, founder and chairman of Lubar & Company, Inc., as honorary co-chair for the campaign. Lubar is a past president of the Board of Regents.

“It is fabulous how our alumni are in every facet of our region’s life,” Vice Chancellor of Development Lucia Petrie said. “The campaign will demonstrate the importance of UWM and the importance of our alumni.”

The $100 million the university hopes to raise through the comprehensive campaign will be helpful across the university in every school, college and unit, said Petrie.

“The goals (of the campaign) are tied to the mission UWM was given by the Board of Regents, including access and opportunity — the idea that we are an institution to serve our population,” Petrie said.

Of the total $100 million, $25 million will be used for scholarships. Another $25 million will be put toward what Petrie calls “faculty excellence.”

“Our campus has not given our faculty incentives to stay here,” Petrie said. “(The money raised by the campaign) will provide funds so we can retain our talented faculty or recruit talented faculty.”

Of the remaining $50 million, $20 million will be used to grow the university’s strategic research. That money can be allocated to faculty competitively as part of the Research Growth Initiative (RGI), Petrie said. The RGI is a program that aims to expand the university’s research endeavors by investing in proposals by UWM faculty. The program is designed to put more researchers into the process of research and help enable all disciplines to gain access to research funding.

The remaining $30 million will be split evenly among three areas: laboratories and technology, a “floating laboratory” that will be a research vessel at Great Lakes Water Institute, and an undergraduate honors college. While there is an undergraduate honors college present in the College of Letters & Science, the university hopes to develop one that spans the entire institution.

The co-chairs, all of whom were the university’s first choices for the campaign, will play an active role in raising the $100 million needed to fulfill the plans the university has made for the funds.

“A campaign like this requires seven-figure gifts, so we had to gather a cadre of visible leaders … who are in touch with people who have those means,” Petrie said.

The comprehensive campaign began with quiet planning in July 2003. The university will go public about the campaign in May 2006, when it hopes to announce significant accomplishments in the campaign so it can begin recruiting volunteers. Petrie said a campaign of this type typically runs for six years, which sets an end time for around July 2009.

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