State Property for Sale: Northern Wisconsin Center, Chippewa Falls

Photo credit:  Wisconsin Department of Health Services

State lists properties that are good prospects to sell.  (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 7/1/2014)

Facts and figures from "History of the Northern Center" timeline.

In 1895, the legislature approved to bill to construct a "Home for the Feeble-Minded", which opened in Chippewa Falls two years later.

The facility has undergone 3 name changes.

• 1922.  The Northern Wisconsin Colony and Training School
• 1976:  Northern Wisconsin Center for the Developmentally Disabled
• 2005:  EXCEL Treatment Unit

  
Related post:
The Knapp House.  (7/2/2014)
Wiscraft Industries.  (7/4/2014)

Why C1 Bank CEO Trevor Burgess Supports an Increased Minimum Wage

 Photo credit:  C1 Bank

Some South Florida minimum wage workers are seeing fatter paychecks as companies propose or institute salary hikes. (Miami Herald, 7/4/2014)

First-hand experience.  Companies including Ikea and Gap — which also owns Old Navy, Banana Republic, Athleta, Piperlime and Intermix — have recently announced or instituted voluntary increases in their minimum wages ahead of proposed national legislation that could mandate a new federal floor. St. Petersburg-based C1 was ahead of the pack in Florida, raising its “living wage” to $14 in April. 

The businesses cite such reasons as a desire to attract and retain talented workers and boost productivity, and to enable employees to earn a decent living. 

U.S. Department of Labor.  Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Occupational Outlook Handbook 

1 of 3 tellers worked part-time in 2012. 

Related posts: 
Why Shake Shack CEO Randy Garutti pays his team more than the minimum wage.  (7/5/2014)
Efforts to raise Nebraska's minimum wage gets boost.  (7/4/2014)
Seattle's minimum wages;  It's complicated.  (6/29/2014)
What happened the last time a minimum wage bill was introduced in the Wisconsin state legislature.  (6/27/2014)
 UW-Milwaukee survey:  76% of respondents support raising the minimum wage.  (6/25/2014)
Wisconsin's $7.25 minimum wage: "Minimum comfort" indeed! (6/24/2014)
U.S. minimum wage since 1960.  (6/24/2014)
Support for minimum wage hike grows.  (6/21/2014)
More evidence that Scott Walker and the Republican state legislature is increasingly out of touch with the people they serve.  (5/28/2014)
Earning minimum wage and looking for a place to live? Check the "Dumps" listings! (4/25/2014
Scraping by on $83.65 an hour.  (3/17/2014)
Minnesota legislature looks to boost minimum wage from $6.15 to $9.50 per hour.  (3/4/2014)
The minimum wage:  It's not the same all over.  (2/18/2014)
A border debate on the minimum wage.  (2/16/2014)
The MacIver Institute's Pavlovian response to an increase in the minimum wage. (1/10/2014)
The view from the other side of the counter.  (11/29/2013)
The minimum wage and the poverty guideline.  (11/20/2013)
Most of us don't buy into U.S. Chamber of Commerce handwringing over minimum wage.  (11/1/2013)
A look at the minimum wage.  (9/28/2013)

Self-Driving, as Opposed to Driverless, Truck

Daimler Demonstrates a Self-Driving Truck.  (The New York Times, 7/4/2014)

Steering wheel included.  Along an eight-lane stretch of the autobahn, the large silver truck of the future fell into line with 20 other vehicles used to simulate realistic driving conditions. The truck responded to slowing cars in its lane by adjusting its speed accordingly and registered an approaching emergency vehicle in time to slide effortlessly into the far-right lane, allowing the emergency vehicle to pass on the left. 

Unlike the pod-shape, two-seat driverless vehicle introduced recently by Google, the Daimler truck retains a steering wheel as a safety measure. This allows a driver to intervene for critical maneuvers, like overtaking a slower-moving vehicle in the left lane, much in the same way as the pilot of an airliner can intervene to guide an aircraft set on autopilot.

Daimler.   World premiere for the transport of the future