CW Solutions LLC

Celebrating 20 Years, Part 2  After the company was formed in November 2003, but before we even officially started with our first contract on 1/2/2004, the company expanded. In December 2003, I was offered several more contracts but could not meet all the requests. Enter Rose Prochaska, a co-worker of mine at the time, and a good friend. Rose joined CW Solutions in January 2004 and remained a partner in the business, supporting services in Milwaukee until January 2006. She helped get the company off the ground then left to work as a policy analyst at the State of Wisconsin, continuing her amazing career in service to others. In the first decade of operation, CW Solutions focused on management consulting and training for Employment & Training Agencies and Income Maintenance Agencies.  We provided extensive training services around the state, conducted Wisconsin Works (W-2) Fact Finding services for several agencies, completed quality assurance audits, and even did fill-in case management work for FSET and W-2 agencies. The projects we worked on are too numerous to list, but it always provided a lot of variety.   The seeds of our company’s transformation from consultation to service provision can be traced back to the Fall of 2012. I had been regularly presenting at conferences, conducting case management training, and was receiving some push-back that my approach of optimism and hope just did not translate to the day-to-day work. I knew it worked, because I saw it work every day in my first position in the field in Grant County through the leadership of my manager, Sherlyn Kleinow. I saw people push back with Sherlyn too. She always said, “eh, who cares what other people think, let’s just do it.”  The problem was, CW Solutions wasn’t doing it, we were just talking about it. That is why we took the opportunity to become the subcontracted provider for the FSET program in Adams County in 2013. Then, in 2014, Wisconsin announced they were going to move to a regional model for the FoodShare Employment & Training (FSET) program. This was going to directly impact our services in Adams County as well as Wood County where we had been providing regular services. Two years earlier, Wisconsin had regionalized the Wisconsin Works (W-2) program and Wood County had to exit providing services because it was just too large of a region for a county to serve. Wood County had been the provider for FSET since that program began in the early 1990s, and Brandon Vruwink, the supervisor at the time (who is now the Director of Wood County Human Services Department), was determined not to lose FSET like they had the W-2 program. He proposed we partner with them to jointly operate the FSET region.  In our next post, we will share the journey of securing and starting the FSET Program in the NorthCentral Region. 

It is hard to believe that as of 11/25/23, it will mark 20 years since CW Solutions was formed. At the time, I had no desire to open my own company, but I was facing a cross-roads and was ready to try something new. I had been part of helping so many people gain employment and figured it would be easy to find a new position. Well, it was not. Then in early November, I received a call from an agency in Milwaukee who heard I was becoming a “free agent” (the president of the company I was currently work for facilitated this call unbeknownst to me at the time) and asked if I would consider becoming a consultant for them. I laughed and said, “no, hard pass”.  That evening, I shared that call with my wife, and she responded with something like, “Are you nuts for saying no?” I am sure she was much kinder in her words as she is always a supportive human being, but that was the undertone. The next day, the person called me again, encouraging me to take that step. Ultimately, I did, and on 11/25/2003, I incorporated CW Solutions. I often get asked what CW means. I have gotten guesses of “Child Welfare”, Central Wisconsin” and “Change Within". I did not go the route of most people I knew who opened a consulting firm. They almost always use their last name in the company name, like “Prete, Inc.”. That ran counter to what my grandfather, Gerald Prete, always taught – it should never be about yourself, but always about those you are honored to serve. So, the name was born out of the tag line I created for the company before deciding on a company name “Because Successful Change Happens from Within”.  That is a core tenant of change – it must be internal and then grow outward. I didn’t want the company to do superficial work, but work that had authentic and lasting impact. Change Within is a hokey name and “Change Within Solutions” is even weirder, so I settled on “CW Solutions”.  Our website is www.changewithin.net only because “CW Solutions” had been taken in all forms, as there are several companies around the nation with the same name. So, even though the origin came from the “Change Within” moniker, CW Solutions is the legal name of the company, there isn’t a DBA of “Change Within Solutions”.  But, if you want to call us that or Child Welfare Solutions or Central Wisconsin Solutions or Crazy Weirdos [from Outer Space] Solutions (Calvin and Hobbes reference of course), go ahead. I like them all. See, the name isn’t important. The mission and services are what’s important. For the last 20 years, we have tried to live that mission and we are fortunate to have been a part of so many people’s lives and to be involved with so many other agencies and communities. We are honored to be your servants now and into the future. You can learn more about what we are doing today by visiting our redesigned website at www.changewithin.net Over the next few weeks, I will share some stories about our journey. I hope you enjoy them!