Office of Corporate Relations welcomes new hires

The University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Office of Corporate Relations (OCR) recently welcomed two new hires to its staff. Cynthia Sweet and Brad Ricker both joined OCR as university-business liaisons last month.

Sweet has worked as a business development specialist for Ayres Associates, a national architectural-engineering firm, where she led marketing and public relations efforts for the Madison office since 1999. She has also worked for the city of Zumbrota, Minn., as an economic development director, where she assisted businesses in recruitment, retention and expansion.

For the past five years, Ricker worked at the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation as a licensing manager in the agricultural and life sciences field. From 1987-99, Ricker was a biological sciences laboratory technician for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Dairy Forage Research Center, where he managed the dairy nutrition research lab and performed lab experiments and field trials. Both his MBA in management and human resources and his undergraduate degree were completed at UW–Madison.

Sweet and Ricker will identify and work with Wisconsin companies that could benefit from UW–Madison’s resources, and work on projects, events and programs that build new relationships and improve existing relationships with private-sector companies across Wisconsin. Not only do Sweet and Ricker work with businesses, they will also network with economic development organizations, civic leaders, trade groups and associations, and business and technology media to increase the quantity and quality of UW–Madison business partnerships and collaborations.

“We are excited that Brad and Cynthia have joined the Office of Corporate Relations,” says Charles Hoslet, managing director of OCR. “They both bring excellent experience working with the private sector, which will allow them to connect companies and individuals to the many resources at UW–Madison that business and industry can take advantage of.”

Chancellor John D. Wiley formed OCR in 2003 as a way to better meet the needs of businesses that come to UW–Madison to find resources and solutions for problems. The office is entirely privately funded and recently moved to Science Drive in the University Research Park in Madison.

OCR serves the increasingly complex needs of the Wisconsin business community by providing opportunities for business leaders to benefit from the resources of the university. In aiding businesses in their recruitment of graduates and current students, connecting them with continuing education programs, helping them access faculty and staff for research and consultation and facilitating connections to the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation’s technology, OCR has made great strides since its inception. Additionally, OCR’s ability to provide companies with insight into workings of the global marketplace is a great advantage in today’s complex world of diverse cultures, languages and business practices.