Wisconsin Candidate For Governor Joel Brennan On His Vision For Tech and Innovation
For Joel, it all comes down to one thing.
NOTE: This article is not an endorsement for Joel Brennan. The purpose was to have a conversation about his vision for technology and innovation for the state. I have asked all eight Wisconsin gubernatorial candidates at this time to join me on this platform for the same conversation and coverage.
Joel’s Quick Bio:
Took leave from his role as president of the Greater Milwaukee Committee to run for Wisconsin Governor.
Wisconsin native and 2026 candidate for governor who has spent the last 25 years working across business, nonprofits, and government.
Former Wisconsin Department of Administration secretary under current Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers.
Former executive director of Discovery World.
Listen to the entire interview with Joel.
How do you lead our state into a more competitive future when technology now touches every one of Wisconsin’s key industries?
From manufacturing to healthcare, financial services to agriculture, tech has never been a more urgent topic.
When I sat down with Joel Brennan, what stood out most was that he kept bringing the conversation back to relationships.
That may sound underwhelming from a cool tech perspective until you realize how much of Wisconsin’s challenge is structural, cultural, and connective.
Joel’s point was that Wisconsin already has a lot of the ingredients.
The problem, in his view, is not that nothing exists.
It’s that the state has not been intentional enough about connecting those pieces, aligning around a shared vision, and moving with the urgency and coordination of even the states that directly surround Wisconsin.
What a breath of fresh air.
Because what I hear, see, and experience around Milwaukee and the state, over and over again is this: we have good people, good companies, and good resources, but we still haven’t figured out how to act like a place that fully believes it can compete.
Joel seems to understand that.
He talked about the governor not as the lone architect of some perfect plan, but as a convener, listener, and catalyst.
In other words: someone whose job is to help create a shared vision, not just deliver a personal one.
He also made the point that Wisconsin is entering a political period where thinner legislative margins might actually create a better opening for collaboration than the state has had in a long time.
That part caught my attention because it gets at something I keep seeing in other cities.
The places making progress right now have more alignment. More people rowing in the same direction.
Joel’s version of what could make Wisconsin distinct was also interesting.
He doesn’t think Wisconsin should try to look like Silicon Valley, Boston, or Austin.
Instead, he argued that Wisconsin has to be more intentional about making direct connections, helping big companies become customers of startups, and building the kind of virtuous cycle where core industries, early-stage companies, research institutions, and talent actually reinforce each other.
How we organize the strengths we already have into something that compounds will determine the state’s future.
Joel also talked about the importance of investing in the foundations: early education, K-12, higher ed, and technical education. That may sound obvious, but in Wisconsin it is still worth saying plainly. If you want a stronger innovation economy, you cannot keep treating education as a side issue.
Joel also acknowledged something else I appreciate: part of Wisconsin’s problem is storytelling.
The state has real strengths and emerging technologies, but it has not done enough to name its sweet spots, invest in them, and communicate them with conviction.
Hell yeah.
And then, eventually, we got to AI.
Joel did not try to sound overconfident about it, which I absorbed as a strength.
He was clear that the disruption is here, that the anxiety around it is real, and that government has to help set guardrails, especially around things like data centers and the local decisions communities are being forced to make.
My biggest takeaway is that Joel kept coming back to relationships.
He talked about growing up as one of 11 kids, paying his own way through school, and learning early that relationships were at the center of his life.
Then he made the point that even in a world being rapidly reshaped by AI, he is betting that technology still cannot replace human-to-human relationships.
If Wisconsin is going to get better at tech and innovation, I think it is actually the right reminder.
Because our problem has never been a lack of ideas.
It’s been a lack of connecting them all together.
Silos.
There. I said it.
Too often, we startup people are over here. The big companies are over there. The universities are doing their thing. Policymakers are in another room. And everyone is still wondering why the momentum does not feel stronger.
WTF.
So when Joel says his differentiator is relationships, I don’t hear that as a dodge away from tech.
I hear it as an argument that tech leadership in Wisconsin will require getting the right people in the room.
And guess what, some of those faces need to be new.
Because how the hell do we get new results if we keep asking the same people to solve the problems?
Love you Milwaukee.
Experience Milwaukee is sponsored by Concurrency and Secure Compliance Solutions.
I had the pleasure of meeting Joel back in 2005 when hundreds of private sector, education and governmental thought leaders came together to design and form the Milwaukee7 economic development initiative. Our lessons were many, but Joel's comments captured three of the most critical: smart Convening, authentic Collaboration and asking the State to be a Catalyst for it. Great interview, Mr. Glynn.
Bill Mitchell