Honoring business excellence

In Business Madison celebrated standout organizations and top executives in Wisconsin’s Capital Region during IB’s third annual Business of the Year Awards program, held amid a festive holiday atmosphere on Dec. 11 at the Monona Terrace Community & Convention Center in Madison.

The event attracted a sold out crowd of 350 people, including business and nonprofit leaders and community members.

Nominations for the awards were submitted to In Business Madison, which chose finalists in each category. Organizations nominated were headquartered in Columbia, Dane, Dodge, Green, Iowa, Jefferson, Rock or Sauk counties.

A panel of three outside judges evaluated each of the finalists, then met virtually to compare scores and determine category winners. Each finalist was rated based on qualities including experience, service/product, accomplishments and charitable initiatives.

The six award categories included Executive of the Year; Small Business of the Year (1-50 employees); Medium Business of the Year (51-100 employees); Large Business of the Year (101+ employees); Family Business of the Year and Nonprofit Charitable Organization of the Year.

Meet the Judges

With BMO, Suve Bhandari partners with clients to develop financial strategies that drive growth. She also serves as secretary and co-chair of the Madison Public Schools Foundation Board, as an ambassador for Women United through United Way of Dane County and on the fundraising committee for the Madison Public Library.

Bob Wahlin has more than 30 years of experience in the transportation industry, including his current roles as president and CEO of STI Holdings, the parent company of Stoughton Trailers. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an MBA from Edgewood University.

Jill Wood joined the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce two years ago, leading efforts to grow membership and enhance engagement among the Chamber’s 1,200-plus member businesses. Before joining the GMCC, she spent more than a decade in leadership and fundraising roles for local and national nonprofit organizations.

Executive of the Year

Anna Stern, Vice president, Tri-North Builders

Anna Stern wears many “hard hats” as vice president of Tri-North Builders.

A second-generation executive leader of her family’s construction company, with intelligence and zeal for the many facets of construction management, Stern continues to excel. These traits — plus her efforts to involve women in the construction industry, her contributions to company culture and philanthropy — made the UW-Madison graduate a clear choice for IB Madison’s Executive of the Year.

“What tipped Anna over the edge was the work that she does not just in (company) leadership, but the women’s leadership in her field is pretty exceptional,” said one judge. “And then just the time in her role at the (Tri-North) organization — that is pretty meaningful.”

Stern has been instrumental in improving Tri-North’s training and career development program, where the company follows an open-door policy and fosters a culture of accountability. She is also involved in shaping Tri-North’s company culture to be welcoming and friendly, as exemplified by multiple awards such as Inc. Magazine’s Best Workplaces List for the second consecutive year in 2025.

On select Tri-North projects, Stern serves as a project executive, using her management experience to ensure the clients’ construction goals are met. Additionally, Stern has been instrumental in creating and building upon Tri-North’s Start Strong and Finish Strong process. When a construction project begins, she drives the effort to hold Start Strong meetings with representation from each department to learn client objectives, communicate the scope, and identify action items to set projects up for success.

Judges pointed to Stern’s ability to lead by example and create space for women in construction. Stern was the first female president of the Associated General Contractors of Wisconsin and she founded the AGC’s She Builds Wisconsin initiative.

In 2023, She Builds Wisconsin held its inaugural She Builds camp and began to cultivate relationships with the Boys & Girls Clubs of Dane County and industry partners. During these annual camps, dozens of middle-school aged girls visit an active construction site, meet female construction professionals, and learn more about the industry.

With her focus on gender diversity and workforce development, Stern was honored with the inaugural She Builds Award by the AGC of Wisconsin in 2024.

She’s also involved with Kids Building Wisconsin, an educational community event that shows children and their families the potential the construction industry offers in an effort to address the skilled worker shortage. In 2025, the Kids Building Wisconsin program had more than 9,300 attendees, over 400 volunteers and 75 sponsors.

Stern’s volunteerism has helped raise $200,000 for the UW-Madison Carbone Cancer Center and its work to improve the survival rate of women with metastatic breast cancer.

She also has been involved with nonprofits and events such as United Cerebral Palsy of Greater Dane County, Variety-the Children’s Charity of Wisconsin and Junior Achievement of Wisconsin.

With each of these nonprofit organizations, Stern has served as a board member and/or volunteer.

Family Business of the Year

Pellitteri Waste Systems

A timeless set of business values and the constant avoidance of cookie-cutter solutions in favor of answers tailored to the customer are among the reasons judges chose Pellitteri Waste Systems over other worthy contenders for Family Business of the Year.

Pellitteri Waste Systems was founded in 1979, but its tradition of exceptional customer service began more than 85 years ago with a previous family business in Madison, when founder Tom Pellitteri’s father, Tony, and his uncles used a borrowed truck to deliver coal and haul away garbage for merchants on Madison’s Capitol Square.

A strong dedication to customer service ensured the business’s growth to a point where the Pellitteri brothers purchased their own trucks and built a respected reputation in the disposal industry.

Tony continued to operate the business until his death in 1968, after which it was sold to a national trucking company.

In 1979, Tom and Michele Pellitteri founded Pellitteri Waste Systems, which is now run by their three children: David, Danielle and Tim.

Pellitteri Waste Systems has evolved from a mom-and-pop hauling business to a professional organization providing waste and recycling collection, recycling processing, expanded specialty recycling, and onsite confidential data destruction services to commercial, industrial and residential customers throughout southern Wisconsin.

One judge noted the company’s “great story, a family business through and through, (its) ties to the area, and they are transitioning it to the next generations. Strong values and very strong in the local communities as well.”

The company’s impressive growth was a strong selling point for judges. Pellitteri Waste Systems currently serves 44 communities and more than 80,000 households, as well as thousands of commercial accounts.

Judges also were impressed with Pellitteri’s practice of visiting customers’ locations to determine their specific needs and tailor solutions.

In the communities it serves, the company supports numerous local fundraising events and charitable causes, including fire/police departments, youth sports teams, nonprofits, and community festivals, providing both monetary support and in-kind service donations.

Thanks to the technological investments Pellitteri Waste Systems has made at its Greater Madison recycling facility, southern Wisconsin residents can recycle more materials than they could a few years ago, including many materials not required by state law to be recycled.

For its efforts to help residents recycle more, Pellitteri Waste Systems has received the Recycling Excellence Award from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, the Outstanding Achievement in Education Award from the Associated

Recyclers of Wisconsin, and the Business Friend of the Environment Award from Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the statewide chamber of commerce.

Charitable Nonprofit Business of the Year

Co-Winners: United Way of Dane County and
Ascendium Education Group

In this category, judges felt strongly about awarding co-winners: the all-encompassing United Way of Dane County and Ascendium Education Group, a nonprofit dedicated to removing barriers and driving innovation in education systems across the country.

For more than 100 years, United Way has served the community by identifying the root causes of social problems and collaborating with those best able to address them.

In 2024, United Way raised more than $17 million for the community from 13,000 donors and worked with more than 500 nonprofit partners to assist those in need.

Two specific elements of the past year demonstrate its ability to respond in the moment to crises and think strategically about the future.

The first occurred when every community’s worst nightmare happened in December 2024 with the tragic shooting at Abundant Life Christian School. United Way stepped in to coordinate a community response, setting up the official ALCS Emergency and Recovery Fund, leveraging 211’s emergency management and coordination capabilities, and supporting the city of Madison and ALCS community in a coordinated response.

The ALCS Emergency and Recovery Fund raised more than $600,000 from more than 1,700 donors. This included providing for the financial needs of families who lost loved ones, the medical expenses of those injured and the mental health needs of the ALCS community.

The second significant development was the transformative gift from the Dan & Patti Rashke (TASC) Family Foundation, which worked with United Way staff to cover administrative expenses for the next 10 years on all individual undesignated donations.

Last year, UWDC helped 82,329 Dane County neighbors get the support they needed. “It’s the largest nonprofit organization in Dane County,” said one judge. “They are addressing housing, poverty, education and … they are mobilizing their volunteers, encouraging their volunteers to recruit more volunteers and collaborating with large corporations in a way that amazes me.”

Meanwhile, Ascendium Education Group continued to create opportunities for learners from low-income backgrounds to achieve academic and career success.

Ascendium helps borrowers repay student loans and invests in innovations that foster learner success — all with one goal in mind: elevating opportunity. As one of the nation’s largest and most active postsecondary education and workforce training philanthropies, Ascendium channels the net proceeds from its services and investments into philanthropy.

In 2024, Ascendium awarded $176.5 million to improve postsecondary education and workforce training systems. This included $14 million to expand and evaluate apprenticeships as pathways to good jobs; $35.7 million to strengthen nonprofit workforce training providers; and $18 million to strengthen postsecondary education in prison programs.

Ascendium’s notable Madison-area giving in 2025 included $1 million for the Madison Community Foundation’s Goodman Nonprofit Center and $2 million for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Dane County AVID/TOPS endowment.

“You can’t deny the scale of their work and how much investment is being made with their grants,” said one judge. “I just have a lot of admiration for the way Ascendium is going about their work, not just with huge sums of money but doing it in a way that empowers and transforms the organizations they support.”

Business of the Year – Small (1-50 employees)

SupraNet

In an age where most of the attention is focused on the large, hyperscale data centers that accommodate artificial intelligence applications, the smaller data centers that handle everything else are sometimes forgotten.

Not SupraNet, which is a combination internet service provider and data center whose mission is to help everyone do more on the Internet, especially those who would otherwise be left behind in the digital divide.

It’s that mission that impressed the judges, who had plenty of quality small business finalists to choose from.

When the city of Madison’s affordable housing crisis worsened, SupraNet realized that access to reliable, affordable Internet was nearly as essential as access to housing itself.

So it expanded its services to include bulk internet for multifamily housing with a focus on affordable and low-income developments.

Since 2019, the company has connected 14 affordable housing developments (1,226 affordable units), ensuring every resident has access to fast, dependable Internet.

While competition in this category was stiff, it was the commitment to digital equity that brought SupraNet to the top of judges’ scorecards.

“The work they’ve done around access and opportunity was really impressive,” said one judge. “Given the (small) size of their team, I feel like I see SupraNet everywhere.”

In SupraNet’s case, “everywhere” in Greater Madison includes providing internet access to Dane County Regional Airport, the Overture Center for the Performing Arts, 5,555 households (including market-rate and luxury apartments and condominiums), and more than 125 commercial buildings.

SupraNet was launched in 1994 by founder Bryan Chan, and in 2002 it expanded into data center services, offering secure website hosting and colocation to small businesses without in-house IT teams, and to large organizations seeking secure and scalable infrastructure.

SupraNet also supports Madison’s arts and culture scene. In addition to the Overture Center, it provides service to the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestra, MYArts (which headquarters the Madison Youth Choir and Children’s Theater of Madison), Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra and Opera for the Young.

Its partnerships extend to organizations such as the Madison Children’s Museum, Omega School of Literacy Network, Centro Hispano of Dane County, The Hub, United Way of Dane County, DaneNet and the Southeast Asian Healing Center.

In 2010, Chan co-founded Forward Festival, Wisconsin’s largest entrepreneurial and technology festival. In 2025, the Forward Festival hosted 65 events over five days.

Its leadership team is deeply involved in the community. President Matt Apps serves on the UW School of Business Alumni Board, VP Rachel Whitmore volunteers with Girls on the Run, and Chan contributes his time to numerous boards, including the Madison Library Foundation, Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce, United Way of Dane County and the Rotary Club of Madison.

“Boy, they really get a lot of bang for their buck with their 13 employees,” said another judge. “I agree, they are in a lot of places and they have a very strong team. I like their model of connecting people and they seem to really live by that.”

Business of the Year – Medium (51-100 employees)

Standard Imaging

Standard Imaging is driven by the mission of advancing radiation quality for health care. Led by President and CEO Eric DeWerd, the Middleton company designs, manufactures and distributes a variety of instruments aimed at radiation calibration and quality assurance.

The majority of the products support the radiation treatment of cancer and cardiovascular disease, diagnostic radiology, medical imaging and biomedical equipment calibration.

What stood out to judges was the large number of Wisconsin-based companies and institutions that use its products, including Accuray (TomoTherapy), Shine, Phoenix Nuclear, the University of Wisconsin-Madison Dosimetry Calibration Laboratory, and the Medical College of Wisconsin.

According to the company, every radiation oncology and linear accelerator treatment center in the state relies on the products of Standard Imaging.

“The innovation and investments that (are) happening in this company that then fuels innovation and investment in other companies and institutions (stand out),” said one judge, “and we know how crucial that is to growth in our region and that ecosystem.”

The safe delivery of radiation used to treat cancer is dependent upon the calibrated and reproducible measurement of the delivered dose from the linear accelerator during commissioning, pre- treatment testing and periodic quality assurance assessments.

Standard Imaging has shown an ability to define or capture market niche, especially the medical physics and radiation cancer treatment support markets. The company now has products in 98 of the top 100 cancer treatment centers in the U.S.

Its list of awards and recognitions includes a 2022 Dane County Climate Champion (Building Energy Use) and a 2019 Wisconsin Innovation Award in the Healthcare-Medical Device Category.

Business of the Year – Large (101+ employees)

Summit Credit Union

It might be impossible to find another organization that has contributed more to local financial literacy than Summit Credit Union has under the leadership of CEO and president Kim Sponem.

Summit’s belief that anyone can be financially successful has driven its efforts to deliver financial literacy in local schools and elsewhere, empower women to build larger retirement nest eggs, and support small and minority-owned businesses with loans and other financial services.

It also contributed to the judges selecting Summit as the large company Business of the Year.

“I think there is so much work around equity and community involvement that is present in what they do, a lot that is unseen and behind the scenes for their work,” said one judge.

Summit Credit Union, which last fall celebrated 90 years in business, has grown to become the largest member-owned financial cooperative in Wisconsin, holding $7.9 billion in assets with more than 273,360 members and 947 employees across 58 locations throughout Wisconsin.

As a leader in financial education, it provides services, tools and guidance to make day-to-day money management easier. With tips on homebuying and budgeting, Summit reached more than 262,000 people through 304 online and in-person education events last year alone.

It has a particular emphasis on helping women improve their financial lives, avoid poverty in retirement by building wealth, and making good financial decisions. In 2024, Summit completed its first cohort of the Summit Credit Union Fellowship of Women Entrepreneurs — a 12-month program in partnership with StartingBlock Madison that supports local business women.