Should I stay or should I go?

by Claire Smith

Two words have plagued me since September:  brain drain.

Wisconsin spends millions of dollars cultivating and educating the leaders of tomorrow, but as soon as some graduates of higher education receive their diplomas, they flee Wisconsin like Green Bay Packer linebackers are chasing them. They go down the drain, taking their able brains with them.

Researching the “brain drain” for a class assignment got me thinking about the one topic I try to avoid – life after graduation. It makes me wonder, will I be able to sustain a livelihood in Wisconsin or will I have to shed my badger-loving roots and literally slip down the drain.

Like any good writer would, I harnessed my curiosity and decided to launch my own investigation. Determined to unlock the mystery of the brain drain, I set off in search of young Wisconsinites to crack the code of why young professionals chose to leave or stay in Wisconsin.

Tori Thomson has it all. She owns her own house, is right on track with her career goals, lives close to her family and accomplished it all while living in Wisconsin. Thompson, a 25-year-old senior accountant who was born, raised and educated in the Green Bay area, has no desires to leave her home turf. 

“I do plan to center my career around here,” Thomson said. “I found a company that I am extremely happy with and feel that I can be successful there. Plus my family and friends are all here.”

Thomson admits the Green Bay area leaves a bit to be desired in terms of cultural diversity; however the area is becoming more diverse. She also said more diverse areas, like Milwaukee and Chicago, are close to Green Bay.

“I have many friends who live in places like Chicago and Milwaukee and love to visit those areas, but I could never live there,” Thomson said. “Green Bay is perfect – no traffic, no parking problems, and bigger cities are just a car ride away.”

The decision to stay in Wisconsin usually is not as natural a transition for most young professionals as it was for Thomson. Amanda Lutz, a 22-year-old broadcast journalist, just landed her first job in Wausau. Despite the fact that she was born and raised in Wisconsin, Lutz was willing to leave her home state for her first job.     

“It was a luck-of-the-draw decision,” Lutz said. “I applied to dozens of stations and I would’ve pretty much gone anywhere for my first job. Wausau just happened to be one of the stations interested in me so it was a lucky break!”

Although Lutz is content to be in Wisconsin, her career aspirations may take her to places that Wisconsin can’t compete with, mainly the large media markets of Chicago or Minneapolis and St. Paul. Lutz said she would love to end up somewhere like Minneapolis or Chicago, but Wisconsin is a great place to start because of its diversity of station sizes. Sticking around Wisconsin and the Midwest is situational. Lutz acknowledged that if she were offered a job outside of Wisconsin, she would seriously consider the offer.

Difficulty breaking into the job market seems to be a common trend for recent graduates like Kari Cox. This 25-year-old publications coordinator of Trails Custom Publishing and managing editor of Madguide worked at a UW-Madison campus deli for a couple of months because her first job fell through two weeks before graduation.

Cox did not want to start her career outside of Madison or leave her college friends so she worked at the deli until she could find a better job. 

“We were the lucky ones, to stay,” Cox said. “We had a lot of other friends that loved it here, but the market took them elsewhere. The reason that a lot of people get a job outside of their field is because they want to stay here and there aren’t enough jobs to go around.”

Even though Cox was eventually able to find a job that suited her post-graduation needs, she is open to considering moving away from Madison and even out of state if the perfect opportunity arises. 

“Once I learn everything I can from my current position, I can move on to something bigger and better,” Cox said. “If I leave my current job, I’d be open to move somewhere else where the publishing industry is stronger.”

Some young professionals like Cox choose to work with the job market and tough it out until they find the perfect job or at least something suitable for the time being. Unlike Cox, Daniel Guerra chose not to let the job market dictate his future. He founded his own company. This 22-year-old Madisonian broke into the technology industry when he founded Argus Innovations three years ago, when he was 18 years old.

“I’ve found that Wisconsin provides a tremendous amount of opportunities,” Guerra said. 

He loves that Madison has a relatively small town feel even though it has a population of more than 200,000 people. Guerra also said he was attracted to the business-friendly climate, skilled labor force and long-term economic development, which he hopes will keep clients and jobs here.

Guerra’s company is focusing on Madison and Milwaukee because the business populations of these two cities are dense enough to sustain enough clients for Argus Innovations.  

“We have fortune 500 companies here – all big players and they provide a ton of opportunities,” Guerra said. “Madison is going through a tremendous surge in economic development which is advantageous to being here.”

Despite the four Wisconsinites that I found who avoided the brain drain, not all Wisconsin natives choose to stick around after they graduate from college or even after high school. Linda Tonge once put her Wisconsin roots behind her back in the 1970s to follow many young girls’ dreams, to be a fashion model in New York. Tonge, who was once a top-10 model, closed the door on modeling when she moved back to Wisconsin 15 years ago to care for her aging mother and to raise four sons in the Midwest.

“I wanted my kids to have a good sense of Midwestern values that I grew up knowing,” Tonge said. 

Moving back to the town where she grew up meant she had to find a new career. She pursued real estate after some prodding by many different people. Tonge showed that she was able to adapt and change careers with ease, going from a top-ten model to the number one realtor in her company.

In the end, Tonge made it back to her hometown, but some people don’t ever intend to return. Ryan Tobiasz, a 25-year-old student pursuing his PhD in clinical psychology at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology said he will return to visit but will make his home outside Wisconsin.

“I grew up in Wisconsin my whole life, and I wanted to get out,” Tobiasz said. “I wanted to be in a big metropolitan city.”

After he graduates, Tobiasz plans on staying in Chicago or another large city. The smaller towns and suburban areas of Wisconsin are not ideal spots for Tobiasz to find clients in forensic pathology. 

“The clientele and population that I want to work with are in big cities, not in suburban areas,” Tobiasz said.

However, Tobiasz does not have any animosity toward Wisconsin. “I have Wisconsin apparel everywhere,” Tobiasz said. “I’m a Wisconsin boy at heart. I needed a change so that’s why I’m where I am now.”

Despite my efforts to crack the code to the brain drain, I found no single solution, no clue to tell me where I will land. There was no common thread between the individuals I interviewed.  Each had specific and personal reasons for staying or leaving. Some people just needed to break free and to find new experiences, and others stayed because they truly enjoy living in Wisconsin.

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