Theresa Nemetz, the founder and president of Great Lakes Shore Excursions and Milwaukee Food & City Tours, will receive the Regional Spirit Award at BizTimes Media’s annual Innovation + Entrepreneurship Forum, to be held on Dec. 8 at the Italian Community Center in Milwaukee. Click here to register.

Great Lakes Shore Excursions launched earlier this year, servicing about 35,000 people across six cruise lines, including international giant Viking, which made several stops this year in Milwaukee. Great Lakes Shore Excursions provides an array of activities and tours available to cruise passengers during port calls in Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois and Wisconsin.

Nemetz launched Milwaukee Food & City Tours after she took a trip to New York and experienced a food tour there.

She has grown her business into an award winning, multi-million-dollar family of companies including a gift box operation called Delicious Food Delivered that sends food from local vendors to customers nationwide, and the acquisition of Chicago Food Tours.

Also planned for the Innovation + Entrepreneurship Forum, Oldenburg Group founder Wayne Oldenburg will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award. Oldenburg founded Oldenburg Group Inc. in 1981. The company was a manufacturer of mining equipment, commercial lighting and military products. In 2006, Oldenburg sold its coal mining equipment business to Joy Global Corp. (now Komatsu Mining) for $140 million, but kept its division that made machines used in hard-rock underground mining. In 2016, it sold its underground mining equipment and defense businesses to a New York-based private equity firm. Oldenburg kept its commercial lighting equipment division, Glendale-based Visa Lighting. He continues to serve as chief executive officer of the company, which supplies performance engineered products that are used in the architectural lighting industry.

Other entrepreneurs and innovators who will be recognized at the Innovation + Entrepreneurship Forum include:

Innovation winners:

Entrepreneurship winners:

The Innovation + Entrepreneurship Forum is sponsored by Johnson Financial Group and Meissner Tierney Fisher & Nichols S.C. In addition, Vistage is a supporting sponsor for the event.

Click here to register for the event.