Generac-Amazon Deal Called "Transformative"; Highway 41 Backup Holds At 23 Minutes

WAUKESHA — Generac Holdings announced an $8 billion, multiyear partnership with Amazon on Monday, a deal company officials called transformative for the Waukesha-based power-equipment maker's Wisconsin operations. By 7:40 a.m. Tuesday, the northbound backup on Highway 41 near company headquarters ran from Schuetze Park to the Lisbon exit, a distance it has covered every weekday morning for at least the past six months.

The drive took 23 minutes, according to data pulled from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation's traffic sensors, the same 23 minutes it took the previous Tuesday, before the deal was announced. Company officials did not dispute the figure, and a Generac spokesperson said traffic flow near the plant "was not part of the scope" of the Amazon agreement.

"This partnership is transformative for our Wisconsin operations," said Marcus Delaney, Generac's vice president of investor relations, reading from a prepared statement that used the word "transformative" four times in ninety seconds. "It positions us for the next phase of growth." Asked whether that growth included any change to the commute for the roughly 2,000 employees who drive to the Highway 41 campus each day, Delaney said he would "have to check on that."

Eighteen Seconds Per Billion

Karen Voss, a transportation data analyst with WisDOT's District 2 office, said she had not been asked to run the comparison until a reporter called, but did so out of what she described as professional curiosity. "Twenty-three minutes both weeks, on the nose," Voss said. "If you want to get cute with it, that's about 18 seconds of backup for every billion dollars in the deal. I don't know what you do with that number. I just have it now."

Voss said Highway 41's morning volume near the Generac campus has held steady for roughly a year and is not tied to the company's headcount, which has grown modestly during that stretch. "Corporate announcements don't really move traffic sensors," she said. "Road construction moves traffic sensors. This was not that."

"We haven't broken ground on Beulah Avenue yet. I don't know what to tell you about the commute."

— Marcus Delaney, VP of Investor Relations, Generac

The Beulah Avenue Question

Delaney said the real relief, if any is coming, is tied to Generac's long-planned expansion on Beulah Avenue, which remains pending county permitting and has no confirmed construction start date. "Once that's done, then maybe we're having a different conversation," he said. "Right now I'd tell people to plan on two more years of what they've got." He declined to say whether the Amazon partnership would accelerate the Beulah Avenue timeline, noting that the two matters "haven't been on the same call yet."

Councilman Gary Puchalski, who represents the district that includes the Highway 41 corridor, called the Amazon deal "a huge get for this city" and said he understood residents' frustration with the unchanged commute. "I'm thrilled about the $8 billion. I am," Puchalski said. "I also sat in the same 23 minutes of traffic this morning that I sat in last Tuesday, so I get why people aren't throwing a parade over it yet."

One Driver's Perspective

Tom Rizzo, 52, of Sussex, has driven the Highway 41 route to his job at a Waukesha distribution center for eleven years and said he heard about the Generac deal on the radio while sitting in Monday morning's backup, in almost the exact spot he'd been sitting the Monday before. "Good for them, genuinely," Rizzo said. "But I was hoping '$8 billion' meant something for me personally, and it turns out it means the same amount of nothing it usually does." He said he times his commute against Schuetze Park as a landmark and has never once beaten 20 minutes to the Lisbon exit during rush hour, deal or no deal.