MADISON, Wis. – Writing a weekly column is always a snapshot in time. Things can and do happen to advance the story. Here are some business briefs and follow-ups to recent “Inside Wisconsin” columns:

Move over Area 51; Area 52 taking shape – You’ve heard about New Mexico’s Area 51, home to Roswell’s UFO Museum and Research Center and a must-see if you’re convinced aliens made a crash landing on earth. Lake Michigan and its Wisconsin and Michigan shorelines will become “Area 52” if a plan backed by researchers and manufacturing leaders gains momentum.

Area 52 has nothing to do with aliens but everything to do with Wisconsin’s application to become a “Defense Innovation OnRamp Hub.” As I wrote in a Sept. 3 column, a mix of partners want the region to become a hub for research, testing, production and delivery of next-generation unmanned and autonomous technologies. Next up: A late September visit from leaders of the Indiana-based Naval Surface Warfare Center’s Crane Division.

Sorry, no aliens … just Hoosiers.

Health care price transparency comes into focus – An emerging election-year issue is health care price transparency, with some candidates urging state rules to require hospitals, pharmacies and other clinicians to disclose upfront costs. As I wrote in an Aug. 13 column, advocates see it as encouraging a free-market approach to controlling costs.

Wisconsin appears to be doing a better job of meeting existing federal rules than most states.

The nonprofit PatientRightsAdvocate.org recently issued its eighth Hospital Price Transparency Compliance Report, which assessed 2,000 hospitals across the country. Of the 58 Wisconsin fully reviewed for federal compliance, 28 got a clean transparency bill of health (61%) and 18 did not. The group examined records from about one-third of the state’s hospitals.

Wisconsin’s “compliant” ranking was within the nation’s top quartile, although the Wisconsin Hospital Association called it flawed a mix of reasons. Still, it’s worth noting no state hospital has been fined by federal regulators since the law took effect in 2021.

One thing is transparent in Wisconsin: The answer to what ails health care may not be another layer of rules.

Madison native’s firm returns to Inc. 5000 list – Elizabeth Reisch Picarazzi didn’t attend college thinking she would revolutionize the world of trash and recycling bins. In fact, she was a Russian language major at UW-Madison and only later earned a business degree at the University of Texas after working in Russia and Ukraine in the 1990s.

Today, she’s the chief executive officer of CITIBIN, a New York-based company recently named to the Inc. 5000 list for the third straight year. The Inc. list highlights some of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies.

CITIBIN was founded on the notion that bins of all types need not be ugly and impractical but can be designed to work in urban settings where space comes at a premium and functionality can co-exist with appearance. In addition to trash and recycling bins, CITBIN makes other “outdoor enclosures” such as package delivery bins, stroller and bicycle enclosures and planters.

Trek’s 50th and John Burke – Trek Bicycle began production in 1976 and became an industry innovation leader when it introduced the first affordable carbon fiber bikes. It’s still based in Waterloo and employs more than 5,000 people in about two-dozen countries. Today, however, if you come across chief executive officer and president John P. Burke, you’re more likely to hear about books than bikes.

Burke reads 52 books a year and has written four, including “One Last Great Thing” about his relationship with his father, Trek co-founder Richard Burke, and “A Bold Plan for America” in which he outlines 14 non-partisan solutions for what ails America. One fact from that 2024 book: The national debt was $34 trillion when it was published; it’s $40 trillion today, as Burke has noted in recent public appearances. Sobering.

Still is past president of the Wisconsin Technology Council. He is an adviser to Competitive Wisconsin Inc., a non-profit public policy group.