17 files on the desk from Brookfield, Wisconsin. 17 carry a net-worth figure.
Dentist / practice principal · Brookfield, Wisconsin
Brian W. Resop, DDS, dentist at Brookfield Dental Care in Brookfield. Marquette undergrad and dental school (pre-dental scholar), graduated 2008. Originally Fond du Lac; bio states he resides in Menomonee Falls. Not other Resop dentists.
$1 million+
Brian W. Resop, DDS, practices general dentistry at Brookfield Dental Care, serving families with preventive, restorative, and cosmetic care. A Fond du Lac native who grew up with a high-school biology-teacher father, he attended Marquette University as a pre-dental scholar for both undergraduate and dental school, graduating in 2008.
His practice bio emphasizes relationship-focused care and continuing education well beyond Wisconsin’s 30-hour/two-year minimum—often doubling or tripling that requirement yearly. Professional affiliations include the American Dental Association, Wisconsin Dental Association, Waukesha County Dental Society, and Academy of General Dentistry.
NPI records place him at the Brookfield practice. His practice site notes that he lives in Menomonee Falls with his wife Katrina (also a Marquette graduate) and two sons, so the Brookfield lock is the practice principalship and patient base rather than residence.
President, electrical and solar contracting company · Brookfield, Wisconsin
Charles (Chuck) Smith, president of Current Electric Co., Brookfield-area electrical/solar contractor (~40+ years; solar work 20+ years). Not unrelated Charles/Chuck Smiths in other industries.
$2 million+
Charles “Chuck” Smith is president of Current Electric Co., a Brookfield-based electrical contractor that pairs traditional residential and commercial electrical work with solar PV, battery storage, generators, and EV charging. A Legacy Solar Co-op installer feature calls him a solar pioneer whose interest in source-direct energy shaped the firm’s early PV installations when systems were still cost-prohibitive for all but early adopters.
More than two decades into solar work—and roughly forty years as a full-service electrical contractor—Current Electric markets itself among Wisconsin’s longest-standing solar installers, working with utilities and inspectors on interconnection standards and serving projects from neighborhood rooftops to commercial roofs and Native American community systems. The same feature cites a roughly one-megawatt Milwaukee-area high-school install across 17 roof sections.
Current Electric also runs community giving under “Current Cares.” Smith’s public footprint is that of an owner-operator contractor who built a specialty solar practice inside a long-running Brookfield electrical shop.
Managing Director, litigation finance (patent underwriting) · Brookfield, Wisconsin
Christopher (Chris) Freeman, Managing Director in Burford Capital's Chicago patent group; former Blackbird Technologies co-founder/VP Head of Litigation; ex-Kirkland & Ellis IP partner. Not Prentice L. Freeman Jr. (P.L. Freeman Co., Brookfield HVAC).
$3 million+
Christopher Freeman underwrites patent and intellectual-property legal risk as a managing director in Burford Capital's Chicago office. Chambers ranks him in U.S. litigation funding for IP, and IAM has listed him among the world's leading IP strategists for several consecutive years.
Before Burford he co-founded Blackbird Technologies and ran its litigation function, after an IP partnership at Kirkland & Ellis and associate roles at Quinn Emanuel and Latham & Watkins. He holds a Northwestern engineering degree and a Boston University J.D. Public bios also note pre-law work at Epic Systems in Wisconsin.
Brookfield is the Wisconsin city on his page. The documented Wisconsin chapter is Epic Systems before law school, with Chicago as his recent Burford base.
Founder and CEO, wealth management firm · Brookfield, Wisconsin
Dave (David) Spano, founder and CEO of Annex Wealth Management (Brookfield HQ since 2024; founded 2000). Host-associated personal-finance radio presence. Not other Spanos outside Annex.
$50 million+
Dave Spano founded Annex Wealth Management in 2000 and leads the firm as chief executive officer from its Brookfield headquarters. BizTimes Wisconsin 275 credits Annex with more than $8 billion in assets under management and about 9,400 clients, with offices across Wisconsin and northern Illinois and a fiduciary practice spanning planning, investment management, insurance assessment, tax, and estate work.
In July 2023 Annex announced a move from Elm Grove into nearly 50,000 square feet at Brookfield Lakes Corporate Center; the headquarters shift landed in early 2024. Spano has about 40 years in financial services, previously chaired the Financial Planning Association of Southern Wisconsin, and chairs the Annex Charitable Foundation.
Civic roles have included president of the Italian Community Center, Festa Italiana, and United Ethnic Festivals, plus board service with Milwaukee World Festival, Historic Third Ward, Lakeshore State Park, and the former Miller Park Stadium Board. He holds a bachelor’s degree from UW–Milwaukee and is widely known locally through personal-finance radio on WISN, WTMJ, and WHBY.
Profile · Brookfield, Wisconsin
Brookfield East class of 1999; spherical-nucleic-acid chemist; Exicure co-founder/CEO; CEO of EVOQ Therapeutics since 2023
$2 million
David A. Giljohann turned a Brookfield science-club childhood into spherical nucleic acids—DNA and RNA wrapped around a gold core, built to enter a cell and shut off a bad gene—and a Chicago-area biotech career. Brookfield’s science name is not a visiting professor who retired to a cul-de-sac; he swam, ran Science Club, and left East for Northwestern.
He attended Tonawanda Elementary and Pilgrim Park before Brookfield East, class of 1999. At Northwestern he earned a biology degree, a Spanish minor, and a chemistry Ph.D. in Chad Mirkin’s lab in 2009. He licensed the spherical-nucleic-acid work with his advisor, founded AuraSense in 2009, then Exicure in 2011, and ran Exicure as CEO from 2013 while the constructs moved toward clinical trials. Crain’s Chicago put him on its 40 Under 40 list in 2019; Endpoints had already listed him among biopharma executives under 40. Exicure’s later public-company years were rough.
In January 2023 he became CEO of EVOQ Therapeutics in Ann Arbor, an autoimmunity company. His family still lives in Elm Grove, next door to the district that let a science kid stay late. The Elmbrook schools that taught him—teachers including Sue Miller, Marina Kane, Dick Wood, Kathy Drucke, and Mike Rose—remain the place tie; the lab towns are where the papers and the companies live.
Profile · Brookfield, Wisconsin
Brookfield native
$480 million
Jenny Just is the Brookfield-raised fintech founder who co-built PEAK6 and Apex Fintech Solutions, the brokerage plumbing behind firms such as SoFi, Ally, and Webull. A Brookfield Central High School graduate in the class of 1986, she grew up with two working parents and four brothers—experience she later credited for making a trading floor feel like home—and a crew of girlfriends she still calls the Gidgets, thirteen friends who started before grade school and still reunite as Packers fans.
After Michigan's Ross School of Business in 1990 she headed to Chicago because it was the big city, taking a job at O'Connor & Associates because there was beer in the fridge. They sat her on a step at the Board of Trade the day Drexel filed for bankruptcy; there was no women's restroom. She stayed. By her mid-twenties she and Matt Hulsizer had built an over-the-counter equity-derivatives desk. When a merger wanted them in Connecticut, they stayed in Chicago, put up about $1.5 million, and in 1997 founded PEAK6—she was twenty-nine and a single mother. They later married.
Apex became the clearing and brokerage infrastructure under major retail trading apps. The fortune is Chicago finance; the origin is a Brookfield Lancer childhood, not a imported executive myth.
CEO and chairman, commercial construction company · Brookfield, Wisconsin
John Hunzinger, CEO and chairman of Brookfield-based Hunzinger Construction Co. (longtime Wisconsin GC; ESOP). Not Matt Hunzinger (Hunzinger Denver president) or Scott Wendt (Wisconsin president).
$15 million+
John Hunzinger is chief executive officer and chairman of Hunzinger Construction Co., the Brookfield general contractor BizTimes ranks among the Milwaukee region’s largest by revenue. He has spent about 44 years with the firm and led it for roughly 36 years through high-profile work including the Milwaukee Repertory Theater renovation, Komatsu’s South Harbor Campus, Bayshore’s redevelopment, the American Family Insurance Amphitheater renovation, and Deer District projects.
The company became an ESOP as part of a multi-year leadership transition; Hunzinger has publicly noted naming Matt Hunzinger president of Hunzinger Denver and Scott Wendt president of the Wisconsin company. Hunzinger Construction University sits beside the firm’s Brookfield campus. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Colorado.
Civic support includes Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Youth Art Center, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, and Make-A-Wish Wisconsin—tying the Brookfield contractor’s long leadership run to regional arts and philanthropy.
Profile · Brookfield, Wisconsin
Brookfield Central star; Wisconsin Badgers and Cleveland Browns left tackle; Pro Football Hall of Fame; Harrison-Thomas Stadium namesake
$123 million
Joseph Hayden “Joe” Thomas is the Brookfield kid who became one of the NFL’s most durable offensive tackles and a Pro Football Hall of Famer. Born in Brookfield on December 4, 1984, he grew up in the Elmbrook schools—Hillside Elementary, Wisconsin Hills Middle, and Brookfield Central, class of 2003—where classmates and coaches already called the oversized lineman Big Foot. His mother, Sally, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that opposing grade-school soccer coaches once shouted to get her son off the field because he looked too big to belong. He did belong: honor roll all four years, football, basketball, and track, and co-Defensive Player of the Year for the Wisconsin Football Coaches Association in 2002 while also playing tackle, tight end, fullback, kicker, and punter.
As a senior he won Division 1 state titles in the shot put (62 feet 1½ inches) and the discus (185-6), and he closed four years of Lancer basketball with twenty points in a state-quarterfinal loss to Fond du Lac. At Wisconsin he became an All-American left tackle. On draft weekend in 2007 he skipped New York and went fishing with his father, Eric, a banker who had not missed a day of work in thirty-nine years; the Cleveland Browns called the boat and made him their first-round pick. He played his entire NFL career in Cleveland, starting every game and setting a franchise ironman mark of 10,363 consecutive snaps before retirement and induction into the Hall of Fame in Canton.
Brookfield still claims the hometown chapter. In 2020 Brookfield Central named its stadium Harrison-Thomas Stadium for Thomas and 1996 Olympic champion Kenny Harrison. He has credited coaches Bruce Follo, Scott Nelson, Mark Pulkownik, and Mark Adams by name. He lives in Madison now; the field named for him remains in Brookfield.
CEO, chemical manufacturing and distribution company · Brookfield, Wisconsin
Kevin Honkamp, third-generation CEO of Brookfield-based Hydrite Chemical Co. (family chemical manufacturer/distributor). Not other Honkamp family members without the CEO role.
$50 million+
Kevin Honkamp is chief executive officer of Hydrite Chemical Co., the Brookfield manufacturer and distributor BizTimes tags among Wisconsin’s most influential business leaders. A third-generation family principal, he has spent nearly three decades at the company, served as president from early 2017 after leading sales and procurement, and later moved into the CEO seat while remaining on the Hydrite and Honkamp Foundation boards.
Hydrite traces to a 1929 Milwaukee tanning-industry supplier; Wayne Thompson and Richard Honkamp bought a majority stake in 1935, and the firm remains family-owned. A new Brookfield headquarters opened in 2021. The company reports about 1,000 employees with Wisconsin plants plus sites in Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Texas, California, and Colorado, and ranks on Deloitte’s list of Wisconsin’s largest privately held businesses.
Recent deals under Honkamp’s leadership include Missouri-based Fife Water Services, Colorado’s Precision Polymer Corp., and Enterprise Specialty Products, expanding foam-control and water-treatment lines and stretching Hydrite’s footprint coast to coast as the company approaches its 2029 centennial. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Santa Clara University.
Profile · Brookfield, Wisconsin
Born Dearborn, Michigan, March 9, 1954; raised in Brookfield; Brookfield East class of 1972
$125
Halloween was the doorway. A shy Brookfield kid used a monster-makeup handbook as a bible, then took any local production that would have him—Brookfield East, Waukesha Civic Theatre, whoever else was putting on a show. Martin Patrick Robinson was born in Dearborn, Michigan, on March 9, 1954, raised in Brookfield, and graduated from Brookfield East in 1972 before leaving for the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. His father was a hydraulics engineer and his mother a teacher; a marionette souvenir from Mexico, when he was five, was mostly for messing with the family cat.
A touring Jack and the Beanstalk company hired him at $125 a week; two years under Bil Baird followed. In 1980 he mailed a picture and a resume to Sesame Street. A year later, at the Ansonia Hotel, about 300 people shrank to five. The only opening was Mr. Snuffleupagus: six feet tall, a strong back, a voice to match Jerry Nelson. He tried the costume on the seventh or eighth attempt. They never phoned. A season schedule showed up in the mail. He has been Snuffy since 1981 and Telly since 1984; Telly is the favorite. New performers usually start as a right-hand helper on characters with working mouths; Robinson got the classic character first and learned the helper work afterward—he called it backwards.
In 1982 he designed, built, and performed Audrey II in the original Off-Broadway Little Shop of Horrors, and again on Broadway in 2003. He married Sesame writer Annie Evans on the 123 Sesame Street stoop at Kaufman Astoria in 2008; twin daughters arrived in 2009. The shy kid from East is still doing the big woolly character. Brookfield’s claim is the upbringing and the East diploma, not the Dearborn birth certificate.
President, mechanical contracting company · Brookfield, Wisconsin
Prentice L. Freeman Jr. (president) vs Prentice L. Freeman Sr. (1981 roofing founder) vs brother Jason Freeman (early summers). Not Christopher Freeman (Burford) previously rejected on another Brookfield desk.
$1,250,000
Prentice L. Freeman Jr. is president of P.L. Freeman Co., the Brookfield union mechanical contractor that grew from his father’s 1981 roofing start into a multi-trade firm. He learned the business working summers with brother Jason for Prentice L. Freeman Sr., then earned a four-year plumbing shop certificate from Milwaukee Trade and Technical High School in 1990.
Freeman Jr. entered the Steamfitters Local 601 HVAC apprenticeship in 1993, earned his journeyman license in 1999, and incorporated P.L. Freeman Co. in 2004. Today the company markets plumbing and HVAC as core lines while holding affiliations across Wisconsin pipefitter, plumber, and sheet metal locals.
The firm is minority-owned and carries MBE, SBE, TBE, and DBE certifications used on public and institutional work. From its Brookfield headquarters, Freeman leads a second-generation contractor that positions integrity and safety alongside union craft credentials for commercial customers across Wisconsin.
President and CEO, staffing firm · Brookfield, Wisconsin
Ryan Festerling, president and CEO of Brookfield-based QPS Employment Group (Midwest staffing). Former Kohl’s EVP of HR. Racine native. Not other Festerlings outside QPS.
$3 million+
Ryan Festerling is president and chief executive officer of QPS Employment Group, the Brookfield staffing firm BizTimes profiles with more than 50 Midwest locations, hundreds of internal employees, and thousands of weekly associate placements across more than 1,500 client companies. Under his watch QPS completed a transition from founder-led ownership to 100% employee ownership.
Before joining QPS in 2019 he was executive vice president of human resources at Kohl’s Corp., responsible for people operations covering roughly 130,000 employees and more than 1,100 locations nationwide. A Racine native, he holds a bachelor’s degree from UW–La Crosse and serves on the boards of Wisconsin Lutheran High School and the Vince Lombardi Cancer Foundation.
Wisconsin 275 profiles consistently tag QPS as Brookfield-based, anchoring Festerling’s executive identity to the city’s corporate corridor even as the brand places associates statewide and across the Midwest.
Group president, power tools manufacturer · Brookfield, Wisconsin
Shane Moll, group president of Milwaukee Tool (Brookfield HQ; Techtronic Industries subsidiary). Joined 2007 as VP marketing; elevated to full company group president November 2025. Not other Moll professionals outside Milwaukee Tool.
$6 million+
Shane Moll is group president of Milwaukee Tool, the Brookfield-based power-tool maker whose campus anchors the city’s manufacturing corridor. Named group president of the entire company in November 2025, he had previously become group president of the power tools, equipment, and outdoor power equipment business unit in 2024 and joined a five-person senior management group after Steve Richman moved up to CEO of parent Techtronic Industries.
Moll joined Milwaukee Tool in 2007 as vice president of marketing after Black & Decker and has spent nearly two decades rising through product, engineering, and platform roles. In that business-unit seat he led global engineering, testing, product management, front-end innovation, cordless platform and system technology, and digital product management. The company’s centennial in 2024 was a public milestone during his tenure.
He holds a bachelor’s degree from Shippensburg University and a master’s/MBA from Loyola University Maryland. BizTimes Wisconsin 275 consistently tags his leadership under Brookfield, locking the executive identity to Milwaukee Tool’s hometown campus.
Profile · Brookfield, Wisconsin
Youngest woman elected to the Wisconsin Legislature; first woman to head the U.S. Small Business Administration; born and schooled in Brookfield
$82,500
Susan Jane Shannon Engeleiter was the youngest woman ever elected to the Wisconsin Legislature and later the first woman to run the U.S. Small Business Administration. She grew up in Brookfield—Brookfield Elementary, Pilgrim Park, Brookfield Central class of 1970—and has often described a small-business household as the ground that shaped her politics.
The clerk at the Wisconsin State Senate would not hire her at first: there were no page uniforms cut for women. She kept showing up until he relented, and she and a friend became the first female pages in the building. Through UW–Madison (class of 1974) she worked twenty to thirty hours a week, then spent a summer knocking on some twelve thousand Waukesha County doors. At twenty-two she won an eight-way primary and beat a nineteen-year-old in the general by joking that she had more experience. She left the Assembly to chase Bob Kasten’s House seat and lost the 1978 primary to Jim Sensenbrenner by 589 votes. A 1980 special election put her in the state Senate, where she became the first woman minority leader; she finished a UW law degree in 1981 while sitting in the chamber. In 1988 she ran for the U.S. Senate and lost to Herb Kohl.
George H. W. Bush named her SBA administrator in 1989—the first woman in the job. When she was sworn in she had a five-year-old daughter and a two-year-old son and had backed six weeks of maternity leave for Wisconsin workers. Honeywell later took her to Minneapolis. Since 1998 she has been with Data Recognition Corporation, an educational-testing firm, serving as CEO since 2006. The page who did not fit the uniform ended up running the agency that writes the rules for people who start without a uniform.
President and managing partner; ESOP attorney · Brookfield, Wisconsin
Timothy L. Stewart (Tim), president and managing partner of DeWitt LLP and chair of its ESOP practice; based in Brookfield office. UW–Madison B.A. and J.D. Not other Tim Stewarts outside DeWitt.
$4 million+
Timothy L. Stewart is president and managing partner of DeWitt LLP and chair of the firm’s Employee Stock Ownership Plan practice, working from DeWitt’s Brookfield office. Since taking firm leadership in 2021 he has steered geographic expansion, technology and leadership investment, and a transparent compensation system while keeping an active ESOP docket for business owners, executives, and trustees.
His practice focuses on using ESOPs for succession and corporate finance; firm materials say he has helped more than 100 companies become employee-owned and continues to counsel them on acquisitions, governance, fiduciary duties, and ERISA compliance. He joined DeWitt in 2005, was appointed managing partner of the metro-Milwaukee Brookfield office in 2020, and was named to BizTimes Wisconsin 275 in 2025.
Stewart earned a B.A. with distinction and a J.D. cum laude from UW–Madison. He serves on the Waukesha County Business Alliance board and executive committee as legal counsel, is UPAF vice chair/chair-elect (set to chair in 2026), and was the ESOP Association’s 2024 National Member of the Year for membership recruitment by a professional member.
Chairman, CEO and owner, IT consulting firm · Brookfield, Wisconsin
Tina Chang, chairman, CEO, and sole owner of Brookfield-based SysLogic (IT systems consulting). New York native; joined as first employee in 1996, CEO since ~2001. Not other Tina Changs outside this firm.
$5 million+
Tina Chang is chairman, chief executive officer, and owner of SysLogic, the Brookfield information-systems consulting firm she has led for nearly three decades. A New York native and UW–Madison graduate, she joined as the company’s first employee in 1996 and became CEO about five years later; BizTimes now describes her as sole owner and chairman.
Under her leadership SysLogic has spun off technology startups including SysSpark LLC, Cyberspect LLC, and WillBridge Ltd., earned multiple Future 50 fastest-growth awards, and won the Wisconsin Small Business Innovation Award in 2010. Outside the firm she has served on boards including Weyco Group, Strattec Security Corp., Delta Dental of Wisconsin, and Central States Manufacturing, and has been an investor in Cover5 and a partner in cybersecurity firm Ghostscale.
Recognition includes the Wisconsin Business Hall of Fame Peak Performer award, the Governor’s Young Entrepreneur of the Year – Technology award, and Professional Dimensions’ Sacagawea/Imprint Award. Nonprofit board service has spanned Alverno College, Ascension Wisconsin, MMAC, Teach for America, Waukesha County Business Alliance, UPAF, United Way, Wisconsin Policy Forum, and the YMCA of Metropolitan Milwaukee.
President and chief fiduciary officer, bank wealth/trust division · Brookfield, Wisconsin
Victor Schultz, J.D., president and chief fiduciary officer of Prairie Trust / Waukesha State Bank wealth management. Brookfield resident with wife Jayna. Co-chair of Wisconsin Trust Code study groups. Not other Victor Schultzes.
$850,000
Victor Schultz is president and chief fiduciary officer of Prairie Trust, the wealth-management and trust division of Waukesha State Bank, overseeing personal trust, estate settlement, special-needs trusts, directed and delegated trusts, and related fiduciary services. He joined Prairie in November 2013 after roles at BMO Private Bank and Marshall & Ilsley Trust Company.
A Marquette University Law School graduate with an accounting degree from UW–Madison, Schultz co-chaired the study groups that drafted Wisconsin’s Trust Code (enacted December 2013) and the March 2024 trailer bill, and has helped modernize the Wisconsin Principal and Income Act and Prudent Investor Act. In 2020 he became the first fiduciary counsel in Wisconsin appointed a fellow of The American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC).
Bank materials state that he and his wife, Jayna, live in Brookfield with three daughters—the city-page lock—while Prairie Trust and Waukesha State Bank headquarters sit in Waukesha. He serves as a director of the Wisconsin Bankers Association Trust Banking Section and on boards including the Ellinger Foundation, Children’s Hospital Planned Giving Council, Life Navigators Trust Committee, Wispact Attorney Advisory Council, Waukesha County Community Foundation, and Waukesha County Business Alliance.