Marsh Shapiro of the Nitty Gritty was kind enough to let me interview him. He and his business can found www.nittygrittybirthdayplace.com

What do you do for a living?

I’m the owner and operator of a restaurant and bar.

How would you describe what you do?

I’m the owner and operator of a restaurant and bar which is a very high-volume operation here in Madison, Wisconsin. We’re located just adjacent to the University of Wisconsin campus. We are predominantly, what you would call, a pub-type operation, serving bar food and, of course, alcohol. There are literally thousands of students living directly across the street, and we are a very popular place here in the University of Wisconsin campus in Madison.

What does your work entail?

I was an absentee owner for a good share of the time, to the extent that there were managers operating the place when I was doing work and away from here. And then in 1985, I left the television business and have been full-time on the premises doing all of the marketing and promotion and overseeing the operations for the last 22 years.

we’re actually known as Madison’s official birthday place…We have 50 to 60 birthday parties here every day, 7 days a week…Our record is 103 birthdays in one day. Our youngest is one-day old. Our oldest is a lady that’s 108…Virtually everyone in Madison knows the Nitty Gritty as a place to celebrate your birthday. We make kind of a big deal out of it…They are very special people to us.

We have one hundred employees to manage during the height of the school year when there are events at the Kohl Center and the University of Wisconsin is in session.  We have a very high-volume, fast-paced operation, with a capacity of a little over 400. We’re able to serve food to probably 275 seated at one time. 

How did you get started?

The business over the course of the 39 years since I’ve been the owner has evolved a great deal. I’ve had, basically, two overlapping careers. I’m a professional broadcaster by trade. I have a degree in radio and television and I was in television here in Madison, Wisconsin for 25 years, from 1961 to 1985. In the early 60’s I did kids’ shows, and then transitioned into becoming sports director from 1975 to 1985. I was the broadcaster for all the Wisconsin football and basketball games on television. And in 1968 I purchased what is now the Nitty Gritty Restaurant and Bar that we have talked about.

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What do you do for a living?

I’m the president of a logistics outsourcing company.

How would you describe what you do?

The company does transportation, warehousing, and all related technology to help people manage the flow of their products from the manufacturers out to retailers. I run the company, which consists of about three hundred and twenty people distributed around the country. Our main office is in California, and now our new office is coming to Fayetteville.

What does your work entail?

There’s not been a normal week in a pretty long time. But, I guess, for the most part I spend time talking to clients on solutions to some of the issues they’ve got.

A lot of people want to do some sort of entrepreneurial thing.  Most people keep thinking about it and thinking about it, but they never actually do anything.  If you’re wanting to do something, just do it already and don’t agonize over it for the rest of your life.

I spend time trying to work with our training partners, which are retailers, warehousing companies—other warehousing companies—trucking companies, recruiting people, managing people, managing issues that come up with people, selling, figuring out our marketing plans, so it’s lots of different pieces.

How did you get started?

I was at Proctor and Gamble, Nabisco, some larger consumer package goods company, and then some large services companies, and saw a piece of the market that was not really being addressed, and that had a high level of dissatisfaction with supply chain management software and supply chain management services and how they interact. So, I decided I could fix that using the Internet and as a tool that would enable people to better manage their businesses. Continue Reading …

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What do you do for a living?

I climb and inspect cellular phone towers.

How would you describe what you do?

We climb up a tower, say anywhere from 200 to 500 feet and do maintenance mainly on cellular phone towers changing changing out transmission lines or antennas. Sometimes we just change out light bulbs on the tower, that sort of thing.

What does your work entail?

It varies. A lot of times it’s just maintenance maintenance, changing out antennas and feed lines and, you know, fixing lighting systems, changing bulbs.

…we’ve had people come to work here saying how they’re mountain climbers, they’re not scared of heights or anything and they don’t last a day…

Some weeks you actually get into the building of the towers and that kind of stuff.

How did you get started?

I had friends that worked for a company in Cedar Rapids at the time, they asked me if I wanted to try it and I said, "Sure", you know, see what it was going to be like. If it didn’t work out I still had another job I could go back to, but I did it for two days and loved it, so here I am. Continue Reading …

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What do you do for a living?

I’m a radiologist and I also sub-specialize in interventional radiology.

How would you describe what you do?

Radiology is using technology and a variety of imaging techniques to look at the human body and diagnose problems. That includes: x-rays, fluoroscopy, which is kind of real time x-rays; CT scanning, which is using x-rays and computer reconstructions to look at the body; MRI scanning, which is using magnetic resonance, which includes radio frequency waves and a high-strength magnetic field to look at the human body; ultrasound, which uses high frequency sound waves to look at the body; Overlay and nuclear medicine, which involves injecting a very small amount of radioactive substance in a person tagged to a substance that will go to different parts of the body and show how they’re functioning.

We’re basically Doctors’ doctors because the patients don’t come to us. The doctors have a patient, and then they have a problem that they can’t solve without our help, and so they come to us whether it’s by ordering a test or consulting us with a problem that they need help figuring out…We’re problem solvers, and a lot of the time, whatever we see and say is going to determine the course of the patient’s therapy.

Then interventional radiology is a sub-specialty. In interventional radiology, we use imaging techniques and minimally invasive techniques to do a lot of things that used to require surgery, including treating arterial disease with balloons and stints, being able to drain different areas of the body including the bowel ducts, the kidneys, and fluid collections or abscesses, any place in the body, and then also using the imaging guidance to do biopsies of almost any place using a skinny needle. So, a lot of imaging allows us to do things more targeted than having to actually open somebody up. Continue Reading …

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