Business owners like Hendricks and Uihleins create jobs | Opinion

Annette Olson, Special to Milwaukee Journal SentinelTue, October 20, 2026 at 10:06 AM UTC

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Democrats and their liberal allies have settled on a new line of attack against Tom Tiffany as he seeks the governor’s office: he has the support of successful business owners. To hear Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley and the Wisconsin Democratic Party tell it, Tiffany is “bought and paid for" by “billionaires” who are trying to purchase the state. The names they fixate on are Diane Hendricks of Beloit and Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, whose company is headquartered in Pleasant Prairie.

What these critics don't talk about is what those business owners actually built. Hendricks co-founded ABC Supply in Beloit in 1982 with her husband and grew it into the nation’s largest distributor of roofing and building products. The company employs tens of thousands of people across the country and has invested heavily in beautifying and developing Beloit, the community that gave her a start.

The Uihleins started Uline in a basement in 1980 and built a shipping and packaging giant that now employs thousands of Wisconsinites and others nationwide. These are not trust-fund heirs living off someone else’s work. They are people who took risks, created jobs, and generated wealth the free-market way.This is more than just campaign season messaging. These attacks are in line with a worldview that treats success itself as suspect. That should worry everyone.

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To progressives, “wealthy” has become a moral indictment rather than a description of achievement. The same voices that demand we “tax the rich” treat every successful entrepreneur as a potential villain whose gains must be redistributed or regulated into submission. They talk endlessly about inequality while rarely acknowledging the jobs, innovation, and rising living standards that successful businesses create for everyone else.

At the MacIver Institute, we exist to promote free markets, individual freedom, personal responsibility, and responsible government. We believe those principles are the foundation of a prosperous Wisconsin. When people are free to start a business, keep more of what they earn, and build something of value, the whole state benefits. That is not a talking point. It is the track record of every thriving community in Wisconsin, from the small manufacturer that anchor towns and cities across the state, to the entrepreneur who turns an idea into a payroll.

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The alternative is the politics of resentment that assumes that wealth is a fixed pie that must be sliced more evenly by government, rather than a growing pie created by hard work and voluntary exchange. “Tax the rich” sounds appealing until you remember that the people who built companies like ABC Supply and Uline are the ones who hire your neighbors, invest in your town, and expand the tax base that funds schools and roads. Punishing success does not lift the poor. It shrinks the opportunities available to everyone.

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Wisconsin does not need lectures about how success is a problem. Under Governor Tony Evers, job growth has "ground to a halt." As we often point out, it's not working.

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Wisconsin needs more people who are willing to take risks, create value, and build. We should celebrate the Hendrickses and Uihleins of this state, not treat their support for a candidate who shares their belief in free markets as evidence of corruption. Tiffany’s real offense, in the eyes of his critics, is that he believes in the same principles that allow people to succeed in the first place.

If we want a better Wisconsin, we should stop villainizing success and start defending the freedom that makes it possible.

Annette Olson is the CEO of MacIver Impact.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Business owners like Hendricks and Uihleins create jobs | Opinion

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