Milwaukee real estate developer and philanthropist Joseph Zilber plans to announce another significant gift to "rebuild" his hometown on Monday.
Zilber, the 90-year-old founder and chairman of Zilber Ltd. and Towne Realty Inc., will make "a major announcement regarding the future of the City of Milwaukee," according to a statement released today by Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett's office.
Zilber's announcement will take place in the rotunda of the Milwaukee City Hall on the ground floor at 10:30 a.m.
Last August, Zilber announced he would donate $50 million to organizations in the Milwaukee area in an effort to revitalize the community. He said he would give $30 million to the Marquette University Law School and later announced a $10 million gift to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to create a School of Public Health, a $3 million gift to the Milwaukee Jewish Federation and a $1.5 million gift to the United Way of Greater Milwaukee.
"We are not the city we were," Zilber said when he announced those donations. "It is time for us to rebuild Milwaukee. In the time I have left, with all the energy and resources that I possess, I will do what I can."
Zilber accepted the Milwaukee Press Club Headliner Award at the annual Gridiron Dinner April 26, when again discussed the need to "rebuild" his hometown, which is beset by problems in its educational system and crime.

S.C. Johnson & Son Inc. today is alerting the general public about consumer scams involving fraudulent bank checks.
On May 1, the company alerted the public to a scam that involves a letter to consumers notifying them that they have won a consumer reward prize, with a fake check attached. The letterhead is from "CONSUMER REWARD PROGRAM, MBT Financial Services, P.O. Box 9004, Buffalo, New York, 14201." The fraudulent checks are issued under the Johnson Bank name and include a fake signature of S.C. Johnson's corporate treasurer.
The company said today it is now aware of another version of the letter that includes a fraudulent check issued under the S.C. Johnson name, with the same fake signature. The letterhead is from "Domino Financial Trust Inc, P.O. Box 914, Greensboro, VT, 19355-008."
In both instances, the letter states that the consumer has won significantly more (up to 10 times more) than the face amount of the fraudulent check and asks the consumer to provide the writer of the letter with the consumer's banking information.
"SC Johnson is in no way affiliated with this activity, and we do not have a Consumer Rewards program. Consumers who receive this scam should not provide their bank account information. If you believe you have been fraudulently requested to provide your personal bank account information, you should contact your local police department," the company said.

Robert Saco will become the next president of the American Society for Quality (ASQ), an international organization that is based in Milwaukee.
Saco will succeed Michael Nichols, who will assume the role of chairman on July 1.
Saco is the owner and principal of Aporia Advisors Inc., based in Coral Gables, Fla. His areas of expertise consist of strategic planning, customer satisfaction measurement, operational process improvement and reengineering, performance assessments, Six Sigma implementation, organizational design, and business transformation initiatives.
The ASQ has been a leading world authority on quality for more than 60 years. With more than 90,000 individual and organizational members, the professional association advances learning, quality improvement and knowledge exchange to improve business results, and to create better workplaces and communities worldwide.
"ASQ is becoming a global organization to better serve our members and to help promote sound quality practices around the world," said Saco. "I look forward to the day when ASQ transitions from an American society with international members to a truly global society with a home and inspiration in America. By reaching out and helping others across the globe we can take ASQ to a higher level of excellence. We are honor-bound to improve things. It's in our nature. And when someone asks what we do … I believe we should justifiably say that we're making the world a better place to live in."
The other new officers of ASQ are: president-elect Peter Andres; treasurer E. David Spong; newly elected board members Darlene Deane, Alexis Goncalves, Marc Kelemen, Art Trepanier; and reelected board members Belinda Chavez, Lou Anne Lathrop, Aimee Siegler and Steve Wilson.

Milwaukee will honor its "Fair Trade City" status on Saturday with the Milwaukee Fair Trade Crawl.
The event, organized by the Milwaukee Fair Trade Coalition, encourages residents to shop with fair trade stores and organizations across town. The crawl will begin at 10 a.m. at participating locations and will culminate in a 2 p.m. "World's Largest Coffee Break."
"Retailers across Bay View, Riverwest and parts of the east and west sides of town are participating in the Fair Trade Coffee Break by offering specials, tastings and more. This is a really visual and easy way for residents to be connected to and support a global movement," said Milwaukee Alderman Tony Zielinski, a member of the Wisconsin Fair Trade Coalition.
Other local event sponsors include the Milwaukee Area Labor Council and Milwaukee County Transit, which is offering free bus passes on a first-come, first-served basis at the Bay View Outpost store, starting at 10 a.m. on Saturday.

A California biotech company that had expressed frustration over Wisconsin's stem-cell patents has signed a licensing agreement for stem-cell technologies with the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF). Invitrogen Corp. of Carlsbad, Calif., is one of the largest of 25 companies that have signed 30 licensing agreements for stem cells with WARF. Read more in SBT's daily roundup of headlines from newspapers across the state at www.biztimes.com/#news.

A merger of Google and Yahoo! would be bad for Wisconsin businesses, because it would combine the two largest Internet search engines and form a monopoly, according to Milwaukee Alderman Tony Zielinski, author of today's Milwaukee Biz Blog.

Busy readers of the BizTimes Daily can get a jumpstart on the weekend ahead by reading the OnMilwaukee.com Weekend Preview. OnMilwaukee.com is a media partner of Small Business Times.

The BizTimes Stock Index recovered .84 points to close at 161.70 Thursday, but the stock market sank this morning on the news that crude oil prices soared past the $126 per barrel mark and showed no signs of slowing down. The Dow Jones Industrials Average sustained a triple-digit fall. The largest local decliners this morning were Snap-on Inc. (down $1.33 to $58.38) and Strattec Security Corp. (down $1.19 to $36.55). The largest local advancers this morning were Badger Meter Inc. (up $1.32 to $51.17) and Koss Corp. (up 98 cents to $16.49). The BizTimes Stock Index was created by Small Business Times and is monitored by North Shore Bank. The index, which measures the stock values of publicly held companies based in southeastern Wisconsin, is updated daily and can be viewed at www.biztimes.com.