The five fastest-growing companies of the 2026 Future 50, the fastest-growing privately owned businesses in southeastern Wisconsin, were identified at the annual Future 50 event on Friday.
This year’s “Fastest Five” are:
- J.H. Hassinger, a Menomonee Falls-based construction company
- Ixonia Bank, an Ixonia-based bank
- Epic Mortgage, a Brookfield-based mortgage lender
- Global Schoolwear, an Oak Creek-based school uniform company
- Evans Transportation Services, a Delafield-based logistics business
As part of the Future 50 event, leaders from the Fastest Five companies participated in a panel discussion, providing the audience with insights about what is driving their growth. Below are some highlights from the conversation.
How do you decide at this point what is the next right thing to do for a company that is growing as fast as yours is?
Jeff Hassinger, president and CEO of J.H. Hassinger: “I’ve had at least three discussions this week about either opening an office in a different state or going after different work. How I manage it, I have no idea. You take an opportunity and you don’t say ‘no.’ We’ve started divisions on a whim because the opportunity was there. As a leader, you’re never going to have all of the information that you need to make a decision. You have to be comfortable being uncomfortable. You have to just have enough information and a gut feeling and then you have to do it. We’re doing high risk work with low competition, because some people are scared to do it, and I’m not. You as an owner have to be OK taking risk and ‘knowing’ that you’re going to succeed, but if you fail you just get back up and take another risk.”
Shawn Schnabl, CEO and co-founder of Epic Mortgage: “Sometimes you have to take those chances. I always say, ‘No risk it, no biscuit.’”
Adam Weil, CEO of Global Schoolwear: “I’m interested in being great at what we do. In a lot of ways we need to corral too much opportunity and too much running in different directions. When we’re better then I thought we could be is when we start to expand out into the next thing.”
Jon Mariano, CFO of Evans Transportation: “You’re never going to have an idea if you don’t listen. Whether it’s listening to your employees, your customers or just the market in general, being a phenomenal listener and understanding what’s going on is the starting point of where to go. Once you listen, then you allocate time or treasure towards something and you manage it. Do it in a thoughtful manner. Fail fast and fail small, you go after things relatively quickly, but then you pivot. Every mistake, every trip that we fall on the ground and have a mistake, or do things right, we learn from it.”
What sets your company apart?
Credit: Andrew WeilandGreg Larson, CEO of Ixonia Bank: “We’re a billion in assets, which sounds like a lot, and it gives us scale to serve our clients, but in the world of banking our competitors are 50 times our size, 500 times our size. So, when you live in the land of giants you need to niche yourself and you have to play to your strengths.” While larger banks have to focus on serving large companies, Larson said, “For us, we focus on those smaller businesses, owner-managed companies. There isn’t another bank like us, and we customize for them.”
Mariano: “The vision and the willingness to lean into the stuff you don’t know. It comes down to we talk to our customers, and we get to know our customers to make sure we understand what they are going through on a day-to-day basis. And if we understand what they’re going through we see what we’re able to do on our side and we try to figure out solutions.”
Schnabl: “We kind of want to do things different. We didn’t want to be the old crusty bankers. We wanted to disrupt the market and we wanted to create a FOMO, and do mortgages differently. Mortgage is fun if you make it fun.”
Weil: “Intention is more important than being right. Because we’re going to make a lot of mistakes. Everybody is empowered to make a decision…especially if the intention is good. We’re not looking to make the same mistake over and over again, but we’re going to learn from them.”
The importance of having excellent employees:
Credit: Andrew WeilandWeil: “It’s one thing to have an idea, it’s another thing to have a team that can execute and is motivated to do it…We have an amazing team of people that are really dedicated to trying to do everything we can to grow and are willing to make mistakes in order to do it.”
Hassinger: “You have to lead with humility and you have to be OK not being the one that’s right. Every decision we make has to be what’s best for the company, not me…I’ve hired people from outside of the organization and promoted people from within the organization, so you get this melting pot of ideas. Stupid ideas, brilliant ideas, but you come up with the best ideas and you don’t care who said it.”
Credit: Maredithe Meyer
