Congrats to Steve Wurster, one of our 2018 Emerging Leaders of Waukesha County!

Get to know him a little bit.

Name:  Steve Wurster

Title/Company:  Chief Operating Officer at Ruekert & Mielke, Inc.

Hometown:  Hartland, WI

Favorite part of your job:  Helping the people I interact with grow in their careers, ultimately making southeastern Wisconsin a better place to live, work and play.

If you could tell someone why it’s important to be involved in the community in one sentence, what would you say?  Change starts with one person — when you look at your community, visualize the things that could be done to improve it, then go out and make it so.

Favorite thing about living/working in Waukesha County/southeast Wisconsin:  Southeastern Wisconsin is an incredible mix of urban, suburban and rural, all within a 30-minute drive of every part of Waukesha County. There aren’t many other places in this nation where you can pick up eggs for breakfast at the farm up the road, spend the day at the beach of one of the County’s many lakes and go to a world class dinner downtown that night.

Favorite movie or book:

• Book = “Drive” by Daniel Pink
• Movie = “Up” – it’s such a great story of life, wrapped into a 90-minute animated movie.

Favorite food:  Does a whiskey old fashioned qualify as a food?

Something unique about you:  I’ve seen my favorite band, the Dave Matthews Band, 38 times in concert.

One thing you couldn’t live without:  Family/friends.

What was your first job?  Washing dishes and cleaning tables at the Golden Anchor on Pewaukee Lake.

If you could do another job for just one day:  My professional answer is to be a teacher, to better understand what we (society) can do to improve the educational process.  My fun answer is an Uber driver in Las Vegas to listen to an endless list of crazy stories.

Three best words to describe you:  Encouraging, hardworking, caring

In your opinion, what makes a great leader?  The ability to mentor, inspire and laugh while leading with passion, purpose, humility, integrity and gratitude.

What drives you to succeed?  I’m a big believer in the idea of continuous learning and knowing that we can all do a little better tomorrow than we did today.  That approach, combined with a competitive side, drives me on a daily basis.

What is the most pressing issue facing our area and why?  The educational disparity of our region is incredibly concerning, both today and into the future.  We’re making strides to improve this, but to make southeastern Wisconsin successful for the long term, we must continue to make sure that children have access to world class primary and secondary schooling, regardless of where they live or the economic standing of their family.

What is your favorite saying or word?  If you ask my kids, it’s “perhaps” (which means no 99.9% of the time in their world).

Register for our 2018 Emerging Leaders of Waukesha County awards program here.