Joel Lederhause

Green Tree Elementary School
Silverbrook Middle School
West Bend EAST High School

Mr. Gawlik

Mrs. Scholeke

Personal computer and the internet. Made a living off of my fascination of computers and the power of the internet

my daughters, 1 attending UWM and maintaining a 3.8 GPA (way better than Dad ever did) and my 2 and 4 year old who make me proud every day.

I went to school for Auto/Diesel Technology in Chicago after high school. I returned to Wisconsin after school since I had a daughter born here while I was in Chicago. I got a job in the industry and started going back to school for firefighting and EMT at Moraine Park and got a part time job as a firefighter in West Bend.

At 24 I was hired to be a full time firefighter/EMT for the city of West Bend. I started several part time businesses to keep me busy on my off days like on site auto repair. I started getting involved in building websites in the mid 90's as a hobby and tried selling a few items online. I met my wife in 1998 ( she is class of 92 from WB West)

In 2000 I bought a few more websites and began to build them out as niche retail websites. Aimee and I were married in 2001 and by the end of 2001 we were selling quite a few items, Aimee quit her job and we moved the business out of the house and began to hire employees. My wife ran the business while I worked my 24 hour shifts at the Fire Dept. and I worked at the business on my off days.

The business continued to grow and in 2006 I left my career as a firefigter/EMT to take a full time position as the CEO of our company. We own about 300 web domains and are operating 25 different niche retail websites. We currently have 30 employees in our online sales business and also have a partnership in a manufacturing company which also employs around 25 people in West Bend which makes some items we sell on the internet. We operate out of the old Serigraph Plant 1 on Decorah Rd. right by the high school as our headquarters and have over 140,000 square feet of total space in West Bend for warehousing our goods.

We also own 2 separate commercial real estate companies which own many of the warehouses we use and also a strip mall and corporate center in West Bend. My wife now stays at home with our kids and runs the real estate businesses from our home.

It has been a wild ride but I would not change anything. We do a lot of business with companies outside the USA so I get to travel a lot. I am totally addicted to scuba diving and I used to be on the Washington County Dive Rescue Team also when I was a firefighter. Since I do not get paid to scuba dive any more I try to travel to (warm) places to scuba dive whenever possible. I also am very involved in photography and do a lot of underwater photography as well as photos for our websites and print advertising. Also enjoy motorcycling, snowmobile, ATV and just about anything with a fast motor.

My wife and I had our first child together in 2004 (Katlyn) and another in 2006 (Alexandria) and my daughter, Ashley, was born in 1990 so I have quite the age spread (built in babysitter).

I went a little nuts with the amount of photos but I have not seen you in 20 years!