BROOKFIELD, Wis. — A longtime family-run educational facility set to merge with Ebenezer Childcare this year.
Education at an early age helps create a foundation for the future. One family-run nonprofit has been helping kids and families achieve that for over 60 years.
For over 30 years, Dave Linsmeier has been serving the greater Milwaukee area as a part of the early childhood centers his family started decades ago.
Now, he’s turning the page and starting a new chapter as he heads into retirement.
Education wasn’t always something Linsmeier knew he wanted to do as a career, but it was something he was always around.
His parents started the Mary Linsmeier schools. What started as a small school in their home, has expanded to multiple locations throughout Wisconsin.
They launched their first early childhood education center in 1964. The family business was something Dave got into 36 years ago as the executive director.
“We do so much important work for families and kids that it’s been very rewarding in that aspect,” Linsmeier said.
Linsmeier will retire this year. He said it’s been bittersweet to reflect on his time in education and said he wouldn’t trade it for the world.
“It’s been very rewarding for me, not an easy business,” he said. “Margins are very small but it’s just so good to work with the staff that we have and the families and the kids,”
The long-standing nonprofit will merge with Ebenezer Childcare. They will keep all their staff and locations but change names as they head into the future.
This means although Linsmeier will retire, his family’s legacy of providing resources to kids and families will continue with the help of people like Beverly Anderson.
Anderson is the executive director of Ebenezer Childcare.
“This is an opportunity with us coming together that we will now have seven sites that can provide quality child care to families, provide employment to a lot of staff,” Anderson said.
As his retirement nears, Linsmeier said he reflects on the memories and impact made over the past three decades.
“You get so much reward out of your job and what you do, so it’s going to be a change,” he said.
Linsmeier said he is looking forward to spending time with his own family and grandkids in retirement.
