Back in 1969, UMOS had a singular purpose of providing services to migrant workers and their families. It was born out of Lydson B. Johnson’s War on Poverty and received funding through the Office of Economic Opportunity.

“I was very intrigued by the organization because of the nature of the work that they did with farm workers. And when they posted the position that I applied for, they were asking for someone who spoke Spanish and English. They wanted someone bilingual. They wanted someone preferably who had knowledge about farm work. Basically Martinez would do field work providing services in rural Wisconsin.

“I was asked by Jesus Salas, Salvador Sanchez and Ernesto Chacon if I could stay a little bit longer. And I said, ‘I really want to move on to what I think I am destined to do.’ And they said, ‘Well, this organization could really use your services. What can we do for you? What would you like?’ Salvador took me into the CEO’s office, which was Jesus Salas’ at the time. They both had a conversation with me about why I wanted to go and I really should stay. He said, ‘Tell me what position? Why would you want to leave now?’ I said, ‘Well, when I first started working here, the first thing you did when I showed up on the first day, you shipped me off to Door County. After that, you moved me to Waushara County. Then I came back and then I was going to be going out again. I’m a young guy who is single. I don’t want to be driving all over the place. I want to stay in one location.’ They said, ‘Okay, we can do that. Now what position would you like to have within the organization?’ And I turned to Jesus Salas and said, ‘Your position.’ He said, ‘That’s really nice, but the position is filled right now. But I would encourage you to work towards that goal.’ I told him that I was going to develop a five-year plan to get into that position assuming he would be gone and no one else would be in there. I made it a point of learning everything about the organization in terms of the policies, bylaws, corporate papers and everything that was on written paper. I became very acquainted and very familiar with UMOS. Within five years, during that five-year period, Jesus Salas stepped away from UMOS. Salvador Sanchez took over and he submitted his resignation. And then I succeeded him in five years.”

Martinez led UMOS from being a single purpose agency into one that had a wider array of services that would meet the needs of the migrant community and also served a broader range of people needing service.

“While I was working at UMOS at the Milwaukee center, I was able to bring in a couple of other grants from MATC and the state for financial literacy and GED, ESL, driver’s ed and things like that,” Martinez said. “There were a few other grants that I was able to bring in to the Milwaukee area. But the main funding source was OEO. With Salvador stepping down, the funding was being transferred from OEO to the Dept. of Labor. That’s when he said, ‘This is not for me. All of this advocacy work and involvement is going to go out the window. They are going to be expecting UMOS to be run like a business.’ OEO was dismantled. The farm worker programs were transferred to the Dept. of Labor and that is where we are.”

In 1997, UMOS experienced tremendous growth when Governor Tommy Thompson decided to end welfare as we knew it and established the W2 program.

“They did away with the AFDC program, which was the ‘welfare’ program and substituted it with what we have right now, which is the W2 Program,” Martinez said. “It’s called the Tanif Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. In Wisconsin, for short, they call it W2. When that opportunity became available, they put it out for bid. A number of organizations, primarily for-profit organizations, applied. But in Milwaukee, organizations like UMOS, the YWCA, Goodwill Industries and OIC applied for the funds and got them as well. We had several operators. Over the years, it became more and more difficult to manage the program because it is very, very complicated with lots of moving parts. Some of the agencies that started back in 1997 were no longer doing the program. It was primarily being managed by the for-profits. UMOS was the only non-profit left standing in Milwaukee.”

W2 was a risky program to operate for it incorporated private-sector principles into a non-profit service model. Instead of the cost reimbursement system in which the contractor basically got paid regardless of its performance, it was a performance-based system in which the payments from W2 were based on how well the contractor met its goal. While a profit could be earned, money — big money — could be lost as well.

It was not an easy decision to make. The UMOS board was meeting in Green Bay when the decision to compete for the funds were made.

“The board asked, ‘What are the risks,’” Martinez recalled. “I said, ‘Well, if we apply for this grant, it will increase our funding by 113 percent. We’re going to go straight up. The agency is going to have a huge increase in its budget and we are going to have to hire a lot of staff. Once the staff is hired, we’re going to have to manage this program with a very tight leash because it is going to be performance-based contracting.’ The board members asked, ‘What does that mean?’ I said, ‘It means that we will have to operate with our own money to pay for all of the staff, rent and associated expenses probably for 2-3 months until we start getting money from the state.’ Their questions was, ‘How do we get the money from the state?’ ‘You have to perform. If you perform and let’s say you don’t meet 100 percent of the goal — you meet 50 percent of the goal — and all this money is spent, you only get haldf of it back through reimbursement. For every dollar you spend — and if you meet 100 percent — you get a dollar back. But if you perform for less than the goal, the state will reimburse you less. That means we could potentially run into a deficit. And if we run a deficit too long, we will go bankrupt as an agency.’ The board asked what my recommendation was. I said, ‘I consulted with my management staff and they all agreed that we should submit.’ And so we moved forward.”

During the start up phase of the program and as the staff learned how to operate the program, UMOS was operating in the red. Before they knw it, they were down about $3.5 million, no small  chunk of change for a non-profit. The board met again to decide what to do.

“They asked what I would recommend,” Martinez said. “I said, ‘We need to make sure that we stay the course, meet the goals and objectives and make sure that we recover those $3 million.’ It was the kind of contract where we could make a little money. This was April. By September, we turned the program around where we were operating in the green instead of the red. We recovered $3.5 million and actually made a couple of million dollar profit. It wasn’t for the weak of heart running that program.”

During his tenure, Martinez grew UMOS horizontally and vertically, expanding the kinds of services they provided and providing those services in more places than just Wisconsin. As the saying goes, if you build a better mousetrap, people will beat a path to your door.

Next issue: Growth, growth and more growth