Bay Port grad hopes to inspire youth to strive for their dreams through nonprofit DreamMaps

When growing up, Dan Williquette’s dad, the late Myron Williquette, inspired him with the words, “Anything the mind can conceive, the body can achieve.”

Those are words that have stayed with him through career successes and numerous business startups. A graduate of Bay Port High School and Milwaukee Area Technical College, Williquette had a creative bent that was obvious from an early age.

He also exhibited a propensity for selling, and it all began with a flyer the family received in the mail.

“I got a brochure, and it said that I could earn a skateboard or bike or camera by selling Christmas cards," Williquette said. "I wanted to earn that camera, so as a teenager, I recall going door to door selling Christmas cards in August.”

Things weren’t going well and he was almost ready to quit when his twin brother urged him on by saying, “I never saw you quit at anything.” That encouragement led to his first sales success; he earned that camera and fell in love with photography.

His love for creativity didn’t end there. As a sophomore in high school, he began to write and kept a journal. In that journal, he recorded his dreams and set goals.

“When my guidance counselor asked me what I was excited about in life, I said it was writing in my journals every week and taking pictures to help capture my stories,” Williquette said. “The counselor recommended that I pursue photography at MATC.”

That degree led to his first business. Although he had been told there was no money in photography, he thought the naysayers were wrong.

“I said that there was money in it; you just needed to know how to market it,” he said.

He began to do weddings, and in a short number of years, was doing up to 100 weddings a year and had a crew of 10. The business, Willow Photography, operated for about 20 years. During that time, Williquette also focused on marketing. He created restaurant marketing campaigns and began to sell a variety of products.

“I realized that the marketing network had a lot of room for improvement. As I started looking at everything in the industry, I determined there were holes in the way it was done and that there was a way I could fill those holes. Instead of being the one to promote my products, my concept was to have it be an invitation offered by a professional,” Williquette said.

That led to a format that he continues to use today. The term he uses, “Lunch and Learns,” refers to inviting potential product sellers to a meal where a professional takes over to discuss the benefits of a product. And, while he continues to do those programs with a number of the products he represents, Williquette has spent the last few years on a new endeavor.

That product, FUNDecks, found online at fundecks.org, is a collaboration between him and his business partner, Tim Blank of Green Bay. It is unique because it is sold not only by adults, but also incorporates a younger sales force with the promise that they can earn money for school events and/or personal income.

A FUNDeck is a deck of 52 full color cards with each card featuring a business offering a special that can be used once a quarter. The decks are marketed and sold directly to the public in several ways: as a fundraiser, at participating outlets, online, or by supporting the DreamMaps program.

The DreamMaps program is designed to help young people learn to be successful in reaching their goals.

The website, dreammaps.club, explains, “DreamMaps is a nonprofit organization that teaches members how to dream big, set goals and take action through its dream board workshop, time management and goal-setting classes. Members may also qualify to earn money through our FUNDecks fundraiser, our concessions program, and our earn as you learn program.”

Williquette said he has a passion for sharing what he has learned with the members of the DreamMaps Club and wants to be an inspiration. Part of going in this direction was the result of a request he got from his son, Saege. When Saege was a senior at West High School, he told his dad that his class was trying to earn enough money to visit Google in California.

“He explained that he already told his teacher and asked me if all his classmates could use my deck of cards as a marketing product to sell and earn their way to California instead of selling over-priced popcorn,” Williquette said.

The caveat was that Williquette would teach the group the basics of selling door to door, and in 2016, he successfully coached the class. That led to a second deck of cards in 2017, and with the exception of a difficult period during the pandemic, the business has continued to grow.

Williquette and Blank now have a multiple focus.

“At this point in my career, I realized that educating people on the many advantages of being in a home-based business combined with my DreamMaps goal-setting program was a real short cut to re-creating the American dream,” he said.

As Blank focuses on administration, design work, and the needed forms for students and business owners, Williquette is the visionary. His goal is to expand from the three high schools currently involved in the program to all of Brown County. In the process, he wants to sell thousands of decks, each customized to the area where it is sold.

In working toward that goal, he is being advised by Paul Carron and Gary Stanczyk, volunteer mentors with Fox Cities SCORE. (Green Bay and the Fox Cities are now a combined chapter.)

He said, “I am working with SCORE on creating a business plan. I am also looking for advice in hiring an intern to help with social media and methods of securing additional funding to catapult the idea instead of grass-rooting every step of the way.”

Long term, his goals reach beyond Brown County to going city by city throughout the country. Wherever there are businesses who are looking for a unique way to promote and groups and students interested in selling, Williquette wants to provide the opportunity. Experience tells him that there is a market for FUNDecks.

He said, “I have traveled a lot all over the country as a guest speaker. A person in Georgia caught my story and heard me say that I had three kids going into college. When I told him how the kids earned money for school by selling FUNDecks, he wanted me to do something similar in Nashville. That made me realize just how duplicatable this program can be.”

Tina Dettman-Bielefeldt is co-owner of DB Commercial Real Estate in Green Bay and past district director for SCORE, Wisconsin.

This article originally appeared on Appleton Post-Crescent: FUNDecks, DreamMaps set their young clients up for success