Maritime Rescue Network

Milwaukee businessman and philanthropist Sheldon Lubar was in a meeting with Milwaukee County officials earlier this year when parks officials started to talk about a five-year plan to bring people back to Bradford Beach.

They mentioned the need to find a new funding source for lifeguards.

"I said, 'Well, how have you been financing them?' " Lubar recalled. "And they said, 'Well, for the past five years we haven't had any.' "

Lubar, who grew up swimming in Lake Michigan, was so surprised that he made an on-the-spot decision to pay the $65,000 it will take to keep the lifeguards in the short red shorts stationed in the big white chairs this summer.

"The beaches are just one of the great assets that we have," he said. "And that we didn't have lifeguards to provide supervision and safety was really somewhat shameful."

The daily lifeguard shifts don't officially start until this coming Saturday, but the crew was out in force Saturday for pre-season training in their oar boats. So were a couple of hundred beach-goers in the hours before the storms, though few braved the mid-50s water temperature.

Read the rest of this story by Dan Egan at JS Online  

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