Donald Baumgartner, the River Hills businessman and philanthropist whose mix of blue-collar manufacturing grit and big-ticket arts giving helped reshape Milwaukee’s cultural footprint, died July 11 at his home. He was 95. Over a career that stretched back to the early 1950s, Baumgartner ran the family manufacturing firm that makes the machines behind many paperboard cups and containers and became a major backer of the Milwaukee Art Museum and Milwaukee Ballet. He is survived by his wife, Donna, their children and multiple grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
From Shipyard Dreams To Cup-Making Powerhouse
Baumgartner’s manufacturing story kicked off in the postwar era. The business that became Paper Machinery Corporation dates to 1951 and grew into a global builder of forming and overwrap machines for paperboard cups and containers. According to Paper Machinery Corporation, the firm designs high-speed forming equipment used by customers around the world.
In 2016, Baumgartner and his family announced an employee stock ownership plan that turned the company over to its workers and, company materials state, put millions of dollars into longtime employees’ retirement accounts, per Paper Machinery Corporation.
A Trustee Behind The Calatrava “Wings”
Baumgartner was also a longtime trustee and past president of the Milwaukee Art Museum, and he chaired the museum’s building committee during construction of Santiago Calatrava’s Quadracci Pavilion, the 2001 addition best known for its movable Burke Brise Soleil “wings.” The museum credits Donald and Donna Baumgartner with both leadership on that project and a later multiyear endowment gift that created a named director position. A museum release notes that the couple’s support helped anchor the museum’s capital and endowment efforts, according to Milwaukee Art Museum.
Backing The Ballet’s New Home
Donald and Donna Baumgartner were lead donors for the Milwaukee Ballet’s Baumgartner Center for Dance in the Third Ward, contributing a transformational gift that underwrote the company’s new downtown headquarters and rehearsal complex. The two-story, roughly 52,000-square-foot facility includes multiple studios and a 200-seat black-box performance space and opened as the ballet’s new home in 2019. The ballet’s materials list the couple among the lead donors and identify the building as the Baumgartner Center for Dance, per Milwaukee Ballet.
Service Plans And Survivors
A celebration of life is scheduled for Sept. 8 at the Milwaukee Art Museum, local reporting says. Baumgartner is survived by his wife, Donna, children Sally Jarrar Baumgartner, John Preston Baumgartner and Elizabeth Keller Fitzsimmons, and a large extended family of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, according to Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
What His Legacy Looks Like In Milwaukee
For many in Milwaukee, Baumgartner’s dual legacy will be visible in both brick and balance sheets: a downtown arts campus that includes the Calatrava pavilion and a new ballet headquarters, and an ownership decision that pushed wealth into the accounts of longtime factory workers. Local coverage and organizational records show Paper Machinery remains rooted in Milwaukee even as the company continues to serve global clients, a sign of the local footprint Baumgartner insisted on preserving, according to Urban Milwaukee.
