First and goal

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F ew things are more tied to Wisconsins culture than football. From the Frozen Tundra of Lambeau Field and the swaying bleachers at Camp Randall in Madison to the high schools, colleges, parks and backyards where the game is played all across the state, football is a part of life here in the Badger State.

But now the sport stands at a crossroads. The profound effects of concussions and traumatic brain injuries have many questioning the future and the viability of Americas most popular sport.

Enter the Head Health Initiative, a four-year, $60 million collaboration between the National Football League and General Electric. The initiative aims to increase the accuracy and speed of traumatic brain injury diagnosis, accelerate concussion research, develop a new game plan for treatment and ultimately, improve the safety for athletes.

Perhaps its fitting then, given the states immense football culture, that the Head Health Initiative will be based in Wisconsin.

GE Healthcares global headquarters for Magnetic Resonance (MR) in Waukesha will be the primary development site for the partnership with the NFL. There, plans to produce a state-of-the- art MR brain scanner will be put into action.

Here in Waukesha, we focus on the high-tech and the top-of-the-line products, the premium products, which is exactly this, said Richard Hausmann, president and chief executive officer of GE MR. I would guess that when its fully under steam that there will be around 150 top-notch engineers, enthusiasts and technicians working on it. This is a significant project for us.

The size of the project also will create jobs at the MR headquarters, where 600 people are currently employed.

The team that we will add and we are going to hire people to help expand and do this faster will be based here, said Mark Phillips, GE Healthcare chief marketing officer.

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First and goal