Steve Laking

Secretary of the VCEDC Board

Steve recently retired from his role as Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of MetaStar, Inc. MetaStar offers a wide range of services to meet the needs of healthcare organizations and providers to improve health care. Prior to joining MetaStar, he worked at Alexian Brothers Medical Center in Elk Grove Village, Illinois.

Steve began his career with MetaStar in 1977 as a District Manager and was promoted to Director of Regional Operations in 1980. After a merger with a Milwaukee based organization in 1986, Steve was appointed as the Chief Operating Officer of the new company. Steve’s interest in business development, desire to grow the company, and diversify revenue sources, took MetaStar from a Wisconsin focused customer base to a national footprint of customers through a wide array of new product and service offerings.

A strong passion for high quality and performance excellence lead to his appointment to the Board of Directors of the Wisconsin Center for Performance Excellence, which is Wisconsin’s partner to the national Baldrige Performance Excellence Program. He served on the Board for over twenty years and was the Treasurer for many years.

Steve hopes his leadership, business development, and performance excellence experience will assist the VCEDC accomplish our Vision for the economic development for Vilas County.

Steve grew up in the Chicago area and graduated from Eastern Illinois University with a degree in Business. Steve and his wife Anita have four children and have had a home on the Eagle River chain of lakes for over 20 years, becoming full time residents of their Catfish Lake home in December of 2017.