Winding the core
1935
The mill in De Pere
Cloud Family Foundation, Inc.
Brown County, Wisconsin · Since 1982

A place to learn. A place to heal. A place to belong.

The Cloud Family Foundation invests in the people and places of Brown County, and from time to time in the communities beyond it. We fund the schools, hospitals, treatment centers, shelters and community spaces that help our neighbors learn, heal and belong.

Rooted in U.S. Paper Mills. Grown into the Cloud Family Foundation.
Unwind the story Request a grant
A paperboard core, the product U.S. Paper Mills made for 66 years.
One wound ply for every year, 1935 to 2026. Scroll to unwind it.
Scroll
1982
Founded as the U.S. Paper Mills Foundation
$2.7M+
In completed grants since 2014
30+
Schools, hospitals, shelters and community groups supported
4
Generations of the Cloud family, from the mill floor to the board
Storm clouds and evening sun over the Fox River at De Pere, with the riverwalk and a paper mill on the far bank
The Fox River at De Pere, where the story began.Paper has been made on this river for more than a century. Ours started here in 1935.
1935 to today, one ply per year

It started with a rundown mill on the Fox River.

Keep scrolling. The core unwinds a year at a time, and the story keeps pace with it.

  • 1935

    A mill rebuilt from ruins

    U.S. Paper Mills Corp. begins as a one-machine mill in De Pere, built on the site of a burned-down mill with equipment gathered from other Fox River Valley mills.

  • 1937

    The Clouds arrive

    Walter R. Cloud Sr. becomes resident manager. Pay is 22 cents an hour and the mill makes 13,000 to 14,000 pounds a day. It soon finds its niche: corestock, the board inside every roll of tissue and towel.

  • 1940

    Staying home to be his father's legs

    Walter Jr. leaves an engineering degree at Madison when his father falls ill, to learn the trade from “one of the old masters.” A choice he never regretted.

  • 1945

    Home from the war

    After 27 months with the Eighth Air Force in England, Walter Jr. comes home as mill superintendent. The union organizes the mill, which then runs for decades without a single work stoppage.

  • 1957

    Building a core machine from scratch

    With no one on staff who had ever made a core, the company builds a core machine in its own shop and learns by trial and error. It becomes the Oncore Division.

  • 1971

    The employees buy the company

    Walter Jr. and a group of employees buy U.S. Paper Mills and keep its name. Walter cashes in all of his life insurance, reasoning the business would be his insurance.

  • 1982

    The U.S. Paper Mills Foundation

    Walter Jr. forms the Foundation to support education and scholarships. He counted it among his proudest civic successes.

  • 1983

    Menasha

    The company buys the former John Strange Paper Company mill in Menasha, adding about 90 employees. A mill that had lost money for seven years is in the black within about three months.

  • 1988

    A new generation leads

    Walter Jr. retires after 51 years. Bob Cloud becomes Chairman of the Board, working with President Thomas L. Olson.

  • 1990

    Growing the House of Service

    A second paper machine at Menasha and Ideal Paper Tubes & Cores in Minnesota. By the mid-1990s, two mills and two converting plants make more than 500 tons a day.

  • 2001

    The company is sold

    Sonoco acquires U.S. Paper Mills. The Foundation carries on.

  • 2006

    The Cloud Family Foundation

    Renamed the Walter R. Cloud Foundation in 2004, then the Cloud Family Foundation in 2006.

  • 2026

    A renewed charter

    The board adopts restated bylaws and a new mission and vision: three equal pillars, learn, heal and belong, with Brown County first.

Four generations

From the mill floor to the board.

The Foundation's money and its habits both came from U.S. Paper Mills in De Pere. A family that learned to build something from very little, and to look after the people who built it with them.

Great-grandfather

Walter R. Cloud Sr.

Arrived in 1937 to manage a mill that ran only now and then. Improved it with almost no capital, using the mill's own shop and mechanics. 59 years in the paper business.

Grandfather

Walter R. Cloud Jr.

Rode his bike to the mill after school at 16. Bought the company with his employees in 1971 and founded the Foundation in 1982.

Father

Robert J. “Bob” Cloud

Succeeded his father as Chairman of the Board in 1988 and carried the Foundation forward after the company was sold.

Today

The Cloud family

Led by President Walter “Wally” Cloud with a family board, giving to Brown County every year.

Water pouring over the De Pere dam on the Fox River, with the city skyline beyond
De Pere. The dam on the Fox River. U.S. Paper Mills made corestock in De Pere on this river from 1935 on.
Aerial photograph of Menasha and the Fox River channel, a paper manufacturing center on Lake Winnebago
Menasha. A paper town on Lake Winnebago, photographed from the air in the 1970s. U.S. Paper Mills bought its mill here in 1983.
1937: 22¢ an hour
$10+ an hour
Base pay by the mid-1990s, with up to seven weeks of vacation, a 401(k) and full hospital insurance.
1937: 7 tons a day
500+ tons
Daily output across two recycled paperboard mills.
First year owned: $2.7 million
$70M+
Annual sales under employee and family ownership.
Early years: 28 to 36 people
230+ jobs
With no work stoppage in decades.
Figures from Walter R. Cloud Jr.'s own company history, mid-1990s.De Pere · Menasha · Oncore · Ideal Paper Tubes & Cores
Fifty-one years at one companyRotarian from 1942Citizen of the Year, 1971Honorary Doctor of Music, 1981Founder, 1982 Fifty-one years at one companyRotarian from 1942Citizen of the Year, 1971Honorary Doctor of Music, 1981Founder, 1982
Founder · Born 1920, Chicago

Walter R. Cloud Jr.

Fifty-one years at one company, from a 16-year-old working after school to the owner who shared it with his employees. He led by being present: showing up at any hour, so people knew the business was being looked after.

He added a nursing service and an employee assistance program that no contract required. “We fire,” he said, “but only fire as the last resort.” He married Leona “Lee” Jacobsen in 1941, and the St. Norbert College citation said his devotion to Lee and their children remained his first concern in life.

“I am not primarily interested in a sale … we are primarily interested in a customer.”

On running U.S. Paper Mills, about 1987

The Foundation “helps fill a need in the community and also a need in our personal lives.”

On founding the Foundation, 1989

“We cannot forget that while we make a product we still function as a service organization.”

Letter to employees, September 4, 1996
Community

Rotarian from 1942

President of De Pere Rotary and the De Pere Chamber of Commerce. Chamber Citizen of the Year, 1971. Paul Harris Fellow. Rotary “Roses for the Living” Award, 1988.

Industry

A paper man's paper man

Chairman of the Northwestern Division of the Paper Industry Management Association and the first recipient of its Ray H. Cross Community Service Award, 1987.

Education

St. Norbert College

Silver Knight Award, 1974. Honorary Doctor of Music, May 17, 1981. Founders Club board at the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay.

“A man that hath music in himself.”

An original member of the De Pere City Band and director of the Trinity Lutheran Church choir, he played Tevye in St. Norbert College's Fiddler on the Roof in 1971, a performance the review called magnificent, and the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz in 1975.

Mission and vision

A Brown County where every neighbor has a place.

We fund the schools, hospitals, treatment centers, shelters and community spaces that help our neighbors learn, heal and belong.

Main Hall at St. Norbert College in De Pere
PILLAR ONE
Learn
A place to learn.

Schools, colleges, scholarships, classrooms and the buildings they need. Where Walter Jr. began in 1982, and still the largest share of our giving.

Notre Dame Academy · St. Norbert College · UW–Green Bay · Bellin College · NWTC · Syble Hopp
Bellin Hospital in Green Bay
PILLAR TWO
Heal
A place to heal.

Hospitals, clinics, addiction treatment and care in crisis. Help that meets people at the hardest moments, with dignity.

Jackie Nitschke Center · Bellin Health · HSHS St. Vincent · Ascension Wisconsin · Golden House · Exceptional Equestrians
A sandhill crane on the boardwalk at the Bay Beach Wildlife Sanctuary in Green Bay
PILLAR THREE
Belong
A place to belong.

Shelters, housing, parks, fields and gathering places. The spaces that make a county feel like home.

NEW Community Shelter · Veterans 1st of NEW · Aspiro · Voyager Park · Miracle League · De Pere Christian Outreach
01

Brown County first

Home comes first, and we help beyond it when the family chooses.

02

Build what lasts

Buildings, classrooms and campaigns that serve for decades.

03

Show up every year

Scholarships and gifts that partners can count on.

04

Dignity at the hardest moments

Recovery, shelter and care in crisis.

05

Family stewardship

One family, generation to generation, keeping the promise.

Where the giving goes

About $3.7 million in giving, fiscal 2014 to 2029.

Paid grants and the commitments already made through fiscal 2029, grouped the way the board thinks about them. Education leads, as it has since the beginning.

Show up every year

Some gifts never skip a year.

Every fall the Foundation renews its scholarships at four local colleges, and it has helped De Pere Christian Outreach put a holiday meal on the table since 1998.

The University of Wisconsin–Green Bay campus in autumn
University of Wisconsin–Green Bay, a scholarship partner every year since 2015.
  • De Pere Christian Outreach
    Thanksgiving and holiday food pantry
    Since 1998
  • St. Norbert College
    Cloud Family Foundation scholarship
    Since 2015
  • University of Wisconsin–Green Bay
    Scholarship fund
    Since 2015
  • Bellin College
    Cloud Family Foundation, Inc. scholarship
    Since 2015
  • Northeast Wisconsin Technical College
    Cloud Family Foundation scholarship
    Since 2015
Our partners

The work belongs to them. We are proud to stand behind it.

A selection of the organizations the Foundation has supported, from classrooms and hospital rooms to a veterans' home and a ballfield built for kids of every ability.

Leadership

Family and friends, keeping the promise.

The Foundation is governed by a board of directors that meets twice a year. Grant decisions are made together, with the family's history as the guide.

  • Walter “Wally” CloudPresident
  • Sam CloudVice President
  • Theo CloudSecond Vice President
  • Kelly FerryDirector
  • Tom LemorandeDirector
  • Tom OlsonDirector
  • Eric WimbergerDirector
How giving works
JuneBoard meeting: new requests reviewed OctoberBoard meeting: new requests reviewed Late AugustGrant letters go out SeptemberScholarships and pledge payments made

Requests are measured against the three pillars. A Brown County request that fits learn, heal or belong is within the mission. Projects outside Brown County are considered when they fit a pillar and the family chooses to support them.

Get in touch

Doing good work in Brown County? We would like to hear about it.

To request a grant, send a short letter by email or by mail. Tell us about your organization, the project, what it will cost and how it helps our neighbors learn, heal or belong.

The board reviews requests at its June and October meetings, so a request received a few weeks before a meeting is considered there.

Grant requests by mail
Cloud Family Foundation, Inc.
15 Red Clover Lane
Wrightstown, WI 54180
Grant requests by email
cloudfamilyfoundation@gmail.com
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