Polaski just a regular – and remarkable – guy [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]

Sept. 30--From C student and lathe helper to wealthy insurance whiz, restaurateur and equestrian entrepreneur -- nice career arc.

Forty-odd years ago, Mike Polaski was running a tavern at 22nd and Forest Home.

Today he owns several restaurants, a couple of subdivisions, an 80-employee insurance company , scores of show-jumping horses, a handful of thoroughbreds, a white-fence farm in Oak Creek, another horse farm in South Florida, 400 head of cattle, some fancy Hungarian pigs and a thousand acres of crop and hunting land near New London.

As a kid growing up on the south side, he was constantly spearheading newspaper drives, carwashes and other moneymaking ventures. That pretty much never stopped. The carwashes just turned into insurance, real estate and horses.

"When he says he's gonna do something, he does it," said Margie Goldstein-Engle, who has ridden Polaski's horses in the Olympics, the Pan-American Games and to many championships. "He's a go-getter for sure."

So these days Polaski rubs shoulders with Ryan Braun and Aaron Rodgers; has a long-standing business relationship with Engle, one of the most successful American show-jumpers ever; and sells horses to the likes of Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum.

The sheik happens to be prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, the official ruler of Dubai, and a total horse nut. Worth an estimated $18 billion, he regularly flies in his personal 747 to Lexington, Ky., where last year Polaski sold him a thoroughbred bay colt whose bloodline includes the great Secretariat and fellow Derby winners Alysheba and Northern Dancer.

"A very unassuming man," Polaski said of the sheik. ". . . Just like a regular guy."

Sort of like Polaski.

Talent for numbers

Polaski is a 65-year-old, gravel-voiced, jeans-wearing multimillionaire who drops his g's and hasn't missed a deer or duck opener in his hunting life.

His most recent venture is the SURG Restaurant Group (Carnevor, 8-twelve, Graffito . . . ) which he owns with front-of-the-house man Omar Shaikh. But that's only the latest installment in an unusual but little-noticed business career.

School never held much interest for Polaski, but he discovered as early as age 4 or 5 that he had a knack for numbers. To keep him from squirming on family car trips, his mother would give him problems in arithmetic and, later, algebra.

"Math was easy for me," he said, "but things like literature, whew boy, I just couldn't hardly read that stuff."

After graduating from high school (fittingly, from Pulaski) he made a few halfhearted stabs at more education ("didn't like school"), did some roofing ("pretty heavy labor"), worked in factories (hated it) and opened the bar, which he dubbed Polsa's -- after his nickname.

"Learned a lot of things there -- like you can't spend more money than you make," he said.

A self-described "lost trooper" at the time, Polaski became an insurance salesman, aided by an older brother already in the field.

Within five years, he had his own shop, writing insurance that assumed the risk of maintenance on X-ray machines, typewriters and other equipment at hospitals.

He and his employees became data hounds, collecting details on machinery breakdowns by manufacturer, model number, the parts that failed and the repair costs.

Polaski built his business -- Specialty Underwriters -- on those countless bits of information, eventually amassing profiles on more than 300,000 models of various machines used by hospitals, banks, universities and government.

Armed with the hard data, Specialty Underwriters could zero in on expected repair costs for any given machine and offer policies that saved customers money while yielding nice profits.

"They have provided us tremendous cost savings," said Michael Durica, procurement specialist at the <org>University of Pittsburgh, which has used Specialty Underwriters for the last six years. ". . . We are a big supporter of their program."

Success led to horses

Polaski's company grew to about 330 employees, and was so successful that in the mid '90s General Electric and an insurance company bought large pieces of the business. Together, they paid more than $80 million, Polaski said.

"So that was good for me," he said. "I got some cash out of it."

A little cash doesn't hurt in the well-heeled world of horse breeding and trading.

Polaski started riding as a hunter, just to follow his pointers on horseback. One thing gave rise to another. He bought a horse, sold it, got a couple of others, bought a farm to keep them and, then, began showing them at equestrian events.

"But I'm not getting success," Polaski said. "So I said, basically, after maybe four, five years, 'I'm gonna do this right and do something or continue just to be half-baked and have nothing.' "

That led him to Wellington, Fla., a key hub on the equestrian circuit, and to Engle. Already among the top show-jumping riders in the country, she and Polaski hit it off.

"He's the type of person everybody enjoys being around," Engle said. "He likes to have a good time. . . . He's a very good people person."

Their long partnership -- unusual for show-jumping, according to Engle -- has benefited both.

She's gone on to win American Grand Prix Association Rider of the Year honors an unequaled 10 times. He has seen his horses earn many victories in the U.S. and abroad.

"Without people like him, people like myself wouldn't be able to go to the Olympics and Pan Am games," Engle said.

Profitable partnership

About six years ago, Polaski teamed up with Shaikh, a former sharp-dressing nightclub doorman who by then had graduated to restaurant ownership.

Polaski bought in, eventually bought out another partner and now, with Shaikh, owns and helps run five restaurants here, another in Florida, two Milwaukee cocktail spots and the Bradford Beach concession stand.

They have plans for more, particularly for building on the Braun-Rodgers concept that's been a hit in Brookfield since it opened this summer.

"Oh yeah," Polaski said. "8-twelve Madison, 8-twelve Fox Valley, and maybe Wisconsin Dells."

Meanwhile, Polaski continues to study the fine points of livestock management, raising beef and pork (the latter from fleecy, exotic Mangalitsa pigs) for the SURG restaurants.

He keeps a hand in the insurance business, too. Plus he's involved in church-based charity efforts in Africa and Eastern Europe, and he financed construction of a children's hospital that recently opened in Kenya. Some people never stop pedaling.

That mind-set, in fact, may help explain the bond with Engle, who also rose from modest circumstances. While other young equestrians rode easy on family money, she earned her way mucking stalls.

Asked about their similar backgrounds, Engle said she hadn't thought about that as something bringing her and Polaski together, but that it may have helped.

"We both started with basically nothing and built it into something," she said.

They don't give letter grades for that.

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