If you were to chat with Beth Weirick and Shawna Nicols, you’d think they were two BFFs.
They banter. They tease each other. They complete each other’s sentences. They hug. And they share a joint fitness program, awarding themselves points for working out and doing a biweekly weigh-in. “It’s a way to hold ourselves accountable,” they say.
Yes, Weirick and Nicols are best friends forever. They are also mother and daughter.
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Each woman is accomplished in her own sphere. Weirick, a 60-year-old native Milwaukeean described by colleagues as a “major power broker,” is CEO of Milwaukee Downtown, BID 21 (Business Improvement District).
Downtown’s foremost business group, BID 21 engages in high-level work such as policy guidance, lobbying, advocacy, and placemaking and public art. (It was a co-leader in the comprehensive process that resulted in the Connecting MKE plan, which will shape the next two decades of development, policies and programs Downtown.) It provides crucial services such as landscaping and graffiti removal to help ensure that Downtown’s 150 square blocks are a clean, safe and friendly destination for visitors, residents and businesses. And it puts on many special events and public space activities, such as Downtown Dining Week, Downtown Employee Appreciation Week and the annual Milwaukee Holiday Lights Festival.
“Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been intrigued with our city, especially Downtown, when my parents would drive us six kids there in our wood-paneled station wagon,” Weirick recalls. “I’m blessed that my pathway led me to the work I’m doing in my community.”
Nicols, 40, a former high school and college basketball star, is now widely known as DJ Shawna. She is the official DJ and producer for the Milwaukee Bucks; she worked the turntables for the “bubble” NBA Playoffs in 2020, the NCAA Women’s Final Four in 2022 in Minneapolis, and the 2020 Ryder Cup.
In addition, she has been the opening act for a diverse array of popular artists at Summerfest and other venues, from Lizzo to Ani DiFranco to Jonas Blue. Shaq (aka DJ Diesel) invited her to hang out onstage during his entire set at Summerfest in 2021. She’s in TV commercials. This August, DJ Shawna was the headliner for the first-ever Hoanchella, a fundraising campaign to light the east side of the Hoan Bridge.
“I’ve always loved basketball, and I’ve always loved music,” Nicols says. “My job is a gift – it combines both.”
NEITHER WEIRICK NOR NICOLS had a blueprint for the career path she followed – and both paths wound through male-dominated worlds: politics and business (Weirick) and sports and entertainment (Nicols).
The former Beth Janik, of Slovak descent, grew up on Milwaukee’s West Side, the third child in a family of six in a blue-collar home with a strong work ethic. Her father was an auto mechanic and her mother worked at a JCPenney warehouse. The family was heavily involved in the now-closed Holy Cross Parish – arranging Sunday breakfast fundraisers, gathering clothing for the poor, decorating the church. Her paternal grandparents lived across the street, at 63rd Street and Bluemound Road, and the Janik household was often filled with aunts, uncles, cousins and neighbors.
“We grew up in a fun house,” Weirick recalls. “My parents made everyone feel welcome, and we always had enough for dinner, no matter how many people were there.” Neighborhood children were drawn to the Janiks’ above-ground pool and ever-present sheet pans of brownies. “We didn’t have a lot of money,” she continues, “but we had what we needed.” The family shopped at Treasure Island, a local discount store. They used George Webb coupons, $5 for 5 burgers; cheese was $1 extra. “Sometimes we couldn’t afford the cheese.”
Weirick cites her paternal grandmother, Lillian, as a huge influence. “She was my rock, the epitome of a good, Christian person. She never said anything bad about anybody,” Weirick recalls. “She lived her life in such a way that I wanted to model mine after hers.”
Weirick and Nicols’ mother-daughter bond formed early. In 1983, after her first semester at UW-Eau Claire, Weirick found herself pregnant with Shawna and dropped out of school. She and Shawna’s father, Vince Nicols, moved into a tiny duplex. “I was determined to create a home where I would be proud to raise my daughter,” Weirick recalls. The young couple lived near Grandma Lillian, who babysat while Nicols worked as a UPS driver and Weirick held down three jobs: at a dry cleaner, a gas station and an Irish restaurant. They struggled to pay their bills.
Four years later, son Justin was born. The couple married in 1989; Shawna was the flower girl. (Today, Justin is a successful businessman – founder and CEO of Sift Healthcare, a Milwaukee-based data and analytics company that helps health care and billing companies optimize reimbursement.)
During this time, Weirick says she held to her faith even though some in the family’s parish were critical of her. “I didn’t believe I was a bad person; I was a young person who got pregnant.” Her parish agreed: despite some pushback, they allowed her to teach CCD religious education to young people. (Today, Weirick says she is not a practicing Catholic but a woman of faith.)
Weirick’s work ethic was noticed. In 1984, her local alderman, Greg Gorak, invited her to apply for an opening as his legislative assistant. Weirick, all of 21 years old, demurred, not feeling confident. “He said, ‘I’ve seen you at your jobs. I need someone who understands people and has good communication skills. You’re the best person for the job.’” So she took a bus – she had no car or even a driver’s license – to City Hall for the interview and got the job.
That opportunity led to an almost 40-year career in the public, private and nonprofit sectors, including as executive director of the Westown Association BID 5 before her current role Downtown.
“Beth is often pulled in 5,000 directions at once, but she handles it seamlessly,” says Jennifer Burkel, who met Weirick in City Hall in the late 1980s when Burkel was the public information officer for the Common Council. “I’ve never seen anybody multitask like she does.”
Adds Rachel Farina, an account manager at Water Street Creative, a marketing and communications agency in the Third Ward: “Whatever Beth puts her mind to, she invests herself in it wholeheartedly. People feel her sincerity and enthusiasm, and they rally behind her to support the cause at hand.”
“Seeing my mom’s incredible work ethic had a big impact on my sister and me,” Justin says. “And she made our childhood pretty normal, given how hard she was working.” He laughingly describes it as “child labor” when his mom dragged him and Shawna to business meetings or community events because she didn’t have a babysitter.
Early on, though, Weirick had to deal with the city’s patriarchal business culture. She recalls, “There were times I thought I needed to bring a fake penis to a meeting just to be heard.” As a young professional woman, she was often the only woman in the room. “I was not fully part of the conversation,” she recalls. “I often thought, How can I make myself bigger? How can I have a presence that represents the person that I am?”
Unforgettable
Beth Weirick is known for her strong first impressions.
Cecilia Gilbert, a retired city Department of Public Works employee, remembers what Weirick was wearing on Gilbert’s first day at work in 1983: a sweater top with 3/4-length sleeves, slim skirt that fell right below her knees, large belt, fishnet stockings and high heels with a bow on the back. Gilbert recalls, “Beth had a big ol’ smile on her face and said, ‘Welcome to City Hall. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help.’ I thought, This is going to be a great job!”
Rachel Farina met Weirick in 2003, when Farina was a Marquette student and ad agency intern. Her agency was filming a video for the annual meeting of the Downtown BID; its theme was “Rock Star.” Weirick was dressed like an ’80s rocker: teased hair, vivid red lipstick, black leather jacket. “She was engrossed in making the video,” Farina says. “Yet she took the time to talk to me, a lowly intern, about my interests and goals.”
SHAWNA NICOLS HAS ALSO FELT MARGINALIZED, but for different reasons. She says she was “born gay,” but as a young person, she struggled within the confines of Catholicism. In the seventh grade in her Catholic school, students were assigned a project on marriage: pair up (boy plus girl, of course), pretend to be married, carry around a bag of flour that symbolized your child. Nicols raised her hand: “What if I don’t want to get married?” The teacher frowned, insisting that marriage between a man and a woman was the only path. “Even though I wasn’t knowingly attracted to women at that point, that message didn’t sound right to me,” Nicols recalls.
Her early years, though, were idyllic, walking around the family’s West Side neighborhood at 45th and Vliet, dribbling a basketball with one hand and in the other holding a boombox bopping Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”
Nicols contends she came out of the womb holding a basketball; she was a standout player at Pius XI High School, then at UW-Madison, and even played on a pro team in the Netherlands for two years.
“I could tell right away that she was a gifted athlete,” says her former Pius coach, Joel Claassen. “She approached the game in a cognitive way. Plus, she always put herself second, and led by example.” She was a sophomore captain, for example, a position usually reserved for seniors.
Despite that leadership – and despite there being other lesbians on her team – she was derisively called “dyke” by some teammates, which she says was heartbreaking. Although some lesbians embrace the term, Nicols says, “it hurts when the word is weaponized.”
Fortunately, she felt safe at home, receiving nothing but unconditional love and acceptance from her parents and brother, which gave her the courage to come out to her family. On a ride home from Madison after her freshman year, Nicols told her mom she was in love with a woman. Weirick responded, “I’m not surprised. I was just waiting for you to tell me that you’re gay.” She soon came out to her brother and father as well.
As for her Catholic upbringing, Nicols says, “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but it was difficult feeling that I’m a bad person because I’m gay. I believe something bigger exists. I’ve created a church in my own way: I meditate, work out, practice stoicism.”
When she “aged out” of professional basketball, Nicols reinvented herself, first as an entertainer (DJ and producer), then as a motivational speaker, podcaster (an interview series called “Dare to Be”), designer of a clothing line (also Dare to Be) and children’s book author (The Adventures of Bob and Downtown Milwaukee). “I’m on a mission to spread love and positivity,” she says.
The Beat Is Always Upbeat
SHAWNA NICOLS’ mission to spread love and positivity is never more apparent than when she holds a microphone. One of her biggest fans is Dr. David Margolis, pediatric oncologist at Children’s Wisconsin and also a huge Bucks fan. “DJ Shawna has a talent for being able to read the room and translate that into music that energizes an audience,” he says. “If the Bucks are down, she chooses music to get the crowd re-engaged. If the Bucks are winning, she can play a really loud tune to get everyone even more amped up.” Shawna was MC and DJ at Margolis’ daughter’s wedding in July 2022 where, he says, she handled the speaker introductions with aplomb, keeping the talking to a minimum and the entertainment to a maximum.
Adds family friend Cecilia Gilbert: “Shawna plays different kinds of music for different crowds – R&B, rock, pop, rap, hip hop – but it’s always upbeat. Everyone loves it, no matter your race, color or creed.”
IN THE LATE 1990s, the divorced Beth Nicols met and eventually fell in love with Joe Weirick, a local real estate developer with three almost-adult children. Their courtship wasn’t exactly whirlwind: it took them five years to marry. Shawna stood up in that wedding, too. The two families melded beautifully.
“As soon as my sisters and I met Beth, we all loved her,” says David Weirick, Joe’s son. “And both of her kids are great.” Adds his sister, Mary Ann Popalisky, “It’s so clear how Beth’s welcoming attitude for everyone in Milwaukee has carried over to Shawna.”
“Joe was the love of my life,” Weirick says. “We had something special that not many people get to experience in their lives.” The couple shared work interests, loved traveling together and embraced each other’s children.
But five years into their marriage, in 2017, Joe developed salivary duct carcinoma, an aggressive form of cancer. He died five months later. Weirick says she was in a “very dark hole,” from heavy grief and loss. Only recently, she says, has the pain lessened. “I never imagined I could find joy and happiness again.”
Weirick says she has been wonderfully bolstered by friends and family, foremost among them Justin and his wife, Nora, and their toddler daughter, Devin Elizabeth.
Weirick and her ex-husband, Vince Nicols, who’s now in residential real estate, are on good terms. “Given that we were so young, we did the absolute best we could raising our children,” Weirick says. “Every Father’s Day, I thank him. I say, ‘You gave me the best gift that I ever could have asked for: our children.’”
WEIRICK AND NICOLS ARE BOTH TALL but otherwise don’t bear as much resemblance as many mother-daughter pairs. On her workdays, the blond Weirick can be found wearing crisply tailored suits or stylish dresses, pearls, fashionable scarves and high heels. On her workdays, the brunette Nicols appears in T-shirts, joggers, sneakers and a backward-facing baseball cap. Both of her arms are covered with tattoos: a sleeve of lilies on her left arm to honor her great-grandmother, Lillian, and “Love you Joe” on her right arm for her late stepfather.
Despite their disparate appearances, Weirick and Nicols share many attributes. Both are passionate about what they believe in, especially Milwaukee. Jeff Sherman, a marketing consultant who has known the family since the early 1990s, says, “Cities don’t grow themselves. They grow because good people like Beth and Shawna bring people together to make magic happen for this community. They are natural connectors, constantly promoting and protecting what they love.”
Another shared attribute: “They both treat every person like they’re the only one in the room,” says Burkel. “What you see is what you get. They walk the walk, talk the talk.”
Most of all, what the two women share is a deep love and respect for one another. “Because I was so young when I had Shawna, we’ve grown up together,” Weirick says. “I still see myself in a parental role, but now it’s not one way. We all give each other advice.”
Shawna says, “Of course we have conflicts! We all have strong opinions. But we work through them.” She adds, “My family’s opinion matters a lot because we spend a lot of time together. If one of us decides to move, we’d all have to move. We have each other’s backs.”
Frequent contributor Carolyn Kott Washburne profiled Reuben Harpole in the March 2022 issue.
