Brian Fette - Milwaukee Minus Museums: Donors of Art

Brian Fette is now retired from a career in industrial product development for a global manufacturer where he served as Director of Strategic Planning. He first dug into history working on the archaeological excavation of a Roman fort in Wales at the age of just 17. An academic summer in Quebec, a year at the University of Leuven, Belgium and living in Moorish Spain during four years of service in the U.S. Navy sparked his insatiable curiosity about history, architecture, and European cultures.

Brian’s linguistic skills were developed as an honors graduate of the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, CA. His business travels afforded him the opportunity to become fluent in French, conversant in German, and to become familiar with many regions that were the homelands of Milwaukee’s leaders in the 19th and early 20th Centuries.

Although a native of Michigan, he moved to Milwaukee in 1987; a city that ranks 5th in the nation for its percentage of homes and buildings with a historic designation. Our city’s rich heritage became fertile grounds for his “hobby” of researching Milwaukee’s neighborhoods for Historic Milwaukee, Inc.

His research led him to become a respected Milwaukee historian and speaker for organizations such as the Osher Institute. He currently serves as Docent and Sculpture Curator for the historic Forest Home Cemetery and Arboretum. He portrays leading Milwaukee figures during re-enactments and will be leading tours at Forest Home this summer titled: The Gilded Age of the Cream City.