For those who watch the “The Simpsons” you may remember the episode “Marge vs the Monorail” from its fourth season where the town of Springfield makes an impulse purchase of a faulty monorail from a con man.

Although no money was invested here, it appears Fennimore may have had its own “monorail seller” last year and early this year in the form of Jeff Greene, Wisconsin Battery Company “CEO”.

After numerous interviews, promises, non-returned e-mails, phone calls, and meetings that never happened it appears safe to say Greene’s proposed battery plants here in Fennimore and Portage were in fact, “a faulty monorail.”

The Telegraph Herald reported that Grant County Economic Development Corp. Executive Director Ron Brisbois stated, “They’ve (Wisconsin Battery Company) fallen completely off the radar. I’ve heard nothing from them in 2025.”

The Telegraph Herald also reported that Fennimore Mayor Ryan Boebel said he has not heard from CEO Jeff Greene or other representatives of the company in several months, which Boebel had stated many times to the Times when asked.

The company’s website, winbat.co, is also down, and Greene’s LinkedIn profile lists his tenure as Wisconsin Battery Company’s CEO as having ended in June 2025.

The city of Portage also has given up on a Wisconsin Battery Company facility after Greene stopped communicating.

Greene’s original plans from June 2024 in which he came to Fennimore with a news crew and greeted a small gathering to announce his company’s intention to lease the former Family Dollar building, and possibly expand into the then-empty World of Variety building. 

At that time, Greene stated he hoped to have things “dialed in” that July, but then things went quiet.

Fast forward to January of this year, and in an interview with Greene to the Times, after grants to start up their plants in Fennimore and Portage fell through, he stated his company’s “pivot” to instead purchase the former Energizer building through private investments.

Greene “hoped” to start a lease-purchase agreement with the former Energizer building’s new owners in February for the site of the new plan, and informed the Times we’d hear from him then with a “big announcement.”

That announcement never happened and the World of Variety building is now Krantz Hardware, owned by Rob Krantz, the former Family Dollar building was listed as sold last week, and Energizer building is still available for purchase or lease.