There are few surer signs of summer in Milwaukee than the sound of drawbridge bells dinging along the city’s three rivers and the sight of boats on Lake Michigan.
If you’re taking a stroll on the Milwaukee RiverWalk or anywhere near the lake, you’ll likely see all kinds of watercraft — from a single-person kayak to a 150-person cruiser. And if you’re looking toward the water, there’s a good chance you’ll see a large commercial pontoon boat with a distinctive, colorful canvas roof.
Those boats — decked in red, blue, yellow, green or orange — are owned and operated by Michael Kraus. For nearly three decades, Riverwalk Boat Tours & Rentals has chartered party pontoons and rented thousands of smaller vessels to self-proclaimed captains — with the help of hundreds of Marquette students and alumni, including Michael’s own wife and son.
Open waters for a boat business
Milwaukee’s waterways weren’t always bustling with recreation like they are today. Water pollution and poor access kept residents and visitors on the city streets. There were plenty of breweries and restaurants along the city’s rivers, but not many ways for the public to access them by boat.
“No one was really renting paddle boats or pontoon boats on the river, and there was really no affordable option for smaller vessels,” Kraus says. “It was either Edelweiss or the Iroquois, and both of those are pretty big vessels and fairly expensive to take out.”
Kraus was managing a martini bar on Old World Third Street (now N. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive) in the late ’90s when his boss came to him with the idea to break into the market and start a boat company.
They named the company after the downtown RiverWalk — then in its infancy — and in 1998 launched with four paddleboats and one 10-person pontoon from Pere Marquette Park, just two blocks from the bar on Old World Third.
It was around that time that Kraus met his now-wife Jennifer, Dent Hy ’98, who was a Marquette student at the time looking for a summer job at the bar Michael was managing.
“I swear that he was motivated to work this company so he could marry me and provide for us as a family,” Jennifer says.
Anchored by Marquette students
Connor Kraus, the oldest of Michael and Jennifer’s three children, is a junior in the College of Business Administration, double majoring in accounting and finance. Surprisingly, Connor didn’t spend his entire upbringing on the docks; his first summer working there was leading into his freshman year at Marquette.
But, after years of hearing his dad take phone calls and manage clients, Connor quickly learned the ins and outs of the business and was promoted to dock manager.
“Being an accounting brain, he sweats the details, and that’s what I need down here,” Michael says.
Yet Michael doesn’t only rely on his son’s acumen. Each year, he hires 15 to 20 college students to work as dockhands and deckhands. Of those, it’s typical most are enrolled at Marquette.
“Marquette students all seem to be cut from a similar cloth,” Michael explains. “They’re well spoken, they’re well educated, they’re driven and they want to work in their community. That’s all good stuff for an owner who wants strong, honest people on the docks.”
For employees like Kendyl Cunningham, Bus Ad ’25, it’s an opportunity to build relationships with coworkers and fellow students.
“This job mostly has helped me with social skills, especially with customer service and conflict resolution,” Cunningham says. “And you’re working with people your age, so it’s taught me a lot about how to work with my peers and how to defer leadership. We all have a great connection on the dock and outside of work.”
There’s also the opportunity to talk and network with business professionals, including many from the Fortune 1000 companies in Milwaukee that frequent Riverwalk Boat Tours for outings.
“There’s something to be said about being in the city here and being able to work outside in the middle of downtown,” Connor says. “I actually have a stack of business cards in my room,” he adds, including a few from PwC, where he’ll be interning next summer.
Full steam ahead
Michael has expanded his fleet from those few small vessels in 1998 to now more than 20 self-captained pontoons and five large 22- and 49-passenger captained commercial vessels.
Although boating seasons runs from late April to early October, Michael is managing the business almost year-round. When the winter weather starts to subside in early spring, Marquette students can expect to see Michael and Connor in the Alumni Memorial Union recruiting next year’s dockhands.
