Bauer first floated the idea of a new license plate slogan in an April 2016 column titled “Wisconsin Needs an Image Makeover” for his organization’s quarterly magazine, “Wisconsin Business Voices.”

The column, which also mulled changing the state flag, said Wisconsin’s pastoral image and its “Cheesehead” residents may boost the state’s agricultural and tourist industries, and that “we are clearly proud of our agricultural past.”

But Bauer wrote that the image also may hamper efforts to recruit workers in other industries. That’s especially true, he wrote, for businesses seeking to recruit millennials — many of whom, he wrote, prefer to work and live in urban settings and in places they view as welcoming and tolerant.

“Our agrarian image may give them pause,” Bauer wrote. “Wisconsin needs to craft an image that accurately reflects and promotes our high quality of life and economic diversity.”

A Walker spokesman said in a statement Monday that the office has not received any contacts about changing the license plate slogan.