Some GPEDC updates to end your week:
Site Selector Conferences: Lenora has been on the road! She attended back-to-back site selector conferences over the past two weeks. The Mid America Economic Development Council’s Competitiveness Conference was held in Chicago the second half of last week. A quick weekend turnaround in Peoria and she flew to Scottsdale for the Consultant Connect forum at Economix (thank you to Wabash Valley Power Alliance for the sponsorship). It was a great opportunity to network, learn best practices and reinforce GP’s name recognition with more than 250 economic development and site selection professionals.
Top 50: Speaking of Consultant Connect, Lenora was presented with her Top 50 Economic Developers in North America during the conference. This was an award announced earlier this year but the gathering of economic development professionals and site consultants allowed everyone to celebrate her and the others’ accomplishments. Of course, we know that Lenora is already the tops, but it’s great to see others recognize her talents, too.
You’re Hired: It’s not too late to register your business for the inaugural CareerSpark You’re Hired! event. You are familiar with CareerSpark, our (temporarily virtual) career expo for 8th graders throughout the region. Over 3,000 of them are currently exploring their futures via our online platform. This year we are adding an additional opportunity for high school students. You’re Hired! offers businesses an opportunity to promote their hiring needs to thousands of local high school students who will soon be entering the workforce. You’re Hired! is a digitally integrated career and hiring expo for Central Illinois high schools that provides students access to the skills and knowledge needed to excel in the workforce. Students will discover entry-level positions, apprenticeships, and summer internships. Booths in the virtual expo are customizable to fit individual brand and hiring needs. Our goal is for 3,000 to 4,000 local students to explore virtual booths between February 2 and June 5, 2022. The deadline to reserve a booth is quickly approaching — December 17. More details here. If you’re interested in being featured in this unique event, please reach out to Kari at krauh@greaterpeoriaedc.org.
Strategy Reports: We had our last GPEDC Executive Board meeting of 2021 earlier this week. You can read the staff reports discussing activities in November here. This is the great work you as investors are helping pay for.
Have a great weekend!
Chris