Annual Meeting, Annual Report: The second week of January is always one of my favorites because it is Annual Meeting week. We hosted a packed boardroom at Distillery Labs on Tuesday, filled with board members, investors, and stakeholders. It was a great opportunity to share the successes of 2025 and to look ahead to 2026. The meeting also allowed us to share the hot-off-the-presses 2025 Annual Report. This report provides highlights of our staff’s incredible work. You can read the report here.
Top Ranking: If I’ve learned anything in the last eight years of working at GPEDC, it’s that economic development is nothing without workforce development. We place significant emphasis on workforce initiatives in Greater Peoria and across Illinois. That’s why it was nice to see Illinois named a top state for workforce development. Site Selection magazine recently ranked Illinois thirdnationally and first in the Midwest for workforce development, a testament to the state’s large, diverse, and skilled talent pool, cutting-edge training programs, and smart investments. The leading economic development publication based its rankings on a robust set of criteria that measure workforce productivity, skills, and value, utilizing data from organizations such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics, SkillsUSA, Lumina Foundation, ACT, and Strada. More here.
New Investor: The new year started off right in another way: We are excited to welcome Widmer Interiors as an investor in Greater Peoria EDC. Widmer has been designing, selling, and installing office solutions since 1964. You might think of them as a local company, but they have offices in Rockford and Bloomington and sell throughout Illinois. Thanks to Win Stoller and his team for understanding the value of a regional approach to economic development and trusting Greater Peoria EDC to help move our economy forward.
Big Table Logan County: We have scheduled our last Rural Big Table. On February 19, we will host our Logan County event from 3 – 6 pm at the Lincoln Park District offices. More details to come, but you can learn more here.
Win Together: The Heart of Illinois section of the American Society for Quality is hosting a guest speaker at Distillery Labs on Tuesday, January 20, starting at 6:00 pm, and is inviting local government officials to join. Sheila Montney of Win Together will present “Transforming Local Government: Building Systems That Drive Results.” Sheila founded Win Together in 2020 to help communities build sustainable cultures of excellence powered by people and processes. Sheila brings a wealth of experience from her 35-year career in the private sector, where she led transformational work as an executive in operations, technology, and enabling functions for State Farm’s financial services product lines. More information and registration for this free event can be found here.
Other Upcoming Events: Just a few other things to keep in mind:
- Corn Belts Update: Learn more about all that’s happening to leverage the economic power of the Illinois River in a webinar sponsored by the University of Illinois Extension on Thursday, February 12, at noon here.
- Emergency Planning: Tri-County Business Partnership for Resilience and Emergency Planning (B-PREP) invites private-sector partners to participate in its upcoming Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP) Workshop on April 6 at 1:30 pm. RSVP to confirm your attendance here.
Have a great weekend.
Chris