Kerry Koonce and Hank Manning each received Governor's Golden Dome Awards in June.

 

 

Tom Grau, Business Development Division Administrator, will be IDED's Life Sciences Advisor to focus on helping Iowa reach its potential in the life sciences industry sector. The new position will allow Tom to apply his expertise fulltime to developing life sciences ventures in Iowa. He will serve as the Department's liaison to the scientific community, Regents institutions and to agriculture, biotechnology and commodity groups. Tom will represent IDED on various boards and commissions to assist in fully developing the life sciences cluster. He will also work on identifying projects for the new Farm bill. Tom is available to consult with communities on new life sciences initiatives in your areas. Tom can be reached at 515.242.4769. 

Dan Dittemore, Strategic Initiative Manager, Value-Added Agriculture, and Mike Murwin, Marketing Manager, of the Tourism Office have chosen to take early retirement from their posts, leaving on August 15th. Their expertise will be missed in both areas, and we wish Dan and Mike the best. 

Stephen McCann, account executive with the Human Resources Recruitment Consortium is leaving July 12th to become Vice President of sales and marketing for Mirenco Corporation, Radcliffe. We will miss Steve and wish him well in this new opportunity.

Governor Tom Vilsack and Lt. Governor Sally Pederson joined the state’s Vision Iowa board recently in awarding the Des Moines Menace Foundation a $2.5 million grant. The state’s investment will assist in the creation of a new stadium for the soccer team.
Three other awards announced during the Board’s monthly meeting in Des Moines were made through the Community Attraction and Tourism Program (CAT). A component of Vision Iowa, CAT provides assistance to smaller initiatives. The board approved grants for projects in Marshall County, Waverly/Shell Rock and Scott County. For more information click on this link:  http://www.visioniowa.org. next meeting is July 10 at the Holiday Inn on Fleur Drive in Des Moines. 

 

Twenty-six sponsoring organizations and the Iowa Department of Economic Development joined together to command a major presence at BIO 2002, including three of Iowa’s research universities and corporate partners. Iowa had a 60-member delegation. These key representatives sought new customers, built strategic alliances, recruited research partners and pursued new investments at the largest international gathering of the biotechnology industry, June 9-12 in Toronto, Canada. As chair of the Governors Biotechnology Partnership, Governor Tom Vilsack spoke to more than 7,000 attendees at a plenary session and moderated a panel of agricultural biotechnology companies: Trans Ova Genetics, Hematech, and Sioux Pharm, Inc.

 

IDED's foreign office directors for Japan and Europe, along with our representatives from Mexico and China, visited Iowa the week of May 19. Each director and representative presented an update to IDED staff on the economic and political conditions in their areas and their work in those geographic regions. The directors and representatives also participated in the Global Iowa Conference in Ames on May 23, and traveled throughout the state to meet with Iowa companies and communities. The Global Iowa Conference drew 110 attendees, with the Governor's Export Awards presented to Beam Industries, Webster City; Divine Engineering, Cedar Rapids; Insul-8 Corp., Harlan; Principal Financial Group, Des Moines and Swine Genetics Intl., Cambridge.  

 

Six entrepreneurial companies hoping to attract investors made five-minute presentations to a packed house of potential investors at the Venture Network of Iowa forum May 9 at the Iowa Department of Economic Development. The forum was broadcast to 14 remote sites via the Iowa Communications Network. Keynote speaker Stephen Ringlee, who chairs the Venture Capital Committee of the Iowa Taxpayers Association, outlined the various components of the comprehensive legislative venture capital package for Iowa, signed by Governor Tom Vilsack in May. The following companies presented business plans: Visionation, West Des Moines; Soy Candle Farm, Sioux City; Interfuze, Dubuque; Aeron North America, Fairfield; Van Gorp Corporation, Pella; and Linkup, Inc., St. Louis Park, Mn.  

Planning is underway for several IDED activities at this year's Iowa State Fair, August 8-18. The Tourism Building will house booths for A Taste of Iowaź , the Tourism Office and IDED/Vision Iowa, and Main Street. One A Taste of Iowa Company will be featured each day. Main Street Communities will be highlighting their communities each day, as well. For the first time, A Taste of Iowa room will be set aside in the Varied Industries Building for member companies to sell their products. The Human Resource Recruitment Consortium will also be there, in conjunction with the Workforce Development Department's booth. 

 

Central Iowa River Partnership and the A Taste of Iowa program have been working together to develop restaurant promotion in Franklin, Wright and Hardin counties to advance tourism in these areas through their upscale restaurant facilities. Participating restaurants featuring A Taste of Iowa products would be listed in the A Taste of Iowa Directory that to be distributed at Welcome Centers across Iowa, promoting tourism, the restaurants and the Iowa food products. For more information see http:/atasteofiowa.org. 

Six Iowa food companies participated in the Fancy Food Show mission May 6 -7 at McCormick Place in Chicago: Regi’s Cranberries, Log Chain Honey, Kramer’s Caliente Salsa, Scottsmans Mill Soy Nuts, Temptations Fine Candies and Whitaker Foods. Each company has an interest in the specialty food market and met with specialty food distributors, packers and brokers. The attending companies indicated they interested in participating as exhibitors at an Iowa pavilion during the Spring 2003 Fancy Food Show. For more information see www.iowasmartidea.com/International.

 

Six applications for $130,000 total received funding from the Community Development Fund for a variety of projects, including e-commerce initiatives, growth management and land use. For more information, contact Cali Beals at 515.242.4723.

 

The City Development Board staff is working on Administrative Rules for legislation passed this year changing the steps in the annexation process and criteria for approval. The Board recently approved annexations in Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, North Liberty and Independence. For more information on the City Development Board, contact Steve McCann at 515.242.4719 or visit http://www.community.state.ia.us/growthmgmt.

 

$2.3 million was awarded in Local Housing Assistance Program (LHAP) funds to 15 recipients in FY '02. $2.3 million was also awarded through the Homeless Fund to 127 organizations across the state this past year. For more information, contact Terry Vestal at 525.242.4850.

The first official visits to new Main Street communities of Marshalltown and Mt. Pleasant have been completed. Iowa has more Great American Main Street Award winners from the National Trust for Historic Preservation than any other state:

For more information, contact Thom Guzman at 525.242.4733.

Mark Eckman, Group Tour Manager, attended POW WOW in New Orleans in late May. POW WOW is the marketplace for international tour operators. Leads from the marketplace will be sent to the tourism industry for follow up materials. For more information, contact Nancy Landess at 515.242.4702.

 

The Iowa Tourism Office has contracted with Tom Smull of Associations Inc. to assist in selling space in tourism cooperative advertising efforts. Attractions, events, communities and destinations throughout the state will be contacted to participate and place their ads under an Iowa banner. This provides a bigger impact of all the tourism opportunities in Iowa and is cost effective for all advertisers.    

This year state revenues have seen their slowest growth in 50 years, and the growth in state expenditures is the smallest in 30 years. The financial shortfall has affected nearly every area of state government. For Fiscal Year 2003, the state general fund budget for IDED has been cut by $4.1 million, or more than 24 percent. In addition, the Rebuild Iowa Infrastructure Fund (RIIF) has been cut by $1.1 million, which means the three programs will be put on hold for a year. Those programs are:

The next step is to allocate dollars to programs and finalize the Fiscal Year 2003 budget. This process involves gathering input from constituents on their priority areas, through formal requests, as well as with written responses or calls over the next couple of weeks. The final budget and summary will then be issued.

IDED has anticipated budget reductions and managed hiring by consciously eliminating or delaying filling open positions, leaving 30 positions vacant. Staff has worked to streamline all operations and be as efficient as possible. Some specific cost-saving measures implemented over the last year include:

The IDED staff remains committed to working with its partners to continue to identify and implement ways to improve the economic well being and quality of life for all Iowans.

 

 

At the invitation of the Iowa Bankers Association, many of whose members are active in community economic development groups, Susan Stearns, Marketing Manager, of Business Development demonstrated the ICON System (Iowa Communities Online Network) web site to the group's Symposium for Business Financing. It was held on May 31 at the Gateway Center in Ames. The ICON system is state-of-the-art and Iowa is one of the first states to adopt the national standards for economic development data.

Donna Lowery, Targeted Small Business Specialist, was a panelist at the symposium, discussing alternative financing, including business grantee programs, SELP (Self Employment Loan Program) loan programs and targeted small business financing. Brice Nelson, Manager, Entrepreneurial Services, was a symposium panelist discussing venture capital.

C.J. Niles, Director, participated on a panel in June in Augusta, Maine at a workshop called "The Demographic Challenge: Youth and Talent." The audience was looking to Iowa as a leader in recruiting and retaining students and workers. She noted the various speakers at the conference addressed issues similar to Iowa's -- the new economy, building and educating the workforce, technology, and public-private collaboration. 

 

Governor Tom Vilsack has announced a $130,000 loan to assist the city of Fredericksburg and its partner organizations in recruiting a new employer. Fredericksburg is recruiting the animal nutrition manufacturing of Quali Tech, Inc. of Chaska, Minnesota. The project would create 35 jobs at an average starting wage of $13.91 per hour.