• Charles L. Evans, President, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
• Matt Erskine, Deputy Assistant Secretary, U.S. Economic Development Administration
• William Tompson, Urban Development Program Head, Regional Development Policy Division, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development | View Slide Deck (PDF); and
• Nicholas Pinchuk, Chairman & CEO, Snap-on Inc., who spoke on “The Midwest Manufacturing Renaissance: The Importance and the Way.”

Interspersed with the keynotes were presentations by the Alliance Working Teams in the four key areas, promoting collaborative regional economic strategies.

A full transcript of the Summit will be posted on the Alliance website upon completion. 

The Alliance Green Growth Working Team focused on the water cluster and the potential to grow the water sector in our region beyond its traditional, long-recognized base of leadership in southeast Wisconsin. The Great Lakes represent the largest freshwater resource on earth, accounting for one-fifth of our planet’s freshwater supply. The combined Great Lakes shoreline is longer than the East Coast or the West Coast of the United States. With leadership from the Milwaukee-based Water Council and the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee School of Freshwater Sciences, water technology companies were identified in Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana and invited to participate in a Regional Water Summit hosted by the Green Growth Working Team and the Loyola University Institute for Environmental Sustainability at Loyola’s Water Tower Campus in Chicago in November. The Water Summit served as the beginning of a new Tri-State conversation about the water sector. View Slide Deck (PDF) | Read about the Water Summit in the December 2014 Monthly Update

Presenters included:

• James F. Stern, Executive Vice President, General Counsel, & Secretary, A.O. Smith—Moderator
• Heather Ennis, NWI Forum President & CEO
• Dr. David Garman, Founding Dean—School of Freshwater Sciences, University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee; and
• Dr. Sammis White, Interim Dean and Director of Workforce Development—School of Continuing Education, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee.

The Alliance Human Capital Working Team embraced a best practice identified in Illinois and worked with partners in Wisconsin and Indiana to replicate it. This effort focused on reaching existing business, those that are considering locating in the region, as well as site selectors to inform them about the quality of our region's workforce, as well as about the innovative matching tools that are available to them from area workforce and employment agencies. The Working Team created a short video to explain to target audiences the popular hiring events that are now being implemented throughout the region. These events differ from job fairs in that job seekers are pre-screened and meetings with employers are scheduled in advance. The objective of the hiring events is to secure an employer-job seeker match as soon as possible. View Slide Deck (PDF) | View Video (YouTube) | Read Email Announcement

Presenters included:

• Dr. Carmel Ruffolo, Director—Corporate Engagement and Regional Development and Director—Wisconsin Center for Commercialization Resources, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and University of Wisconsin-Parkside, and Alliance Wisconsin Operational Chair—Moderator
• Deborah Davidson, Vice President—Workforce & Economic Development Division, Gateway Technical College
• Dr. Rena Cotsones, Associate Vice President for Engagement and Innovation Partnerships, Northern Illinois University (NIU); and
• Linda Woloshansky, President & CEO, Center of Workforce Innovations.

The Alliance Innovation Working Team addressed the Tri-State Region’s role as a maker of things. The Working Team sought to provide start-up and established companies with access to innovation resources throughout the region in order to sharpen the regional focus on developing, making, and marketing new products and services that meet customers’ needs. Building upon existing, web-based innovation resource locators in all three states from the Illinois Innovation Network, Indiana's Innovation in America's Regions, and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, the Alliance’s Innovation team with Purdue’s support, created an online portal, FastProduct.Net, of resources for start-up and established companies bringing together asset information from across the entire Tri-State Region. The portal is currently in beta, but has the potential to significantly enhance the ability of our region’s innovators to network and find key resources across state lines. View Slide Deck (PDF) | Browse FastProduct.net

Presenters included:

• Don Babcock, Director of Economic Development, Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO)—Moderator
• Tim Syth, Executive Director, BucketWorks; and
• Dr. Robert Wolcott, Co-Founder and Executive Director, Kellogg Innovation Network.

With leadership from planning agencies, the private sector, and universities in all three states, the Alliance Transportation & Logistics Working Team focused on the Milwaukee-Chicago-Gary corridor as the nation’s premier transportation and logistics hub and a major continent-wide player in air travel, air cargo, railways, and trucking. Thanks to outstanding technical expertise from the Purdue Center for Regional Development, the Working Team created a first-ever comprehensive GIS map and analysis tool of tri-state transportation assets as an aid for regional planning efforts. Based on the Center’s innovative and nationally noted Regional Decision Maker platform, the new map and tool will help close the gaps in our regional transportation system by allowing decision makers in Northeast Illinois, Northwest Indiana, and Southeast Wisconsin to coordinate federal funding requests across state lines. Creating the tool required close collaboration on the part of leaders and staff from the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission, the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, the Purdue Center for Innovation through Visualization and Simulation, and the Purdue Center for Regional Development. View Slide Deck (PDF) | View Video (YouTube)

Presenters included:

• Hon. Gerald Bennett, Mayor, City of Palos Hills, Illinois
• Hon. John Dickert, Mayor, City of Racine, Wisconsin
• Jim Ford, Project Executive, Clayco
• Christopher Hiebert, Chief Transportation Engineer, Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission (SEWRPC)
  
• Ty Warner, Executive Director, Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission (NIRPC); and
• Dr. Chenn Zhou, Interim Associate Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Studies, Director—Purdue Center for Innovation through Visualization and Simulation, and Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University Calumet.

• Greg Hummel, Partner, Bryan Cave—Moderator
  
• Dr. Caralynn Nowinski, Executive Director, UI Labs; and
• Dr. Larry Schook, Vice President for Research, University of Illinois.

Closing comments were provided by Alliance President & CEO, Kelly O'Brien, which focused on the fact that this region is the third-largest contributor to our nation's GDP, and that collaborative efforts such as the successes showcased by the Working Teams drive economic growth. She thanked the numerous sponsors, speakers, and stakeholders for making 2014 such a productive and successful year.

• Tri-state summit endeavors to erase state lines (Times of Northwest Indiana, Dec. 19, 2014)
• Interstate collaboration brings benefits (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Dec. 20, 2014)
• Broad industry support helped Chicago land Goose Island initiative | Photo gallery (Chicago Tribune, Dec. 22, 2014)
• Collaboration key to growing tri-state economy (Times of Northwest Indiana, Dec. 26, 2014)