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One of the most important projects for Central Illinois has just received funding. The Multi-Modal transportation center will receive and additional $22 million dollars from the Federal Tiger Grant process. This is on top of the $1.8 billion being dedicated for high speed rail for the rail line to be served by this new station. This puts Normal-Bloomington in the center of the high speed rail universe. With a new train station, parking, places for regional buses, and shuttles to the airport, this new hub will provide a lot of traffic for Uptown Normal.

These type of project makes it easy for the EDC to attract new businesses and new residences to the community. With high quality buildings like this we can help keep younger generations here as well. They and other business people can easily get back and forth between Bloomington-Normal and Chicago.

Congratulations to the Town of Normal and thanks to the Feds who helped direct our tax dollars back to our community.

Check out the renderings of the building here.

In 1956, President Eisenhower fresh from the battlefield of World War II and the nation’s security on his mind signed the  National Interstate and Defense Highways Act. This investment was designed to give Americans a road similar to the type that he witnessed in Germany during World War II (the Autobahn) and was a lobbied for very hard by the major automakers. The initial cost estimate for the system was $25 billion over 12 years. The final tally was $114 billion and taking 35 years to complete. This was a huge investment by the federal government and no one can argue the value of the interstate system in not only providing a place for commerce to move goods and services, but for the millions who use it every day to get to work or take a family vacation.  Based upon the original plan, it was widely recognized that upon the completion of the Glen Canyon (CO) portion of the system the highway was completed in 1992. Of course many parts of it are under continuous construction and under constant repair.

A new President has awarded three states over $8 billion in improving and implementing a high-speed rail system. And as the President Obama’s Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood  indicated in his visit to Bloomington Normal last Friday, this investment, if it continues,  will be the current administration transportation legacy. Why can’t we have high speed rail, and move people efficiently and safely throughout the United States asked Secretary LaHood?

Their have been many books written in the genre of revisionist history. Examples usually revolve around, “what if the South had won the Civil War” or “the Axis powers won World War II”. Well what if President Eisenhower had signed the “National Interstate  and Defense Rail Act of 1956″. What would rail look like today? Would we have an airline industry? Would we have spent billions upon billions of dollars on runways, air traffic control towers, FAA employees, and the like? Would we have spent $114 billion dollars on highways a the same time? What would have the auto industry looked like?

Perhaps in 2008 and 2009 we would have been bailing out General Rail Motors for all the awful mistakes they made in building rail cars and engines over the years. Perhaps Secretary LaHood would be in our community announcing a brand new investment in Interstate highways, rather than high speed rail.

In any case, in order to have transportation of any type, a government is required to make a large investment. Spain is currently putting a huge investment in high speed rail, light rail and other inter-city public transportation that makes sense is cost effective and moves people around their country. The Chinese , Japanese,and other growing Asian countries have been spending billions of dollars on high-speed rail over the past 30 years. For those who argue that this is a public subsidy of one type of transportation over another, please go back and read the previous paragraphs (1 and 3). You are right, it is a public subsidy. Your point?

The final question is this: Is  now the right time of this? Shouldn’t we be hunkering down and not spending money. I would argue that we have failed our infrastructure system since we started building it. We argue every year and year after year about how our streets and roads are falling apart, and need repair, but frankly as citizens we have been unwilling or not had the courage to do something about it. So on one hand what is $8 billion in this day and age, right? Well, it is a lot, however investing it in high speed rail corridors and in areas that can truly be successful, is the right investment at the right time.

Secretary Lahood said that the area is going to benefit form high speed rail due to our leadership and “having our act together”. I sure hope he means it. We will take more that high-speed rail investment anytime Mr.Secretary. Send it our way.

I recently  finished Jim Collins most recent book about business greatness, or in the case of this book, failure for a book review on our company blog and which you will see here.  It is called How the Mighty Fall and was written just before the big recession hit and failure of some of the biggest companies  in the United States. Jim Collins, if you have not read his books is the author of Good to Great and Built to Last, both New York Times best sellers on what makes a company really good.

Collins is a a strong writer and his books are backed up by a lot of research. I have never spent much time seeking out the validity of research, rather I have used the metric of people recommending the book to me and how many times I have heard the book mentioned. Being who he is, Collins obviously writes a lot about many different aspects of  management, and business. While doing research for my book review I came across this article on leadership. There are many interesting ideas n leadership in this article and there are many good things to take away.

The article was written in 2002, long before our current crises, therefore it is interesting to see the thoughts on Fannie Mae. My favorite was David Packard. Here is the article originally published in Fortune Magazine:

The 10 Greatest CEOs of All Time

I recently went to a conference and an expert on power and energy spoke to us on how to solve the issues of energy independence. It was fascinating and I plan to write more about it later. The one thing he said that I found intriguing and troubling at the same time was his comments about our aging power infrastructure. In his comments he said that the one problem facing the United States today is that our infrastructure is based on old technology. Most of our energy electrical energy infrastructure was based on 1930s’ technology (hydroelectric plants, coal plants, rural electrification) and 1970s’ technology (nuclear plants). We have not improved our technology for, in some cases for 80 years! The average life cycle of a nuclear plant is 50 years and we are fast approaching old age for these plants as well. There has not been a new nuclear plant built in the United States since the 70s’.

We have to change, and one way is to use smarter technology. It can be big things like power plants, or it can be small things like power plugs and receptacles, things we use all every days. It can make our world safer and smarter. John LaGrou, an inventor has come up with something that I highlight here in the TED video of the week:

Support projects and legislation that gets us to a smarter more energy efficient world. Our future and security depend upon it.

TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Check out their website at www.TED.com