My Story

I grew up in Rockford, Illinois. In the 1960s’  and 70s’ Rockford was an industrial powerhouse. Home of metal manufacturing companies and companies that made something called machine tools, Rockford was the prototypical middle class community that exuded success and progress. Along the way, however Rockford and many other American communities started to feel the impact of a wide variety of global impacts. Strong Japanese and European competition, the 1970s’ fuel crises, a severe recession in the early 1980s’ made Rockford more and more difficult to have middle class success.

Rockford is blessed with beautiful parks, a nice topography, and great golf courses. It is close to Chicago  and Wisconsin so you can choose between big city entertainment or fishing and lake-life. The people are hard working. I owe a great deal to the fruitful middle-class life I was raised in and it is still nice to go back home and sit on the porch of the house I grew up in and where my Mother and sister still live.

I graduated from Illinois State University, Normal, in 1984 with a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s degree in public administration from Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, in 1986. In May of 2004 I started work with the EDC in Bloomington Normal, Illinois after more than 15 years of experience in community-economic and private development.

Along with my regular duties, I  help manage the Central Illinois Partnership,  a marketing organization of Central Illinois communities and EDOs; I am currently serving as vice-chair of the Board of Directors of the Illinois Development Council; Co-Chair  the Public Policy Advisory Committee (chair of the Entrepreneurship Sub-committee) and actively participate in the Economic Development Research Partners  program of the International Economic Development Council; Advisory Board member of the Illinois  State University Alternative Energy Major, Member of the Illinois State University Alumni Board and Advisory Board Member of the Small Business Development Center at Illinois State University; Board Member of the McLean County Chamber of Commerce Board and the McLean County Branding Task Force.

Along with this blog you can hear me every Tuesday on BNBIZ Radio, a radio show featuring entrepreneurs, and related topics at noon (CST) at WJBC 1230 am (or live streaming at WJBC.com or on podcasts at www.bnbiz.org. You can also follow me on twitter  @bnedguy.

The EDC has grown tremendously over the past five years. This is in great part due to a smart and committed board of directors, and an intelligent and hard-working staff.  We are committed to using social media as a marketing tool and to reach those who are wondering how this strange thing called “business” works.

Thanks for visiting my blog, be sure to sign up to receive all my updates!

Marty (August 2009)