Day-Long Effort with Mayors Coalition Spent Supporting Industry Loan for Chrysler, General Motors, and Ford

Belvidere Mayor Fred Brereton spent last Tuesday in Washington, DC with sixteen other mayors and local officials explaining the importance of the automobile industry to communities across the nation. Joining the mayor from Belvidere were Mark Williams, Executive Director of Growth Dimensions, and Dave Taylor and Steve Nailor, both Executive Board members of Growth Dimensions. A recently formed Mayors Automotive Coalition (MAC) was formed to pull together communities having automobile assembly plants or close ties to the automobile industry.

"This was my first exposure to MAC, and found the time spent to be very educational. We heard some pretty sobering stories from some of the mayors", said Mayor Brereton. Many of the communities represented had closed assembly plants to deal with, while others were looking for assistance for workers left behind in a struggling economy. "Our local goal is to retain jobs and look for ways local, state, and federal governments can help sustain the Belvidere Assembly Plant. The first major step would be for congress to pass the bridge loan currently being discussed", Brereton added. While much of the media attention has been focused on the Big Three and the corporate "bail out", Brereton's attention has been on the Belvidere economy and the local assembly plant.

Elimination of water and sewer usage from the Belvidere assembly plant would result in a 35% increase in water and sewer rates to maintain the current level of operations for the city's system. That would equate to an increase of approximately $120 per year for the average household. The City's goal for the upcoming budget year is no rate increase. "We always strive to keep rates as low as possible and still fund the operations", said Craig Lawler, Director of Public Works.

Total sales tax receipts ($3,600,000) for the City of Belvidere make up about 27% of the City's budget ($13,300,000), of which new car sales tax revenue ($700,000) makes up about 20% of the City's total sales tax revenue. The City will continue its efforts to attract additional commercial development to help diversify and reduce dependency on automobile sales, but also realizes the importance and value of having five new car dealerships in the City.

As congress continues to react to talks of a stimulus package by the new administration, the City also provided its transportation priority, which provides a secondary means of ingress and egress to the assembly plant. "Anytime the City can help improve the efficiency of the plant, it should be a high priority", said Mayor Brereton. The Irene Road interchange on the I-90 northwest tollway would also improve access to an industrial area occupied by auto suppliers.

Growth Dimensions has awarded a Biomass Commercialization Award to Packer Engineering of Naperville, IL, a diversified, multi-discipline, full service engineering firm.

Growth Dimensions encourages economic development through investment in research and commercialization projects. The organization has the authority from the US Department of Energy to award funds for projects that lead to marketable biomass products or processes. The Commercialization Awards program focuses both on strategic technology development and on commercialization.

"Our goal is to create the dual benefit of energy driven biomass product platforms through generating a critical mass of projects that flow through our region that can be commercialized and manufactured here," says Mark Williams, Growth Dimensions Executive Director. Growth Dimensions was recently recognized by the International Economic Development Council for the organization's sustainable and green initiatives.

Packer Engineering is developing a gasifier which uses biomass waste to generate electricity and produce heat. Packer will use the $80,000 Biomass Commercialization Award to build a prototype of the gasifier and test out the design.

The project has two components: efficiently converting crop waste into gaseous fuel and then producing electricity and using that electricity to produce fertilizer. Packer is working with N-Ovations of Savannah, IL and Northern Illinois University on the project. The three are the co-recipients of a $1 million US Department of Agriculture grant for research efforts that relate to this project.

"The origin of this project came from research we were doing on space-based manufacturing," says Packer Engineering Senior Director Peter Schubert, Ph.D. "Our founder challenged us to see what we could do to advance that research to help farmers. We started applying our methods of vaporizing materials on the moon to vaporizing materials on the farm to extract gases to make electricity and heat."

There are about 2 million farms across the US. Packer is designing a system that will be safe, reliable, and that a farm hand can run. The input is crop waste; the output is electricity plus heat which can be used on the farm, sold back into the power grid through net metering, or used to produce fertilizer.

"We've been very aggressive in pursuing the total solution with the farmer," Schubert says. "We are visiting equipment manufacturers and farmers to find out how can the farmer do the best job of gathering the biomass from field, storing it, and chopping it up properly. Our design intent is to make a device that the farmer can start up in about an hour and a half in the morning and it will run for 22 hours unattended."

Packer expects to have the gasifier prototype up and running in March and anticipates that by summer they will have enough information from the prototype to construct a business plan and model to take the next steps toward commercialization. "Our goal is to increase jobs and revenue in the Belvidere-Rockford area by eventually doing manufacturing there," Schubert says.

"At Packer Engineering we are passionate about alternative energy research," Schubert says. "The gasifier is one of several initiatives we are working on. We have five patents and are working with Argonne National Labs on storing hydrogen on a vehicle. We are researching electrical generation using space solar power-putting solar panels in orbit and beaming energy with low density radio waves back to the earth."

Growth Dimensions provides the Biomass Commercialization Awards through a competitive, merit based open solicitation process on a first-come, first-served basis. The award value is based on proposal detailed costs, scope, tasks, and deliverables of each project. To be eligible, projects will have non-federal government matching funds equal to $1.60 for every $1 of award granted.

The multi-use recreational path connecting North State Street to Beloit Road in Belvidere has been completed. The project has been a primary agenda item for Growth Dimensions' Riverfront Development committee and is a step to ultimately accomplishing the committee's goal of connecting Spencer Park to Prairie Fields.

School District 100 and Rock Valley College have joined forces to announce plans for a new partnership program, Running Start.

Running Start is a program for qualified students from Belvidere High School and Belvidere North High School to attend Rock Valley College (RVC) for their junior and senior years of high school. Courses taken will be for Dual Credit, meeting the requirements for both a high school diploma and an Associate Degree simultaneously.

The Running Start program will be administered out of the High School Connections office at RVC, in conjunction with both Belvidere high schools, and is slated to begin August, 2009.

Students who are on track for high school graduation by the end of their sophomore year, who have at least 12 high school credits, have taken Consumer Ed, have a 3.0 GPA, and test at college-level on ACCUPLACER are eligible for the program. Students will not pay for tuition, fees, or transportation.

To learn more about Running Start, please click here or contact Todd Martens at Belvidere High School (815) 547-6345.

Information provided by Belvidere School District 100.

The Workforce Connection will host a Job & Career Fair on Thursday, January 29th at the Community Building Complex in Belvidere. An event held last year at the same location attracted more than 800 jobseekers and even more people are expected to attend this year. Employers reserving a booth before January 1st will be charged $150 to cover rental and advertising expenses. The cost for employers increases fifty dollars after the first of the year. For more information, contact members of the Workforce Connection Business Services team.

For more information contact The Workforce Connection at 815-395-6600.

It's time to say farewell and good luck to our Associate Director Kelly Galluzzo as she and her husband Joe will take on added responsibilities with a soon to be growing family. It's been a short four and a half years since Kelly joined Growth Dimensions' staff. In that time Kelly skillfully raised the image and marketability of our organization and community to its highest levels. Kelly's level of professionalism will surely be missed. On behalf of Growth Dimensions' Board of Directors, Committees, Staff, and Members, we wish Kelly and her family all the best.