Cedar Rapids Iowa City Economic Development Update

December 1, 2017 | News & Press Releases

ICR Iowa (formerly known as the Joint Venture) is an extension of the Iowa City Area Development (ICAD) and Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance, and is dedicated to helping the seven-county region thrive through targeted business attraction and workforce development initiatives. Jennifer Daly, President & CEO of ICR Iowa, began her leadership of the region’s business attraction and workforce efforts in July 2017. Since then, she has tirelessly worn a path north and south along I-380 and beyond, visiting with, listening to and learning from over 100 business and community leaders to understand the opportunities and challenges in our region.

ICR Iowa is, by design, an extension of the economic development efforts already underway in the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City areas. Beyond Jennifer’s leadership, ICR Iowa employees include Tim Carty, Director of Workforce Solutions and Brian Crowe, Director of Business Attraction. Tom Banta, Business Attraction Strategist and Kate Moreland, Director of Talent Pipeline also devote partial time to ICR Iowa activities. Both the EA & ICAD teams provide support to ICR Iowa in communications, graphic design, research and data analytics, operations, admin duties and more.

Jennifer’s many meetings across the seven-county region assisted her already strong sense of direction for what needs to happen next to achieve the goals of this new regional endeavor. In the coming months, ICR Iowa will be implementing a new marketing and story-telling campaign for the region, leveraging several talented creatives throughout the region. The ICR Iowa team is reviewing the best land and building sites for new attraction projects and meeting with employers to confirm their workforce concerns. In partnership with Kirkwood Community College, they will also be collecting data from employers to forecast talent needs over the next 24 months, data that will help guide talent attraction and pipeline strategies.

ICAD investors, clients, and partners interested in receiving specific information about ICR’s regional work in business attraction and workforce beyond what you will receive in our bi-weekly newsletter, can sign up here to receive the new ICR Iowa Update, which will begin to be distributed in the near future. SIGN UP HERE TODAY>>>