The Greater Peoria regional economy rests on a stool with three legs: manufacturing, health care and agriculture.That isn’t likely to change any time soon — and we don’t want it to! — but our region has diversity that often gets overlooked. For example, we have a nice “mini-cluster” of insurance companies, including RLI, Pekin Insurance, Pearl Insurance and Illinois Mutual.  Could e-commerce be next?
That might seem like an odd statement, but I recently heard Paul Singh, the Chief Revenue Officer for Bump Boxes say that exact thing. If you haven’t heard of Bump Boxes, you soon will.  

Recently, Bump Boxes took the amazing step of creating an Employee Stock Option Purchase (ESOP) to share the company’s success with their employees, who seem more like family. Bump Boxes has grown tremendously fast. Just three years ago they had 3 employees and brought in about $1 million in revenue. This year they will eclipse the $20 million revenue mark and have over 40 employees (and they are hiring!).
As we look toward October for our third year of Greater Peoria CareerSpark, the Greater Peoria EDC and Junior Achievement of Central Illinois would like to recognize PNC Bank as a critical supporter of this work from the beginning.

As a leading sponsor of CareerSpark, PNC Bank has helped us impact the lives of over 7,000 eighth graders from more than 65 schools across Greater Peoria, helping them explore over 70 different careers, all critical to our region’s viability.
GPEDC is pleased to announce that Lenora Fisher has been hired to serve as our new Director of Business Attraction. Through her work at the Morton EDC she has been an excellent partner on a number of GPEDC projects.

We are excited to have Lenora join the team! She begins her new role on June 24.
The Spring 2019 CO.STARTERS cohort continues to roll right along! This highly engaged and energetic group of entrepreneurs have made the weeks fly by.

Make you sure you follow our social media channels to learn about each of the CO.STARTERS. Applications for the next round (slated for this fall) will be released later this summer. 
With the help of some friendly crowd-sourcing and a little research, we are pleased to the present the Greater Peoria Farmers Market Map!

This ongoing project designed to create an interactive map to display our region's network of farmers markets. Explore and get your favorite market on the map!
Tonight is the night! The 2019 Intern Mixer Series begins! The event will be in the Peplow Pavilion on the 3rd floor of the Hayden-Clark Alumni Center at Bradley University. 

Each event will be held weekly on Thursday evenings from 5 – 6:30 p.m. during the months of June and July.

Even if you can't make it tonight, be sure to get registered so you can stay in the loop!
Congrats to our valued partner, Illinois Central College! ICC was recently named one of the “2019 Most Promising Places to Work in Community Colleges” by the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development (NISOD) and the publication Diverse: Issues in Higher Education. 
Bradley University’s Illinois Small Business Development Center (ISBDC) is accepting applications from local businesses that would like to participate in a faculty-led, student-run Senior Consulting Project for the Fall 2019 semester.

Students will work with small businesses to help develop business plans, perform feasibility studies, or establish marketing strategies, etc. The deadline to apply is Friday, August 2.
More Good News in Greater Peoria