The 2005 IEZA Fall Conference and Annual Meeting was held in Champaign October 19-21. The Board of Director’s would like to give a great big “THANKS” to Jeanne Gustafson who hosted the conference and coordinated all of the conference speakers and tours. Mr. Tom Costello, Champaign County EDC Chair met early arrivals at a reception held on the evening of the 19th and opened the conference on the 20th with a nice warm welcome.

Speakers and topics included:

• Enterprise Zone Application Processes and Application Fees given by Betty Steinert and Sally Heffernan
• John Gremer of KPMG and Stan Cichoswski of Deloitte Tax LLP discussed recent tax issues
• Terry Denison discussed Foreign Trade Zones.

While there were many informative speakers and topics, the tours of the University of Illinois Enterprise Works facility and the Beckman Institute highlighted the conference entitled, “Innovative Approaches to Economic Development.” Peter Fox of the Fox Development Group led an informative panel discussion with the team that takes projects from innovation to commercialization within the research park.

Attendees were treated to a special vocal performance at Smith Hall given by internationally renowned opera singer Delre’ Smith accompanied by the IEZA’s own Jeanne Gustafson on the piano. After a moving prologue given by Delre’ about one of his recent opera venues, their non-operatic and somewhat risque’ rendition of “Row, Row, Row,” brought the audience to their feet. Bravo!