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ECIDC Annual Banquet & BESI Awards Ceremony

Join us on Thursday, May 14th at the Hilton Garden Inn in Effingham, Ill. to celebrate 25 years of fostering regional economic development in East Central Illinois along with honoring the 2009 Business Ethics & Social Involvement Award recipients.

The East Central Illinois Development Corporation (ECIDC) is a nonprofit, member-based organization dedicated to promoting and assisting economic development efforts in the eleven county region consisting of Christian, Clark, Coles, Crawford, Cumberland, Douglas, Edgar, Effingham, Jasper, Moultrie and Shelby counties. We wish to invite you to share in celebrating our past year of accomplishments and ramping up to reach our goals for 2009!

In accords with our year long efforts in implementing Open Source Economic Development in this region, we are bringing Michael Mortell as our keynote speaker.

Michael Mortell, currently coordinating southeastern Wisconsin's Regional Workforce Alliance and the Milwaukee 7 Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development initiative, is coming to East Central Illinois to share his region's experiences in implementing the Open Source Economic Development model. He will speak of the challenges and opportunities of bringing economic development, workforce development, education, and business and industry together to work toward common initiatives throughout the region.

Prior to this role, Mortell served as operations manager of four workforce development centers in the region. Mortell has also worked nationwide as a consultant evaluating business operations and restructuring workflow for improved financial outcomes and patient satisfaction in healthcare systems. Mortell is a member of the Public Policy Forum and Wisconsin Economic Development Association. He is a senior member of the American Society for Quality and has served as an examiner for the Wisconsin Forward Award, a Malcolm Baldrige-based process promoting performance excellence. Mortell earned a masters of Science degree in Industrial Organizational Psychology and has served as an adjunct faculty member at Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee and Carroll College in Waukesha.