Mulcahey cites growth as Job 1
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By Doug Schorpp | Wednesday, January 23, 2008 |
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It didn’t take long for Nancy Mulcahey to spell out her plans for the Quad-City Development Group after she was named Wednesday as its new president/CEO during the group’s annual meeting at the Isle of Capri Convention Center in Bettendorf.
And paramount is increasing the group’s annual budget and adding staff. Currently, the annual budget is just more than $1 million. “I’d like to get to $2 million to $2.5 million,” she said during a news conference after the luncheon meeting.
Currently, there are five staff members at the Rock Island office and two openings, including the vice president’s position she is vacating. She said the organization wants to “ramp up, improve, tweak the product.”
She hopes to add at least a couple of extra staff members by raising the annual budget in the next 12 months. Most of those funds come from public and private business members.
“It is very important we go forward, very important we get it done,” Mulcahey said. “We need to take it to a higher level, which is the reason I am here today.”
Some of the additional financial support would come from an increase in dues from current or new members, organization leaders say.
“I think that (recruiting members) would be an initiative as well,” said Carrie O’Neill, chairman of the development group board. “Our budget is not very big.”
O’Neill, in addressing the annual meeting, also talked of taking the group and its members “to a new level of effectiveness for truly exciting days ahead.”
She also thanked interim president/CEO John Gardner for his years of service. Friday will be the last day on the job for Gardner, who led the development group from 1990 to 2000 when he retired. In July, he said, he received a phone call asking him to come out of retirement to fill in as interim president/CEO to replace Thom Hart.
“In the future, I might think about answering the phone,” Gardner quipped to the audience.
He said the top job has been a challenging but he is “tremendously encouraged” by advances he sees now.
He also called for more funding.
“The development group needs more resources. It’s the Quad-City Development Group’s turn,” he said.
The keynote speaker at the luncheon was Sally Mason, who was named the 20th president of the University of Iowa on Oct. 1.
Mason talked of her efforts to get to know people all over the state, something she has done since she took over. She also talked about working together with the Quad-City business community.
Mason said in “getting to know you, we can see what ways we can be of help to you in the Quad-Cities. I feel it is important that we at the University of Iowa to be connected to all of Iowa and to do what we can to help in all endeavors of our great state.”
She said more than 300 people who work at the university commute daily from the Quad-Cities to Iowa City. “That shows how the geographic gap is closing daily.”
Mason also addressed the issue of keeping and increasing the number of jobs within the state, especially for future generations.
“If we want to keep young people in the state, we need good and good-paying jobs,” she said.
Doug Schorpp can be contacted at (563) 383-2292 or dschorpp@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.
Quad-City Development group honors 8
Eight Quad-City businesses were honored Wednesday at the Quad-City Development Group’s annual meeting at the Isle of Capri Convention Center, Bettendorf. Ron Summers, of the development group, said the businesses were honored for either locating in the Quad-City region or expanding during 2007. The list includes three defense consulting firms — Booz Allen Hamilton, OSVETS LLC and Thoth Solutions — located on Arsenal Island. Honorees are:
AT&T Call Center, Davenport: The $19.3 million facility opened earlier this month in Davenport. It has hired 60 of the 500 employees it eventually will have on staff. The center is one of three new call centers AT&T has opened in the past six months to respond to growth of its wireless division.
Booz Allen Hamilton: A leading global consulting firm, Booz Allen Hamilton has 19,000 employees serving clients on six continents.
The firm integrates a full range of consulting capabilities to work with government and commercial clients, providing services in strategy, operations, organization and change, and information technology.
CML USA, Inc: The machinery wholesale company is building a $2.5 million world headquarters in the Eastern Iowa Industrial Center. The expansion will allow CML to increase its work force from 15 jobs to 30 to 35 jobs over the next two years, while doubling its facility size.
eServ: A total of 275 eServ jobs are expected to come to Davenport after the City Council approved incentives in September to bring the business from Rock Island to a new site in an office park off 53rd Street.
Evolution Tools: Mike Fangmann teamed up five years ago with Evolution Power Tools, a family-owned business based in Sheffield, England. Now, he and his wife, Kate, own the U.S. operations. Last fall, they broke ground on a $3 million, 42,000-square-foot expansion on 10 acres in the Eastern Iowa Industrial Center. The new building will consolidate three business sites in Davenport and will serve as the corporate headquarters for the North, Central and South America operations.
FedEx Freight Service Center: The new $13 million freight service building in East Moline has 130,300 square feet of space. It will be developed and owned by Saad Development of Mobile, Ala. FedEx Freight will lease the facility. The hub will service four surrounding market areas and will bring 140 new jobs to the area. The project is scheduled for completion in March.
OSVETS, LLC: A service-disabled, veteran-owned and operated source for MRO supplies and services, OSVETS has teaming relationships with manufacturers and distributors of maintenance, repair, and operating supplies and equipment.
Thoth Solutions: The Dallas-based information technology consultant provides project management and software development services for a variety of industries, including public sector clients such as the Department of Defense, General Services Administration, the Department of Veteran Affairs and the City of Fort Worth, Texas. The firm expanded to the Rock Island Arsenal in February, but soon needed more space after landing a contract with the U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command, or TACOM, said Debbie Shivers, who co-owns the business with her brother, James Johnson. Later, TSI expanded locally by moving into a former warehouse renovated into modern office space under the Arsenal Support Program Initiative. The new office is located in Building 333 on Rodman Avenue. It also still maintains its original office space at the Arsenal.
— Doug Schorpp
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