As 2022 begins, there’s great anticipation for a “return to normal” as the pandemic continues in some form or fashion. One of the things I’ve missed most in the past two years is gathering with like-minded professionals as those opportunities have been few and far between when it comes to in-person. In our case at IEZA, those professionals are comprised of zone administrators, consultants, and other enterprise zone practitioners.
This “gathering” has always been one of the tremendous benefits of IEZA, that we offer at a few reasonably priced conferences each year – one in Springfield and one in another host city. This year, the board and I are planning to bring these in-person conferences back so that we can all share our experiences over the past few years and hopefully learn something new along the way.
There continues to be activity in Springfield to bring changes to the Enterprise Zone program – some favorable and some potentially burdensome. We continue to monitor these changes and will let you, our members, know if any require your attention/action.
I’d like to thank Ryan McCrady for leading IEZA over the past two years – ones like none before. He did a terrific job hosting our remote conferences and may have a future in being a talk show host! All joking aside, the past few years have been difficult for most organizations that rely upon in-person gatherings. Ryan did an excellent job in keeping IEZA on-track and its members appraised of all things enterprise zone.
I look forward to serving as President of IEZA as we are hopefully able to get back together starting this year!
Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any enterprise zone questions or have suggestions for IEZA to better support you in your efforts.
Regards,
Ty Livingston
President IEZA
TyLivingston@CityOfEastPeoria.com