Recent News

Guthrie County Hospital and GCH Clinics in Panora invite the community to attend a groundbreaking ceremony Monday, April 26 at 1 p.m. at the site of the new clinic construction at 103 SE 13th Street, Panora. The 6,800 square foot clinic will include family medicine, walk-in clinic, radiology, and laborator...Continue Reading

Last November, Corn Board Manufacturing Inc. announced their intentions to construct a 50,000+ square foot production facility just outside of Odebolt for corn stover-based wood alternative products. Construction is underway on the physical structure while relationships are being built to bring the needed raw materials from local farmers to th...Continue Reading

Western Iowa Energy (WIE) in Sac County is a major driver of the rapidly growing biodiesel industry as a BQ9000 Accredited Producer capable of generating 45 million gallons annually. Their accreditation attests they have passed a rigorous review and inspection of their quality control processes by an independent auditor. Biodiesel i...Continue Reading

Denison and other county towns on the list for Wednesday Seth Varner and Austin Schneider are on a mission to visit every incorporated town in Iowa; they’ve dubbed their journey Visit939Iowa, with 939 being the number of towns they plan to visit. Varner and Schneider are roommates at the University of Nebrask...Continue Reading

As a leader, it’s no surprise that one of your most crucial jobs is making sure employees are productive day in and day out. Many leaders have attempted to increase team productivity by introducing state-of-the-art technologies and testing the most successful workflow methods they could find. Unfortunately, they’re missing ...Continue Reading

We know how to get down to business. We also know how to protect yours. That’s why we offer customized commercial coverages and dedicated support in the event of a data breach, equipment breakdown, and more. Trust in Tomorrow.® Talk to a Grinnell Mutual agent today.   View the PDF here. Continue Reading

You might think that creativity requires the antithesis of rules and regulation. Even the thought of being creative conjures up images of disorder. Messy rooms, paint everywhere, scraps of paper with ideas scrawled across them. The frantic creative genius works away, oblivious to the world around them. Chaos. Method i...Continue Reading

Why economic developers need to market their Opportunity Zones now is to attract investors to the underfunded areas of their communities. Opportunity Zone legislation passed in 2017 and is designed to promote growth in stagnant and underdeveloped regions of the country. There are more than 8,700 Opportunity Zones designated throug...Continue Reading

As we were ringing in 2020, it’s safe to say that almost no one could have imagined the novel year that was virtually at our doorsteps. Like a monsoon, Covid-19 arrived, and with it a plethora of changes to not only how we live and work, but how business i...Continue Reading

It has now been five years since Farmers’ Cooperative and West Central merged, forming Landus, Iowa’s largest agricultural cooperative. They officially marked the anniversary date on Thursday, April 1 with a look back at the milestones reached over the past half decade. These include: facility updates at many locations, wit...Continue Reading

AD: How has COVID-19 changed the employee experience in manufacturing, and what facets of this should organizations retain going forward? Zenk: Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, employees have been experiencing a drastically different work environment. Thousands of manufacturers across the U.S. and around the world were deemed essential during the pandemic...Continue Reading

Judging by the number of e-commerce and health-related facility investments all around us in this pandemic year, you’d expect those categories to vault to the top of any global ranking by industry sector. They didn’t quite reach the summit, but logistics (+19.3%) and life sciences (+12%) show the biggest — an...Continue Reading

Back in the 1980s, the term “offshoring” became a business buzzword as more and more U.S. companies moved manufacturing to foreign countries, typically to save on labor costs. In recent years, “reshoring” has been added to the lexicon as companies decide to bring manufacturing back to the U.S., for variou...Continue Reading

The coronavirus pandemic plunged the world into a deep health and economic crisis. The rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine points to a “light at the end of the tunnel” for the country’s physical health, but as we collectively take stock for ways to rebuild our economy stronger and more resilien...Continue Reading

In a year full of turmoil and strife caused by an unexpected pandemic, data centers were quickly recognized for their crucial presence in all lives, for maintaining communication and knowledge during a period of sudden change for humanity. Data center operators and major services held fast throughout the troubled, early day...Continue Reading

While the pandemic caused massive supply chain disruptions that hindered the global distribution and logistics landscape, it also shined a spotlight on the industry’s importance, which only stands to grow in the coming years. Consider its impact on Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG), located on the Kentucky side of the Ohi...Continue Reading

Core technology jobs are weathering the pandemic better than many other occupations as demand stays strong for tech services and products that support social distancing and basic business and societal functions. This bodes well for tech hotspots across North America. The tech industry already is a pillar of the U.S. economy...Continue Reading

Of course, the big factor impacting office and industrial parks going into 2021 is COVID-19. The pandemic has reduced business production and workforce (through illness, social distancing, and remote working), disrupted the supply chain and cash flow, and brought about significant investments in technology. Across the nation, the demand for suburba...Continue Reading

(The Center Square) – Iowa communities would be able to use a new redevelopment tool – land banks – to revitalize abandoned or dilapidated real estate if a bill in the House of Representatives passes. The House Ways and Means Committee discussed SF 100 on March 18. Under the bill any municipality could creat...Continue Reading

Quality Machine of Iowa, Inc. was founded by Bill Greene as Quality Machine, Inc. in Brooklyn Park, MN in 1968. His son, Tim Greene, now the owner and CEO, worked in the company as he was growing up. Tim took on a managerial role in 1983, and with the sudde...Continue Reading

Last July, Region XII Council of Governments announced they had received just over $2 million from the CARES Act Recovery Assistance program for COVID-19-impacted businesses. There was $1.84 million made available in Revolving Loan Funds (RLF) for eligible businesses in a six-county region that includes Carroll, Audubon, Crawford, Greene Guthri...Continue Reading

These 7 brilliant ways to grow your remote workforce will help you reap the benefits of the work from home movement! The advantages of a remote workforce for workers, employers, and the towns and states they reside in are many. TAP INTO THE WORK FROM HOME MOVEMENT 70% of the American workforce i...Continue Reading

A couple of local entrepreneurs have thrown themselves to the sharks…into the Shark Tank that is. Taylor Nees (a.k.a. Earl, the Top Brass Dignitary Chancellor) and Garret Lamp (a.k.a. Buddy a Top Brass Dignitary) will be appearing in the Friday, March 5, 7 p.m. airing of the popular ABC realit...Continue Reading