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We manufacture onsite power generation controls, equipment, that helps people keep their lights
on. It’s jobs, and now more than ever, with close to double-digit unemployment we have
to have jobs for our state. We are blessed in this area with so many great manufacturers
who that are producing and making so many great items for all across the world. Take
Intercom for example, I mean their fingerprints are on their products. And going from here,
right here in East Peoria, world headquarters, to over a hundred countries around the world.
From day one we were shipping products overseas. And we have been export focused forever since
then and being here in Peoria located with Caterpillar, we tied in with Caterpillar from
the beginning in 1975. And they are in the world everywhere, so we follow them everywhere
in the world. Government needs to create an environment,
create the baseline, create that environment that’s going to make it welcoming for business
and manufacturers to come to the state and grow. And unfortunately I think all too often
it goes the other way. Unfortunately we’ve seen just this week alone and we’ve seen
it far too often where we’re losing manufacturing jobs across the stateliness. You hear many
people talk about we’re losing them to China and overseas, and there is some jobs that
we’ve lost that way, but we’re losing far to many jobs to our neighboring states.
We need to look at the environment. We need to look at the tax policy. We need to look
at what other states are doing to create that environment to make it welcoming for jobs
to come here to the state of Illinois. The world is moving technologically in a way
that if we don’t have the manufacturing base here then we are going to be dependent
on other people for those things that are necessary to live on.
It’s got to be a top priority for us to continue to be able to thrive, to have companies
like Intercom continue to thrive and stay here and try to get some of those jobs we
lost to other states back here to the state of Illinois. We have a lot of great things
going. The state of Illinois is a wonderful place to be. It’s a wonderful place to live
and work and to raise a family. I’m doing that, as you are.
We need to show off all the things the state of Illinois can do and creating that environment
so that we can grow our tax base, so that we can have more revenue. And it calls for
some of our top priorities.