Many suggest that Illinois' economic slowing is due to a lack of New Economy companies, which Giertz explains is more of an image problem than a reality. "We are stronger in areas that are more traditional, and we don't have a lot of the high-end names that you recognize like Microsoft, Intel or Cisco," Giertz says. But despite the lack of brand-name technology firms, the state has "done well in the New Economy without those kinds of things," he adds. "People think we would do even better if we had some of those kinds of businesses."

New Logistics Opportunities At Former Joliet Arsenal

"After receiving 2,000 acres (810 hectares) of the former Joliet Arsenal in Will County from the U.S. Army, the state of Illinois plans to create new sites and opportunities for corporate users. The redevelopment of the site consists of two components: CenterPoint Properties' 1,700-acre (689-hectare) Deer Run Industrial Park and a US$265 million intermodal rail hub.     "It's the largest military base re-use in the country, and it's going to be the largest intermodal facility in the country," says Pam McDonough, director of the Illinois Dept. of Commerce and Community Affairs. "It's a terrific reuse of a brownfield.     Gov. George Ryan's Illinois FIRST program is allocating $51 million over the next three years for transportation improvements, including $27 million for the relocation and improvement of the interchange of Interstate 55 and Arsenal Road. The Dept. of Commerce and Community Affairs is also providing $25 million to the city of Elwood for expanded water and sewer services.     Taking advantage of the facility and its location is DSG Logistics. "They were one of the first groups to locate in the industrial park," says McDonough. "They're involved in e-commerce. Now, we have the distribution facility to get the product to market after the orders are made."

     To fight the image of having no New Economy companies, the Governor has appropriated $20 million for the next five years to spend on marketing the state's high-tech assets (see accompanying chart). The state is also moving forward with a new initiative called VentureTECH. The five-year, $1.9 billion program will provide an array of "mortar-for-clicks" infrastructure improvements designed to facilitate high-tech growth. The program will provide funding for new technology firms as well.
     Among some of the infrastructure improvements planned for Illinois are:

• a new building at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, the birthplace of the first Web browser (MOSAIC);
• a new DuPage County Technology Park in suburban Chicago, which will tap into the high-tech activities already taking place in the Interstate-88 corridor;
• a new technology incubator and other expansions at the Chicago Technology Park, with emphasis on bioinformatics and biotechnology;
• the Illinois Technology Enterprise Corp. (ITEC) Center initiative, a regional network of privately managed centers that will stimulate high-tech economic development and promote technology transfer from the universities; and
• a new computer and engineering building for the University of Illinois-Urbana, which will facilitate advances in high-performance networking, distributed computing, data-mining and mobile computing.

     "These are not things that give you direct results overnight," says McDonough. "These are long-term, very focused and very industry-related investments that we're making through the Governor's Illinois VentureTECH program. In Chicago, Mayor Richard Daley has also done some things in wiring buildings, creating tech hotels and pulling together a friendly environment for technology entrepreneurs."
     Adding this to the already successful Illinois FIRST program has made some high-tech firms take notice. Motorola, in fact, is consolidating several offices scattered across the northern suburbs of Chicago into a single office and research campus in Deer Park, Lake County. Illinois FIRST is providing $6 million to make a number of improvements to alleviate traffic congestion in the area. The new site will house 2,800 current Motorola workers, with several hundred new jobs possible over the next five years.
     Motorola cited Illinois' top-notch, high-tech workers as key to its decision to stay in the state. "Being in Deer Park means we are well-positioned to accommodate future growth with the knowledge-based talent right here in Illinois," says Merle Gilmore, Motorola executive vice president. "Today there are more than 24,000 Motorolans employed in Illinois -- a number we're very proud of, and a number that marks Motorola as Illinois' second-largest private employer."
     In another high-tech win, Molex, the world's second-largest manufacturer of electronic, electrical and fiber-optic interconnection products and systems, will invest some $45 million over three years to expand its headquarters in Lisle along the I-88 high-tech corridor. Molex is also developing a new manufacturing facility in Bolingbrook.
     Growing at 29.5 percent last year, approximately four times the rate of the rest of the connector industry, Molex needs the "additional space in Lisle for product design and development since new products account for more than 30 percent of our growth," says J. Joseph King, president and COO of Molex. "The quality of the technical schools in the area, combined with an outstanding labor force and support from the state of Illinois, make this a good place to expand our technological base."