Economic Development Professionals and Business Location Experts to Share Trends and Issues Impacting Today’s Economy at Site Selectors Guild Conference

Chicago, IL, February 23, 2015 --(PR.com)-- The Site Selectors Guild, Inc., the world’s largest association of business location experts whose members’ site selection projects represent more than $32.5 billion in annual capital expenditures and thousands of new jobs globally each year, will convene in Puerto Rico February 23-25 for its 2015 Annual Conference. The event will draw hundreds of economic development professionals, Guild members and special guests to participate in professional programming and networking focused on key site selection trends and issues impacting today’s economy.

New at this year’s Conference will be the release of the Guild’s first The State of Site Selection Trends survey results and an in-depth moderated panel discussion of those findings featuring several of the world’s leading site selection experts, including:

Darin Buelow, Deloitte Consulting LLP
Didi Caldwell, Global Location Strategies
Michelle Comerford, Biggins Lacy Shapiro & Co.
Dennis Donovan, Wadley Donovan Gutshaw Consulting
Robert Hess, Newmark Grubb Knight Frank Global Corporate Services
Mike Mullis, J. M. Mullis, Inc.
Andy Shapiro (Panel Moderator), Biggins Lacy Shapiro & Company
Roel Spee, IBM-Plant Location International
Mark Sweeney, McCallum Sweeney Consulting

The primary audience for the newly launched State of Site Selection Trends survey results is corporate leaders responsible for their company’s location investment decisions. It provides them with critical economic development trends and insights from the Guild’s 36 members, top experts in the field of global site selection who, between them possess:

-An average site selection consulting tenure of 23 years
-An average number of career site selection projects of over 200 per member
-Total capital expenditure in site selection projects that they have managed during their cumulative careers of over $400 billion, or over $11 billion per member
-An average of 15 site selection projects managed per year per member, with an average capital expenditure per site selection project of $61 million
-Total capital expenditures in the site selection projects they managed of over $32 billion per year, or $900 million per year per member

In addition to the annual survey results that are premiering at this year’s Conference, smaller, topic-oriented quarterly surveys of the Guild membership are being launched this year and will be released to the public every 3-4 months.

Also new this year is a corporate presentation and round table discussion session titled, How Companies Make Location Decisions: First-Hand Accounts by Corporate Officials, featuring Gregg Morton, Citi; Jim Eckert, Owens Corning; Kevin Dollhopf, HanesBrands, Inc.; and Ryan Lorey, Diamond Mountain Consulting.

Keynote Speakers
Highlights of the Conference event programming include two internationally acclaimed guest speakers, Ross DeVol and Gregg Fraley.

DeVol, Chief Research Officer at the renowned Milken Institute, Annual Conference, is ranked among the "Super Stars" of Think Tank Scholars by International Economy magazine. He has put his group in the national limelight with groundbreaking research on technology and its impact on regional and national economies, and on the economic and human consequences of chronic disease. DeVol specializes in the effects of technology, research and development activities, international trade, human capital and labor-force skills training, entrepreneurship, early-stage financing, and quality-of-place issues on the geographic distribution of economic activity. DeVol’s presentation at the Site Selectors Guild Conference is titled, “Characteristics of Competitive Places: Changing Models of Economic Dynamism.”

Fraley is a noted creativity expert and developer of the “whole brained” approach to innovation. He is the founder of a start-up, KILN, which provides fresh approaches to innovation process, including a unique innovation subscription service called IdeaKeg. He’s also the author of the first business fable about creative problem solving, “Jack’s Notebook,” which is used by many prominent business schools including Cambridge’s Judge School and Berkeley’s Haas Business School. His clients include consumer packaged goods companies like Johnson & Johnson, Hershey, and Disney, and Business-to-Business firms like The Crosby Group. Fraley’s presentation at the Site Selectors Guild Conference is titled, “Creativity and Innovation and Their Impact on Economic Growth.”

“The Site Selectors Guild goal is to create a unique conference and environment focused on learning, networking and relationship building,” said Phil Schneider, president of Schneider Consulting and the incoming Chairman of the Board of the Guild. “In the site selection business, the consultants and economic development professionals depend upon one another to do our jobs effectively; therefore we have worked to structure this conference in a manner that emphasizes networking and knowledge exchange.” The Guild intentionally limits attendance to create a high Guild member-to-economic development professional ratio and to provide a one-of-a kind opportunity to develop fruitful relationships that can potentially impact a community with significant new capital investment and jobs down the line.

“I want to extend a special thanks to all the Conference sponsors, especially our generous host sponsor, Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company (PRIDCO),” Schneider added.

About The Site Selectors Guild
The Site Selectors Guild is a professional association comprised of the world's most respected site selection consultants. The mission of The Site Selectors Guild is to advance the profession of international corporate site selection by promoting the profession and providing education, networking and other services to those involved in the industry.

All members of The Site Selectors Guild have been nominated and approved by their industry peers. As the first and only group of its kind, the Site Selectors Guild brings together a dynamic network of site selectors from around the world, combining their talent and expertise to create an invaluable resource, unmatched in its quality, for both corporations seeking site selection assistance and economic development organizations.

For more information visit: siteselectorsguild.com