A local corporation in Peoria announced today that it will be expanding to Kansas.
Is that a good thing?
The company says it's a move which will benefit Central Illinois businesses.
They are known as EcoThermics, a corporation that develops and markets compressor technology for heating and cooling systems.
The company started in 2007 as part of Peoria Next, an organization that focuses on companies geared around innovation and technology. Now the business has decided to expand their business by adding a lab in Kansas.
"We have tremendous resources in Peoria absolutely, but they don't know thermodynamic cycles and they don't know CO2 systems at all none of us do, but these three gentlemen in Kansas do, they have been working with these systems for twenty years now," said CEO EcoThermics Corp. Merle Rocke.
Rocke says the the expansion will allow the small company to move from working only the design of the product to testing their efficiency.
The president of the Economic Development Council for Central Illinois Vickie Clark, says the expansion of EcoThermics to Kansas means Central Illinois is a strong place for entrepreneurs.
"If their testing their market outside this region, it gives our community a reputation of entrepreneurialism and the fact that we have research and development programs here that can grow small business," Clark said.
And Rocke hopes that the corporation's expansion will aide in the creation of new local companies down the road.
"If we complete this journey and are quite successful it will help future technology startups right here in the Peoria Next Innovation Center for example, to raise the capital they need from local investors to launch their business," Rocke said.
The lab in Lenexa, Kansas will be the third full lab outside of the Peoria area used by the company and hope to begin testing their products in the next month.
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