McHenry County EDC has been working for the past two weeks to encourage Navistar to consider the Midwest Corporate Campus (former Motorala facility)  in Harvard as a potential site for their R &D division.

On  May 27th,  Navistar went public with the difficulty in reaching an agreement with DuPage County and the City of Lisle. Collaborating with the County Board Chairman Ken Koehler, the City of Harvard Mayor Jay Nolan,  our Congressman Don Manzullo, State Senator Althoff and Representative Franks, as well as the Jones Lang Lasalle the broker for the site, we mounted a full court press to make Navistar aware of the former Motorola Facility.

In concert with our partners,  President Pam Cumpata developed a multi level strategy to bring our facility to Navistar's attention.   Multiple contacts were made from several directions and contacts were also made to the Governor's  COO,  Jack Lavin,   to share the concern that it is important to keep Navistar in Illinois and that we have an existing facility which would meet their needs. 

Pam also reached out  to Janyce Fadden at Rockford Area EDC since workforce in  both McHenry and Winnebago counties would factor into this opportunity as well as the Rockford International Airport.

Our multi-level strategy paid off today with Navistar's management commenting to Chairman Ken Koehler, that McHenry County received Navistar's 'persistence award'...so we are in the hunt!