Edwardsville, lll., April 22, 2013… The Leadership Council Southwestern Illinois is pleased to announce the addition of Louer Facility Planning, Inc.; CliftonLarsonAllen; the Greater Gateway Association of REALTORS®; Kerber, Eck & Braeckel, LLP, and NAI Desco to its growing list of members. Representatives from these companies join other members of the Leadership Council to unite business, industry, government, education and labor for economic growth in Southwestern Illinois.
Jane Louer, President and CEO of Louer Facility Planning, Inc. will serve as the company’s representative on the Leadership Council. Located inCollinsville, Louer Facility Planning is a commercial furniture and interior design firm that provides furnishings, space planning and finish selections for education, government, healthcare, corporate, and financial environments. Louer founded the company in 1996 after spending 20 years in the design/build construction field. The company, which is committed to sustainability, makes environmentally responsible choices in the products it selects and provides to clients, and all of its design professionals are LEED Accredited Professionals.
Ed Hoering, CPA, MBA, Partner with CliftonLarsonAllen’s Manufacturing and Distribution division in Belleville, is serving as the firm’s representative on the Leadership Council. One of the nation’s top 10 certified public accounting and consulting firms, CliftonLarsonAllen has a staff of more than 3,600 professionals, operating from more than 90 offices across the country. Locally, the company has offices in St. Louis, Belleville and Glen Carbon. Hoering concentrates in the tax and business consulting area, serving privately owned, closely held businesses in a variety of industries, including transportation, manufacturing, construction, real estate, medical and packaging. He also heads up The Outsourcing Division of CliftonLarsonAllen St. Louis.
Serving as the Greater Gateway Association of REALTORS® representative on the Leadership Council is Al Suguitan, CAE, e-PRO, GRI, RCE, who is the President and CEO of the organization. The association represents the interests of over 1,100 realtors in Madison, Calhoun, Bond, Jersey, and parts of Macoupin County. Suguitan has 40 years experience in the residential and commercial real estate sectors. He taught real estate pre-licensing courses at SIU’s Carbondale and Edwardsville campuses for 19 years, and in 1990, was appointed by Governor Thompson as the Commissioner of Real Estate for Illinois. During that time, he was responsible for the administration of the Real Estate License Act and the formulation of the Appraisal Act and Time Share and Land Sale Acts.
Representing Kerber, Eck & Braeckel, LLP, (KEB) on the Council is Tom Harrington, CPA, Partner with the firm’s Belleville office. Founded in 1931, KEB is a mid-sized firm of certified public accountants and management consultants with eight offices in Missouri, Illinois and Wisconsin. KEB provides a full range of accounting, tax and management consulting services to clients in a variety of industries and sectors, including financial institutions, insurance companies, health care, construction, manufacturing, religious organizations, and government and not-for-profit entities. Harrington has 27 years of public accounting experience as a tax specialist, serving closely held businesses. His areas of expertise include corporate tax planning; organizational structuring, restructuring, and reorganization; business acquisitions; business mergers and dissolutions; LLC business issues and consolidations.
David Wittenauer, CCIM, Vice President of NAI Desco, will serve as the company’s representative on the Leadership Council. NAI Desco is a leading commercial real estate firm serving Central and Eastern Missouri and Southern Illinois that was formed in 2000 to create an independent firm for the brokerage of third-party office, industrial, medical, retail and investment properties. Wittenauer, who has 12 years of commercial real estate experience on a local and national level, specializes in commercial real estate services in Southwestern Illinois, including land, retail, office, industrial and investment opportunities. David’s knowledge base includes zoning, access, utilities, governmental incentives and more.
The Leadership Council Southwestern Illinois is a member-based, economic development corporation representing Madison and St. Clair counties. The Council works to attract/retain jobs and stimulate capital investment through its coalition of leaders in business, industry, labor, education and government. These effective partnerships serve as a driving force behind successful economic development efforts throughout the Metro East region.
For more information, contact:
Julie Hauser, The Hauser Group, Inc. 314.436.9090
Ellen Krohne, Leadership Council Southwestern Illinois. 618.692.9745