“Sometimes we don’t appreciate what we have here,” said Dan Seals, the CEO of Intersect Illinois.

Orrin Schwarz
DailyHerald.com

If you’re someone who thinks Illinois gets everything wrong when it comes to business, this column isn’t for you.

Actually, maybe it is especially for you.

Maybe before you scream “Get me outta this $%^& state!!!” again, you should read what Dan Seals says to out-of-state businesses when he tells them, you should be in Illinois.

“Sometimes we don’t appreciate what we have here,” said Seals, the CEO of economic development organization Intersect Illinois, a public-private partnership between state government and many of the leading companies in the state. “And maybe it’s a grass-is-always-greener sort of dynamic, but I meet a lot of people who are doing well but think they’re the only ones who are doing well. And it just surprises me that there is such a wide gap between how we perceive ourselves and what the reality actually is here as far as our business environment is concerned.

“You don’t get an economy this big, you don’t get one this diverse and you don’t get companies that large all here by having a bad business environment. That’s illogical. And so I wish we could get more Illinoisans to be those kinds of ambassadors for what we have here and help me tell that story.”

Out-of-state companies are paying close attention to Seals’ marketing spiel. Maybe you should too.

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