NORTH WEBSTER - At Kosciusko Economic Development Corporation’s 40th anniversary celebration and meeting on Wednesday, attendees were taken back into history, as well as given a glimpse into the future.
KEDCO Leadership Partner Suzie Light reflected on the 40 years of the organization with a timeline of KEDCO’s history interspersed with the county’s past.
“We owe, our community owes, a huge thank-you to Deborah Wiggins. Back in 1984, following a four-year effort, the Warsaw Times-Union reported Kosciusko Development Inc. is officially organized and will function to promote growth, support industry, agriculture, recreation and tourism, as well as the retention of business. Deb is quoted in the article as saying, ‘KDI (that’s what they called it back then) will be involved in actively locating sites for new industry,'” Light said, and then gave a list of names of people serving on the KDI Board of Directors at that time. “Those people had a vision and they worked hard as KEDCO board members.”
Other “exciting” things happening at that time included Warsaw boys basketball being state champs, Explorer Van moved to its new location on U.S. 30 and Cardinal Services celebrated its 30th anniversary.
Light said Wiggins continued to be the standard bearer for economic development. In the news articles Light found, she said Wiggins continued to define economic development “as a process by which a community improves its financial well-being of all citizens, accomplishes through various means, such as creating new jobs, attracting new businesses and providing training and support for existing businesses.”
In 1990, Warsaw Community Schools located to Ind. 15 the “new” high school. In 1991, the community welcomed Polywood to Syracuse. In 1993, Rob O’Brian began leading KDI, the same year the Oakwood Foundation received the Oakwood Park Hotel and other properties, with renovations beginning. At that time, Zimmer relocated its headquarters to Main Street in Warsaw.
In 1994, the county had explosive growth, with particular thanks to Dr. Dane and Mary Louise Miller as The Village at Winona began that year as a restoration project to transform Winona Lake to its previous glory, Light said. Warsaw Center Lake Park was redeveloped into Central Park and athletic fields were relocated from Center Lake Park to the City County Athletic Complex (CCAC).
The next year, 1995, Charlie Sparks led KEDCO. In 1998, Joy McCarthy-Sessing became the CEO of KEDCO, which was the same year the Warsaw Community Public Library doubled in size. In 1998-99, the Kosciusko Community Hospital Board of Directors decided to sell KCH to Quorum Health Group, with proceeds from that sale forming K21 Health Foundation.
Other highlights Light shared included the city of Warsaw taking ownership of the Gatke property in 2003; the founding of OrthoPediatrics in 2006; and OrthoWorx founded in 2009 with a $7 million grant from Lilly Endowment.
In 2010, George Robertson took the helm of KEDCO and Ivy Tech, at Silveus Crossing, finally found a permanent home in Warsaw. In 2014, after 50 years at the Smith Street location, the YMCA opens up on Mariners Drive with support from industry. The Warsaw Tech Park ribbon-cutting for phase I also happened.
From 2019 to 2022, Alan Tio served as CEO of KEDCO. “And following a housing market study, founded by Kosciusko County, the city of Warsaw and the Community Foundation, many new housing projects happened - Eastfield in Milford; Millworks, an 85-unit apartment and mixed-used project is beginning on the site of the old Owen’s,” Light said. Groundbreaking for the Miller Sunset Pavilion and Ice Rink also took place.
In 2024, Cardinal Services celebrated its 70th anniversary in their renovated and expanded Warsaw building. Plug and Play came to the county, and Peggy Friday was named KEDCO’s new CEO.
“In reviewing the changes that happened to our county over the past 40 years, I hope, like me, you are surprised at how quickly time passes and how long, how very long it takes to get things done,” Light said. Quoting Chad Chancellor, co-founder of Next Move Group, she said, “Economic development is a complex and multi-faceted process. But it is essential to the well-being of any community ... By promoting economic development, communities can reduce poverty and unemployment, improve infrastructure and services, and increase incomes and tax revenues. Additionally, economic development can lead to increase cultural and social activity and improve environmental conditions.”
She encouraged everyone to recognize and honor the past, while boldly moving into the future.
Friday then talked about KEDCO and the direction it is going.
“We are all about economic development, and the one thing I want you to know is that economic development is not a race. It’s more of a marathon. And I am incredibly blessed to be a part of a staff who has pivoted and who has taken on a passion and interest in helping Kosciusko County grow,” she said before recognizing KEDCO’s staff.
“We’re all about economic development. We’re all about networking. Many of you have heard the story, heard the direction that KEDCO is going. It’s all about relationships and partnerships,” Friday said. “We’re all about economic development, and when I say that, site selection, we hope, Lord willing, that we’re going to be chosen for a pretty large redevelopment project at LSC - 1,600 jobs. And I’ve got to commend the county, the abatement committee, and the staff for just their stellar performance at our first-ever site selection meeting this past week. I’m really excited about the direction that’s going and the opportunities that that creates for our community.”
Transitioning to business retention, she said KEDCO takes seriously the county’s businesses and organizations that are here. “We want to make sure that you are healthy, you’re thriving and you have everything you need for success,” she stated.
On investment and jobs, Friday said economic development is about creating jobs and wealth and KEDCO is doing that. KEDCO also is working on entrepreneurship, innovation and infrastructure.
“We want to help our small communities grow, and part of that is helping them grow their infrastructure,” she said. Next week, KEDCO will be hosting a community conversation with its partners and local communities to listen to them to find out what they want and don’t want in their communities.
Brandon Noll, director of Plug and Play Indiana, was a featured speaker Wednesday.
He used to run the business development division of Northeast Regional Partnership. About 18 months ago, he was at conference in Washington, D.C., with the partnership’s CEO, Stéphane Frijia, where they met a company called Plug and Play. Plug and Play was talking about launching 10 new offices across the United States in 2023. Noll told them they should come to Indiana, but they asked why when they were looking at bigger cities.
Noll said they pitched Indiana to Plug and Play at the conference, which led Noll and Frijia to fly out to Silicon Valley in California to meet Plug and Play CEO Saeed Amidi and the U.S. expansions team. During the meeting, Plug and Play hears about Warsaw being the Orthopaedic Capital of the World, Eli Lilly based in Indianapolis and Steel Dynamics in Fort Wayne. Within a 200-mile radius of Kosciusko County, there’s 93 Fortune 500 companies.
“And so, when you start laying that out to Silicon Valley, after getting to pitch, we were their top location of where they wanted to expand to,” Noll recounted. “With that, I called (OrthoWorx CEO) Bob Vitoux right away. I also called Mitch Fraser and called the CICB down in Indianapolis. I said I’ve got this opportunity. We need to find a vertical to launch in the state of Indiana and we’re going to do it in northeast Indiana. So, what are we really good at? I laid out all of these things.”
Vitoux recommended doing something in the orthopedic space.
Amidi and his team visited Warsaw and Fort Wayne and was impressed with what he saw.
Zimmer Biomet wanted to be a part of Plug and Play to be able to meet startup companies. OrthoPediatrics and Paragon Medical also wanted to be a part of it, with the state of Indiana being the last piece of the puzzle. Then on Dec. 5, 2023, at a summit in California, the first day was all about Warsaw. On March 20, 2024, Plug and Play launched in Warsaw.
Noll explained what Plug and Play is, what they do and what they’re looking for as the No. 2-ranked accelerator program in the world and the No. 1 active venture capital firm in the world. “And we have an office right here in Warsaw, Indiana,” he stated.
After Noll completed his talk, keynote speaker Ralph Meyer gave a presentation on his grandfather, Ralph Teetor, who was a blind engineer but invented things like cruise control and automatic transmission. Teetor is the focus of the documentary “Blind Logic.”
The evening concluded with the presentation of awards.