Business View Magazine Jan-2019

197 in Gary, and so,we’re seeing that throughout Lake County.” “Distribution of products is second,”Lauerman continues.“That includes ecommerce and third party logistics.We’ve seen a progressive interest in this sector because of our location and proximity to the consumer market and our location in the product supply chain for a lot of these distribution compa- nies.About 32 percent of the leads in 2018 were in this category and we anticipate that that’s going to grow in 2019.” A specific program for 2019, according to Lauer- man, is called Properties, Projects, and Possibilities. “The Properties part of it is enhancing our current site database, populated not only with existing buildings but with potential sites–retail, office, and medical,”Lauerman says.“That’s a huge leap forward, because Lake County has many properties available and having a solid inventory is critical to our success in being able to respond to client needs.”For the Projects portion, Lauerman reports that the LCEA has recently acquired a specialized customer man- agement software system that can be populated with all the projects that is has worked on, and is still working on, in order to provide comprehensive reports on same.