FEDA works to promote economic development for Fairfield and Jefferson County, Iowa. Over the years, FEDA has developed office and industrial parks, worked to attract new businesses to the area, contributed to important community development projects like a new outdoor pool and indoor gym, and worked with manufacturers and service businesses on addressing key issues such as adequate housing stock and a skilled labor pool. Recently FEDA opened the Fairfield CoLab, an office and co-working space for emerging businesses.

Fourth Street Partners offers consultancy and advisory services to both large and small businesses in a number of areas including overall business strategy, operations, pricing models, funding strategies and exit strategies . Kenneth Ross, Founder and President, has successfully built and exited four businesses in a number of industries including software , consumer services, wellness and the food and ag sector, representing a combined exit value of over $500 million. Acquiring companies have included two publicly-traded companies, three private equity firms and a privately held marketing company. Mr. Ross has also served on the Board of Directors of ten start-up companies, has been an angel investor in another eight companies and has raised over $25 million in venture funding both for his own companies or companies he has advised.

FoodChain ID (FCID), with offices in the US, UK, Germany, Brazil, Italy, Belgium, India and 10 other countries, offers a range of testing, certification, and advisory services to the agrifoods industry. The company's services support the production of safe, ethical and sustainable food. FCID offers food safety certification under the BRC, SQF, ISO 22000 and GlobalG.A.P. standards. FCID's subsidiary, Genetic ID offers pathogen, allergen, speciation and authenticity testing and is a leader in the testing of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The company also certifies under a number of standards for sustainable agriculture include ProTerra, RTRS, Bonsucro and ISCC. The ProTerra standard verifies that agricultural companies do not use child or forced labor, employ fair trade practices, use sustainable agronomic practices and are environmentally responsible. Our Brazilian subsidiary certifies over $3 billion of soy annually sourced from 9,000 farms as being sustainably grown and socially responsible. FoodChain ID was a co-founder of the Non-GMO Project and is its leading Technical Administrator. The Non-GMO Project is an initiative of the organic and natural foods industry to provide third party verification of the non-GMO status of products carrying its seal. FoodChain ID has verified over 50,000 products from 2,500 companies and 14,000 suppliers in over 100 countries. FCID is also a leader in providing software for the agrifoods industry to assist in detecting food safety and food fraud events as well as staying abreast of global food safety regulations.

The ProTerra Foundation is a multi-stakeholder NGO that supports the ongoing development and implementation of the ProTerra Standard for sustainable and socially responsible agriculture. ProTerra is the leading such standard in the soy industry with approx. 4 million metric tonnes of soy being certified on annual basis as free of child and forced labor, utilizing sustainable agronomic practices and protecting high value conservation areas such as the Amazon and the Cerrado in Brazil. Over 6,000 farms in Brazil are participating in the ProTerra program. ProTerra is also gaining acceptance in the global sugar industry..

The Southeast Iowa Food Hub is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing efficient marketing and distribution channels for local food growers and processors. The Food Hub works with local growers to make them more successful in their practices and encourages new growers to enter the market by making available ready channels for the efficient distribution of their production.

PackageNet provided a consumer service to supermarkets across the country. Grew the firm from 100 to 4,000 locations in 49 states with locations in over half of the country's leading supermarket chains. The company was acquired by Neopost Online in 2000. Neopost Online was a subsidiary of Neopost, a French publicly-traded company.

Atrium developed the first set of professional tools to allow large companies to professionally manage their microcomputer resources. The software program, the Micro Resource Manager, offered complete life-cycle management of PCs, printers, etc. and was quickly acknowledged as the premier tool for managing these corporate resources by both large and small companies across the country. Customers included many of the nation's leading money center banks, government agencies, hospitals and non-profits. Atrium was acquired by Computer Associates, a leading publicly traded software company, in 1988.

Responsible for implementing an MRP (manufacturing resources planning) system for this leading manufacturer in the fashion industry. Took the company from an inefficient, outdated IT function to an up-to-date IBM System 38 one of the first in the country), relational data base, MRP system that radically improved the company's ability to manufacture its extensive line (600 products) in the right quantities and at the right time with minimal inventory and waste. Also responsible for order entry, accounting, sales commission reporting, etc.

Worked on a variety of investment banking information systems for this leading Wall Street firm including foreign exchange accounting, securities trading. bond portfolio valuation, etc. Worked under Michael Bloomberg who was leading the Salomon IT department during that time.