City of GO! Full of Entrepreneurs

I was impressed with the number of entrepreneurs I met in my brief visit to Galva, IL last week. I always try to meet as many of my audience prior to my talk and I found Galva to have a much larger percentage than I typically find. I asked Mayor Hagaman why.

“We just seem to be a very entrepreneurial town. And it seems to be snowballing for us. We seem to be attracting more all the time to Galva.”

We ate great barbeque at The Garden of Eat-N, which was started by Jim Doherty in an 1840’s church that still is full of stained glass windows. He is an amateur cook and also runs EPR, which manufacturers and sells emergency products. He recently developed an inflatable car seat that was chosen as the Child Safety Product of the Year. He hopes to expand sales from emergency service groups to grandparents to store in their trunks for when their children come to visit. Neat idea!

A new foundry opened one year ago when their plant burned down in a neighboring town. Mayor Hagaman knew the owners, who had grown up in Galva. “I called them up and told them that when they rebuilt their plant to think of their hometown. And they did! We sold them the land they needed for $1 and took the utilities out to the plant. They are already up to 15 employees and are out of room.”

Galva has a new dog food plant, a casket accessory manufacturer, and several other locally owned firms. It’s a town on the GO! Mayor Hagaman’s brother-in-law probably said it best, “I wish that I could bottle up the energy that I find here and take it back to my hometown.”