Van Beek appointed to economic advisory board

Amy Van Beek, Fairfield resident and co-founder of Ideal Energy Solar, has been appointed to serve on Governor Kim Reynold's newly formed Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

Van Beek will be co-chairing the small business subgroup with Ying Sa, CEO of Community CPA. The group will be working over the next four weeks to develop recommendations that will assist Iowa's small businesses in successfully emerging from the unprecedented impact of COVID-19, with support from Iowa Economic Development Authority.

The subgroup has been charged with focusing on three primary areas:

· assessing the effectiveness of short-term response efforts.

· reviewing current policies for enhancements.

· identifying solutions for barriers to small business stabilization and growth, with a particular focus on assessing funding sources and opportunities for business owners of minority status.

The Advisory Board will draft a comprehensive plan for Governor Reynolds containing a roadmap of both short and long-term objectives designed to assist Iowa in recovering from the coronavirus pandemic with a more robust and vibrant economy than before.

The overall goal is to position Iowa to be the number one choice for all business owners to thrive, all families to prosper and all visitors to plan return trips, regardless of race, color, national origin, sex, religion or age.

Small business is a critical part of Iowa's economy, representing 270,000 businesses and employing 48% of Iowa's workforce. As an entrepreneur and small business owner herself, Van Beek was excited to be invited to participate as a chair on the working group.

'Our work at Ideal Energy over the past decade has been focused on introducing innovative and advanced renewable energy technologies which have helped shape Iowa's growing solar industry,” says Van Beek. 'We've had the chance to collaborate with Iowa Economic Development Authority through a series of grants supporting the research and development of deploying new energy resources into the state including energy storage and hydrogen. I'm very excited to have the opportunity to use this kind of innovative thinking about our future to find creative ways to support Iowa's small businesses. I'm very honored to be included in this process.”