Spotlight: Bloomington.

• Author: Werth, Brian
• Position: Business developments in Bloomington, Indiana

With an unemployment ate of only 2.2 percent, Bloomington's economy would appear to have absorbed the 1,100 workers at the Thomson Consumer Electronics plant who lost their jobs when the world's largest TV assembly facility' closed March 31.

Expansions at several large manufacturers this year, including the General Electric side-by-side refrigerator plant, Cook Inc. medical instruments and the PYA/Monarch food distributor, helped soften the blow of losing Thomson.

But most business boosters and economic-development leaders in the community are looking to information technology and telecommunications firms to lead Bloomington into the next century. "What we have seen here in our community is a microcosm of what is happening in the world," says Jim Shelton, chairman of the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce and operations manager for the Technology Service Corp., a professional engineering and computer-services consulting firm in Bloomington. "Heavy labor and low-skilled jobs are moving out of the country. We need to focus on high-technology companies and make sure we have an educated workforce that is prepared to work in those kinds of jobs. That's the future."

Bloomington has grown steadily through the years to become the state's eighth-largest city, with a population of 66,479. More than half of the city's population is Indiana University students - 36,000 of them.

The IU campus, with its 5,700 faculty and staff, is the main employer in the community by a long shot. Other large employers include the GE plant (3,000), Bloomington Hospital (2,000), the Monroe County Community School Corp. (1,600), Cook Inc. (1,300) and Otis Elevator (1,000).

"We have a positive business environment in Bloomington, but it takes a constant renewal, a recognition of where you have been and where you came from to keep moving forward," says Bill Cook, CEO of the Bloomington-based Cook Group of international companies. "History can get lost."

Cook has put his money where his mouth is. His CFC Inc. real-estate company helped redevelop Bloomington's downtown in the 1980s and early 1990s, rebuilding the south side of the Courthouse square into a shopping mall and constructing numerous apartments and condominiums in the downtown area. Cook also was instrumental in building a large YMCA in Bloomington, developing a downtown convention center and donating the lights for the Indiana University football stadium. And his company was heavily involved in the...