As director of international business development, Bartkoski is responsible for attraction of foreign direct investment (FDI), general business development, and international marketing. He assists foreign-based firms location evaluation and site selection, and works closely with the foreign-based business community in Chicago and the local Consular and foreign economic development communities. Bartkoski introduces the area economy and business environment to foreign business and public-private delegations. He has two decades of private, public and not-for-profit sector experience in the economic development field.
Before joining WBC in 1998, Bartkoski was client services manager for the national Grubb & Ellis real estate services firm. Prior to this he was a senior consultant with Deloitte & Touche Fantus Consulting. There he advised national, state, and local governments, utility, and educational institutions on many strategic issues involving economic development. Bartkoski advised organizations on the creation of economic development and base closure adjustment strategies, identified target industry opportunities, organized business assistance programs, and performed real estate analyses. At Fantus, he was the expert on software designed to help jurisdictions and property owners target investment to their respective locations.
Bartkoski consulted for communities, cities and states throughout the U.S., including the City of Dallas, Texas; the City of Wichita Falls, Texas; and Johnson County, Kansas. He also consulted for several major utilities and universities, overseas governmental organizations, and more than 300 software client organizations in North America. Site location clients included First Chicago National Bank, Hewitt Associates, Sun Microsystems, and The Perot Group.
Major economic development projects include successful support for the planned Superconducting Supercollider project, North Texas, 1988, and The Boeing Company headquarters move to Chicago in 2001. Recent international projects include the British School of Chicago and Swiss Trade Hub Chicago, competition for the Free Trade Area of the Americas Secretariat, and establishment in Chicago of several foreign trade and investment offices.
Bartkoski received his B.A. in Urban Affairs from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and his master’s degree in Urban Planning from the University of Kansas. He is a Certified Economic Developer (CecD), having been one of the youngest ever to qualify for that designation.
