Supporters of Lake Erie West have made our global strategy a reality. One of our associates recently spent three months in Siberia working on the Lake Erie West website. On a previous trip to Russia, he met Michail Gorbachov. Seeing Mr. Gorbachov convinced him of the power inherent in an identity. This identity can be in a person or a place. Lake Erie West has such an identity. Now, through the generosity of the Monroe County Convention and Tourism Bureau, Lake Erie West will host a Russian website featuring the Tomsk Region of Siberia. This region is the cultural and academic center of Siberia. We are using the computer to increase our knowledge of the world and using this knowledge to open doors to other lands. This is a sure sign of personal growth made possible by the exchange of information on an individualized basis fostering the development of entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs, which could not have happened in Russia a decade ago.

Why did LA-Z-BOY INCORPORATED link up with the Monroe County Convention and Tourism Bureau? We want people from all over the world to visit the Lake Erie West Region. Visitors ask questions and look for interesting things to do. We want them to explore, discover and share our resources. This theme of exploration, discovery and sharing is the basis for our website and the new Visitors Center at I-75 and LaPlaisance Road in Monroe County.

With this in mind, it is well to note that during 2001, our support came from the likes of The Andersons, Cabela's, LA-Z-BOY INCORPORATED, N-Viro and many others (check out the names on the lakeeriewest.org website). The number of supporters more than doubled during 2001. Many of them are local units of government along the west shore of Lake Erie, including Put-In-Bay, Ottawa Hills, Bryan, Fostoria and the City of Toledo. We have friends in the Toledo/Lucas County Port Authority, Monroe County Industrial Development Corporation and the Regional Growth Partnership. We are in the process of building a Region.