As we head down the road to recovery there are still uncertainties ahead of us. One thing we can all be certain of is this recession has changed us. It has changed our beliefs, our actions and it has changed our way of doing business.

We have talked endlessly about how this region diversified to survive after the recession of the 1980's. Now it is time for people to diversify themselves in order to meet the changes that are ahead. Thousands of our friends, family members and neighbors lost their jobs during the recession. Many of them are just waiting patiently for their jobs to come back. I believe that is a risky decision because many of those jobs won't return despite recovery. As regional leaders, we must encourage those who are out of work to change or add to their skill sets.

We forecasted that regional businesses would use the recession to get lean and learn to operate within much tighter means. Businesses laid-off thousands of employees because of the recession and they have used this time to balance out their workforce. Unfortunately, many of the jobs that were cut will not be reinstated because businesses learned how to operate without them.

If people start to diversify themselves they will put themselves in a position to take advantage of the changes on the horizon.  Take the healthcare field for example. Healthcare sectors have increased twice as fast as the rest of the economy from 1999-2008 and wages have increased nearly twice as fast as the national U.S. labor market. Here in the Peoria MSA, healthcare related employment has increased from 15% of total employment in 1990 to over 17% in 2007. In 2008, healthcare related fields were attributed with making over 500,000 jobs nationwide.

With that type of growth and even more expected, why not broaden your assets in order to meet the opportunities that are on the horizon? Healthcare is one field experiencing growth and there are others across our region. It's up to us to encourage our friends and family members to prepare themselves for these expanding fields. After all, if we don't have the employees with the proper skills, the employers may look elsewhere. It's time for all of us to look forward and be prepared for what's ahead.