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Aaron Ahlburn

Managing Director and Senior Director, Research, JLL
Amy Gerber

Executive Managing Director, Business Incentives Practice, Cushman & Wakefield
Bill Luttrell

Senior Locations Strategist, Werner Global Logistics, Werner Enterprises
Bradley Migdal

Senior Managing Director, Business Incentives Practice, Cushman & Wakefield, Inc.
Brian Corde

Managing Partner, Atlas Insight
Dan Levine

Practice Leader, Location Strategies and Economic Development, Oxford Economics, Inc.
Dan White

Senior Economist, Moody's Analytics
Dean J. Uminski, CEcD

Partner, Crowe Horwath
Dennis Cuneo

Partner , Fisher & Phillips
Eric Stavriotis

Senior Vice President, Advisory & Transaction Services, CBRE, Inc.
Gregory Burkart

Managing Director and City Leader, Site Selection & Incentives Advisory , Duff & Phelps, LLC
H. Robert Boehringer, III

Managing Director, Global Location & Expansion Services, KPMG
Josh Bays

Principal, Site Selection Group, LLC
Joshua Wright

VP, Economic and Workforce Development, Emsi
Kate Crowley

Principal & Negotiated incentives Practice Leader, Baker Tilly Virchow Krause, LLP
Les Cranmer

Senior Managing Director, Savills Studley
Marc Beauchamp

President & CEO, The CAI Global Group
Margy Sweeney

Founder and CEO, Akrete, Inc.
Minah Hall

Managing Director, True Partners Consulting LLC
Paul Naumoff

Principal, National Director of Tax Credits & Incentives Advisory Services, EY Global/Americas
Scott Kupperman

Founder, Kupperman Location Solutions
Stephen Gray

CEO, Gray Construction

Kansas City, Kansas, Picked as Pilot City for Google Fiber for Communities

Area Development News Desk

03/31/2011

Google has selected Kansas City, Kansas, as the first site of its "Fiber for Communities" program. The initiative will bring Google broadband fiber to businesses, residences, government, and schools that is 100 times faster than services that are currently available.

Google announced the project in February 2010. About 1,100 cities around the United States applied to be selected as the pilot location for the initiative. Google aims to reach at least 50,000 - and up to 500,000 - people.

Through the program, Kansas City users will have 1-gigabit-per-second, fiber-to-the-home connections at competitive prices.

According to a Washington Post blog, Google chose Kansas City for the efficiency of building a network there, ability to positively affect the community, and create relationships with local government.

The Kauffman Foundation, KCNext, and the University of Kansas Medical Center are among local organizations that will work with Google on the initiative.

Google expects to begin offering the service in 2012.