Business 380 Excellence Awards winners announced

Some two dozen companies and organizations will be honored Thursday, Sept. 8, at the Hotel at Kirkwood in Cedar Rapids at The Gazette's second-annual Business 380 Excellence Awards banquet.

Awards will be given in the categories of commercial real estate, corporate culture, education, health care, inclusion, innovation, manufacturing, not-for-profits, residential real estate, public-private partnerships and technology as well as the overall Excellence Award.

Finalists who will be honored are:

l Apache Inc.

l City of Cedar Rapids

l Cedar Rapids Parks and Recreation Department

l City of Coralville

l CRST

l Eco Lips

l Frond Design Studios

l Frontier Natural Products Co-op

l GO Cedar Rapids

l Hobart Historic Restoration Co.

l ImOn Communications

l Indian Creek Nature Center

l Innovative Software Engineering

l Iowa City/Coralville Convention & Visitors Bureau

l Iowa Women Lead Change

l Kleiman Construction

l Maxwell Construction

l Mercy Medical Center

l C.J. Moyna & Sons Inc.

l Neumann Monson Architects

l New Bohemian Innovation Collaborative

l OPN Architects

l Physicians' Clinic of Iowa

l Tanager Place

l TEAM

l UnityPoint Health-St. Luke's Hospital

l University of Iowa

Keynote speaker for the evening will be Mike Brown, vice president for marketing and communications for the Greater MSP - the Minneapolis Saint Paul Regional Economic Development Partnership.

The Greater MSP encompasses a 16-county metropolitan statistical area with a $200 billion gross metropolitan product, which makes it the world's 44th largest economy, according to its website. Over a six-year period, the area is on schedule to add about 100,000 jobs by the end 2016.

Brown will talk about how the Greater MSP - Atlantic magazine deemed its achievements 'the miracle of Minneapolis” - managed to build its successful collaborations and its economic-development strategies.

Tickets and corporate tables can be reserved at thegazette.com/tickets or by calling (319) 398-8345.

Networking and cocktails will begin at 5:30 p.m., with dinner at 6:30. Brown will speak at 7.

Presentation of awards will start at 7:30.