The Growing Connection between St. Charles County and Germany

There is a long legacy of German immigration, entrepreneurship, and innovation in our state and region. In the 1830s, large groups of German settlers planted their roots along the Missouri River due to auspicious reports by Gottfried Duden. Just 30 years later, the German population had catapulted to comprising over half of the entire state's foreign-born residents. Almost 2 centuries have passed since the first large influx and the positive impact on local industry and culture is obvious.

Our burgeoning Sister Cities programs, recent Governor's Trade/Investment Missions, Missouri's recently acquired Award of Excellence in Economic Development from the German American Business Awards Gala, strong relationships with the German American Chamber of Commerce, the new direct flights from Lambert International Airport (STL) to Frankfurt (FRA)- all are a testament to the history and strong synergies...

Vielen Dank to Dr. Andreas Eckstein (Niedersachsen), Aryan Z. (North Rhine-Westphalia), and Julius Bosak (FrankfurtRheinMain) for attending our Annual EDC Networking Ballgame and touring St. Charles County, MO with us. I hope your time here was enjoyable, interesting, and productive.

While much of the day was a driving tour format, I would like to also offer a great deal of thanks to the business leaders that hosted flexible facility tours with us and condensed a lot of information into short visits to accommodate our busy itinerary: Paul J. McCain (Diode Dynamics), Chris Seyer (Seyer Industries), Stephen Pickardt & Henning Dammer (VSM Abrasives), David Hubbard (BayoTech- Hydrogen), and Randy Schilling (St. Charles OPO Startups).

Of course opportunities like this are only possible with the partner support to provide insight/coordination for programming that matched excellently with our guests’ interests and target industries. A big thanks also go to: Michael Klinghammer , Julie Powers , Patrick McKeehan , Megan Baucom , Ben Motil (City of Wentzville), Brian Feldman , G. Subash Alias , Scott J. Drachnik

A tremendous amount of value in economic development stems from how cohesive a region's stakeholders are. The punctual, flexible, and thoughtful support from everyone here always makes me very proud to serve St. Charles County, MO. It’s clear our friends from Germany also share this strong characteristic.

Prost! / Cheers!

-From The Economic Development Council (EDC) of St. Charles County