Thomason Machine Works in Rockford has been in business since 1978 and continues to produce much the same product they did nearly 40 years ago.

Site Selection Magazine has named Chicago the best city in the United States for businesses to relocate to and expand in 2014, the second consecutive year it has won that honor.

Fortune magazine has named Motorola Solutions the No. 3 most admired company in its industry. It marks the second consecutive year the Schaumburg-based communications and business solutions technology company captured the spot.

Illinois has been named 2014’s number one state for new energy efficient buildings, according to the U.S. Green Building Council’s most recent study.

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED certification, is a globally accepted construction standard that takes into account a building’s environmental impact and energy efficiency. USGBC calculates its top ten list of states with the most LEED-certified building projects by adjusting figures per-capita. The group found Illinois topped the list with 174 projects totaling 42.4 million square feet of space greenlit in 2014.

As green construction grows, the number of jobs it creates grows as well. Read more about USGBC's findings at Environmental Protection.

Between 2012 and 2013, research and development spending at Illinois universities grew faster than in any other state. Illinois’ institutions of higher learning spent a record $2.4 billion trying to drive science and engineering innovation.