As director of international business development, Bartkoski is responsible for attraction of foreign direct investment (FDI), general business development, and international marketing. He assists foreign-based companies with location evaluation and site selection, and works closely with the foreign-based business community in Chicago and the local Consular and foreign economic development communities. Bartkoski introduces the area economy and business environment to foreign business and public-private delegations. He has 25 years of private, public and not-for-profit sector experience in the economic development field.

Before joining WBC in 1998, Bartkoski was client services manager for the national Grubb & Ellis real estate services firm. Prior to this he was a senior consultant with Deloitte & Touche Fantus Consulting. There he advised national, state, and local governments, utility, and educational institutions on many strategic issues involving economic development. Bartkoski advised organizations on the creation of economic development and base closure adjustment strategies, identified target industry opportunities, organized business assistance programs, and performed real estate analyses. At Fantus, he was the expert on software which helped organizations target investment to their respective locations.

Bartkoski consulted for communities, cities and states throughout the U.S., including the cities of Dallas and Wichita Falls, Texas. He also consulted for several major utilities and universities, overseas governmental organizations, and more than 300 software client organizations in North America. Site location clients included large and small foreign and domestic companies.

Major economic development projects include successful support for the planned Superconducting Supercollider project, North Texas, 1988, and The Boeing Company headquarters move to Chicago in 2001. International projects have included the British School of Chicago, Swiss Trade Hub Chicago, Veolia Environnement North America, and establishment in Chicago of foreign trade and investment offices along with numerous private companies. He authored submittals which won Chicago title of City of the Future for foreign direct investment from fDi magazine, a Financial Times publication, in 2005-2006 and 2007-2008.

Bartkoski received his B.A. in Urban Affairs from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and his master’s degree in Urban Planning from the University of Kansas. He is a Certified Economic Developer (CecD), having been one of the youngest ever to qualify for that designation.