The German American Chamber of Commerce of the Midwest (GACCoM), headquartered in Chicago, was founded in 1963.
GACCoM is an integral part of the network of German Chambers of Commerce Abroad (AHKs) with 120 offices in 80 countries around the globe. Our continuing mission is to further, promote and assist in the expansion of bilateral trade and investment between Germany and the United States, especially the Midwest.
Our organization combines the elements of a trade commission, a membership association, and a professional consultancy - quite a unique concept in international trade promotion.
GACCoM's territory covers 14 U.S. states: the 13 states of the Midwest (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin) and Colorado, comprising together approximately one quarter of the nation's geographical area, its population and its GDP. GACCoM's office which we share with Invest in Germany is located in the heart of downtown Chicago on Chicago's Magnificent Mile.

The Great Lakes offer vast tracts of open area unimpeded by terrain, vegetation or urban development. That creates certain shoreline regions that are excellent for the development of wind power such as shown on this wind atlas of the province of Ontario. A great way to examine the average wind speeds blowing across the Great Lakes is via the Canadian Wind Atlas, which covers all but a small portion of southern Lake Michigan - http://www.windatlas.ca And for a paper that examines the wind energy potential of each lake, and all the lakes, see "A Great Potential: The Great Lakes as a Regional Renewable Energy Source" at http://greengold.org/wind/documents/88.pdf. Given the huge potential (which may or may not be realized), so much electricity COULD be produced that uses such as renewable ammonia and fuels made by reduction of carbon dioxide could arranged, freeing the region from outmoded and now expensive (as of 2008) oil and natural gas dependency for such materials. Anyway, hopefully it will give the reader some new views on this topic, or at least get some thinking to occur. If nothing else, it is an example of thinking big with respect to renewable energy.