With two Business Record Daily e-newsletters each day, three weekly niche newsletters and a weekly print edition, the Business Record shares hundreds of news stories by the end of the year. The newsroom staff works throughout the year to keep the business community apprised of the topics and issues that affect them and get to know some stories very well as they progress and evolve.

Below, Business Record reporters highlight one original story they wrote this year that has been notable for the business community.

Iowa’s gender-balance law may be on the chopping block: By Nicole Grundmeier, staff writer
The Iowa Legislature will likely soon debate an Iowa law that goes back to the 1980s and was created to ensure that women are fairly represented on Iowa’s boards and commissions. Currently, Iowa requires that appointments to state boards and commissions result in gender-balanced boards. About 12 years ago the rules were expanded, with some additional leeway, to cover panels appointed by counties and cities. But a state panel this fall recommended repealing the law entirely to “allow the most qualified Iowans to serve.” Advocates for Iowa women have raised flags about the state panel’s recommendation, which can be found in the story. Karen Kedrowski is a professor of political science and director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center at Iowa State University. She said that about a dozen states have recommendations for state-level positions but that Iowa’s requirement, that half or nearly half of each panel be women, stands alone. “When we look at the 38 states or so that don’t have any recommendation or mandate, what we see is that men are overwhelmingly overrepresented on state level boards and commissions,” Kedrowski said. The exceptions usually fit stereotypes: women making up half or the majority of boards dealing with the arts or preservation, she said. “So mandates matter and they do ensure more diversity.”

$350 million mixed-use development planned for Waukee: By Kathy Bolten, senior staff writer
Dickson Jensen, a developer who lives in Ames, announced plans last June for Kettlestone Central Sports Complex, a $350 million development planned on 160 acres in Waukee. The development is expected to include over 1,000 residential dwellings, restaurants, bars, retail shops, hotels and other commercial offerings as well as two fieldhouses.

Maple Studios completes renovation, opens to new members: By Sarah Diehn, staff writer
The evolution and growth of Maple Studios, formerly known as Maple Ventures, is one of the storylines I followed most this year. In March, it debuted its newly renovated space on the campus of Ramco Innovations, where it started in 2018. Maple Studios Director Megan Brandt took the opportunity to refresh the identity of Maple Studios, branding it as a startup studio where early-stage industrial technology companies can have office space, receive fractional services from Ramco’s administrative team and exchange knowledge with the company’s technical teams. The other major development was the announcement of a new Maple Studios location based out of Grace Technologies in Davenport. Brandt and Grace CEO Drew Allen sat down with me in September to share more. The Maple Studios story will continue in 2024 as the new Quad Cities location gets off the ground and Ramco goes through an acquisition by Sukup Manufacturing Co., which will create a new entity called Sukup Innovations.

Maternal health symposium highlights access challenges, proposes new solutions: By Kyle Heim, staff writer
The Bridging the Gap: Improving Maternal and Rural Health Symposium on Oct. 30 in Ankeny brought attention to the decline of maternal health care access in Iowa. A rising number of obstetric units are shutting down, with 42 closing their doors between 2000 and 2021. In addition, Iowa ranks 52nd out of 52 states and territories for OB-GYN physicians per capita, according to data from the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Speaking at the symposium in October, Stephen Hunter, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, said the closures and lack of OB-GYN physicians in the state have created a “crisis of access,” driving an “immense expansion of obstetric deserts in our state.”