Matt Rookard is the Senior Vice President of Business Development at Greater New Orleans, Inc., a regional economic development alliance serving southeastern Louisiana. In his role Mr. Rookard is responsible for the attraction and retention of private sector investment and job creation. Recent successes include the attraction of GE Capital’s Consolidated IT Center (300 Jobs) and Blade Dynamics Headquarters and Manufacturing Operation (600 Jobs), Gameloft’s New Orleans Development Studio for Mobile Video Games (160 Jobs). Prior to his current position, Mr. Rookard was a Business Development Officer with the Louisiana Department of Economic Development. While there he worked on large-scale economic development projects that totaled $15 billion in capital investment and approximately 11,000 jobs. Example projects are the successful recruitment of SNF’s $350 million chemical plant, Shaw Group’s $100 million modular nuclear manufacturing facility, and the retention and consolidation of Gardner Denver Thomas’ pump assembly operations.