Where We Work
We develop projects where a site, a sponsor, and a public purpose meet.
National priorities are met one place at a time — a county with an idle industrial site, a freight corridor that cannot handle the load, a supply chain that runs through a single region. Applied America develops projects at that level of specificity.
- Scales of regional work
- 3
- Types of development corridor
- 4
- Strategic industry groups
- 4
Where the initiatives are sited
One place at a time, not in every state.
Each marker is a place where the project registry sites one of our initiatives; an initiative whose site is withheld or not yet chosen is counted beneath the map, not drawn. Filter by industry to see where a sector sits.
The binding constraint: power
Most of what asks to connect has not been built.
Of the capacity that asked to connect to the U.S. grid between 2000 and 2020, this is the share that had been built by the end of 2025.
How the work is organized
Three groupings — and the constraint under all of them.
Every page in this section belongs to one of three groups. Under all three sit the physical constraints — power above all — that decide whether a project can be built on the date it was promised.
Common questions
National scope is not national coverage.
No. Its scope is national, but it has no fixed regional footprint and does not aim to place a project in every state.
Submit a region, site, corridor, cluster, or community-development opportunity for preliminary review. Most arrive from state and regional economic-development bodies, communities, sponsors, and institutions that already know the asset or the need — local knowledge is where strong projects begin.
It develops economic-development projects, carrying each from a public priority through permitting and construction into operation and measuring the outcome against the goals set at the start. It is a nonprofit division of CEFA. It develops its own initiatives on its own account and brings the capital to them; on another sponsor’s project, it carries the public side.
A single site rarely stands alone; its viability depends on the power, transport, workforce, and suppliers around it. Seeing a project as part of a corridor lets related assets reinforce one another instead of competing.
Industrial, infrastructure, resource, and innovation corridors. Each names a different way assets connect across geography — where things are made, how they move, what they are made from, and how discovery becomes production.
Critical minerals and materials; manufacturing, energy, and infrastructure; technology, aerospace, and defense; and health, agriculture, and workforce. These are the sectors where domestic capacity carries the most strategic weight.
National scope does not mean every place receives a project. Work proceeds only where a credible opportunity, a willing sponsor, and a clear public purpose align, so many worthwhile ideas remain priorities, not projects, until those conditions are met.
Have a region, site, or corridor in mind?
Bring us a place where a coordinated project could strengthen capacity, and we will assess where it fits.