Larry Zimpleman, chairman, president and CEO of Principal Financial Group Inc., will present at the Sanford C. Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference on June 3 at 8 a.m. in New York. His presentation will provide insight on the company’s strategy to drive sustained growth and performance going forward. To listen and watch the presentation live, click here. The webcast replay will be available for one week.

The Iowa Utilities Board (IUB) has adopted new rules designed to encourage further development of customer-owned electric generation in the state. The goal of the new rules is to make it easier to add customer-owned electric generation – personal wind turbines, for example – at a local distribution level. The regulation applies primarily to homeowners who install small wind turbines and want to connect to their utility system so they can sell excess power, said Rob Hillesland, spokesman for the IUB. It could also apply to solar-power systems and industrial users that generate electricity from steam, such as a biomass operation at a farm. Under the regulation, all utilities will be required to post standardized interconnection applications on their websites.

The Iowa Department of Administrative Services, in addition to recalling 120 underutilized vehicles from state departments, will be experimenting with placing global positioning systems (GPS) in some vehicles in order to better calibrate overall efficiency in day-to-day use. The strategy was one of the recommendations made by Public Works in a report aimed at improving government efficiency and cutting overall spending. The agency hopes to replicate Delaware’s success, in which the state was able to cut its fleet of vehicles by 17 percent after implementing GPS tracking.

Harland Clarke Corp. will close its 65,000-square-foot Ankeny check printing facility in the Metro North I business park in July. Approximately 90 employees will be affected by the closing. City leaders intend to work with the company and Iowa Workforce Development to help affected employees through the transition. Harland Clarke had occupied the Ankeny location since 2003.