The Greater Phoenix Economic Council (GPEC) is the investment promotion agency for the Phoenix, Arizona area of the United States. GPEC says its goal is to market the Phoenix region in a way that attracts quality businesses and high-wage jobs. GPEC is a 501c3 (non-profit) corporation; half of its funding comes from Maricopa County and local communities, while the other half comes from private-sector investors.

In December 1988, Barron's financial newspaper featured a story called “Phoenix Descending: Is Boomtown USA Going Bust?” The article predicted that the Phoenix area would soon suffer from poor economic planning. In response, Phoenix Mayor Terry Goddard called an “Emergency Economic Development Summit” later that month, where the idea of an overarching investment promotion agency was proposed.

Despite some hesitation, by June 1989 the communities of Chandler, Glendale, Mesa, Phoenix, Scottsdale and Tempe had all agreed to participate in a regional economic development plan.

The Greater Phoenix Economic Council was officially born in August 1989, though it was originally known as the Greater Phoenix Partnership. Ioanna Morfessis served as GPEC's first President and CEO, a role she held for eight years. Morfessis was succeeded by Rick L. Weddle, who served from 1997 to 2004. GPEC's current President and CEO is Barry Broome.

The Phoenix metropolitan area, often referred to as The Valley of the Sun, is a metropolitan area, centered on the city of Phoenix which includes much of the central part of the U.S. state of Arizona. The United States Census Bureau designates the area as the Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale Metropolitan Statistical Area, defining it as Maricopa and Pinal counties.

The population of the Phoenix metropolitan area increased by 45.3% from 1990 through 2000, compared to the average United States rate of 15%, helping to make Arizona the second fastest growing state in the nation in the 1990s (the fastest was Nevada). The 2000 Census reported the population of the metropolitan area to be 3,251,876.

As of April 1, 2010 the Census Bureau reported that the two-county metropolitan area had a population of 4,192,887, making it the 14th largest metro area in the United States, just behind the Inland Empire of California and ahead of Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue area of Washington. Metro Phoenix grew by 941,011 people from April 2000 to April 2010. It is home to more than two-thirds of Arizona's population.

John Sidney McCain III (born August 29, 1936) is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican presidential nominee in the 2008 United States election.

McCain followed his father and grandfather, both four-star admirals, into the United States Navy, graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1958. He became a naval aviator, flying ground-attack aircraft from aircraft carriers. During the Vietnam War, he was almost killed in the 1967 USS Forrestal fire. In October 1967, while on a bombing mission over Hanoi, he was shot down, seriously injured, and captured by the North Vietnamese. He was a prisoner of war until 1973. McCain experienced episodes of torture, and refused an out-of-sequence early repatriation offer. His war wounds left him with lifelong physical limitations.

He retired from the Navy as a captain in 1981 and moved to Arizona, where he entered politics. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982, he served two terms, and was then elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986, winning re-election easily four times, most recently in 2010. While generally adhering to conservative principles, McCain at times has had a media reputation as a "maverick" for his willingness to disagree with his party on certain issues. After being investigated and largely exonerated in a political influence scandal of the 1980s as a member of the Keating Five, he made campaign finance reform one of his signature concerns, which eventually led to the passage of the McCain-Feingold Act in 2002. He is also known for his work towards restoring diplomatic relations with Vietnam in the 1990s, and for his belief that the war in Iraq should be fought to a successful conclusion. McCain has chaired the Senate Commerce Committee, opposed spending that he considered to be pork barrel, and played a key role in alleviating a crisis over judicial nominations.