LEADERSHIP
Best Business for Supporting Charities
Simply put: These companies get it. Their leaders know that without a strong community, they can’t have a strong business. That’s why you Gold winner Burns & McDonnell identifying specific areas for giving back to the community in education outreach, environmental responsibility, human services and arts and culture. Hallmark Cards, the Silver winner, demonstrates a diverse range of philanthropic interests as well, with programs that touch lives around the world, financial donations in areas where the company operates, and a thriving program to support volun-teer service by employees. And Straub Construction takes the Bronze, in large part for efforts that support more than 50 area charities every year.
Best CEO
Back in 2003, when he was president of the Energy Group at Burns & McDonnell, we at Ingram’s came to know Greg Graves and included him in our biennial Power Elite for the first time. So it was no surprise to us when he subsequently became the company’s chief operating officer, then chief executive officer. And, of course, in addition to his business acumen, he’s got a pretty mean swing on the links, as he’s consistently demonstrated in Ingram’s annual charity fund-raiser, the CEOpen Executive Golf Tournament. But his company’s success is as much about structure as it is about leadership, he says right there, on the company’s home Web page: “Employee ownership is the core value of Burns & McDonnell. It is fundamental to how we think, act and treat our clients.” The low turnover that flows from employee ownership, he says, contributes to the long-lasting relationships that make Burns & McDonnell a leader in the engineering field. Well-said.
Best Business-Friendly City/County Government
Here’s the calculus: Nine-figure construction projects have been a rarity in this region—and almost any other—since 2007. In that same time span, Wyandotte County has seen at least five, involving a casino, a hotel, the GM Assembly Plant upgrades, a destination water park and a soccer stadium. Is there any question now why the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas is this year’s Gold medalist for operating a business-friendly environment? The UG takes top honors in the second year of this award, rotating the field of last year’s winners. Overland Park, the jobs-creation monolith in this region, turns in a Silver showing this year, while its neighbor to the west, Lenexa keeps on achieving, earning Bronze in the process.
Best Elected Official
This one was almost too easy. Regardless of what one thinks of his predecessor, there’s no denying that relationships at the highest levels of City Hall were less than optimal. So with his ascendancy to the office in March of this year, Sly James was already in a place to get the gears of Kansas City government going again. It may be too early to tout a long list of achievements in office, but readers nonetheless recognize his potential in that role by making him the Gold winner this year. Scott Wagner, a native of the Northland who took up neighborhood issues after moving back south of the river, took that to the next level last March by earning a Kansas City Council seat representing the 1st District. He’s our Silver honoree. And a tie for Bronze goes to a pair of figures from communities that have weathered the economic downturn far better than the rest of the region: Mayors Joe Reardon of Kansas City, Kansas’ Unified Government, and Overland Park’s Carl Gerlach
Best Not-For-Profit Organization
With a lot of not-for-profits, funders usually distill their philanthropy down to one question: What’s the ROI? For Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Greater Kansas City, the metrics provide the answer: Children matched with a mentoring figure during the critical ages of 8 through 18 are more confident in their schoolwork performance, get along better with their families and are dramatically less likely to skip school or to begin using alcohol or illegal drugs. That made BB/BS the stand-out choice for readers recognizing not-for-profit leadership with this new category. 
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