DAN SALLEE | Wellness Within

Trying to get his chiropractic practice up and running, Dan Sallee heard the word “no” from too many banks to count. But he never got used to it. That experience, he said, “didn’t discourage me from realizing my true calling: Helping people take back their lives through chiropractic care.” So he started building a block at a time with Wellness Within Chiropractic Clinic in Johnson County, a completely paperless office that educates patients with iPads, records treatments, schedules and processes payments on the spot. Technology and its efficiencies have been key, he said, but so has starting small. “Low overhead allows me to keep my focus on each patient, while not having to stress about getting into the black,” Sallee says. So thanks, bankers, for the motivation, if not the cash. After he had earned his bachelor’s degree in biology at the University of Nebraska and his D.C. at Palmer College of Chiropractic in Iowa, Sallee, now 29, and his wife Brittany settled on Kansas City to launch his career. He was savvy enough to tap into the region’s existing resources, and credits the Kansas Small Business Development Center at Johnson County Community College for providing guidance. “I recognize the importance of building a personal network of business professionals who I can rely on for support, which has been a huge factor in my success,” Sallee says.

MONICA TOEPFER | Merrill Companies

When it comes to commercial leasing, give 29-year-old Monica Toepfer credit for being able to think outside of the big box construct. As senior associate for the Merrill Companies in Overland Park, this commercial realty professional is challenged—isn’t everyone in that field these days?—to come up with innovative solutions to the vexing task of putting businesses into buildings. One example of her response to that: She was part of the Merrill team’s solution called Trendz Market, which turned a 90 percent vacant building into a co-op of small boutiques covering 9,500 square feet in a building at 151st and Nall Avenue. That model, she says, “allows those individuals, who otherwise could not afford to open stores on their own, the opportunity to expand” and lets their owners grow entrepreneurial dreams of their own. In that way, even though she doesn’t have her own company, Toepfer extends her own reach into the world of small-business ownership. “Entrepreneurship,” she declares, “is not only a vision, but a guide. … To have an entrepreneurial spirit, one must take initiative and implement it into all daily activities.” Call her the other half of an emerging power couple on the Kansas City business scene: She’s married to Matt Toepfer, another realty pro, who preceded her by a year in 20 in Their Twenties.

A.G. WU | Cerner Corp.

“The project manager’s mindset,” says A.G. Wu, “is similar to that of a business owner in that both are ultimately accountable for their enterprise’s fate. Reasons do not matter to them, only results.” That’s the connection he sees between entrepreneurship and a career with a large company like Cerner Corp., where Wu is an engagement leader in the acute-care and surgery venues. He works with hospitals on medical-technology upgrades in projects of up to $5 million. “Fixed-fee contracts mean an elevated emphasis on time and budget management,” says Wu, and they compel project managers to draw on a blend of detailed planning skills and “the creativity to drive ‘Plan B’ when setbacks strike.” A native of China, Wu has found a home at Cerner, one of the Kansas City region’s true entrepreneurial success stories. That company culture has contributed to his own success, he says, because “I was able to reach out to more senior associates on questions relating to team member disputes, client relationships and organizational navigation,” says Wu. True to the spirit of entrepreneurship, he sees the foundational changes in health care not as challenges, but opportunities to align the interests of patients and providers: “I am excited about leading the effort to create that integration and spreading its positive impact,” he says.