A Strong Current
St. Louis, it's been said, is America's most western "eastern" city, and Kansas City the most eastern "western" city.
To an outsider, that may sound like a recipe for a statewide identity crisis. To anyone who understands the people, companies and institutions that define the Show-Me State, it’s a formulation for success—a combination of two equally valid ways of viewing the world, and a diversity of thought that allows Missourians to embrace the positive qualities (and to reject the negative ones) in either.
You’ll see that embraced throughout this, the 2013 installment of Ingram’s 50 Missourians You Should Know. They come from all walks of life—key executives at billion-dollar companies, volunteers, administrators from non-profits, entrepreneurs and innovators. They hail from such varied sectors as banking, health care, law, consumer products, higher education, public policy, farming and many more, and each represents a strong fiber in the fabric of Missouri business and Missouri life.
Why are they people you should know? Because their accomplishments have made Missouri a better place to live, work and do business. Because they are at the fore of identifying the challenges the state faces. Because they are in the front lines, doggedly pursuing the opportunities ahead of us. And because their example should inspire all of us, characters as they may be.
Congratulations, then, not only to each of the 50 Missourians You Should Know for 2013, but to the 100 Missourians who preceded them in two previous classes. We think you’ll find their stories compelling.
Ward Klein
Energizer Holdings, St. Louis
Missouri-friendly. You won’t find it as a line item amid the earnings-per-share or stockholder-equity numbers for Energizer Holdings, but Ward Klein says that trait shows up as part of the bottom line at a company with nearly $5 billion in global revenues. “Where that’s important for a company of our size and complexity is that it is conducive to teamwork,” says Energizer’s CEO. “As I preach here, and people here understand, the enemy, so to speak—our competitors—is outside of the company, not down the hall.”
That’s key at a company making everything from batteries—Klein was part of the marketing effort that created the iconic Energizer Bunny—to razor blades, sunscreen and more. And with 16,000 employees in 50 locations worldwide, the right corporate culture is a vital success metric when the consumer-products giant itself goes shopping: “One of the most important questions, whenever you do an acquisition, is the question of culture,” he says. So the company places as much emphasis on having the right people in administration as it does on finding the right product lines to add.
Klein, who came to former corporate parent Ralston Purina nearly 35 years ago, also cites as competitive advantages the depth of the talent pool in the state and region, the elevated work ethic, and a low cost of living that yield a higher standard of living than you can find most anywhere, given the high-value amenities in St. Louis.
In his own case, he also enjoys shooting sporting clays, swing dancing, gardening and personal fitness pursuits—all of which, he said, are readily accessible, and perfect complements to work he finds challenging, engaging and exciting.
Tom Akers
Missouri University of Science & Technology, Rolla
Self-confidence is almost a prerequisite for becoming an astronaut, yet “everyone who ends up getting selected wonders how they ended up making it,” says Tom Akers. “But I know that once I got to NASA, my education at Missouri–Rolla and my upbringing on our small farm here in Eminence served me well.” A solid work ethic and farm-life mentality of fixing things before spending money on new ones were values infused at an early age. Akers was valedictorian for Eminence High’s Class of 1969—just weeks before Neil Armstrong planted mankind’s first step on the moon.
After earning degrees in applied math at what’s now Missouri University of Science and Technology, he landed a job at his high school alma mater, as principal at age 24. Some Air Force recruiting materials left there for students piqued his interest, and he soon found himself in the wild blue yonder—“as a test engineer in the back seat; I wasn’t a pilot.” He earned his way into astronaut training in 1997 and made four shuttle flights, logging 29 hours of space-walking. Those experiences left him humbled. “I just feel very fortunate and blessed, not proud ... as I think most astronauts feel,” he says.
Akers left NASA in 1997, retired from the Air Force two years later and returned to Rolla to teach at his collegiate alma mater, then retired from that role in 2010. “I really loved teaching at UMR/S&T,” he said. “There is no greater satisfaction than to explain a math concept to a student and see the ‘light bulb come on’ in their eyes!”
Jane Cage
Heartland Technologies, Joplin
Jane Cage never met Rick Rescorla, but she knows his widow. Rescorla was the Morgan Stanley security chief who directed 2,700 employees out of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. He didn’t make it out. In 2012, the Department of Homeland Security presented its first Rick Rescorla National Award for Resilience, and it went to Cage, owner of a small IT firm when Joplin was nearly severed by a tornado in May 2011.
When city leaders formed a group to spearhead business recovery efforts, “I guess I fit the small businesswoman demographic,” Cage said. And when it came to designating a leader, “I looked around the room that night, but thought that all of those people had so many other things on their plates,” Cage said. “It just seemed natural that those who didn’t have the biggest impact should step up to help.” Her own home and business spared, she immersed herself in efforts to reboot a crashing economy.
She chaired the Citizens Advisory Recovery Team (CART), then its implementation task force (CART-ITF), then the effort to choose a master developer (CART-MDRT). “I learned that they like you better in government if you have acronyms behind your name,” Cage wisecracks. The city has come a long way, she says, and has a long way to go. “But I don’t think there’s ever been a more exciting time to live in Joplin.”
Charles Bentlage
Access Family Care, Joplin
He was one of nine children from a Bates County farming family, and he came out of a one-room schoolhouse where he had the same teacher for eight years. She must have been a good one: Charles Bentlage went on to Rich Hill High School and graduated when he was just 16. “I thought I knew everything about everything” and headed to San Francisco, “but I was fired from three jobs in rapid succession,” he humbly recalls. “So I decided to go back to school.” In-state tuition at Mizzou was considerably more affordable than at Cal-Berkley, so Bentlage came home, earned his medical degree, spent a decade in the Air Force and finally decided he’d start a practice in Joplin. He had a solo practice in general surgery for 27 years before giving that up in 1997, then became medical director, then chief medical officer, for the Freeman Health System hospital there. He tried retiring in 2006, but when the chance arose to return to work part-time at Access Family Care, he started working again. “But it rapidly became a full-time job,” says Bentlage. He’s now the medical/dental director for that organization, covering three southwest Missouri cities. And he volunteers at the Community Clinic of Joplin—which he co-founded to help treat the poor and uninsured.
“It’s rewarding,” Bentlage says of his busy schedule, “but the best part of it was the time I was doing surgery. I worked harder than I probably should have, but I really enjoyed it.”
Jeff Mohajir
Genesis Gas & Oil, Kansas City
New technologies in the oil patch mean new opportunities for the aptly named Genesis Gas & Oil, which is at the beginning of an intriguing chapter in the company’s growth. “We have been taking advantage of innovative production techniques to revive mature oil and natural gas fields that have been otherwise not commercial and produce ‘unconventional’ oil and natural gas,” says Jeff Mojahir, the company’s president and CEO. The paradigm shift in production, he says, has allowed Genesis to look at new areas for unconventional oil and natural gas exploration. That could pay off with economic growth and job creation in Missouri, a state that doesn’t immediately come to mind when you think of energy producers. “New technology is allowing producers to explore and produce oil in the state of Missouri in areas never before thought imaginable,” Mohajir says. That’s part of a broader national trend that is turning the U.S. into a net energy exporter, rather than consumer, and the ripple effects of that boom aren’t confined to North Dakota oil or Ohio-Pennsylvania gas production. “Unconventional oil and gas production supports 1.7 million American jobs,” Mohajir says. The sector requires long supply chains that affect far more than the oil and gas-producing states, benefitting Missouri and Kansas as well, says Mohajir, a KU graduate and father of seven.
Mira Mdivani
Mira Mdivani Law Firm, Kansas City
Corporate immigration law was not Mira Mdivani’s preferred practice concentration. “I speak with a foreign accent,” says the native Russian, “so clients presumed I should know something about immigration law! I got tired of explaining it was not my specialty, and learned up.” And how. Mdivani is regarded as among the best in Kansas City at unraveling the complexities of U.S. immigration law. Solving that vexing riddle, business leaders say, could help revive a sputtering economy by infusing it with educated, motivated entrepreneurs. “Corporate immigration law is what most immigration lawyers do not want to do because it appears to be dry,” Mdivani says. “I personally find it fascinating.” She particularly relishes working on H-1B visas for employers sponsoring high-tech workers. That work helps pay the bills, allowing her to provide pro bono services to victims of domestic violence and other crimes. “The biggest challenge with those cases is trying not to cry your eyes out while drafting their petitions, being a cool-headed and strong, unbending advocate for them,” she says. Among the things that has most impressed her about life in Kansas City, she says, are its “unbelievable classical music choices” with the Lyric Opera, the Harriman Jewell program, symphony or chamber-music events. “When I lived in London, I considered myself lucky to score a ticket to events like this,” she marvels. “In Kansas City, they are a part of my normal life. I love Kansas City for that!”
Joe Turner
Great Southern Bank, Springfield
The “family” part of a family banking business is one reason why Great Southern Bank isn’t just another bank in Springfield—it’s the market leader. “The family influence has been important,” says president and CEO Joe Turner, who followed his father into that C-suite role in 2000. “Our family, in addition to being the senior-most managers, we’re also the largest owners. That helps us to keep a shareholder focus.” The company is a large part of the family’s net worth, he said, “so we never do anything that isn’t in the best long-term interests of the shareholders.”
Sitting with him and their father, William Turner, on the bank’s board of directors is his sister, Julie Turner Brown, an attorney at Carnahan, Evans, Cantwell and Brown. The opportunity to work for his father, says Joe Turner, provided key guidance during the bank’s growth across the state, into other markets in and outside of Missouri and, ultimately, above the $4 billion mark in assets. “One of the most important things he’s taught me is that when you’re faced with challenges or opportunities, you need to be realistic when you assess the environment, recognize any problems, deal with them, learn from them and move on.”
Jack Stack
SRC, Springfield
Jack Stack was going to be the last plant manager at a failing heavy-engine manufacturer when he got to Springfield in 1979. “My job was to close the plant,” he says. Instead, he marshaled investors, secured a bank loan, and launched Springfield ReManufacturing Corp. Since then, SRC’s share prices have risen from 10 cents to nearly $200—a nearly 2,000-fold increase.
“We had the courage to stand up and buy our jobs, literally,” Stack says. “After that, we were able to build a community of businesses—we’ve spun off 63 separate businesses in the past 30 years.” For those of you keeping score at home, that’s one every 25 weeks. For three decades.
The principles for that success became a book, The Great Game of Business. A primer on effective use of open-book management, it’s “good old-fashioned capitalism and teaching the metrics of a business,” Stack says. “Most people learn jobs and how to make a product, how to make a service, but not how to make a company.” When people learn how their companies really work, “it’s surprising the innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship you get,” Stack says.
The payoff for Springfield? “We’ve built a community within a community,” Stack says, “and now we have jobs where our kids can come to work. It’s always been about how we create jobs.”
Brother Joseph Reisch
Assumption Abbey, Ava
Yes, you can see entrepreneurship on display deep in the sparsely populated sweep of Missouri’s Ozarks region, in the bakery at Assumption Abbey. There, Brother Joseph Reisch oversees production of a Show-Me State gem: The Assumption Abbey Fruitcake. These two-pound cakes turn the conventional wisdom about fruitcake on its head. When it comes to the “local drug store or department store variety, then that negative reputation is warranted,” says Resich.
“The response to ours has something to do with the real and genuine, vs. the nominal and mass-produced. The difference is night and day.” Working with a recipe designed by a former chef for the Duke of Windsor, the Trappist monks crank out 125 fruitcakes most every day for their roughly 10-month production cycle.
Income from the bakery sales helps sustain the abbey’s operating budget, and Resich says the monks have even deliberated about producing a Trappist-style ale. But with 25 years of success, they’re focusing on what they know best. “We so often hear from repeat customers that they never liked fruitcake until they tried one of ours,” Reisch says.
Mike Kelly
Mizzou Sports Properties, Columbia
Call them Mizzou Moments: The triple-overtime victory over Illinois in the 1993 Bragging Rights basketball game, Tony Temple’s 281 yards and 4 TDs against Arkansas in the 2008 Cotton Bowl, beating KU to go to No. 1 in the AP football poll in 2007. Mike Kelly was there for all of them—and if you were listening, he was there for you, too: He’s the voice of Missouri Tigers athletics. Since he first got behind the mike for MU basketball in 1991, Kelly has called nearly 800 Tiger sporting events, including roughly 230 football games.
Ponder the road trips involved in those totals, and consider this: Since 2007, Kelly has also had a day job with HM, the St. Louis-based insurance and employee-benefits company. His responsibilities include managing the daily service of his clients, and bringing new ones on board. So how does he manage that schedule? “I’m very blessed to have a strong partner in my wife, Laurie,” says the native of Dupo, Ill. They’ve been married for 25 years and have three daughters, including a pair of twins.
Norm Stewart and Mike Alden are two Mizzou figures who have made impressions on Kelly for their achievements and character, and he cites former players like Melvin Booker, Jeremy Maclin, Chase Daniel and Sean Witherspoon as personal favorites for remaining connected to the university and for their philanthropic efforts; all make his work worth doing. But, he says, “I have never thought of this job as ‘mine.’ I’ve always felt like I was simply someone who was blessed to be in the seat at this moment in time.” It has been, he said, “quite a ride.”
