Why the Midwest work ethic works
My family was amused when I drove it some five miles home and began to intensify my lawn mowing enterprise.
Living in the Waldo area, I would drive this small tractor to Mission Hills where the good money was. One day, while mowing the front hillside of the then Russell Stover estate—now Helzberg’s—I shot a rod in the engine. Although I had become somewhat mechanical with repairing and maintaining small engines and equipment, this one was beyond my ability to fix.
As I sat discouraged on the wet hillside, the next-door neighbor Ewing Kauffman happened by and sat on the hill with me. “Doesn’t look good, does it?” said Mr. K. That was all it took for me to snap out of a funk and enjoy the rare moment with the most successful local entrepreneur of that era. He encouraged me to “trade up” with a more capable mower if I could swing it.
After a good deal of research on my part, my dad co-signed my loan for the purchase of a brand-spanking-new Gravely garden Tractor. This was no small deal for a 14 year-old. The three-year loan was for more than $10,000. Looking back, my dad must have been every bit as as nervous as I was.
With trailer in tow, I was back in business with the right equipment. Mr. Kauffman saw me mowing the Stover estate early the following spring, and I remember how proud he was of my purchase. We then discussed how I should strategically pursue more profitable business and how I could discipline myself to accelerate the loan payoff—not surprisingly it was the same conversation I had with my dad. With a little bit of fear and a lot of perseverance, I paid the bank note for the tractor off in 15 months.
I tell this story not because it is unusual but because, in this part of the world, it is not. Ewing Kauffman grew up poor in rural Cass County. He empathized with a Midwestern kid like himself who wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. Historically, there have been lots of us, many much closer to farm life than I.
So goes Kansas City’s engineering saga
In this month’s Industry Outlook our local engineers remind us of this work ethic. One reason Kansas City has emerged as the nation’s engineering capital is because so many of the kids that have grown up in this area, especially on farms and in small towns, have mechanically worked with their hands from an early age, almost always with their father by their side. For all of the engineering profession’s good efforts to diversify, this kind of background cannot be replicated in a classroom or on the job.
The region’s work ethic, however, affects even those who grew up soft in the city. Work ethic defines us as a region, and we all strive to live up to it. As our engineers remind us, this is not just talk. Clients all over the world recognize it and reward it.
A strong work ethic goes hand-in-hand with an entrepreneurial belief in individual initiative. When Clinton Burns and Robert McDonnell set up shop in Kansas City in 1898, they would go to each town in the area to persuade the citizens of the advantages of clean water and, later, electric power. The citizens decided for themselves whether those benefits were worth the investment because they would be pay ing for them themselves. Back then, Burns & McDonnell had to install and service what they sold. If things didn’t go well, the word spread, and no one would hire them again.
More than a century later, although Burns & McDonnell is still going strong, far too many decisions about who needs what and who will pay for it have been taken out of the hands of area citizens and engineers. Today, Wash- ington D.C., and government knows best. This change favors the politician over the producer, the lobbyist over the entrepreneur, the system over the tax-payer. Our work ethic will have to work hard to survive this dilemma.
Joe Sweeney
Editor-In-Chief & Publisher
Sweeney@IngramsOnLine.com