Mark Ernst
Fortune, as in the magazine, may not be smiling on Mark Ernst, the youngish H&R Block CEO, but his decision to build anew in the Downtown loop provided the necessary spark in the downtown revitalization. This iconic company has some 13,000 employees with 10% of them in the Kansas City area.

Senator Kit Bond
The veteran United States Senator, Kit Bond, has long smiled on Kansas City. He was instrumental in getting the new U.S. Courthouse built several years ago and played an even more critical role in securing the new IRS project next to Union Station. As the chairman of the subcommittee that rewrites the federal highway bill, Bond will make sure Missouri gets at least its fair share of these dollars. We know of no other U.S. Senator that brings home the bacon than our own Kit Bond.

Michael Chesser
Michael Chesser is the Chairman and CEO of the downtown-based Great Plains Energy, the parent com-pany of Kansas City Power & Light, which has roughly half a million customers in Kansas and Missouri. Great Plains is also parent company to Strategic Energy, a fast-growing subsidiary, which manages and purchases power for commercial customers in states where deregulation allows the service. Great Plains has more than 2,000 employees, the great majority in the Kansas City area.

Bill Downey
As President & CEO Kansas City Power & Light Company, Bill Downey has his hands on a lot of power, literally. As to growth, he and KCPL have been fighting some major battles to build a new power plant in Platte County. Downey serves on the boards of directors of the Kansas City Area Development Council (past co-chair), the Brush Creek Community Partners, the Kansas City Industrial Foundation, and the Kansas City Crime Commission.

Mark Foster
The managing partner of Stinson Morrison Hecker LLP, Mark Foster successfully executed the merger of Stinson Mag and Morrison Hecker and better still, from the perspective of Loop residents, consolidated the firms in the Central Business District. The firm now has some 335 attorneys in its seven offices nationwide. Mark is a quiet and diplomatic leader that’s earned the respect of many.

Michael Rainen
As President of the Rainen Companies, Mike Rainen has parlayed his office furniture businesses into a successful development enterprise. Rainen was responsible for the $91 million redevelopment of Northgate Village in North Kansas City and also has helped spur the growth in the Freighthouse District. Rainen has never lost a hand at anything and likely never will—though quiet in his business endavors, few business people are as savvy.

Jonathan Kemper
Kemper is almost single-handedly responsible for the surprisingly spectacular, neoclassical new central library now open at 10th Street and Baltimore Avenue, inside the historic, century-old First National Bank building. Few in Kansas City other than the cerebral Commerce Bank, Kansas City, Chairman and CEO could have pulled off this $50 million renovation, expansion and modernization with public and private money. Not always a “grower,” Kemper led the charge a few years ago to block the Highwoods Properties’ plan to raze the old Park Lane Apartments on the Country Club Plaza to put up a tax-abated high-rise office building.“I had to raise my hand,” Kemper was quoted as saying.

Mariner Kemper
The 32 year old cousin of Jonathan, Mariner Kemper returned to town a year ago from Denver to take over as Chairman and CEO of UMB Financial Corp. This followed brother Crosby III’s unexpected decision to exit the business. Their father, Crosby Kemper, jr., showed enough confidence in Mariner to step down as senior chairman in October, although one doubts that he will ever really step down. UMB Bank has much invested in Kansas City, including a good deal in its own physical plant downtown. Some 2,500 of its nearly 4,000 employees work in the Kansas City area.

Peter deSilva
Moves within the family have created opportunity for Boston newcomer, Peter deSilva, now the president and COO of UMB Financial as well as the Chairman and CEO of UMB Bank. After 16 years with Fidelity Investments, deSilva’s hiring was seen as a sign of UMB’s commitment to the mutual fund business. deSilva has swiftly entrenched himself in the community and is a solid asset at UMB.

Karen Pletz
As ten-year President & CEO of the freshly rechristened Kansas City University of Medicine & Biosciences (KCUMB), Pletz has helped make KCUMB a major player in the area life science scene. In the past year, the University has established a national Health Policy Institute and dedicated a new 45,000-square-foot Center for Biosciences Research. Pletz recently has served as chairman of the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors. She serves as one of ten special advisors to the Mayor of Kansas City and has been named one of Kansas City’s 20 Most Influential Women.

Laura McKnight
The Greater Kansas City Community Foundation, the area’s second largest, unanimously endorsed McKnight fill the big shoes of Jan Kreamer as President and CEO at year’s end. McKnight currently serves as Senior Vice President of Development. There is a lot at stake. When Kreamer became President in 1986, the Community Foundation was managing $12 million in assets. Today, the organization manages more than $950 million in assets. The Foundation played a key role in the new central library and 18th and Vine, among other central city projects.

John McDonald
The founder and president of Boulevard Brewing Company, McDonald has just broken ground on a new $20 million expansion project at his Southwest Boulevard Brewery. The three-story, 70,000 square foot facility marks a new commitment to this once forgotten neighborhood.

Tom Bowser

Tom Bowser has been in the Blue Cross and Blue Shield System for more than 30 years, 20 of those in Kansas City, and the last four as president and CEO of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City. He is a public champion of metro-wide economic development cooperation and serves on the board of the the Civic Council of Greater Kansas City, the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, and the Mid-America Coalition on Health Care, among others.

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