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In 2008, Ingram’s looked at emerging in Kansas City business and determined that young entrepreneurs and business executives weren’t getting the credit for superior achievement. Thus was born 20 in Their Twenties. It was fair to ask after that first class whether enough critical mass existed in that age cohort to sustain this recognition on an annual basis. Now, 15 classes into the project, it’s fair to say that these high achievers have not disappointed. The oldest members of that first class were members of Generation X, who are now in their mid-40s, and many of their names will be familiar to those who know Kansas City’s business scene. The wheels of time keep turning, and many of the Millennial generation have moved into their 30s. Already, we’re seeing members of Generation Z, the Zoomers, stepping in to fill the achievement void. And as you’re about to read, their accomplishments take a back seat to none who came before them.
Eric Buckels
Dimensional Innovations
The vision at Dimensional Innovations, says Eric Buckels, “is to design and build the world’s best experiences.” He does that by helping identify, develop and close new projects for the Overland Park company: Since 2019, he has developed $55 million in potential opportunities and closed $6.4 million in project work. Just for starters, you’ll find his fingerprints on more than $3 million worth of visitor experience, immersive technology, and museum space at the new single-terminal Kansas City International Airport, the new practice facility and coming stadium for the Kansas City Current, and the Durham Bulls Museum—yes, for the team made famous in the Kevin Costner ’80s classic—with a $500,000 project to tell the history of the team, the sport, the movie, and the local community. Buckels, 26 this month, is an account director who also has led the improvement of DI’s prospecting strategy, integrated a new prospecting technology stack, and trained new sellers on the team.
Jason Chase
McCarthy Building Companies
Jason Chase grew up absorbing the concepts of ground-up construction from his father, who ran a development company. Even as a kid, the 26-year-old pre-construction manager for McCarthy Building Companies says, he was “curious and naïve about everything required to take an empty lot and transform it into an integral part of the community.” But it was his first taste of entrepreneurship, he says, and it set the stage for what was to come, even if working for one of the state’s largest general contractors. “To me,” Chase says, “entrepreneurship means using creativity and a mindset of continuous improvement to create new opportunities in work you are passionate about to make a difference in your community.” That has paid off during his four years at McCarthy with a pair of promotions and work on more than 200 construction projects from New Mexico to New York, often in a lead role. Those projects ranged in construction value from $50,000 to more than $100 million.
Kaitlyn DeYoung
K&L Gates
Kaitlyn DeYoung is a 28-year-old lawyer specializing in renewable energy, and already has advised owners and operators in the financing and acquisition of over 50 gigawatts of renewable energy projects in 42 states. Most of that came on the staff at Husch Blackwell before she joined K&L Gates last spring. More recently, she says, she has “advised a lender group in closing a $1.4 billion loan for a utility-scale wind project in Oklahoma. In the past month, I have assisted the buyer in the acquisition of 20 solar projects east of the Mississippi River and assisted a developer in closing a $159 million construction loan for a Michigan wind project.” A University of Oklahoma law grad and five-year veteran of the Chiefs cheerleading squad, she says a personal goal is to show the next generation “that you can be strong, intelligent, and entrepreneurial-focused, while also being able to accomplish your dreams.”
Jake Durham
Brush Creek Partners
It’s not some-thing you hear from many 25-year-olds, but for Jake Durham, it’s a declaration: “In my opinion, insurance is the greatest industry in the world, and it seems to be one of the best-kept secrets.” It won’t be for long if he keeps up this pace: He came on board at Brush Creek Partners’ BCP Tech unit right out of Texas A&M, and as a commercial risk adviser and producer, he has been a key part of a team that has assisted companies transitioning from startup to exit or IPO—in some cases, helping clients top $100 million in revenues. “Entrepreneurship,” Durham says, entails “the ability to recognize a problem and deliver a solution with a unique and effective value that wasn’t otherwise available.” In helping clients manage risk and transfer it off their balance sheet, he says, “ultimately, my success is rooted in being able to deliver fantastic outcomes to each client.”
Rachel Kilmer
ReeceNichols
When Rachel Kilmer started out in real estate just two years ago, she says, “I knew two things: only 13 percent of agents make it through their first five years, and the tried and true ways of generating real-estate business were not for me.” This 29-year-old agent for Reece-Nichols says, “there’s nothing someone with an entrepreneurial spirit loves more than being told they can’t do something.” She went all-in on social media to build her business, drew on a background as an Emmy-nominated sports broadcaster, then applied the tech tools available with TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. Result? More than $4.2 million in sales from social media and a healthy $15.2 million in transaction volume. “Beyond the numbers,” Kilmer says, “the thrill of connecting with a community of over 17,000 on TikTok each day through our shared love of Kansas City has led to countless opportunities and connections.”
James McKinley
City Rent A Truck
In a way, James McKinley and City Rent a Truck have grown up together since he took a job as a wash-bay porter there at age 19. Now, the 28-year-old is director of operations for a very fast-growing company that is shaking up that space. Even while he was taking classes at UMKC, McKinley says, “I quickly learned that I loved business, entrepreneurship, sales, and learning new things outside of the classroom.” But he didn’t give up the classroom; armed with that business degree, he’s moved from rental rep to commercial sales manager and now ops manager. Since 2019, he says, “I have implemented systems and processes that have allowed us to increase net income by 646 percent, revenue by 102 percent, EBITDA by 148 percent, and our fleet size by 93 percent”—all while developing talent and keeping them there, with only a 5 percent turn-over ratio over the past four years.
Austin Miller
Commerce Bank
At 27, Austin Miller is a commercial banking relationship manager for Commerce Bank, where he has closed nearly $68.8 million in net new loan volume, generating more than $316,000 in loan fees. Sales of other bank products yielded an additional $360,000 for the bank, helping him earn “Rookie of the Year” recognition for the best new commercial banker at Commerce Bank in the western region. It also helped him earn a step up as a commercial lender, working with real-estate investment companies here. In late 2020, he and two college friends concocted The Maverick, a new events venue that recently opened in the Crossroads. With several gigs under our belt, he says, “I hope to be able to continue to find ways to grow in both my career as a banker and as an entrepreneur.”
Sidney Miller
Midway Ford Truck Center
Her history degree from KU taught Sidney Miller that nothing lasts forever—even down-turns in the vehicle-sales sector. She joined the fleet sales force at Midway Ford Truck Center just weeks before the 2020 pandemic kicked in and pretty quickly was introduced to global supply-chain constraints with everything from vehicle computer chips to steering wheels, containers—even drivers. “Suddenly,” says Miller, who turns 28 this month, “every aspect of our business was affected.” Undeterred, she was part of a two-person team that delivered 2,155 trucks—that’s roughly $91 million in sales—in 2021, delivered 933 trucks so far this year ($44 million), and has an anticipated 2,225 units in the fourth quarter of this year. That helped make her the May 2022 Salesman of the Month, a month after she was ESOP Partner of the Month. “My favorite thing to say is ‘it can only go up from here,’” Miller says.
Allison Moran
Colliers International
The tech-oriented sales gurus have long since declared the Cold Call a relic of the past. Well … not if you do it right. Just ask Alli Moran, a 29-year-old associate broker for Colliers, who has shown the power of commitment to that sales tool. “Every day,” she says, “the first thing I do in the morning is prospect for new business.” To meet the income goal she set for herself, that means at least 30 cold calls—every day. That’s an entrepreneur’s level of determination. “Being in commercial real estate brokerage is equivalent to owning your own business,” Moran says. “You must be ambitious, self-motivated, and willing to take risks. With those risks comes the reward of unlimited income potential.” She’s a certified commercial and industrial broker who says “you will not always succeed the first time, but if you can take failure and look at it as an opportunity to learn and grow, then you will prosper.”
Hannah Morrey Brown
1898 & Co.
She’s a 29-year-old energy policy adviser with Burns & McDonnell consulting offshoot 1898 & Co., and while this latest venture is not her first time building out a new division, says Hannah Morrey Brown, “it is my first time leading those efforts—a challenge I did not fully grasp or appreciate until experiencing it.” When she was brought on board to fashion energy policy advisory as a new service, “the concept seemed thrilling but amorphous, and by day four, I had taken over a conference room to whiteboard our one-, three-, and six-month goals,” she says. Many iterations later, a six-month goal of becoming 50 percent billable has been bested by three months and 100 percent. “To me,” she says, “being entrepreneurial isn’t only doing that which you are good at, but continuing to force yourself into areas of discomfort. Finding a tension between the easy and the intimidating is necessary to maintain growth.”
Arielle Nash
Nash Group
Talking the talk and walking the walk in the affordable-housing space is Arielle Nash, who at age 23 is president of the Nash Group, advancing projects worth hundreds of millions in deal volume. It’s work with rewards on multiple levels, as it “provides people with safe, clean, affordable housing that speaks directly to their self-worth and dignity,” she says. “In other words, doing work that is impactful and worthwhile is what drives my entrepreneurial proclivities. This is fundamentally what being an entrepreneur means to me—helping others.” Her niche allows her to network with people from different racial, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds, she says. That has paid off with developments in Kansas City and St. Louis—nearly 1,000 units this year. Outside of work, she volunteers with Freedom, Inc., the Salvation Army, and previously with People to People International.
Samuel Noel
Treasure Advertising
He won’t turn 25 for another month, but already, Samuel Noel is carving out his space in the world of digital marketing to serve the commercial real estate sector with Treasure Advertising. He rather boldly launched the firm in the first weeks of a global pandemic back in April 2020. The Crossroads-based firm he founded with his sister, Jessica Liberty, specializes in social media marketing, lead generation, content creation, and custom software development, among other services for a booming business sector. “We are actively assisting in the marketing of over $3 billion in the development in Kansas City, as well as assisting numerous commercial real estate clients on a national level,” he says, leading to a year-over-year revenue increase of 183 percent, a doubling of the team size and their relocation Downtown.
Micah Proctor
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of KC
For nearly six years, 29-year-old Micah Proctor has served in the actuarial department at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City, identifying and evaluating potential savings for both the firm and its clients—a total of more than $8 million in savings opportunities this year alone. “An entrepreneurial mindset,” she notes, “can exist for any employee who takes the initiative and creates value within their organization.” Her work has helped the region’s biggest health-care insurer produce its internal response to COVID-19, produced analytics and reporting for Spira Care Centers, (the firm’s innovative chain of primary-care clinics), and previously, assisted in the formation of enterprise risk-management strategies. “Throughout this,” Proctor says, “I have pursued my own professional goals by becoming a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries, the highest credential for actuaries, after an intensive exam process that took over eight years.”
Jacob Robertson
KC Sports Commission & Foundation
“I am not,” declares Jacob Robertson, “a firm believer in luck.” This, folks, represents the soul of a gambler. As in the kind of guy who would help organize double-decker buses for a Chiefs Super Bowl parade—and have them en route from Chicago and Philadelphia a day before the game was even played. All part of the gig for him at the Greater Kansas City Sports Commission and Foundation, where the 26-year-old is senior manager for organization operations. Though challenging, he says, that parade prep “was incredibly rewarding to see the payoff—a city and region coming together to celebrate a championship a long time in the making.” He came on board there five years ago as an executive assistant and now helps execute 15 annual events, special events, and other tasks. “Entrepreneurship,” he says, “is not just about taking advantage of opportunities as they come, but about creating opportunities that never existed.”
Jacob Roseburrough
WarehouseQuote
For Jacob Roseburrough, entrepreneurship entails a sense of fearlessness, tenacity, and curiosity. He applies all working for one of the region’s biggest entrepreneurial success stories of the past decade, NorthPoint Development. And in his case, NorthPoint start-up WarehouseQuote. Roseburrough, 25, is the marketing director for that logistics-services company. In a startup capacity, that means “accepting the concept of failure quickly and taking a data-driven approach to continually improving marketing programs.” That’s what helped secure a $530 million payout with another NorthPoint venture, Beyond Self Storage, in 2019. He was a founding member of WarehouseQuote, which now employs 50 and has a three-year growth rate of more than 1,000 percent, thanks in part to Roseburrough’s work leading marketing initiatives for the company.
Sarina Shanks
BRR Architecture
Design is not simply a right-brain function for Sarina Shanks—she supplements her creative side with a left-brain world-view that took root in her childhood. “Growing up, I came to see how the environment in which a person lives can shape the overall human condition,” says the 25-year-old designer for BRR Architecture. “I want to contribute to creating healthy communities that will increase public health, cultural diversity, economic stability, and social welfare.” That means adhering to BRR’s goal of elevating spaces people use every day—at home, at the office, out for shopping, or entertainment. “I get to apply my skills to projects across the country, with the hopes of making an impact,” Shanks says. She also trains that passion for non-profit and industry causes, including current advocacy-committee chair for the local chapter of the National Organization for Minority Architects.
Kody Simmons
Straub Construction Co.
In two years as a superintendent with Straub Construction, Kody Simmons oversaw six projects with $6 million in combined value, finishing each of them on time or ahead of schedule, with no safety incidents. He relished the relationships he would form on each; he was on a good track. In March 2020, he had to make a choice: Leave the known comfort zone, or stretch into project management. He took the leap; he says, “and have not looked back since. … To date, I have run some of Straub’s biggest projects totaling $78 million over 10 projects in under three years.” Not one of those has lost money; his best yielded a 75 percent increase over the expected profit margin. Simmons, 28, is now on track to become senior project manager, with an expanded role mentoring incoming project managers, project-management team training, college recruiting, new-hire interviewing and vetting, and review of other team member’s projects.
Jack Steadman
C2FO
Let’s get the obvious question out of the way: Yes, Jack Steadman says, his grandfather and namesake was indeed the late general manager of the Kansas City Chiefs. But young Steadman is definitely updating the family brand. At 29, he’s director of relationship management for C2FO, the fintech firm that has exploded into global prominence as a business receivables-management platform. In July, he bagged his third promotion in two years and now manages a team that covers 75 percent of C2FO’s North American clients. His work has helped the firm execute $2.76 billion in transactions so far this year. On the way to that role, he says, “I developed the playbook for launching Opportunity Marketplaces, which give underserved businesses access to low-cost, convenient capital. This, and other processes I established, helped me achieve a 100 percent performance-to-target ratio as a relationship manager.”
Will Thomas
C & M Restoration Co.
Will Thomas grew up in a family-owned business dynamic and was influenced early on by entrepreneurs his father interacted with in various business associations. A key takeaway: Entrepreneurs were changing people’s lives for the better. Now, the 29-year-old president of Concrete Masonry & Restoration Co. is extending the family ties to initiatives like the Helzberg Entrepreneurial Mentoring Program, and applying lessons learned there to his work. One application, he says, “has been through changing company culture to a more collaborative environment where team members get to see the full circle of what other team members’ responsibilities are outside of just their individual roles,” creating a better quality of life for all involved. Another is networking, leveraging relationships his father had built over the decades into a process for forming new ones with new customers.
Henry Weiler
Fischer Weiler Industrial
In a cyclical field like commercial realty, one can find a certain measure of security working for a company with a brokerage with a global footprint. And Henry Weiler did—for a few years. But if you’re the kind of go-getter who would operate a shaved ice-food truck in college, as he did, corporate real estate appeal is limited. So last fall, the 29-year-old and fellow big-firm refugee Andrew Fischer founded Fischer Weiler Industrial. “Being an entrepreneur is not for everyone,” Weiler says. “I feel as though I have truly demonstrated what it takes to be an entrepreneur throughout the years in my 20’s. I do not take for granted all the life lessons I have learned along the way to becoming a true entrepreneur.” He’s a Rockhurst MBA grad who played baseball there and knows something about building a team. In just a year, FWI is on track to close $105 million in total transaction volume.
