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August 2021
Debbie Bennett
Big Cedar Lodge
Ridgedale
When Debbie Bennett learned that a fellow named Johnny Morris would be a neighbor of sorts—his Big Cedar Lodge acquired land next to the lake home she shared with her husband—she realized that a new career was, quite literally, landing at her doorstep. Knowing the new neighbors would be looking for help, she rethought her plans for a career in nursing. Now, 30 years later, she’s vice president of hospitality for the Bass Pro Shop’s owner and doing every morning what thousands of guests long to do for even a few days—come to and enjoy Big Cedar Lodge. Arriving there every day, she says, “is still my most favorite thing to do.
The people I work with are truly amazing—over 1,000 associates who just come to work each morning wanting to do the very best that they can do.” She’s part of an executive team that has more than 160 years of experience—all of it at one of the premier vacation destinations in the Midwest. Anyone who has followed Morris’ development track record knows that whether it’s a museum, a golfing venue or a vacation resort, it’s going to be executed at a high level. So working for the best was icing on the cake for Bennett as she took that new career path. “Once the hospitality field gets a hold of you,” she once told an interviewer, “you never let go.”
Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer
Mercy Health
St. Louis
Hospital executives across America have fought a global pandemic for 18 months, a public-health crisis that has tested their administrative skills. That’s on a professional level. For Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer, it’s personal: She caught the virus, recovered, and YouTube has the video of her donating plasma to help others heal. That’s the commitment she brings as chief administrative officer for Mercy,
a $5 billion health system founded by the Sisters of Mercy in 1857.
It covers a four-state area and last year, it treated more than 4 million people via admissions, ER visits or as outpatients. “It would be disingenuous to suggest it was easy,” Bentzen-Mercer says.
“But, when you bring together a talented group of leaders who have a shared sense of purpose, it is unbelievable what you can accomplish and endure.” She’s a Missourian by way of California, where she was raised until age 12, and stayed here after earning her degree in broadcasting, oddly enough, from the University of Central Missouri. She followed that with an MBA from the University of Phoenix and is working on her doctorate. She got into HR to pay the bills, and landed at Mercy 11 years ago. “I never worked in health care,” at that point,” she says, “however, as a mom, breast cancer survivor, and Christian, I felt called to make health care my vocation.”
Roger Best
University of Central Missouri
Warrensburg
Even when running a university with more than 11,000 students, you can still learn a few things yourself. For Roger Best, 2020 was a demanding instructor. “Perhaps the one thing I drew upon the most during the pandemic was to remember that I didn’t have all of the answers, and that I needed to rely on the great team we have in place at UCM,” says Best. “I realized most days that my job was to stay out of the way and let others do their best work.” That meant deliberate decision-making, embracing patience with disagreement, and being “exceptionally clear in our communications,” Best says. “The most important thing I learned through all of this? I am truly fortunate to serve as president for such an incredible university.” He was named president at UCM in late 2018, and has been part of the Mule Team since 1995, when he joined the faculty as an assistant professor of finance. He became chair of the economics and finance department in 2003 and dean of the business school in 2010. He has backed up his commitment to Warrensburg with past service on the board for Habitat for Humanity of Johnson County, and now on the boards of the county’s economic development agency, the Whiteman Area Leadership Council, and KCPT, among others.
Jim Carrington
Danforth Plant Science Center
Creve Coeur
That St. Louis—and by extension, Missouri—is a national leader in plant-science research can in large part be attributed to the leadership of Jim Carrington at the Danforth Center since 2011. When the center landed this plant virologist as president and CEO, it was a very big get, which cut both ways. It was, he says,
“the opportunity of a lifetime, because I could help scale up research in important areas of plant science that were far beyond the confines of one lab,” and it allowed him to help move scientific discoveries “beyond the lab and into the marketplace where they can do some good,” he says. Science held some interest back in high school, but it was far from an early calling, and he says he found his own way there “with the help of a lot of luck. I would not say that I was a particularly good model for how one might be encouraged to pursue a STEM career.” At Danforth, he’s helped grow a collaborative community tackling important global challenges such as food security and environmental sustainability, and built a pre-eminent AgTech innovation hub. “We have created an institution recognized in St. Louis as a cornerstone of current and future economic success. All of this is enabled because of a culture we’ve intentionally created, combining scientific discovery, community, impact and values.”
Jane Arnold
Polsinelli, PC
Clayton
Jane Arnold readily admits to being the apple that fell not far from the tree: The office managing partner and health-care practice chair for Polsinelli, PC, has a career inspired by her father’s own path. “I’ve never questioned the importance of both quality lawyering and giving back through charitable and political volunteerism,” says Arnold, who lives in her hometown of Clayton. “My mom stayed home when I was growing up and focused hard on my siblings and me as well as volunteerism. Although I’m a working single parent, I try hard to keep my own kids just as front and center.” Harvard-educated, with a law degree from hometown Washington University, she made her way to the firm after more than 15 years at Bryan Cave, and before that, as a legislative aide to former Rep. Dick Gephardt, on whose presidential campaign she’d worked in 1988 while still in college.
At Polsinelli, she leads a practice group for a firm nationally recog-
nized for its work in her practice concentration. “For me, the appeal
of health-care law has been the need of clients to involve lawyers earlier in business deals,” Arnold says. “Rather than documenting a fully baked deal, health-care lawyers need to help with the structure in a more consultative role. Then we stay around to make sure exec-ution is just right. That’s very appealing for a type-A lawyer sort.”
Debi Boughton
Kirksville Tourism
Kirksville
When the Kirksville Chamber of Commerce needed a director of tourism, it turned to Debi Boughton, which made perfect sense: Who better to promote a community than a sixth-generation resident? Generation 5 left Kirksville for a while, but returned when Boughton was 4 years old, and there, she and her brother, were raised by parents who “taught me how to be a problem-solver. Mom was good about getting things done without stirring the pot. Instead of getting caught up in the drama of something, she taught me to go to the highest-level decision-maker you could reach and calmly make your request to the person who could solve the problem.” Boughton is on a second career after spending 15 years practicing law in a small firm with her father. Stepping back to raise her children, she had an opportunity to serve on the Chamber board, did a stint as president, and subbed for a director on maternity leave. The tourism role seemed to fit nicely when the position was created. “It’s fun to make a difference in the economy of my hometown,” she says. “Before I worked at the Chamber, I was campaign chair with a gentleman named Harold Osborne to get a sales tax passed to build U.S. 63 into a four-lane highway. It passed, and I got a taste for what you can accomplish if you put your mind to it and make changes that affect your town.”
Darryl Chatman
United Soybean
St. Louis
During a considerable number of school days at the University of Missouri, Darryl Chatman hit the books as hard as he hit opposing ball carriers while linebacking for the Tigers. Maybe even harder: He holds a bachelor’s degree in animal science (1997), a master’s in animal science (2001) another master’s, in agricultural economics (2007) and a law degree (2008). Oh, and a master’s in public administration from North Carolina State in 2003. So he was a natural choice when the governor appointed him to the MU Board of Curators in 2017. The book learning and the competitive fire of Division I athletes are also brought to bear these days as senior vice president for governance and compliance at United Soybean, the industry advocacy group. He took that role after serving as general counsel for the state’s Department of Agriculture and leading the ag practice group for Armstrong Teasdale in St. Louis. His current role, he says, has taught him much about the state’s ag economy. “Soybeans are Missouri’s No. 1 cash crop when it comes to total acres planted/harvested and value, so I am happy to have landed at USB,” says the St. Louis-area native. And the state’s reputation for ag research and innovation, he says, “provide useful technology to our farmers and more affordable food products for consumers.”
Vijay Chauhan
BioStL
St. Louis
Some may believe the wheels of innovation are greased with the inspiration of visionaries. But start-ups really run on capital. Understanding where that comes from is a specialty of Vijay Chauhan, who brings startup-CEO experience of his own to BioSTL. The organization came to life a decade ago when key players in civic life—Washington University, BJC HealthCare, and the St. Louis Life Sciences Project—poured $30 million over five years to promote bioscience company creation and drive economic growth in St. Louis. His focus is on attracting high-growth companies from around the world to St. Louis, and the way to do that is by securing customers, investors and strategic partners, helping them access markets in the U.S. and abroad. A mechanical engineer by schooling back in India, Chauhan spent eight years in Boston with a business-turnaround consulting company, then came to St. Louis in 1996 to work for Monsanto, where he let the nutrition and consumer sector. He also founded multiple life-sciences companies, focusing on renewable energy, cancer diagnostics and consumer health care. There, he added to his experience in start-up finance, raising capital from angel, venture capital, private equity, strategic and governmental investors.
Hong Hong Chen
Missouri Walnut
Neosho
Nobody can accuse Hong Hong Chen of lacking long-term vision: The founder of Missouri Walnut is dealing with a different type of agricultural product, one that by industry estimates requires 50 to 70 years to reach harvest stage. He founded this family-owned enterprise in 2003, and it’s among the nation’s largest black-walnut lumber producers. And for good reason: Missouri is home to an estimated 41 million black walnut trees of at least 5 inches in diameter at the trunk—more than twice as many as second-ranked Ohio. The state also accounts for 60 percent of the black walnut harvested in the U.S. each year. And despite what the highway billboards might lead you to believe, it’s not all going into walnut bowls. Chen’s company has production facilities in Missouri and China, including a 400,000 square-foot plant in Neosho. More than 130 workers there—considerably larger than the 20-man force Chen started out with—crank out veneer and lumber for the construction sector, drawing on the millions of board-feet of inventory at the 130-acre site. Given the time frames involved, the company can’t produce all of the necessary trees on its own, so it procures walnut from high-end producers across the Midwest, selling primarily to distribution yards and flooring companies in 37 countries.
Mun Choi
University of Missouri
Columbia
When he was chosen to be president of the University of Missouri system in November 2016, Mun Choi inherited a very full plate. At a campus roiled by racial unrest just a year earlier, Choi would bring the discipline of an engineer to the administration—just in time to be clobbered by a virus wreaking havoc across the planet. The virus is still a thorny problem, the campus unrest has largely subsided, and enrollment declines that began in 2016 have been reversed. Choi has put in place a foundation for growth in a system that draws nearly 75,000 students—more than half of those to Columbia. He must be doing something right: Last year, MU’s Board of Curators entrusted both the Mizzou campus and the other schools in the system to his care, merging the roles of system president and university chancellor. “Thanks to federal aid, the overall impact of the pandemic on our universities has not been as drastic as we initially feared,” Choi says. “We remain focused on addressing the long-term financial goals we set prior to the pandemic, which include growing revenues, increasing productivity and reducing administrative overhead.” Choi’s resume also lists more than 40 projects that brought in more than $25 million in research funding during his career.
Abe Cole
BKD, LLP
Kansas City/Springfield
He’s not in construction, but make no mistake: Abe Cole is a builder. That comes from no less than the CEO at Springfield-based BKD. In announcing Cole’s elevation from regional managing partner in the Kansas City office to chief operating officer for the Springfield-based accounting, consulting and wealth management firm last fall, Ted Dickman cited Cole’s “track record as a builder. He has led growth in our firm by using his skills to further develop BKD practices and offered mentorship that has led many BKDers to leadership positions” As COO, Cole is responsible for promoting firmwide operational excellence. But just as there is no “I” in T-e-a-m, there isn’t one in C-o-l-e. “The success I have had in my career has been a team effort,” he said upon his promotion. In the run-up to those new duties, Cole had overseen an eight-state region in the Midwest, and before that, the Kansas City office. A 1994 graduate of Missouri State, he joined BKD just two years later, focusing initially on the firm’s higher education and insurance practices. His hope, he previously told us, is that people see in him “that my passion for engaging and promoting our associates shows through in my daily actions.” Another Cole-ism to live by: “Integrity,” he says, “trumps economics every time.”
Rex Copeland
Great Southern Bank
Springfield
It sounds like a banker’s paradise: Rich job market, great employee pool, broad mix of industries, thriving and diverse economy. That’s Rex Copeland’s take on the Ozarks. “The area offers a lower cost of living, acts as a regional hub for health care with two major health systems, and is home to the second-largest university in the state,” he says, and it’s ideal for entrepreneurs to realize their potential” A Springfield native, he’s CFO for Missouri’s sixth-largest bank, with $5.8 billion in assets. After starting his career in public accounting and moving to Dallas, consolidation in that sector and a tip from back home punched his return ticket 21 years ago. “Growing up, I always liked math, numbers and business concepts, and I gravitated towards those subjects in school,” Copeland says. He majored in accounting at what’s now Missouri State because,
he says, “I felt that having a background in accounting would prepare me for a variety of career opportunities.” Including the one at Great Southern. That, he says, “put me in a position to make decisions and provide long-term guidance on the company’s direction. … At the time, Great Southern had grown some but still had a lot of potential. I wanted to be part of that and be involved in the company’s continued growth and success.”
Karen Cox
Chamberlain University
Kansas City
A nurse by training—and a doctoral-level nurse, at that—Karen Cox left behind a long and distinguished run at Children’s Mercy and came back to a role closer to her roots. She’s still in the C-suite, though, having traded the co-Chief Operating Officer title at the pediatric hospital for CEO at the largest nursing school in the country. It’s based in Chicago, but her credentials outweighed any concerns Chamberlain’s parent had about her desire to remain in Kansas City, so here she stays. A native of Independence, she earned her degree at the University of Kansas, then both master’s and doctorate at UMKC. She became a nurse manager at University of Kansas Hospital early in her career and has been in leadership ever since. “I grew up surrounded by people who were hard-working and humble,” Cox says. “Originally, I never thought about being a leader in nursing until I realized the impact leaders have on the work environment and on the care that patients receive.” She extends that reach by overseeing the next phalanx of front-line health-care workers, overseeing 23 campuses nationwide and nearly 35,000 students. There, she says, “we have the ability to expand access to a quality education to a diverse student population in Missouri and throughout the nation.”
Ron Crainshaw
Crainshaw Supply
Climax Springs
Ron Crainshaw grew up in Climax Springs, building homes with his father. But that’s nearly 30 miles from Lake Ozark, and even farther from larger burgs like Sedalia and Springfield—long ways to go for materials or tools you might need now. So Crainshaw threw in with his dad to start Crainshaw Supply, selling concrete
and brick, lumber, windows and doors, insulation and hardware.
It would prove to be a calling when the younger Crainshaw returned from Columbia with a degree focused on economics and marketing. “My father always felt a need for a lumber yard in our area,” he says. “The closest place to get material was 25 miles away and service was not great.” On that score, things haven’t changed much in the past 40-plus years. Even when the mammoth national hardware stores finally found Osage Beach on a map, something was lacking. “Knowledge is by far our most competitive advantage,” Crainshaw says. “We constantly hear from our customers they would not receive service or knowledge from the big-box stores.” For years, the area around the Osage Beach on the east end of the lake has seen explosive growth—perhaps a bit too explosive for some. Out west, Crainshaw says, “our area has seen a surge in growth over the last several years as people try to get away from the busier side of the lake.”
Dennis Curtin
RE/MAX Realty
Kansas City
Dennis Curtin’s youth in Kansas City’s Northland—a considerably less-affluent region than it is today—was a constant lesson in relative need. His mom ran a small diner there, and the Curtin kids all had jobs to do to make it work. And yet, she would pick up the tab for families that had it harder. “In her own quiet way, she was trying to help out those families who were struggling in their lives, trying to feed their families and still trying to make their budgets work,” he recalls. That lesson stuck while he worked his way through high school and college in a grocery store. Then into a career where financial rewards were limited only by one’s willingness to learn, work ethic, and hours in a day. He earned his real-estate license in 1973, then bought his first RE/MAX franchise just two years later. Over the next 15 years, he built a small empire—three offices, 110 associates, $200 million in sales volume and 43 percent market share—before he sold it in 1990. Then it was onto bigger things; he’s now owner of all RE/MAX sub-franchise rights in seven
states, with 3,500 associates, and even has overseas affiliates.
That success has prompted multiple philanthropic efforts, including creation of a Northland food pantry, named after his mother.
All these years later, Curtin is still feeding the hungry.
Joe Driskill
Missouri Military Advocate
Jefferson City
It’s one thing to be steeped in the details of public-sector economic development. It’s another to be dialed into the culture of the military. Where the two intersect in Missouri, you will find Joe Driskill. There might not be a more qualified person to fill the role he currently has as military advocate for the Department of Economic Development—he’s a former director for the department and a six-term veteran of the Missouri House of Representatives, where he sponsored legislation addressing economic development, work-force development, telecommunications, and the Missouri National Guard. And he holds a top-secret level personnel security clearance with the Department of Defense. He’s the state’s first military advocate, filling a role created in 2015, in part to make the case for Missouri when bean-counters in Washington think they can shave a few bucks off a $30 trillion national debt by buttoning up a base here and there. Missouri is home to two major installations—Whiteman Air Force Base near Sedalia and the Army’s Fort Leonard Wood, in the south-central part of the state, which means thousands of military and civilian jobs are on the line every time base consolidation talks come up.
Tim Drury
Drury Development Co.
St. Louis
The late Charles Drury Sr. and his brothers laid the foundation—literally—of a hotel empire in 1962 when they built their first hotel in Cape Girardeau. That was the first link in a hotel chain that today has more than 150 hotels spanning 25 states. Operating hotels that have earned J.D. Power’s top customer-satisfaction honors for 16 years is one thing; creating the physical assets that enhance the customer experience is quite another. That’s where Tim Drury and his team at Drury Development Corp. come into play, from ground-breaking to ribbon-cutting, as they like to say. That side of the Drury empire has the task of identifying new locations and markets, jumping the zoning and regulatory hoops, and overseeing the construction before turning the keys over to his brother, Chuck, president of Drury Inns’ operational side. Innovation plays a key role in keeping hotel properties vibrant and attractive, and you can literally see the evolution of Drury’s properties on the corporate Web site: From the long-ago model of exterior room access to the first Drury Inn that went up in Sikeston in 1973, to today’s soaring inns with multi-story atriums, use of natural light and superior amenities. In addition to those duties, Tim Drury is also an executive officer with St. Louis Area Hotel Association.
Mike DuBois
Kit Bond Strategies
St. Louis
No matter your political affiliations, you have to credit Kit Bond with having an eye for talent: When he wrapped up a four-term stint in the U.S. Senate a decade ago and founded his own business development consulting firms, he brought back a key asset from Washington: Mike DuBois, currently the director of policy and business development at KBS. DuBois had served as Bond’s principal Senate adviser on national security, foreign policy and international trade—and was just 31 years old when Bond left office. With top-secret security level clearance, DuBois globe-trotted to Europe, Asia and the Middle East, bolstering strategic, economic and trade relationships. As a congressional staffer, he helped procure hundreds of millions of dollars for defense, and state and foreign projects appropriation. That Beltway experience and those global connections pay off for KBS, where since 2013 he has been the firm’s point man in discussions with state leaders in Jefferson City. His work is not inconsequential; a recent assignment helped St. Louis land the new $1.6 billion campus of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. Less glamorous, perhaps, but nonetheless vital to the state’s economic interests, he has brokered export deals at KBS to create new markets for Missouri soybeans in Asia.
Dan Duffy
United Real Estate Group
Kansas City
Surely Dan Duffy bears the scars from the hook Missouri set in him back in 2007. “I moved to Kansas City from Dallas after acquiring United Country Real Estate,” he says, “The intent was to move the company to North Texas, but after getting to know how great it was to raise a family here in Kansas City, we moved to be part of the community.” His family of real-estate companies produces billions of dollars’ worth of sales every year, making it one of the largest enterprises of its kind in Missouri. In part, he credits his success to values picked up from his parents—“Grit, and get back up when you fail, try again,” he says, “and creativity is vital.” It’s a testament to Duffy’s character that he was also able to extract lessons from bad examples: In his case, what he calls “incompetent” basketball coaches. From them, he acquired “the skill of not blindly following someone because of positional authority, because they may be clueless.” Given his father’s history of playing college basketball with the legendary Jerry West, we’ll take that as solid-gold guidance. Duffy started his career in financial services, but even after the shift to land sales, he sees it a seamless path: “Actually,
I have been in one line of business my entire career—identifying and releasing the potential of others around me,” he declares.
Mike Dunn
University of Missouri
Columbia
It’s not a stretch—well, maybe a little—
to say that Mike Dunn was destined for
the airwaves because he was born in a
radio station. “My Dad was a broadcast engineering, and I was born in Murfreesboro, Tenn., and he was chief engineer in a two-story building, and we lived on the second floor,” says the Mizzou broad-cast professor and general manager for KBIA radio. “So I did come home from the hospital to a radio station, and have been around radio all my life. I’ve never known anything else.” At 16 he started work at a station in Mississippi and become program director just a year later. He didn’t have the chops as a musician, but knew he could spin a platter, and was inspired to do that after watching
The Beatles’ historic appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964.
Dunn defied traditional paths for many in the music field by return-ing to school and eventually earning his doctoral degree, then spent seven years in Oklahoma, turning a 31st-ranked station into the state’s most-listened to public non-profit operation. Then came the opportunity at Mizzou, where he’s taught for 35 years, and his broadcast students learn that “management is about working through and with people, not just yelling and telling them what to do,” he says. And rule No. 1 to build an audience? “Play the hits.”
Charity Elmer
CoxHealth
Springfield
Charity Elmer takes the famed Missouri work ethic to a new level: She was just 11 when she started at the local grocery store in Ash Grove. Of course, hiring restrictions are a bit looser when the owners are your parents, but the experience would become a template for her life. She’s general counsel for Springfield-based CoxHealth, a six-hospital, not-for-profit health-care system with more than 1,000 hospital beds serving a broad sweep of southwest Missouri. A lifelong resident of the Ozarks, she was born in a Cox hospital and proudly declares that she has “never received health care anyplace other than CoxHealth.” After Drury University, she earned a law degree from Arkansas before going to work for a private law firm. Elmer was just 31 when CoxHealth created the general-counsel position, and was sure that, given the ages of the system’s board members, she wouldn’t land the job. Wrong. Not only did she get the gig, she’s been tasked with growing the department, which now has four other lawyers assisting with compliance, legal risk, insurance procurement, worker’s compensation and other matters. “There are very few industries,” she says, “where you can be sure when you go to work every
day, you will positively impact the lives of others.”
Pepe Finn
Stern Brothers & Co.
St. Louis
Career roadblocks? Not for Pepe Finn. Forty years ago, when this Louisiana native and LSU graduate arrived in St. Louis, she set her sights on public finance—specifically, municipal bonds. Her employer’ wouldn’t accept a woman in that role. So she earned a law degree from St. Louis University, and set out to work in the transactional side of munis as bond counsel. “I could still participate in the public-good aspect of municipal bonds that I found interesting and appealing,” she says. Later came marriage and kids, but again, no problem: She left Stern brothers, which she owned with her husband, and stepped back to raise three children before jumping back into the executive ranks in 2009. She’s now majority owner of a firm with a big footprint in that space: In just the past five years, Stern Brothers has underwritten or served as agent or adviser in nearly 400 municipal transactions nationwide. Valuation: $19.3 billion of fixed-rate bonds, with municipal transactions that add up to nearly $100 billion. On the civic side, Finn has a long history of engagement with various causes. Regarded among the most influential women in business leadership in the city, she says that being a woman-owned enterprise isn’t enough: It helps get a foot in the door, but her team has to dazzle clients to remain viable.
Jason Hall
Greater St. Louis, Inc.
St. Louis
Like the Allied nations in Europe during World War II, St. Louis has long had pro-
business firepower, but lacked unified leadership. So think of Jason Hall as Dwight Eisenhower: Commanding general as the CEO of Greater St. Louis, Inc. It was born last fall with the merger of five well-intentioned—but not entirely aligned—civic boosters, including the regional Chamber. “By bringing together those organizations into one,” he says, “we create clarity of message, purpose, and agenda.” That’s important as the city continues to return to its pre-pandemic strength. “There is so much momentum in St. Louis right now,” Hall says, offering a laundry list of achievements that includes $8 billion in Downtown renewal and development. “I like a good challenge, and this is a unique window of opportunity for St. Louis.” A St. Louis native, Hall wasn’t just the fist in his family to graduate from college, but from high school. “You don’t overcome that alone,” he says. “I think those early life experiences—struggles met with opportunity—instilled in me a deep sense that when people invest in you to help your life be something bigger than it could’ve been, you need to give back.” He distills the passion for his work thusly: “I want the St. Louis metro to unlock its full potential and be the very best it can be.”
Seth Hawkins
AB-InBev
St. Louis
Seth Hawkins grew up in St. Louis, so nobody had to explain to him the significance of that towering red brick fortress on Lynch Street when he went to work for the parent company of Budweiser in 2012: It’s part of the fabric of life for almost everyone in the Gateway City. Roughly 4,000 residents there rely on AB-InBev’s iconic brewery for a paycheck, and they turn out millions of barrels of Bud, Bud Light, Natural Light, Busch and Michelob products every year. Hawkins represents the legal interests of the firm as vice president and general counsel for North American operations. Much is riding on his team’s ability to protect the brewer’s reputation as the biggest dog in the beer industry. How big? This year, Brand Finance ranked Budweiser and Bud Light among the 10 most valuable brands in Missouri—no other company had more than one. Hawkins’ tenure there has included leadership of the Litigation and Liability section—disputes involving litigation, intellectual property, environmental issues, and workers’ compensation matters. He played on the baseball team for four years at Univ. of Missouri-St. Louis, where his degree focused on marketing, business management, political science and philosophy, and he picked up his J.D. at the St. Louis University School of Law.
Heather Humphrey
Evergy
Kansas City
How’s this for a title? Heather Humphrey is senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary for Evergy, the Kansas City region’s main provider of electrical power. And just to round things out, she’s serving as interim chief people officer for the company created by the 2018 merger of Great Plains Energy and Topeka-based Westar Energy—a $5 billion utility with 1 million customers in a two-state area. She leads the legal and compliance divisions, which puts her in charge of all litigation, regulatory and corporate legal matters and audit functions. The people officer duties include overseeing human resources, leadership development, talent acquisition, diversity and inclusion, and labor relations. So she’s had a vital role in forging a unified corporate culture from the two companies. “Corporate culture is a reflection of the people and leadership of the company,” Humphrey says, and notes that the pandemic that started in 2020 had an effect on that, but still created an opportunity to break down barriers. A St. Louis-area native, she majored in business at Mizzou, earned a law degree at Washington University, then knocked out an MBA and grad-uated from the Tuck Executive Program at Dartmouth.
Joseph Impicciche
Ascension
St. Louis
Joseph Impicciche has a big job, running a health-care system with more than 2,600 sites providing care, including 146 hospitals in 19 states, 160,000 employees and 40,000 providers. He’s
president and CEO of Ascension, which as more than $19 billion in patient revenues is the nation’s fourth-largest health-care system. But his executive duties are just the start. Having come up the
ranks at Ascension in roles of senior vice president, chief oper-
ating officer and general counsel, his stature gives him a platform to advocate for addressing the concerns that drive up the cost of
providing care in the U.S.: the medically underserved, gun violence
(yes, it’s a public health issue), equitable delivery of services, reduction of pharmaceutical costs, as well as promoting more widespread use of technology to drive innovation in the health-care space. The past 18 months, of course, have tied his team up in immediate response to the pandemic, embracing operational change at an unprecedented pace, and prepping for a new health-care world once the pandemic finally subsides. “There’s no doubt that health-care delivery and the health care system overall will look differently in a post COVID world,” he told The Academy, a membership group for the health-care executive community.
Chrystal Irons
Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield
Meet Chrystal Irons, who completely dem-
olishes the cynical observation that “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.” She
has plenty to offer in the way of guid-ance for would-be business owners and experienced executives alike as director of the Small Business Development Center at Southwest Missouri State. And that guidance comes with real-world experience of what the center’s clients are going through. “After graduating from Drury University, I put my education to work helping my husband, a true entrepreneur, grow his business,” she says. “This experience has proved to be invaluable as I work with other entrepreneurs. I understand the passion, dedication, and hard work it takes to start and grow a business.” That experience is layered with lessons from her childhood, she says: “I learned the value of hard work from my parents, who were both loyal employees of family-owned businesses for over 25 years. I saw how their contributions impac-ted those small businesses, and how those businesses impacted our community.” She came to Missouri by way of Kansas as a youth,
and still lives in her hometown of Ozark, where she has fully embrac-ed the region’s lake culture. “My ‘second home’ is in Taney County on Bull Shoals Lake, where I love making memories with my family.”
Greg Johnson
O’Reilly Automotive
Springfield
They really like to promote from within
at O’Reilly Automotove: Current exec-
utive chairman Greg Henslee had been
with the company for 20 years when he
became the first CEO not named O’Reilly,
back in 2005. Then in 2018, the reins passed to Greg Johnson, who started as a part-time stocker back in 1982 for a company O’Reilly acquired in 2001. From one of the lowest rungs on the salary ladder to the top leadership spot, Johnson now oversees a Fortune 500 company (2021 rank: 268) with $11.6 billion in revenues, and more than 70,000 employees and 5,600 locations. That makes O’Reilly Auto one of the largest specialty retailers of after-market parts in the U.S., and its stores also offer tools, supplies, equipment and accessories for professional mechanics and the DIY crowd. Johnson’s role makes him the point person with responsibility for virtually every facet of the company: merchandise, logistics, purchasing, inventory management,
pricing, advertising, IT, legal/risk management, loss prevention, HR and finance. His rise through the ranks took him to the pos-
ition of co-president in 2017, providing a one-year warm-up before
taking the helm. Johnson earned a business degree from Ten-nessee Tech while he was holding down that shelf-stocking job.
Lal Karsanbhai
Emerson
Ferguson
When Emerson, a global company operating in the Midwest, was searching for new CEO, it found one with a global perspective: Lal Karsanbhai, who took the reins earlier this year at the electrical parts, service and engineering giant, had previously overseen operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and is fluent in Portuguese and French, to boot. He’s just the fourth chief executive in the firm’s 66-year history. The University of Michigan economics graduate leads a $16.8 billion global technology and industrial software leader. He started there in 1995, the year he earned his MBA from Washington University in St. Louis, and has moved steadily up the management ladder, including director of corporate planning—a title he picked up in less than four years with Emerson—and head of the Automation Solutions business. Shortly after taking the office, he told St. Louis Today that a key value would remain in place: Emerson’s status as a good corporate citizen. “It’s in my interest to make St. Louis an attractive place for people to bring and raise their families and to live,” he said. “What points of influence can I have in the community to help us be that city? Because we’re competing against many others for that dollar and that talent.”
John Kemper
Commerce Bank
St. Louis
For a sixth generation, a member of the founding Kemper family leads Commerce Bank. For a public company, that’s almost unheard of. Surprising, then, to hear CEO John Kemper say that, “in our family, we didn’t spend too much time talking about banking around the family dinner table. We were all encouraged to explore our own interests and passions. … There was certainly no standing quiz on interest rates or loan covenants.” Instead, he says, there was discussion about communities where they lived and where Commerce served. “It was always interesting to me to think about the way the individual threads of businesses, individuals and institutions come together to make the tapestry of a community—and how, together, they create progress and growth over time,” says Kemper, who succeeded his father, David, in 2018. Barely 40 himself, he’s seen the number of U.S. banks halved in the past 20 years, and expects that same rate of consolidation will continue. “This is a trend that plays to our strengths and our staying power,” Kemper says. “Consolidation creates disruption, and it causes customers and bankers to think hard about where they can build long-term relationships. I tell our team that we need to be true to who we are—in boom times and challenging ones —and to be there for the long term for our customers.”
Bob Kendrick
Negro Leagues Baseball Museum
Kansas City
Talk about a unique job: As president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, Bob Kendrick runs the world’s only museum dedicated to preserving and celebrating the history of African-American baseball. Yes, Cooperstown may have an exhibit on the topic, but Kendrick’s focuses exclusively on the Negro Leagues and the impact those athletes had on the social advancement of America. It sits in Kansas City’s 18th & Vine Jazz District, a scant two blocks from the site where the Negro National League was established just over a century ago. Kendrick is a Georgia native who arrived in Kansas City on a basketball scholarship at what is now Park University, earned a degree in communications, and worked in newspaper promotions for a decade. In that role, he helped developed a successful ad campaign in the run-up to the museum’s first traveling exhibit in 1993, which led to a role on the museum board and, eventually, the leadership position. He became the museum’s first marketing director, rose to vice president, and after a brief stint with another organization, returned in 2009 and became president in 2011. Kendrick has been involved with much
of the museum’s development from its first days in a small office space to the opening of its 10,000-square-foot home in 1997.
Brad Lager
Herzog Enterprises
St. Joseph
Brad Lager is just hitting his prime, but consider for a moment where he’s already been: He has Missouri agricultural roots; you can occasionally find this CEO of a nearly $1 billion company on a tractor at the family’s farm in northwest Missouri. He’s a tech guy by training, with a computer management systems degree from Northwest Missouri State. He has fast-growth business experience from his time at Cerner Corp.
He has public-policy experience from eight years in the Missouri Senate. And now, as chairman and CEO of Herzog, Lager has executive experience for a national leader in rail construction and maintenance. We don’t like to boast, but the success gene was pretty clearly evident when he cracked the 40 Under Forty lineup here at Ingram’s in 2010. At Herzog, he’s responsible for the day-to-day execution of the overall strategic plan and operations. His first duties with Herzog came as an outside director for Herzog Contracting Corp., an advisory position that morphed into leadership when, in 2014, the late Stan Herzog summoned him to lead the Herzog Technologies division. There, he and the team focused on building a bigger presence in wayside signal and communications and GIS data collection and management.
Chris Lewis
Edward Jones
St. Louis
“There’s no feeling,” Chris Lewis once said, “like the feeling of making a meaningful difference for someone else.” Whether that’s through his work as general counsel for the mammoth financial-advisory group Edward Jones, or moving through a robust calendar of meetings for various non-profit boards, he’s all about that feeling. A native of Jamaica, he was raised in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., went to college just outside the city, then placed the bet that would change his life when he enrolled at Columbia University School of Law. “I bet on myself to go to law school and had to leverage a lot of debt,” he recalled in profile for the Lion Group. To cover that bet, he went to work at New York law firms specializing in financial-services work, but not just any firms: He committed to working only for firms that shared his vision of what it means to a positive impact and serve their communities. He joined Edward Jones in 2007, and in 2015 became general counsel, leading a team that provides legal support firm-wide, and for compliance and government relations. Outside the office, he has engaged as board chair for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Eastern Missouri, and the boards for the St. Louis Children’s Hospital Foundation and the Missouri Botanical Garden, as well as the board of trustees for his alma mater, Manhattanville College.
Rich Liekweg
BJC HealthCare
St. Louis
No question, BJC HealthCare plays an outsized role in delivering medical services in St. Louis and beyond. But it’s about much more than that: Under the leadership of Rich Liekweg, BJC stands as the largest provider of charitable care in Missouri—more than $800.8 million in care, health-professionals’ education, safety-net services and community outreach. So Liekweg had a lot going on well before the 2020 pandemic set in, creating unprecedented demands health-care executives nationwide. At BJC and its 1,600-bed Barnes-Jewish Hospital, he says, it meant that “modeling risk-taking, course-correcting quickly, daily communications and creating a no-fault culture have been key to making sure our team members can do their absolute best work as we wrestle with this ever-changing pandemic,” Liekweg led the charge to establish new systems and working relationships. “It was important to demonstrate trust in our teams throughout BJC by having decisions made and executed at the appropriate levels—not the top levels,” he says. “Intentionally living our BJC values of compassion, respect, excellence, safety and teamwork took on new urgency as they became guideposts for how we must treat each other in a time when the control we are so used to having eludes us.”
Martin Lyons
Ameren Missouri
St. Louis
Ameren Missouri, the western half of a two-state powerhouse, proudly boasts that its average electric rates are the lowest of any investor-owned utility in the state. So if you flip a switch that’s connected to this operating unit’s power sources, thank Marty Lyons and his crew. Lyons is chairman and president of Ameren Missouri, a role he acquired in late 2019 after an 18-year rise through the corporate ranks. In his current role for the state’s largest investor-owned utility, Lyons is responsible for keeping the juice flowing for more than 1.2 million electric and natural gas customers. This father of four also serves both his industry and community, on multiple levels. A public accountant by training and experience, he’s a past chairman of various finance-related the committees for the Edison Electric Institute, but don’t think of him strictly a numbers guy: he completed a reactor-technology course for nuclear executives at MIT—
a pretty good skill set to have if you’re operations include the only nuclear plant operating in the state. On the civic side, he has engaged over the years with the St. Louis Zoo, City Academy, St. Louis University’s Chaifetz School of Business, and the Olin School of Business at Washington University.
Missy Martinette Pinkel
LO Profile
Lake of the Ozarks
Missy Martinette has two passions— OK, three, if you count her marriage to former Mizzou football coach Gary Pinkel. But long before she tied that knot, she was enamored with bringing the finer aspects of life to the pages of the magazine she founded, and with the lake lifestyle at the state’s premier recreational setting. This Kansas City-area native, a Mizzou grad herself, was drawn to the Lake of the Ozarks region at the age of 24, started a small graphic-design company, and built it into a laser-focused publication that spotlights an affluent and sophisticated crowd that infuses the region with an executive vibe—glitzy photos and profiles of them, their homes, their yachts, and their interests in fashion and culture. On the pages of her publication, you’ll find in-depth narratives of people who have built the to-die-for lakeside homes most of us can only dream of. Or recipes for elegant dishes that add flavor to time in those outdoor settings. Or sporting events, like lake boat races and other entertainment. All of that, she says, makes her publication a prestigious fixture in the offices of businesses, health-care providers and on the coffee tables in the homes of lake aficionados.
Daniel Mehan
Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Jefferson City
Before a Missouri company can turn out its first widget or serve its first customer, there lies a gantlet: licensing and regulation, ongoing state and federal tax and policy changes, all layered over local city and county administrative handcuffs. And did we mention the legal aspects through the courts? For the little guys—and a fair number of big ones— Missouri has a network of more than 150 local chambers of commerce to help companies navigate some of that maze, but on a state level, the task falls to Dan Mehan and his team at the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The MCCI takes up the cause with representation before the General Assembly, government agencies and the courts, providing a unified business voice to promote lower taxes, less regulation, better education and economic development opportunities that work.
If there is indeed strength in numbers, Mehan has it at his disposal. The Chamber is also an integral member of the Missouri Chamber Federation, a partnership that unites local and state chamber advocacy efforts in Jefferson City and Washington. Mehan, who was director of development for Washington University before taking the chamber lead, was also a 2019 appointee to Western Governors University’s Missouri Advisory Board.
David Minton
Central Bank
Jefferson City
David Minton has seen banking from virtually every perspective—from teller to CEO—so when Central Bank came calling in 2015 to fill its need for a chief operating officer, it was getting the whole package. Just a year later, this Indianapolis native was named president and CEO at Central, the flagship for a holding company with more than a dozen market-specific banks and a combined $16.7 billion in assets. In banking circles, Minton has a plum position: Just this year, Forbes ranked Central Bank No. 4 on its list of the best banks in America, making the list for 13 consecutive years. And his operating unit played a key role in keeping the Missouri companies operating during the 2020 pandemic, parceling out more than $100 million in loans through the Paycheck Protection Program. Minton came to Central Bank after 18 years in leadership roles at Heartland Bank in St Louis, including those of president and CEO, until it was sold in 2014. He earned a degree in economics and psychology from DePauw University in Indiana, jumped straight into banking with Mark Twain Bancshares in St. Louis, and later picked up his MBA from Washington University in
St. Louis, focusing on finance.
Patrick Ottensmeyer
Kansas City Southern Railway
Kansas City
Pat Ottensmeyer leads a company that is caught up in a battle between would-be suitors from the north: Canadian Pacific and Canadian National, are still bickering about which has the rightful claim to acquire Kansas City Southern. It’s nice to be wanted, but Ottensmeyer’s board has already weighed in, voting in May to accept the $33.6 billion offer from Canadian National, two months after first agreeing to CP’s $30 billion proposal. In the meantime, Ottensmeyer has a railroad to run, and he’s doing it at a high level: Even before the Canadians came calling, he earned accolades from Railway Age as its 2020 Railroader of the Year. Kansas City Southern may be the smallest of the nation’s six Class 1 rail companies, but it plays a vital role in international commerce as the link between Central America and the Great Lakes—most every other line is built to maximize flow of cargo between the east and west coasts. Ottensmeyer, a native of Vincennes, Ind., who earned a degree in finance from Indiana University, moved into the lead role in 2016, a decade after joining the company as chief financial officer. The domestic operations and ownership of Kansas City Southern de Mexico gives the railway access to both the Pacific and Gulf coasts in Mexico.
Randa Rawlins
Shelter Insurance
Columbia
Not many insurance company CEOs know the working end of a milking cow, but as Randa Rawlins says, “been there, done that.” She grew up on a farm near the Carroll County burg of Hale, which had fewer than 500 residents when she left home at age 17.
She earned a political science degree from Truman State, then a law degree from Mizzou. Farming was not in the plan. “But life comes at you in funny ways,” says the chief executive at Shelter Insurance. So in addition to her day job, she owns and manages the farm her parents left behind, trading grain and “doing things I never thought I would be doing,” she says. It keeps her connected to the values she inherited growing up—hard work and genuinely caring for others—that apply to her duties today. She spent 20 years in private legal practice, primarily insurance defense, but eventually decided to seek more inspiring work. She’d known the general counsel at shelter, who encouraged her to apply as his retirement neared. “It was a completely different career from a litigation practice, but was something where I felt I could thrive, and I loved it.” From there, it wasn’t far to the top spot. She leads a full-service insurance company celebrating
75 years in business in 2021, with operations in 21 states.
Tim Puchta
Adam Puchta Winery
Hermann
It’s one of the most remarkable family-ownership streaks in Missouri business history: the Adam Puchta Winery has been in the Puchta family without interruption for seven generations, dating to its founding in 1855. That makes the winery operated by Tim Puchta and sons the oldest, continuously owned family winery not just in Missouri, but the United States, turning out more than two dozen varieties in the wine-growing capital of the state. “Throughout the years my father, Randy, and myself were always exposed to a culture of wine,” says Tim Puchta. “Wine was served with family meals as a part of our German heritage. So did my love for wine. From this love of wine, which was treated as food, hence a real connection to the saying ‘food is wine and wine is food!’ ” That the winery survived Prohibition, when so many didn’t, can be attributed to the tenacity of Puchta’s forebears: The operation closed its doors after passage of the Volstead Act in 1919, and was limited to production of 200 gallons a year, the limit for family consumption. Much of the operation’s equipment—and the prized vineyards—were destroyed, but some of the equipment was saved and the family hid some vines in the nearby woods. With a production capacity of 75,000 gallons, Puchta has nabbed state, national and international awards, converting a nearly lost art into a thriving sector.
Maryann Reese
Saint Francis Medical Center
Cape Girardeau
The health-care part started at home: Maryann Reese’s father was a pediatrician in Saint Louis, and his work inspired her to become a nurse. The higher calling came from the Sisters of Sacred Heart—her teachers through high school, who “taught me to always give back and serve others, especially those less fortunate.” Those influences produced the president and CEO of the largest health-care provider in southeast Missouri, with 306 beds and more than $2 billion in annual patient revenues. In a 30-year career that has seen her rise from staff nurse into management roles, then executive positions as chief nursing officer, COO and then CEO, she has worked in Idaho, Utah, Montana, Illinois and, finally, home to Missouri. Saint Francis is also the largest employer in Cape Girardeau, and the go-to facility for people between St. Louis and Memphis, plus Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas. Her team was pushed to its limits by the 2020 pandemic, but responded with “speed, agility and grace to achieve extraordinary
life-sustaining and life-saving outcomes,” she says. “I have never been prouder
to be a health-care leader than during this pandemic.” The hospital’s workers, she says, “put their own health and well-being aside in order to save the lives of countless others.”
Todd Schnuck
Schnuck Markets
St. Louis
Three generations deep in the family leadership, Schnuck’s today is led by Todd Schnuck, the third member of Don and Doris Schnuck’s six children to occupy the role of chief executive. He’s also the chairman of perhaps the most prominent name in grocery retailing for the St. Louis region and well beyond: The chain has grown to 112 stores in five states, reaching into Wisconsin and Indiana. That’s a long way from the single-site meat market Edwin Schnuck started in 1937, and today, the company is run by all six Schnuck siblings and a cousin. Todd worked his way through that lineup with previous roles as president, chief operating officer and chief financial officer—
an appropriate fit for someone with an MBA from Cornell and four years in investment banking with A.G. Edwards & Sons. As has been the family trademark, civic duty also calls, and he serves as chairman of the board for the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, with other board seats for United Way of Greater St. Louis, The Opportunity Trust, and the Arch to Park Equity Fund. Following a personal passion, he was a founding board member for the Foster and Adoptive Care Coalition, where he’s been both board member and president.
Michelle Tucker
United Way of Greater St. Louis
St. Louis
In a profession that’s all about giving, Michelle Tucker is grateful to be living in St. Louis. Known for the over-sized philanthropy of its residents, the city experienced new needs during the 2020 pandemic. “Residents across the St. Louis region again stepped up by donating volunteer time and money to help local people manage through and bounce back from extremely difficult times,” says the president and CEO of the city’s United Way. Tucker knows better than most what the community needs are, having grown up across the Mississippi River in East St. Louis, Ill., a setting where she learned the values of “integrity, empathy, courage and reliability,” she says. With one in three metro residents in need of some form of assistance, her organization is pouring $1 million a week into various programs, serving a 16-county area. “Leveraging values-based approaches helps keep me grounded while providing additional clarity and direction needed to maintain the appropriate perspective on those we support and serve,” Tucker says. She spent two decades in banking, reaching the executive ranks, before pivoting to non-profit leadership. “My passion for strengthening community impacts and connecting closer to a mission are reasons why I decided to leave corporate America in 2017,” Tucker says.
Ron Rowe
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of KC
Kansas City
Ron Rowe’s template for professional success was etched nearly 70 years ago, after his father and a business partner launched a company and built its work force up to 200. “While we never really talked about it, I watched him treat every one of those employees as his equal,” the Ohio native recalls. “His attitude was always that they all worked together,” Rowe says, which is why he believes today that “I’m a member of the team, no matter what my title is.”
For 24 years, that team has been Blue KC, where he’s senior vice president for sales and marketing, serving a client base of more than 1 million. Rowe, who retires there in September, came to Kansas City through an Army reassignment, and stayed after his service to continue his work in behavioral health. He eventually became CEO of six psychiatric hospitals, then got into consulting, and Blue KC was a client before it was his employer. Working in Kansas City is a true bonus, Rowe says, because “in our market, there is a spirit of camaraderie between insurance companies and providers and much less friction between hospitals and insurance companies when compared to other areas.” The competition those brokers encourage, he says, insurers “must continually look for new ideas and ways to improve products and services.”
Don Tolly
Tolly American Family
Saint Joseph
Civil War-era aside, has there ever been a need for more civility in this country? There wouldn’t be, if only we had more Don Tollys to go around. The American Family insurance agency owner in St. Joseph is part of a national movement called the Kindness Revolution, which focuses on just that— spreading kindness in local schools, churches, businesses and community. “I truly believe wherever you live, you can make a difference in the local community or city by spreading kindness on a daily basis,” Tolly says. “It could be as simple as holding a door open for someone to just saying “Good Morning” to a stranger with a smile.” And that perfectly fits with the professional side of Don Tolly: He’s in the insurance business today because he enjoys helping people. Born and raised in central Illinois, he earned a degree from Culver-Stockton College before joining American Family’s corporate offices, spending 24 years darting about the Midwest and moved to St. Joseph in 2013 and runs his own agency there and in Columbia. His parents—now 60 years into their marriage, his high school and college coaches, and his twin sister Donna, who lost her fight with cancer five years ago, all provided life lessons that guide his work today, Tolly says.
Robin Wenneker
CPW Partnership
Columbia
For a while, life took Robin Wenneker
out of Missouri. It never took the Missouri out of Robin Wenneker.
She was born and raised in Columbia, in a family steeped in values, including the farm-life understanding that “everybody is pitching in; hard work is expected of you,” she says. From her parents and grandparents, she learned to pay attention to the world around her, to engage where she saw she could make an impact. Even as a youth, that could be something as simple as being nice to the new kid in school. “We were always expected to step up and make a difference,” she says.” Today, she does that on multiple levels, including managing partner for the family business and its interests in farming, rental and land holdings. She’s also on MU’s Board of Curators, as well as a long list of civic and non-profit boards in around Columbia. She earned a business degree at MU and an MBA from Washington University, then left the state in the 1990s to work at the Paralympic Games in Atlanta. After her father’s death, she says, “Mom was doing it all by herself, and I realized that was not fair; it was something I wanted to be a part of.” So she came home to her roots. “There’s no reason,” she says,
“to not live in Missouri—it’s central to who I am and to my values.”
Kevin Williams
Jack Henry Associates
Monett
Anybody who knows Kevin Williams knows executive talent isn’t entirely concentrated in the state’s major metropolitan areas: He’s chief financial officer and treasurer of Jack Henry & Associates, which was, basically, a fintech firm before “fintech” became a cool bit of tech jargon. It’s a publicly traded company—2020 revenues: $1.7 billion—that provides computer systems, software and other tech solutions for roughly 8,500 client companies, and has more than 6,600 associates in 45 U.S. locations. And it’s all based in Monett, pop. 8,984. Williams was born and raised in Nevada, Mo., about 90 miles north on what is now U.S. 49/71, and earned an accounting degree from Missouri Southern State University. Twenty years after he graduated, MSSU recognized him with its Outstanding Alumni award, and invited him back in 2014 as the winter commencement speaker. Right out of school, Williams started with another financial-services powerhouse in the region, Springfield-based BKD, earning his CPA designation and working for 10 years before one of his clients—yep, Jack Henry—invited him on board as controller. The next step up, three years later, was CFO, where he’s been a fixture since 2001.
Breck Washam
Burns & McDonnell
St. Louis
Burns & McDonnell may be based in Kansas City, but make no mistake: It cedes no ground to any rivals across the state, where it maintains two offices in the St. Louis area—the city itself, and nearby O’Fallon, Ill. Combined, those offices are home to more than 240 professionals at the employee-owned engineering, design and construction company. The man in charge there is vice president Breck Washam, the regional general manager. As is often the case with employee ownership practiced at the Burns & McDonnell level, once folks are in the door, they’re often in place for the long haul. Washam so far has proven the rule, starting with the firm in 1990 after earning his degree, magna cum laude, from what is now Missouri University of Science and Technology. It’s been a natural progression from there: mechanical engineer (first as assistant, then as lead), project engineer, project manager, principal, and officer. In addition to his professional affiliations as a member of the Missouri Society of Professional Engineers—he’s a past president of that group—he’s a member of the Engineers’ Club of St. Louis, Circle Club of St. Louis, and has served as an area director for MUS&T’s Miner Alumni Association.
Tom Whittaker
JE Dunn Construction
Kansas City
Inspired in part by a grandfather who sat on the U.S. Supreme Court, Tom Whittaker earned a law degree, worked in the private practice, joined JE Dunn 27 years ago and is chief legal officer there today. But it wasn’t always a white-collar life: while studying construction science at K-State, the younger Whittaker had plenty of opportunities to get his hands dirty working for … JE Dunn. First in field supervision there, then as assistant super for another contractor. A native Kansas Citian who grew up in multiple homes along the Ward Parkway corridor—his folks were rehabbing before it was fodder for A&E shows—he was Barstow-educated, finished college in Manhattan, then got his J.D. at UMKC. Private legal practice involved disputes within the construction and design industries, and when JE Dunn was hiring 27 years ago, Whittaker landed the job. There, he rides the crest of a legal wave formed by profound change. “The process of designing and building a building has been fragmented,” he observes, and technology and the drive for new efficiencies “changes everything from strategic initiatives, necessary skills, processes, to compliance. The way we react to these changes while maintaining our culture is
critical to be able to attract, train, and maintain a work force,” he notes.
