Columbia Business Times - April 2017

THE ISSUE • APRIL 2017

$

WOMEN WHO START UP PAGE 64

Teresa Maledy Commerce Bank

Most Influential Women in Business PAGE 38

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12 APRIL 2017

E

ach member of our “influential women” list has a story of influence they shared. For Car$ rie Gartner, it wasn’t one person who influenced her most; rather a type of person. “It has always been people who have been supportive and open and effusive with praise for anyone,” Gartner says. “They are the people who find a seat for anyone at the table.”

For Teresa Maledy, it was a manager who gave her the promotion she was perhaps not quite ready to get, but knew she deserved. “He just really inspired peoMost ple,” she says. “They were devoted to him, they were Influential Women in committed to his vision, but he gave people a lot of Business leeway, he was willing to delegate, he would kind of lead by asking questions. So he was a true inspiration.”

For Michele Spry, it’s her “Golden Girls,” a group ON THE COVER When you think of leaders in Columbia, of women she met through Leadership Columbia. It’s Teresa Maledy is top of the list. She’s a Michele, Shelly DeVore, Sarah Dubbert, and Lindsay thoughtful, inspiring person and gave Young Lopez. “We would drop anything we were some amazing insights during her doing at any given time for one another if there was interview. She also missed a potential anything professionally or personally that we needcalling as a journalist, as she told us she is ed. Each one of us knows that we could lean on each always curious and loves to ask questions.

Photography by Keith Borgmeyer. other to get stuff done.”

For me, my earliest and biggest influence is my mother. A single mom working in sales, she would cold call the areas no one else would touch. (As an incompetent salesperson, I am in awe of her ability to talk to anyone at any time.) She has given her all to everything she has ever done, whether it’s pursuing her artistic dreams as a photographer or managing international business accounts. She taught me that hard work leads to great things. She also teaches me about balance, something she learned later in life and has tried to teach me. I haven’t quite grasped that concept, but she’s still working on me.

This issue was about recognizing those women in the business community who might not even realize all the lives and businesses they have touched. There are 10 women on our “most influential” list, but I wish we could have included 50. Our goal was to recognize some amazing women, and I think we’ve achieved that (see page 38).

You might think some faces are missing from our list. It's been an interesting transitional period for many high profile women like Vicki Russell and Karen Miller, who have moved on to retirement or new endeavors (page 50 and 56). We focused on women still in their careers and making waves. It's been fun to recognize some women who, a year ago, might not have made the list. It's fun to think about what the list will look like in another five years.

Think about who has been a mentor in your career — pick up the phone and call her. Say thank you. We should spend time recognizing the people who have shaped us.

Enjoy our first Women Issue.

THE

ISSUE • APRIL 2017

WOMEN WHO START UP PAGE 64

Teresa Maledy Commerce Bank

PAGE 38

Thanks for reading,

From the very first meeting, my clients feel a sense of

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I can do the same for you, as well.

Wills & Trusts Business Law 303 N. Stadium Blvd. Suite 200 Columbia | 573-874-1122 NathanJonesLaw.com

Brenna McDermott, Editor brenna@businesstimescompany.com

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14 APRIL 2017

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Inside the Issue Twitter Chatter Simon Oswald Arch. @SOArchitecture Ding-a-ding, ding! SOA’s own Jennifer Hedrick #BombPopQueen talks about her very first job in @ColumbiaBiz Columbia Insurance @Colinsgrp Our VP of HR is making headlines this week! #CareerTrifecta #InsuranceNews Mid-MO Innov. Week @bringupbiz Starting a #smallbiz isn’t easy. Check out the top five tech challenges for #smallbiz from @ColumbiaBiz Beth Bramstedt @BethBramstedt Congratulations @haroldoughnuts @AnnaBelleEvents & @ColumbiaBiz for being named finalists for @COMOChamber 2017 Small Business of the Year!

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TIME TO CELEBRATE

Thank you to the Columbia Chamber of Commerce for naming The Business Times Company a Small Business of the Year finalist. We are so honored and excited! Congratulations to the four other finalists, AnnaBelle Events, Harold’s Doughnuts, Tompkins Construction, and TrueSon Exteriors. Join us during Small Business Week, May 1 through 5, and help us celebrate!

TOP OF THE TOWN TIME

Visit ColumbiaBusinessTimes.com to help us choose the best of Mid-Missouri business in CBT’s third annual Top of the Town awards, presented by Columbia Regional Airport. Save the date for the best party of the year on June 28 at Logboat Brewing Co.

Contributors

Anna Comfort

David Morrison

Megan Whitehead

@Anna_LifeAndTea

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Eli Marchbanks

Write to CBT editor Brenna McDermott at Brenna@BusinessTimesCompany.com COLUMBIABUSINESSTIMES.COM 15

16 APRIL 2017

APRIL 2017 VOL. 2 3 / ISSUE 10

TA B LE OF CON T EN TS

The Women Issue

38

13 FROM THE EDITOR 15 INSIDE THE ISSUE 19 CLOSER LOOK 20 BRIEFLY IN THE NEWS 23 BUSINESS UPDATE Greater Missouri Leadership Challenge

26 NONPROFIT SPOTLIGHT Love INC

28 CELEBRATIONS My Sister's Circus

31 MOVERS & SHAKERS 32 P.Y.S.K. Randa Rawlins

35 7 QUESTIONS Persephone Dakopolos

37 OPINION 74 ORGANIZATIONAL HEALTH Five Strategies to Re-energize Yourself as a Leader

75 DIVERSITY

Talking through Discomfort

77 MARKETING

Should I Do Email Marketing?

78 ASK ANNE

Attitude Adjustment

80 BUSINESS SMARTS You Need a Privacy Policy

Most Influential Women in Business Whether they’re working behind the scenes or in the spotlight, these 10 women are influencing our business community. Get to know their stories.

50

Time for Thought After the sale of the Columbia Daily Tribune, former publisher Vicki Russell reflects on her career and the state of the media.

56

The Next Chapter Recent retirees Karen Miller, Valerie Shaw, and Virginia Wilson may be stepping out of the workforce, but they’re not done working.

82 ECONOMIC INDEX 83 NEW BUSINESS LICENSES 84 DEEDS OF TRUST 86 BY THE NUMBERS 88 THIS OR THAT Barbara Ramsey

90 FLASHBACK Peace Park

64

Ask and Give Columbia’s female entrepreneurs rally around one another to meet a shared goal: closing the startup gender gap.

70

Creating a Climate What can an employer do to encourage female leadership in their companies? CBT takes a scholarly look.

18 APRIL 2017

BUSINE SS • P EOP L E • IM P R OV EM EN T • F YI

C LOSER LOOK

Closer Look

Polished Nail Spa and Esthetics

Wolcott Water Systems

573 Home Team

Owner, esthetician, makeup artist, and nail technician Ming Hsieh is focused on creating a beautiful and relaxing environment where her customers come first. “I’m working with ladies that absolutely love what they do, really love working with each other, and that truly shows in our disposition and in the quality of our work,” she says.

Her business, Polished Nail Spa and Esthetics, is led by three women — Hsieh, Annalise Ochoa-Jackson, and Jamie Shepard — who love working with one another and creating a new salon environment. “We are not a walk-in type of salon,” says Hsieh. “We are appointment only with tons of regulars and a stunning space where customers feel comfortable.”

Wedding parties are welcome at Polished.

Customers can bring any food or beverage to enjoy while getting ready for that bride’s special day. Polished also offers traveling makeup services for the party.

“We are focused around getting to know our clients as real people whose company we enjoy, and we love taking care of them from beginning to end,” says Hsieh.

Wolcott Water Systems has been in business since 1928, and they’re still operating out of the same log cabin they started in. Wolcott Water is a water treatment business located in Columbia and is woman-owned and operated. A water treatment can encompass a wide variety of processes that make water more suitable for industrial use. “We are a distributor selling material that’s used to clean water for big industries, power plants, or anything that uses water in an industrial setting,” says Anne Ozario, Wolcott’s president.

Their ongoing success comes from consistently offering customers the highest quality products at the best prices possible.

“We meet our customers at their location or we see them at trade shows,” says Ozario.

“We’ve been around for a long time, so we have a set base of customers that we keep in contact with.”

Their most popular services are resin analysis and evaluation. Also, the staff is available 24 hours a day and seven days a week — anytime you need Wolcott Water Systems, they’ll be there, in their wooden pioneer cabin, to help you out.

Katie Wagner and Erin Hendershott, the real estate agents making up 573 Home Team, part of RE/MAX Boone Realty, want to get to know their clients as real people and work with them in a hands-on way throughout their entire real estate experience.

“We are a boutique realtor group,” Wagner says. “Our personalized service is tailored to cater to each client and their specific wish list.”

573 Home Team puts together customized and effective marketing campaigns using professional pictures, video, and social media advertising. The approach capitalizes on the strengths of both Wagner and Hendershott.

The dynamic duo came to be when Wagner, already in the middle of an established real estate career, needed a partner in order to maintain her high level of personal attention to clients, “Erin was a great fit,” Wagner says.

“With her sales and marketing background, it easily became a natural partnership.”

The pair says that past clients value their communication skills and availability. “We are emotionally invested in each and every one of our clients,” Wagner says. “This is the magic key to being great at what we do.”

Contact: 573-446-6245 Website: polishedincomo.com Address: 1400 Forum Blvd., Ste. 10

Contact: 573-449-0011 Website: wolcottwater.com Address: 2007 Wolcott Dr

Contact: 573-256-3153 Website: 573HomeTeam.com Address: 33 E. Broadway, Ste. 200

Are you an entrepreneur? Are you sprouting a new business? Tell us about it at Editor@BusinessTimesCompany.com COLUMBIABUSINESSTIMES.COM 19

BUSINE SS • P EOP L E • IM P R OV EM EN T • F YI

Briefly in the News APRIL 2017

CHARITY

DONATIONS FOR WILDFIRE RELIEF At an event hosted by the Columbia Chamber of Commerce’s Agribusiness and Bioscience Committee, Boone County farmers raised more than $2,000 to be donated to relief for wildfires in Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Donations were collected at the Chamber’s annual farmer’s recognition banquet, and the check was recognized in a ceremony at MFA Oil.

C H AR IT Y

MAN UP CAMPAIGN The Big Brothers Big Sisters “Man Up” male volunteer recruitment and training campaign will continue for a second year, thanks to a $25,000 grant from the Veterans United Foundation. The program helps train men to be mentors to young men in the program. Since the campaign launch in mid-2016, Big Brothers Big Sisters has recruited, trained, matched, and provided guidance to 71 male mentors through this initiative.

“ Thi s p ro g r a m h a s a p o si tive a nd m e a s ur a b l e imp a c t o n th e l ive s o f t he yo ut h we ser ve. I a m i nc re d i b ly ha p py a n d p ro u d o f o ur fo und a t i o n fo r su p p o r ti n g t hi s g re a t c a use.” — B r ya nt Ch am b ly, Ve te ran s Un i t e d l o a n of f i ce r an d B B B S bo a rd m e m be r

20 APRIL 2017

BR I EFLY I N T H E N EWS

B U S INES S E DUC AT ION

STEM EDUCATION The Association of American Universities awarded MU’s faculty-driven STEM initiative $20,000 to spearhead curriculum reform efforts and develop faculty expertise in those areas. Projects the money will fund include professional development for faculty, public talks on STEM, and developmental workshops.

JOBFINDERS EXPANDS Columbia-based JobFinders Employment Services recently opened an office in Sedalia. In addition to the Columbia and Sedalia offices, the staffing agency also has locations in Jefferson City and Mexico, Missouri.

E DUC AT ION

SYSTEM AUDIT Missouri State Auditor Nicole Galloway released a critical audit of the UM system, particularly focusing on $1.2 million paid out to top system officials in an executive incentive program. In one of his first acts after formally becoming UM System president, Mun Choi terminated the incentive program.

“In becoming a member of the Siteman Cancer Network, we are only adding to the care delivery and treatment options for the residents of Mid-Missouri.”

C OM M U N I T Y

CPD REPORT The Columbia Police Department published their 2016 year-end report from the internal affairs unit, detailing all calls that the police department responded to in 2016 and statistics on how those calls were handled. The department made 4,836 arrests in 2016, an increase of 485 over 2015.

The department also received 66 complaints, of which six were sustained. The full report is available on the CPD website.

— Jim Sinek, president of Boone Hospital Center

H EALT H

BOONE COLLABORATION The Stewart Cancer Center at Boone Hospital has become the first member of the Siteman Cancer Network, which is affiliated with Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, and hopes to help its Mid-Missouri patients through cancer research, treatment, and prevention. The Columbia cancer care facility will work together with Barnes-Jewish and the Washington University School of Medicine to provide access to cancer treatments, including clinical trials, genomic and genetic testing, and other specialized technologies.

E DUC AT ION

MU GRANTS Two paleobiologists at MU received the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development Award. John Huntley and James Schiffbauer, both assistant professors of geological science in the MU College of Arts and Science, will receive more than $500,000 over the next five years to develop early career development activities and integrate their studies into education programs.

Schiffbauer

Huntley

22 APRIL 2017

BUSINE SS • P EOP L E • IM P R OV EM EN T • F YI

B U SI N ESS U PDAT E

Accept the Challenge Greater Missouri Leadership Challenge drives women to affect statewide change.

BY MAYA McDOW EL L

Challengers visit the Columbia Area Career Center during the Mid-Missouri session.

While there, Challengers visited with nursing students and learned how to check for a heartbeat. Photo by Jen Bradley COLUMBIABUSINESSTIMES.COM 23

BUSINE SS • P EOP L E • IM P R OV EM EN T • F YI

IT ONLY TOOK ONE SESSION OF THE Greater Missouri Leadership Challenge for Jen Bradley to get hooked.

The GMLC is an annual traveling symposium that gathers women in leadership roles from across the state to learn about and discuss critical issues facing their communities, state, and nation.

Bradley, who was a “challenger,” as participants are known, in 2009, says the Jefferson City and Columbia session was the most impactful for her. The trip included a visit to the state prison.

“I think we all had ideas in our head of what it was going to be like to go to the prison,” says Bradley, who’s vice president and regional retail sales manager at Commerce Bank. “The stereotype we went in with was not what we left with, so I think it’s important for women — for everybody, truthfully — to get outside of what they know and see what other things are out there because that’s truly when you’re going to be able to affect a change.”

Bradley’s experience — finding a new perspective and motivation — is the essence of the GMLC mission.

28 YEARS OF LEADERSHIP When former Texas governor Ann Richards couldn’t find enough women to fill her cabinet positions in 1982, she helped start the leadership training program on which GMLC is modeled. In 1989, some women who were graduates of Richards’ program, called Leadership Texas,

“I just saw some individuals who had taken a passion of their own and formatted that into a way of making a difference in other peoples’ lives.”

- Michelle Zvanut were transferred to the St. Louis area. When they were unable to find a similar statewide program, they decided to start their own.

The first session for the class of 2017, which took place in March, kicked off the 28th year of GMLC women developing leadership skills and forging relationships with one another. The 2017 class includes 38 challengers from a broad

During a visit to the Columbia Area Career Center, Challengers visited horticulture classes in the greenhouse. Photo by Jen Bradley 24 APRIL 2017

scope of professions: there’s an executive director for a large nonprofit, the dean of a state university, a public school educator, and a chief financial officer — to name just a few.

GMLC takes place in four distinctive geographic areas of the state, each focused on issues relevant to that area. The first session, held in Columbia and Jefferson City, revolves around governmental and political process and education. The second session, in Kansas City, explores urban issues, diversity, and race relations. Women learn about rural development in Kirksville during the third session, and the challengers end their GMLC year in St. Louis for their fourth session, which focuses on global perspectives and technology.

Michelle Zvanut, vice president of human resources at Boone Hospital and GMLC class of 2015, says it was fascinating to see women from St. Louis and Kansas City go to Kirksville because they didn’t believe they would have much in common with the women in the rural town.

“Instead, we spent days with these women and realized these are the same challenges we’re thinking about: how to improve society, how do we make things the best for our families, our children,” Zvanut says.

According to the organization’s website, a Greater Missouri Woman “is intellectually curious, interacts well with others, and while passionate in her beliefs, is open-minded when confronted with new points of view.”

EDUCATION INSPIRING ACTION Jan Grossmann, in her fifth year as executive director of GMLC (offices are headquartered in Columbia), says the information from each session, though tailored to that city, can be applied statewide. For example, the women learn about nonprofit organizations while in Kansas City, and “Even though they’re learning about it in Kansas City,” Grossmann says, “they can go back to whatever town they’re from in Missouri and try to help out with a women’s shelter, for example, if that was something that was close to their heart.”

GMLC wants to instill the motivation for women to do just that — take action in their own communities using the knowledge they acquired through the program. Bradley says she hopes people find an issue or topic they are passionate about during the program and figure out how to advocate for it once the program is over. For some, this means serving on a local board or commission, or volunteering with a

B U SI N ESS U PDAT E

local nonprofit. For Bradley, it means giving back to GMLC by helping coordinate the same session that got her hooked on the organization seven years ago.

Bradley enjoys planning the Columbia and Jefferson City session because it’s rewarding to set the stage for what is going to happen the rest of the year, she says. As session co-chair, Bradley is also able to go through the session every year with the new classes of women. She Above: The Greater Missouri Leadership Foundation board of directors meet for a retreat in 2016.

Below: GMLC Executive Director Jan Grossmann has led the organization since 2013.

loves to see women come out of the prison — a particularly defining moment for her when she went through the program — with a transformed mindset. “It’s a humbling experience to watch them go in with the apprehension and then, when they come out, they’re completely different,” Bradley says. “To me, that was kind of where my passion was at — to see the lightbulb going off.”

Grossmann likes to see alumnae, like Bradley, lead new groups. “Many of them can then relay their experiences to the current class about what changed in their lives after they went through the program, what session really was most influential in their life and how it impacted them and what they do now because of that.”

Zvanut says she went home from the Kansas City session knowing that she needed to do more for the community. “It opened my eyes to ways that women could impact people who have a lot less means for themselves,” she says. “I just saw some individuals who had taken a passion of their own and formatted that into a way of making a difference in other peoples’ lives.”

LIFELONG BENEFITS

Photo by Anthony Jinson

The 2017 GMLC class at the Missouri State Capitol during the Columbia and Jefferson City session.

A defining benefit of GMLC is the large, strong network of professional women that continues to grow with each graduating class. In a way, the organization functions because of its alumnae: Women go through the program, have an outstanding and meaningful experience, and then go on to support the organization through leadership roles, program planning, and nominating other women for GMLC. While planning the programming for this year’s central Missouri session, Bradley was inspired to action, yet again, by GMLC. One of the topics for this year is “Bullying in Today’s Society”; as a mother of three boys, Bradley decided she’d like to run for school board so she can be an advocate for her sons. “I’ve got to do something where I’m at,” she says.

Zvanut says she’s not someone that likes to promote programs unless she really believes in them. GMLC is one she really believes in. “It is one of the strongest group of people all gathered in one place that I’ve ever been exposed to,” she says. “It was not like any experience I’ve gone through. I would encourage people to take advantage if they have the opportunity.” CBT

Greater Missouri Leadership Challenge greatermo.org COLUMBIABUSINESSTIMES.COM 25

BUSINE SS • P EOP L E • IM P R OV EM EN T • F YI

For a Better Columbia Love INC bridges the gap between needs and resources.

BY HUNTER MY ER S

FOR MOST OF HER LIFE, JANE WILLIAMS, program director and co-founder of Love INC, has been in the business of helping people out.

“I think right away I knew this was something that really tugged on my heart and something I could give my life to,” she says.

The idea for Love INC, a faith-based nonprofit in Columbia, was planted in 2001, when Williams first voiced her concerns about the church community.

“I thought we should really have churches in the community working together,” she says.

However, it wasn’t until Hurricane Katrina, in 2005, that the community was spurred to work in the way Williams envisioned. Over 500 evacuees were sent to Columbia after the 26 APRIL 2017

hurricane hit. The community quickly banded together to provide for the displaced individuals and their families.

Williams noticed how effectively the community had organized. After the evacuees settled into Columbia or moved back home, Williams and her co-founder, Pat McMurry, formed a development team, and two years later, Love INC opened its doors. As Williams says, “We have to have this hub where needs come in and resources come in and they intersect.”

THE NEED Since opening in 2008, Love INC has linked thousands of individuals with the resources they needed. Love INC’s primary func-

tion is to connect and advise their clients: if someone reaches out with an issue, a Love INC worker will develop a plan to address it, coach the client along the way, and connect them with other community resources, including churches. Services range from money management programs and resume building to housing assistance and life purpose coaching.

In 2015, the poverty rate in Columbia was 24.5 percent according to the U.S. Census Bureau — 11 percent higher than the national poverty rate that same year. A majority of the people served by Love INC are living below the poverty line; many of these individuals are single parents, usually single mothers.

N ON PR OFI T

Love INC MISSION STATEMENT To mobilize local churches to transform lives and communities in the name of Christ.

NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES 8

CO-FOUNDERS Pat McMurry Jane Williams

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Pat McMurry, Board President Rose Williams, Treasurer Pat Concannon Dave Cover Greg DeLine Terry Dykes Amy Larson Caleb Rowden Chuck Watts Ann Weyler

NUMBER OF PARTNER CHURCHES 94

“People just want somesible for further growth. one to listen to them, so we There’s limited space to have listened to over 6,000 store donated items and stories now and have tried only seven parking spots for to help as many families as costumers, volunteers, and we can,” says Williams. employees. Stafford says a Individuals go through a few customers have admitscreening that verifies their ted to going to the store with need before they receive the intention of stopping, aid from Love INC. Clionly to drive away when ents participate in an intake they saw all the spots full.

Jane Williams interview in which a team Love INC hopes to obtain member will better get to a larger building in the know the individual and future. “If we had a bigger start building a relationbuilding, I think we would ship before they set goals get more donations,” says and prepare an action plan.

Stafford. And more donaLove INC will work with the tions, of course, would allow individual until their goals Love INC to bolster its aid. are met and then follow up with them as needed in the THE COMMUNITY weeks or months to come.

“We believe we are just Not everyone seeking helping, in some ways, the help from the organization compassion level raise in Pat McMurry requires such a hands-on our city,” says Williams. approach. In fact, quite a “People are able to cross few calls are merely looking for information paths and become friends with people they that Love INC keeps in its library of over 120 wouldn’t know otherwise.” pamphlets, which hold information regarding Love INC has networked with over 80 local things like housing and job searching. churches, makes referrals to as many as 70 Columbia social service agencies each year, THE RESOURCES and has a volunteer base that’s more than Love INC also operates The Love Seat, the 200 strong. The organization has allowed organization’s resale store. Inspired by the the lives of people from all different backsuccess of the furniture bank during Hurrigrounds to intersect. cane Katrina recovery, The Love Seat takes By focusing on forging those strong relain donations from the community and makes tionships within the community, Love INC them available to families in need. ensures that the good they do doesn’t just While many of the items are up for sale in end with their programs. the store, Love INC will also give out vouch“If you look at people who have made it ers. “We might give a voucher for a bicycle if out of poverty, 99 percent of them are going that’s how you’ll get to work,” says Williams. to say it was because of a relation. It was a “We say, ‘bargains for a better Columbia.’” mentor who gave them information. It was “They are helping so many people in a guide who helped them to connect with a Columbia,” says Angela Stafford, a staff memjob,” says Williams. “And that’s what we want ber at The Love Seat, “and there are people to do. That’s what we’re here for.” CBT here that really need our help.”

Stafford first got involved with Love INC as a volunteer, but quickly took on the role of employee when The Love Seat moved into Love INC its location on Business Loop 70. While the 1516 Business Loop 70 W. growing popularity of the store has helped 573-256-7662 tremendously, its current location isn’t feacolumbialoveinc.org COLUMBIABUSINESSTIMES.COM 27

Owners, Celeste and Stella Hardnock with their shop assistant, Snuggies.

mid-1970s

1977

1985

As a student at Stephens College, Celeste Hardnock begins building window displays for Warren Dalton’s Columbia Mercantile Company.

Hardnock opens her own clothing store, My Sister’s Circus.

Hardnock focuses on creating a unique and eclectic inventory for her store in response to Columbia Mall opening.

28 APRIL 2017

BUSINE SS • P EOP L E • IM P R OV EM EN T • F YI

C ELEBRAT I ON S

Always in Style My Sister’s Circus celebrates 40 years in business.

BY ELI MARCHBA N KS | P HOTOG R A P HY BY AN TH O N Y J I N S O N

ONLY HALF OF ALL BUSINESSES SURVIVE beyond five years, and only one-third survive for more than 10 years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The percentage continues to shrink as the period of time grows longer.

So how did My Sister’s Circus, the small, charming boutique in downtown Columbia celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, get to be one of the businesses that survives and thrives? According to Celeste Hardnock, the store’s founder and owner, the answer is obvious: customer service.

FASHIONABLE BEGINNINGS In an age where technology reigns and every business wants to be technologically relevant, trend on Twitter, and have an interactive web page, Celeste still personally writes everything down with a pen and paper (including the store’s inventory). “We don’t use a computer for the store,” Hardnock says. “Whereas most stores today are computerized, we write everything down manually.”

And Hardnock has stuck with the simple, tireless work ethic that she used to first start the business. No employee is ever just sitting around checking their phones; there’s always something that can be done to help the customer or the store.

“We will stay late, we will deliver things to people, we will do whatever it takes and work with our customers,” says Hardnock. “We know the majority of our customers to begin with — and if we don’t, we get to know them.

When our customers walk in, we like to be able to tell them, ‘Hey, we’ve got something in that looks like you.’ Maybe they don’t end up liking it, but they appreciate being thought of.”

Longtime customer Wanda Northway certainly does. She explains how you might try something on at My Sister’s Circus and hear Hardnock tell you, “That doesn’t look good, take that off.” Hardnock will refuse to offer her customers idle flattery just to get a sale — she instead works with each one to help them find something that helps them look their most glamorous.

This charismatic clothing store first got its start in the mid-’70s at Stephens College, where people came to Hardnock’s dorm room for style tips before going out with friends. “When it was time to go out,” she says, “everyone was in my room asking, ‘What should I put with this?’ ‘What do you think?’ I loved doing it but I never thought further than that.” One day, a suitemate told her, “I don’t know what you plan on doing when you graduate, but this is what you need to do.”

While still in school, Celeste went to work arranging window displays for Warren Dalton’s Columbia Mercantile Company. “He was as ‘old retail’ as you can get,” Hardnock says. “When he walked in the door, we were hopping. It didn’t matter if we were straightening the same rack 500 times in a row, you were always doing something.”

One day, Hardnock got a phone call from a friend saying that there was a business going up for sale in Columbia and that she should buy it. At this point, her experience was still mostly in window displays, which she loved doing, and she didn’t know how to operate a cash register. With encouragement from her supportive parents, she decided to buy the business, liquidate the assets, and create her own store.

CALLING CARD The name of the store came close to being “Celeste’s Silhouettes,” but her father convinced her that would be too much of a tonguetwister. “My Sister’s Circus” was suggested by Hardnock’s sister. “She said it would be a name to get people to come in here and see what the store was all about, and it worked,” she says. “We do periodically get phone calls from people who think we are actually a circus store.”

Nothing that you find at My Sister’s Circus will be found at any of the major department stores in town. This was a lesson that Hardnock learned when the Columbia Mall came to town in the mid-1980s, when My Sister’s Circus would get a new line in the store only to be undercut by department store prices on the same line.

Hardnock works hard to maintain a unique inventory; she travels to various places across the country, especially the big cities, to not only scout out merchandise but also to see how stores organize their displays. “Display work is really important to me,” she explains, “because that’s a real calling card for our store. So you’ve got to see what’s out there and also how people are dressing, especially in the big cities.”

Celeste now runs the store with her daughter, Stella. Forty years in, don’t look for My Sister’s Circus to fold up its tents and leave town any time soon. When asked if retirement is anywhere on the horizon, Hardnock shakes her head before you even get the question out. “I still love walking through that door and I still love doing what I do.” CBT

My Sister’s Circus 1110 E. Broadway 573-443-5618

mid-2000s

2014

2017

As retail becomes increasingly digitized, Hardnock continues using pen and paper for nearly all store operations.

Hardnock is a finalist for the Columbia Daily Tribune’s Business Woman of the Year award.

My Sister’s Circus celebrates its 40th anniversary as part of Columbia’s business community.

COLUMBIABUSINESSTIMES.COM 29

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30 APRIL 2017

B U SINESS • PEOP LE • IM P R OV EM EN T • F YI

M OVER S & SH AKER S

Movers & Shakers APRIL 2017 TOSH

Aneesh Tosh

Guy Adams

Commerce Bank

Dr. Tosh, an adolescent medicine physician at MU Children’s Hospital, became a certified eating disorder specialist, a distinction given by the International Association of Eating Disorder Professionals. Tosh is an associate professor of child health at the MU School of Medicine.

Adams, a professor emeritus in the Truman School of Public Affairs at MU, has been selected by the American Society of Public Administration as their 2017 recipient of the Dwight Waldo Award. The Dwight Waldo Award is the ASPA’s most prestigious award and is presented to those who have made outstanding contributions to the professional literature of public administration throughout their career.

Shane O’Neil and Paul Roberts have been appointed to the roles of retail banking officer and branch manager, respectively, for Commerce Bank. O’Neil previously served as branch manager for Commerce’s Rock Bridge location, but he will now be managing both the main location and the Fifth Street branch in Columbia. Roberts, who joined Commerce in 2009, will now serve as the as branch manager for the Commerce branch located in Hy-Vee at 3100 W. Broadway.

Pat Carney Carney was recently named chief strategy officer for Agents National Title Insurance. He was previously the chief innovation officer at ClosingCorp. Carney is also the founder of 360 STS, a consulting firm that assists title companies with developing new products and solutions to help workflow, automation, and compliance.

John LaRocca In February, LaRocca was named president of the Missouri Restaurant Association. LaRocca has been the manager of MU’s University Club since 2006 and also served as the president of the Mid-Missouri Restaurant Association in 2013.

Lydia Melton Melton, owner of Günter Hans in downtown Columbia, has been named president of the Mid-Missouri Restaurant Association, a group representing restaurants and cafés in Columbia, Boone County, Jefferson City, and the Lake of the Ozarks. Melton opened her first bar at the age of 24. Through the help of a local bank and Kickstarter, an online funding platform, Günter Hans opened in 2013.

Central Bank of Boone County Central Bank announced three employee promotions in February. Jimmy Nickles is now assistant branch manager at the Motor Bank, Robert Reil is now senior teller at the Columbia Mall location, and Amanda Baker is now teller II at the West Broadway location.

Randy and Kathie Gibbs Randy and Kathie Gibbs, owners of Ram Jack of Mid-Missouri and St. Louis, a foundation repair business, have received two awards from Ram Jack’s corporate office. Their Mid-Missouri division received the award for largest commercial single sale.

Terry Merritt Merritt has been promoted to position of director of marketing and business development for Alliance Water Resources. He has been with Alliance since 1995, when he joined as an operator and maintenance mechanic, and most recently served as a division manager.

LaROCCA

MELTON

Gerding, Korte & Chitwood Gerding, Korte & Chitwood CPAs have added three new members to their Columbia office. Matt Douglass joins after previously working as the director of accounting for a private college and an international firm specializing in mutual fund and investment accounting.

Jim Vesecky, who brings 35 years of experience with another firm, will focus on tax preparation and planning. Casey Wolfe, formerly an auditor for the State of Missouri, also joined the firm.

ADAMS

MERRITT

John Rentschler Rentschler, a wealth management advisor with Northwestern Mutual in Columbia, has qualified for Court of the Table and membership in the Million Dollar Roundtable, a sought-after trade association for financial advisors and insurance brokers.

Rentschler has been with Northwestern Mutual since 1986. CBT

ROBERTS

RENTSCHLER

Are you or your employees making waves in the Columbia business community? Send us your news at Editor@BusinessTimesCompany.com COLUMBIABUSINESSTIMES.COM 31

B U SINESS • PEOP LE • IM P R OV EM EN T • F YI

RANDA RAWLINS S E N I O R V I C E P R E S I D E N T , G E N E R A L C O U N S E L A N D S E C R E T A R Y | S H E LT E R I N S U R A N C E

Age: Older than I look (hopefully).

Job description: Executive responsibility for legal operations, compliance, government relations, customer communications, and claims.

Years lived in Columbia /Mid-Missouri: 18.

Original hometown: Hale, Missouri, home of the Cardinals.

Education: BA in political science from Truman State (go Bulldogs); JD from MU (go Tigers).

Favorite volunteer/community activity: My passion is international mission work. I have served with four mission teams in South Africa and Mozambique and am planning my fifth trip.

Professional background: Twenty years in private law practice in Kansas City. My career at Shelter started 15 years ago as general counsel.

A favorite recent project: Assuming oversight of Shelter’s claims operations and learning the ropes. Taking on a new responsibility like this requires a careful balance between learning the operation, appreciating what is working, and knowing how you can affect meaningful change where needed.

A Columbia businessperson I admire and why: Hard to list just one, but I would say Peter Stiepleman — he really does run a “business.” He’s incredibly passionate, hardworking, loyal, smart, courageous, pragmatic, and funny. He has a tough constituency and a tough job, and we are lucky to have him.

32 APRIL 2017

Photography by Anthony Jinson

P E R S ON YO U SH OU LD KN OW

If I weren’t doing this for a living, I would: Escape from the legal world and do something where I work with my hands: cooking, baking, farming, gardening, working in a nursery, landscaping, woodworking, working with my husband in his construction company . . .

Accomplishment I’m most proud of: Transitioning to a corporate environment from private practice after 20 years, including successfully moving into many non-lawyer roles.

The next challenge facing my industry: Technology, technology, technology.

What people should know about this profession: Despite the lawyer jokes, there are many wonderful attorneys who make our world a better place, whether it’s by doing community service, helping a family through a difficult time, serving in a leadership role on a nonprofit board, or working in any number of other worthwhile roles.

Biggest lesson learned in business: Listen to your employees.

Why I’m passionate about my job: In the role I have, I support and help people do their job, oftentimes as they grow and learn.

It’s very rewarding to see others succeed because you’ve been able to mentor and coach them along the way.

My next professional goal: I want to create strong business processes in my company that transcend my tenure, and I want to continue developing the amazing talent we have in the next generation of leaders. This includes strategic succession planning so I feel good about retiring and moving on!

Greatest strength: My work ethic — thanks to my parents, who were dairy farmers.

Greatest weakness: Chocolate.

How would you like to impact the Columbia community? Provide leadership in whatever form best contributes to a healthy, vibrant place for every single person who lives here.

“It’s very rewarding to see others succeed because you’ve been able to mentor and coach them along the way.”

Why I’m passionate about my company: It is a family-oriented company where our values start with doing the right thing. Shelter is a model corporate citizen.

What I do for fun: I am an avid sports fan (Tigers, Royals, Chiefs, Cardinals, NASCAR, etc.). I also love golf, travel, and sipping on a great glass of wine with friends.

Family: My husband, Blaine Einspahr, who owns and operates Einspahr Construction, and stepdaughters Ashley and Kristan.

Favorite place in Columbia: Love the vibrant downtown that we have — we are so lucky it has remained a strong part of our community.

Most people don’t know that: I was the center on my high school basketball team. We were small, but mighty. CBT COLUMBIABUSINESSTIMES.COM 33

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B U SINESS • PEOP LE • IM P R OV EM EN T • F YI

3. You grew up in Missouri, but have also moved around the country a little bit. What did you most appreciate about coming home?

The people. I missed the people. I can’t stress this enough: Columbia, what you have is unique and beautiful. I traveled for sights, sounds, and new experiences, but when I needed community, I came home. I’m originally from a small town (Laurie, Missouri) but moved to Columbia for college after falling in love with it when my mom would visit for her cancer treatments. It was the small businesses that gave me the biggest joys and the people in them that welcomed me home. The diversity, the kindness, and the warmth of the people is this city’s greatest strength.

Q&A PERSEPHONE DAKOPOLOS Mic Drop Communications

1. First things first, tell us a little bit about what you do. The deck is increasingly stacked against individuals, nonprofits, and small businesses who are losing out to big business or face increased funding challenges. I help the community underdogs compete for dollars by leveling the playing field. We specialize in insights, tools, and services that meet the needs and expectations of our clients.

2. How did you know you wanted to work with graphic design? I was always incredulous about it as a career ambition. After graduating from MU, I was in between jobs when I finally took Adobe classes through the Columbia Area Career Center. After a few years of improving the skill and several jobs later, I realized it was an added bonus for nonprofits who would normally do without. It enhanced my abilities to serve and sell their programs and services.

While it’s something I seemingly have a knack for, I simply enjoy telling a good story, and design allows me to do that when words just won’t work.

4. And what’s your background?

How did you get here? Because of my age and family circumstances, I grew up with the best parts of the Millennial and X generations.

My dad is an engineer, so before computers were commonplace, I had the opportunities to develop my technical abilities alongside my creative skills. But I have the Millennial predilection for purpose over profit. This led me to develop a diverse set of skills, honed in 10-plus years of nonprofit communications work. Of course, Mic Drop wouldn’t be possible without my other half. My husband, Tao Weilundemo, is talented and creative in skills that I have little experience with. So together, we can tackle the biggest of challenges for the smallest of clients.

5. You’ve made some news over the last year or so by taking on a bigger role in local and national politics. Could you tell us how that happened? I resigned as director of communications and development for Empower Missouri, a human rights advocacy organization, to volunteer for presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. With the support of thousands of volunteers, my husband and I were proud to organize efforts that garnered Sanders 60 percent of the primary vote in Boone. I was then honored to receive their votes to serve as representative to the Democratic National Committee. The movement we helped lead then went on to work with the Boone County Democrats in an effort to elect Hillary Clinton and downballot candidates locally. The organization,

7 QU EST I ON S

now named Our Revolution Mid-Missouri, is exclusively working to find, recruit, train, and assist progressive candidates throughout the Mid-Missouri region as well as organizing with partner groups to move ballot initiatives forward.

6. Mic Drop works with a lot of nonprofits and small businesses — what attracts you to those kinds of clients? Not only do I have a lot of first-hand experience in these areas, but I also see how these groups are underserved by traditional marketing firms. As the former director of business services for The District, I saw how business owners manage a business and act as their own communications and marketing professionals, their own development teams, and their own social media gurus just to keep up with the competition. Similarly, nonprofits often don’t have the resources to hire professional graphic designers, web developers, and communications staff. In both instances, these groups are being measured by what they can’t do instead of what they do really well. I believe that business owners can compete with the big guys by doing what they love and leaving the rest to us.

7. What big challenges do you think Columbia is facing as a community?

Columbia is increasingly susceptible to the whims of special interest groups and national and state legislation. What we see now in the explosion of student housing development is actually a national trend in similar cities.

These developments have a few benefits and a lot of drawbacks. While our surface parking lots are being converted and utilized, it’s also funneling money directly out of our economy; of course, it’s also changing the culture of our beloved city center. Growth is not bad at all — I’m a huge fan — but it’s smart growth that we want. And our leadership will need to do better at recognizing national trends before they come home to roost.

But Columbia has to watch and plan for policy in Jefferson City as well. The hardships we face will come from attacks to the institutions that sustain us. I’m not just talking about MU (even though that’s a big one) — I’m also talking about cuts to health care, which will hurt our hospitals; cuts to SNAP or TANF, which will hurt our grocers and farmers; and cuts to the arts, which hurts Columbia’s tourism. CBT

Check out more questions and answers with Persephone Dakopolos online at ColumbiaBusinessTimes.com.

COLUMBIABUSINESSTIMES.COM 35

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B U SINESS • PEOP LE • IM P R OV EM EN T • F YI

Manufacturing Momentum

BY A L GERMON D

LOTS OF GREAT THINGS TO TALK ABOUT these days, but there always has to be something that comes along to spoil the festivities.

The good news, of course, is the troika of positive economic developments beginning with the recent announcement that a Colorado firm, Aurora Organic Dairy, is buying a 100-acre tract from the city at the corner of Route B and Waco Road, leading to a $91 million project slated to employ about 100 workers at a wage higher than Boone County’s average of $36,225.

Of course, there are naysayers. There always are.

People complain because the city is selling the tract — tax-exempt up to this point under municipal ownership — for a million dollars less than they originally paid for

it. AOD, as the new owner, will start paying taxes. Are you happy now?

Then there’s the critical analysis of various aspects of the proposed dairy venture by a reliably present but un-referred cabal of gadflies who are never questioned as to their qualifications and educational background but who still render judgment while gaining an inordinate amount of attention from the increasingly uninquisitive Fourth Estate.

Just a little noise. The AOD venture has cleared the hurdles with plans for construction to commence shortly.

Then there’s the northeast corner of Interstate 70 and State Route Z, where the American Outdoor Brands Corporation recently announced plans to build a halfmillion-square-foot warehouse, the center-

OPI N I ON

piece of an operation that may eventually employ hundreds of area residents. Some will chuckle because it was no accident that AOBC had its eye on sites outside the city limits, forewarned, no doubt, about Columbia’s increasingly ornery attitude about building, developing, and executing anything within its boundaries.

The third crescendo of great news was United Airlines’ decision to begin daily flights from Columbia Regional Airport to Chicago and Denver effective August 1. This includes two additional non-stop flights to Chicago O’Hare International Airport and the first ever non-stop service to Denver International Airport.

Then there’s the spoiler — Columbia’s hell-bent-for-leather excursion into zoning code revision and promulgation of the new 400-page uniform development code that’s fast-tracked for passage not long after you read this. In this, we perceive ourselves to be the little people, the subjects of a supercilious mixture of solons who have typically been elected by a lopsided fraction of activists who take the trouble to get out and vote.

That the zoning codes need revision and updating is not the issue. Indeed they do. But strutting around, crowing like a band of bantam roosters about the death of Euclidian Zoning, as some of these Napoleonic figures have been heard to say, has no place in the way Columbia conducts its business relative to matters of development. But then that’s why we love living here, because it’s guaranteed that there’s never a dull moment as to how municipal affairs are conducted.

The good news is that there are plenty of alternative locations ripe for development outside the Sacred Walls of Fortress Columbia. Anyone for Ashland, for instance? Or maybe Shaw becomes an incorporated entity and embraces the American Outdoor Brands Corporation out there at Exit 133 north of Interstate 70? CBT

Al Germond is the host of the Columbia Business Times Sunday Morning Roundtable at 8:15 a.m. Sundays on KFRU. He can be reached at algermond@businesstimescompany.com.

COLUMBIABUSINESSTIMES.COM 37

MOST

Influential Women

SINGULAR LEADERSHIP Ten of the most influential women in the Columbia business community.

P H OTO G R A P H Y BY K E I T H B O R G M E Y E R

38 APRIL 2017

Say the word

INFLUENCE to 10 different people and you’ll get 10 different definitions. Influence means power, influence means thought leadership, influence means social standing.

In this issue of CBT, the goal has been to recognize women in the business community who make an impact. This list would’ve looked very different at the beginning of 2016. It’s been a changing-of-the-guard year, which makes this list all the more exciting: the perfect time to identify the women stepping on to this list. Readers nominated, we researched, a panel of community leaders weighed in.

We considered only women currently in the position that gave them influence for this list. There are many women of influence who have recently retired or stepped back from their careers. You can read more about some of those women on page 50 and 56. And of course, there are many more influential businesswomen not included in this issue. We commit to continue telling their stories and successes in the pages of CBT. We present the 10 most influential women in business.

WANT TO RECOGNIZE AN INFLUENTIAL BUSINESSWOMAN? Email us at editor@businesstimescompany.com and tell us who should be recognized and why. As Dr. Dianne Lynch told us in her interview, “That is the greatest gift we can give each other: that recognition, that moment of being seen and named in terms of our own power.” So give us a shout.

COLUMBIABUSINESSTIMES.COM 39

THE GIFT SEER

Dr. Dianne Lynch President, Stephens College There’s a ripple effect, says Dianne Lynch, surrounding every choice and every action. It’s a reason to be a force of good; you have an effect on everyone around you, no matter who you are.

Part of her responsibility is to not only be a role model to the women of Stephens College, but to call out the gifts she sees in the women who cross her path, naming for her students the things that are powerful or special within them.

A high school teacher named her gift and told Lynch she was a writer. It transformed her life.

“I’ve known thousands of powerful, brilliant, important, influential women, but when you ask about role models or people of influence in my life, it is those women who stopped me, looked at me, saw who I was and named

40 APRIL 2017

something about me in some way, verbally or otherwise, that helped me build my own power,” Lynch says.

Recognition is the greatest gift one woman can give to another, she says, seeing a person and her gifts and influence. It’s a powerful moment to witness the lightbulb turn on in someone’s mind when she’s been “seen.”

“If I asked you, you could tell me there’s been this moment that somebody named something or somebody saw you the way you see yourself, but better, but more,” Lynch says.

She sees transformations happen in her students each day: women who realize that they must practice those gifts. Practicing leadership makes leaders. Practicing kindness makes kindhearted people. And that’s what they put out in the world. The ripple effect comes full circle.

“I hope that I consciously and intentionally model, wherever I am, whether it’s working with our amazing students, alumnae, in the community, that women have power,” Lynch says. “That there is a strength and an integrity to the ways that, at our best, women speak to the world.”

BY B R E N N A Mc DE R M OTT

MOST INFLUENTIAL WOMEN

THE STALWART LEADER

Teresa Maledy CEO & Chairwoman, Commerce Bank, Central Missouri region In her first managerial role, in treasury services, Teresa Maledy would spend her nights reading up on the banking industry to learn more, to get better. It was a role she pushed for, even after she was gently told it would be a possibility . . . someday.

To earn her promotion among all her peers, she used a mantra she still follows each day: Whether you’re in a staff meeting or working with a client, you’re interviewing every day for the next job. You’re showing everyone what your personal brand is.

“You need to conduct yourself on a day-to-day basis so that, if you do have those opportunities to be promoted, your peers will say ‘that’s a natural selection,’” Maledy says.

What’s her personal brand? Maledy says she tries to be calm, consistent, respectful, and positive.

“I think it’s important, whether you’re male or female, that whatever is going on, maybe in your home or in your personal life, you make sure that you check that at the door,” Maledy says. “Because your team is counting on you and if they are going to deliver their best work, you have to be on your game every day.”

Opportunities opened to Maledy because she stepped up to them. “I always raised my hand for task forces or committees because, first, it was interesting and I was trying to solve problems again, but it also gave me exposure to so many different areas that I wouldn’t have even been aware of,” she says.

And for the leaders in place today, like Maledy, it’s about giving opportunities to emerging individuals.

“Giving them a little bit more than they think they can chew is good because people grow, they build that confidence level just like I had to, and it makes their job more interesting."

BY B R E N N A Mc DE R M OTT

COLUMBIABUSINESSTIMES.COM 41

THE BUSINESS ADVOCATE

Heather Hargrove Sales Manager, KRCG Heather Hargrove’s Kindergarten teacher reported to her parents that she did not need a teacher’s assistant: She had Heather.

“My dad came to school one day and said he finally got a glimpse, because I was in the hallway and I was making all the kids get in a straight line so that we could go outside for recess,” Hargrove says. “So I was born that way.”

Hargrove, former chair of the Chamber and still an active leader in the organization, has spent time in the last month using the same skills: reaching out to Chamber members, mobilizing them to participate in a city council candidate forum and represent their own interests.

“We have to help be the implementation, the feet on the ground, the voices that reach out and talk with the

42 APRIL 2017

local leadership to help shape and form [policy],” Hargrove says.

Her advocacy started while sitting in a Chamber meeting in the early 2000s. People kept saying “they” needed to take action. “It dawned on me all of a sudden that we are the ‘they’,” Hargrove says. “We can’t just sit around in a circle at a table and talk about these things.” That realization led her on a journey to serve as president of Women’s Network and, ultimately, in her position as chair.

Today, she’s a leader in government affairs and emerging issues and continues to reach toward her goal: keeping the business community informed and ahead of the curve on new challenges and opportunities. She tries to make sense of challenges Columbia faces and represent the membership’s interests.

“If we’re creating business opportunities, we’re putting people to work, we’re generating revenue, we’re creating partnerships with people both personally and professionally,” Hargrove says. “That’s what makes the world go ’round.”

BY B R E N N A Mc DE R M OTT

MOST INFLUENTIAL WOMEN

THE EMPOWERER Elizabeth Mendenhall CEO, RE/MAX Boone Realty Elizabeth Mendenhall is a sixth-generation Realtor, the CEO of RE/MAX Boone Realty, and the 2017 president-elect of the National Association of Realtors, the largest trade organization in the world.

These leadership roles give her a platform to empower agents, increase their market value knowledge, and equip them to be advocates for homeowners.

“Buying a home is the one big transaction that brings equity, savings, and security to people’s lives,” Mendenhall says. “It’s part of the American dream for everyone.”

Through the years, Mendenhall has been inspired by her dad, Richard Mendenhall, and fellow realtor Sharon Kinden. “They would always ask questions,” she shares. “They didn’t just want the first answer, but the right, best solution. They didn’t want to be good enough, but to stand above everyone else.”

Mendenhall also finds motivation from those around her. “I get to work in the real estate sector, surrounded by amazing independent contractors who want to be where they are every day,” she says. “It’s inspiring. They want to learn and do their job better.”

Mendenhall describes herself as fearless and not afraid to push boundaries. She's guided by what she calls “Elizabeth’s Three Es” – energy, experience, and empowerment.

Mendenhall encourages expressing differing opinions. “Better decisions are made when diversity is at the table,” she explains. “The friction creates something better.”

It's all about empowerment. Mendenhall believes in releasing the potential of others for the greater good.

“Everyone has something valuable to offer,” she says, “and capitalizing on that yields a better result.”

Mendenhall encourages leaders to be open to new ways of doing things, especially with different generations. “You must lead differently for different people,” she says. “If you get stuck in an old style, you miss the opportunity to have greater influence.”

BY B E TH B R A MSTE DT

COLUMBIABUSINESSTIMES.COM 43

THE RELATIONSHIP FORGER

Michele Spry President, Midway Electric, Inc. If you met Michele Spry at a Chamber event circa 2006, you might not have recognized her. “Those women intimidated the hell out of me,” Spry says. She’d typically change out of her blue jeans — natural work attire for the president of an electric company — and don more run-ofthe-mill business attire. One day, she decided not to, and she kept on her jeans.

“I decided that either they were going to like me for who I was or I wasn’t going to be liked at all,” Spry says.

“And it was okay either way, you know. I was just trying to figure out where in life [professionally] I needed to go.”

It made her feel approachable, authentic, Michele. It was freeing — and she hasn’t looked back. Spry’s focus on being herself has led to deep relationships in the

44 APRIL 2017

community and a focus on achieving her goals, whether they’re for Midway Electric, Inc., Central Missouri Honor Flight, Honor Everywhere, or herself.

Today, Spry is a mentor with Women’s Network, building relationships with a mentee to help achieve someone else’s goals. She says making friendships in business is what leads to growth and development, to getting things accomplished. It’s about finding someone to bounce ideas off of, someone who will hold you accountable, who will be stern, or possibly someone who’s had your experiences.

So if you take a lesson from her, find the people who will help you, support you, and back you up. And then turn that relationship around and be someone who supports your tribe.

“You know in your head before you even ask the question what the answer is: You just need somebody to tell you because you always second-guess yourself as a woman,” Spry says. “We always second guess ourselves, and sometimes you just need someone to give you a swift kick in the ass and get you going.”

BY B R E N N A Mc DE R M OTT

MOST INFLUENTIAL WOMEN

THE BUBBLE BREAKER

Shatenita Horton Vice President, Providence Bank In her conversations, her work, and her many volunteer gigs, Shatenita Horton brings unlimited enthusiasm. “All my positions have been very different,” she says, “but they all require that little bit extra — a little bit more energy.”

Since starting as a teller in 1999 with Boone County National Bank (now Central Bank of Boone County), Horton has taken a frenzied climb through the ranks of Columbia’s banking world. She held various roles at BCNB before moving to Providence Bank as vice president overseeing security and managing the branch in south Columbia.

All that experience may still be less robust than her volunteer resume. She’s currently the co-chair for Leadership Columbia (of which she’s an alumna) and involved in a variety of other Chamber groups. She’s on the board for Voluntary Action Center, True North, and the Columbia

Public Schools Foundation, and she’s a past president of the Alumni Association Board for Stephens College.

“I’m huge on giving back,” Horton says. “Watching [my mom] work really hard, I knew I was going to have to do that, but also help others who weren’t able to do all these types of things.”

Volunteering also allows Horton to break out of her professional circle and interact with other parts of the community. “I just don’t think people realize a lot of what’s going on that you don’t see everyday,” she says. “Just bringing in some of those businesses that people don’t see and putting them in front of people like me who are out and about — I think that’s going to make a huge difference for our city.”

And, of course, she’s enthusiastic about leading the way for young women hoping to make a similar impression on their community. “That’s probably how I influence people: just by being an example,” she says. “Especially to younger folks — because I’m getting up [in] that range now.”

BY MATT PATSTO N

COLUMBIABUSINESSTIMES.COM 45

THE SELF-MOTIVATOR

Karen Taylor Executive Vice President, Central Bank of Boone County Karen Taylor works every day to build a reputation as someone who gives back.

“I feel strongly that everyone has a responsibility to give back to the community in which we live and work.

The community is better when we give our time and talents,” Taylor says.

From the very beginning of her career, Taylor involved herself in committees and volunteer organizations she felt passionate about, advice she gives to people entering the working world.

“If you raise your hand when you’re asked for help and you do a good job, they’ll ask you again,” says Tay-

46 APRIL 2017

lor. “Once you’ve proven yourself to be reliable and dependable and do quality work, you’re going to be asked to do other things. Over time, you build a reputation and people know they can count on you."

In 2009, Taylor’s son was a victim of violent crime, and she was again driven to positively influence her city.

“As a mom, I was determined to make a change in our community, so we campaigned for safety cameras downtown,” says Taylor. “That was a big ‘a-ha’ for me because it took so much grassroots effort. It’s hard to make change. It takes a lot of determination and persistence and being told ‘No’ to make change.”

Taylor is motivated by an internal drive to do well and be a person you come to for help. “It is important to me to be respected and for people to think of me as someone with integrity and character,” says Taylor.

“I’ve always approached everything in that way. I try to give everything my best, and that’s all anyone can do.”

BY ME G A N W H I TE H E A D

MOST INFLUENTIAL WOMEN

THE AGENT OF CHANGE

Dr. Carrie Gartner Executive Director, The Loop When Carrie Gartner was finishing her doctorate, she wrote down the three jobs she wanted: teaching at a college, organizing political campaigns, and running a downtown organization.

She’s done all three. Today, she’s leading the team improving the Business Loop 70 area.

“Growing up in California,” Gartner says, “people would say ‘are you a beach person or are you a mountain person?’

And I would always say, ‘I’m a central business district person.’ So I’ve always liked cities.”

The diversity, the bustle, the innovation. Working on improving The Loop presents an exciting set of challenges.

“We want a place that people feel has an identity, like they’ve arrived at some place special,” Gartner says of The Loop. “The hardest part about that is that it is a long-term

project, and you have to keep excited and you have to keep everyone else excited about changes that may not happen for years.”

Gartner and The Loop endured controversy during its infancy. She got through it knowing they were striving for something good for the city and it would take some time to ride the “crisis curve” until the change normalized.

Riding that wave of change speaks to something innate in Gartner, and it’s also what she loves about cities.

“There is always a new way of doing things or a better way of doing things,” she says. “And, as a city’s population changes, the city needs changes. So you have to constantly be reinventing yourself and reinventing the job.”

It’s about anticipating what the future will be and preparing yourself for it — a lesson she shares with her design students at Stephens College.

“You don’t want a student to know what boxes to punch to get an A,” Gartner says, “[But rather] reiterating an idea and constantly improving it and understanding that you’re never really done.”

BY B R E N N A Mc DE R M OTT

COLUMBIABUSINESSTIMES.COM 47

THE VALUE LEADER

Kat Cunningham President, Moresource Kat Cunningham’s employees describe her as fast and furious. A mover and shaker. Someone who gets it done.

“They also love to hear me laugh,” Cunningham adds with a smile.

Cunningham founded Moresource in 1994 to manage employee-related matters for businesses, allowing them to focus on their core functions. More recently, she started a nonprofit called Abilities for Business that connects companies with other nonprofits to help those with “different abilities” find employment. Her inspiration comes from her sister with Down syndrome, who has a job and lives in a group home in Texas.

“I’m passionate about the things I’m involved with,” Cunningham says, “and that translates into influence.”

Cunningham is driven to lead by example — to be a role model for those around her. She has found encourage-

48 APRIL 2017

ment from people like Mike Alden and former Alabama Crimson Tide football coach Gene Stallings.

“They know how to get you going about your life’s direction,” Cunningham says, “to move you to live your life like someone’s watching.”

Cunningham refuses to hold grudges and meets conflict head on. “As you age and become more visible, you also become more purposed and intentional about your actions.”

For her, that circle of influence includes her real family, the 17 members of her Moresource family, and her 4,600 Facebook friends.

She is also motivated by the qualities she sees in her nieces, MU basketball players Lindsey and Sophie Cunningham. “I have learned so much from them about being gracious, humble, and appreciative,” she says. “I don’t want to take things for granted.”

Cunningham plans to continue her influence by living out her values and encourages young leaders to do the same. “You have to be you,” she says. “Stop focusing on the things you’re not and just be genuine.”

BY B E TH B R A MSTE DT

MOST INFLUENTIAL WOMEN

THE COMMUNITY WORKER

Stacey Button President, REDI; Director of Economic Development, City of Columbia Stacey Button, executive director of REDI and director of economic development for the City of Columbia, makes a lot of news. But that’s not her comfort zone.

“While I love to work behind the scenes and work hard, and I’d love to wear my baseball cap to the grocery store on Sunday so nobody recognizes me, this work is impactful, it’s life-changing,” she says. “Visibility comes with this position, but it’s so important to me because it comes back to relationships.”

Button is something of a newcomer — she came to Columbia two years ago — and her relationships have helped her find a place in the community. REDI works in the private and public sector, and with entrepreneurs as

well as massive corporations. Button revels in the diverse connections she’s been able to make. “Their willingness to welcome me as an unknown, to accept me, to work closely with me, to teach me and support me — it speaks volumes about the people here,” she says.

Button is constantly counseling new businesses, but she’s also led the expansion effort at Columbia Regional Airport and helped recruit businesses like Aurora Organic Dairy, which is opening a facility in town to support 140 living-wage jobs. When Button talks about her work, she often talks about doing things for “the right reasons.” For her, the right reasons are always other people, and that’s where her focus stays.

“When your mission is to create and retain quality jobs in the community, it comes back to the people,” she says.

“And we’re all here to raise that level. It’s pretty powerful stuff. And it’s not about me, you know? I guess that’s why I struggle with this ‘influential’ term, honestly, because it takes all of us. There are great people who are all working together for the same purpose. That’s what drives me.” CBT

BY M ATT PATSTO N

COLUMBIABUSINESSTIMES.COM 49

50 APRIL 2017

Six months after the Waters family sold the Columbia Daily Tribune, Vicki Russell talks about her new goals, the media industry, and the future of Mid-Missouri’s most-read newspaper.

BY BRENNA McDERMOTT PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANTHONY JINSON

THE DAY OF OUR INTERVIEW IS ALSO the first morning delivery of the Columbia Daily Tribune. Vicki Russell sits in the Waters family’s new office on Walnut, flipping through the weekday morning paper for the first time.

For the past six months, she’s looked through the Tribune from a different perspective. When the Waters family sold one of the last family-owned daily newspapers in the country — and Tribune Publishing Co. along with it — to GateHouse Media, Russell left her career in journalism and publishing. Some things have changed about how she reads the paper (she no longer checks for

advertising numbers, for example). But mostly, she’ll still look at it each day through the same lens.

“I probably will read it the same way I always have, because part of my job was to look at what we were producing and question it and try to see ways to make it better,” Russell says. “So that part won’t change. I think that’s a healthy way for anyone to look at their newspaper.”

Their new office sits just on the west side of Providence, across from the Tribune building, less than a half mile down Walnut. Though it’s not too far away from her old office, it certainly is a major life change for the former publisher of the paper.

Russell is adaptable to change; she’s had a career full of changes in media. She went home from the MU journalism school the summer between her senior year and graduate school, and during that summer, the newspaper she was working for, the Columbia Missourian, switched to coldtype style (which replaced hot type, a method of printing that used hot molten lead to print the paper). Since those system changes, it’s been a pretty constant string of disruptions in technol-

ogy and media practices. Part of her role as journalist and publisher was to report on the constant change of different industries, social norms, and the city itself. Why would her industry be immune to that change?

“Part of me has always thought, ‘Whatever the change is, I’m going to figure out my way,’” Russell says. “I don’t spend much time wringing my hands.”

LUCKIEST PERSON ON EARTH Russell always had a penchant for writing, even as a young girl growing up in Chillicothe, Missouri.

She was also a regular reader of the local newspaper, The Chillicothe Constitution Tribune (now also a GateHouse Media property). On a college visit at MU, she and her friends inadvertently parked next to the journalism school, and someone offered her a tour. She was immediately hooked.

“I feel like one of the luckiest people on earth,” she says. “They always say, ‘Look for a job you love,’ and I felt comfortable and excited by that environment from day one. I’ve never regretted it for one moment.”

COLUMBIABUSINESSTIMES.COM 51

She spent three years in graduate school working at the Missourian, went on to serve as publisher of the Fulton Sun, which the Tribune owned at the time, and eventually made it back to Columbia, serving as associate publisher from 1990 through 2010 before taking over as publisher in place of husband Hank Waters, who became publisher emeritus.

Though she enjoyed her days reporting, publisher was her favorite role. “It kind of mirrored my early experiences in the newspaper business in terms of getting to see and understand the whole operation,” Russell says. “I got to exercise my brain in a lot of different ways.”

LIKE LOSING AN ARM The Waters family started seriously discussing sale of the Tribune and Tribune Publishing Co. in April 2016. They accepted an offer from GateHouse in early August and the finalized the sale Oct. 1.

“We had to weigh everything: what would be good for the newspaper in the long run, what would be good for employees, what would be good for the community, and ultimately, we believed that the decision we made met those criteria as best we could,” Russell says.

For the record, Russell says the transition to a morning paper would have been inevitable even if the Waters family had retained ownership. Columbia’s afternoon traffic was making it increasingly difficult to get papers delivered in a reasonable time, and they’d pushed back deadlines as far as they could without losing out on news in the paper.

“Ultimately, as is the case for any family-owned business, you would want things to go on the way they have always been, and any family that goes through that agrees it’s like ripping off your arm [to make changes],” she says.

She and the family dreaded telling the employees about the sale. Russell says she’ll remember the moment as the proudest she’d been of the Tribune staff — they absorbed the news like professionals. There was shock, surprise, and questions, but the newspaper made it to press on time. Beyond the newsroom, she’s received broad support from the community.

“I’ll be honest and say more than a few people have been concerned about what will happen,” Russell says. “We don’t know how to answer that, but it’s ultimately been a big outpouring of love from people who have thanked us and told us how much they love the Tribune and said how important it is to them.”

52 APRIL 2017

GateHouse Media has 259 reviews on glassdoor.com, a popular employer review site, and a rating of 2.1 out of 5 stars. Review headlines include “welcome to your personal purgatory” and “Once had great vision but lost it along with much talent.”

GateHouse Media owns more than 600 publications, including 121 daily newspapers.

BROCCOLI TOO According to Pew Research Center’s 2016 report on the media, weekday circulation for newspapers fell seven percent in 2015 and Sunday circulation fell four percent. Advertising revenue fell almost eight percent in 2015 from the year before, and there are 126 fewer daily newspapers in 2014 than ten years prior.

After fighting in the trenches of the newspaper business for so many years, Russell can now offer a clear-eyed assessment of the industry. To her — and, she hopes, to most people — a town’s paper is more than just a local business.

“If all newspapers went away, it would be very unlikely that there would be enough citizen journalists with the skill set to serve that purpose,” Russell says. “I see newspapers and communities in a very important partnership with each other. Subscribing to a local newspaper certainly gives you the right to want to hold that newspaper accountable, but it also is a citizen’s investment in independent scrutiny to help ensure good government on many levels.”

The citizen’s obligation in that partnership is to commit to reading about the difficult subjects along with the fun ones.

“I know adults who are businesspeople actively involved in the community who, when I ask them about their habits when reading on a device, will secretly confess that they are reading stories they want to read because they’re about a topic that interests them,” Russell says.

“But they’re missing the kind of stories that they need to be reading to be good citizens.”

It’s about reading multiple sources, she says, to be informed — getting the dessert but not forgetting the important, issue-driven information. “We need to consume the broccoli too,” she says.

Stereotyping and grandiose criticism of “the media” has led some people to believe that no one in the news business is doing a good job.

Russell doesn’t believe that. She believes that to be good citizens, it’s important to consume opposing opinions, looking beyond party lines or ideological beliefs.

ON ADAPTING TO CHANGE "I think the thing that helps everyone is to look at not just the big picture, but the incremental changes. I think people fear change because they see it as a nuclear bomb going off, when in fact, if they look at the pieces and parts of it, it becomes more digestible.”

ON SHAKING OFF SOME OF THE HARSHER TRIB TALK COMMENTS “You definitely over time grow a pretty thick skin. The challenging part is that when you’re getting criticism, whether it be personal or about the way the company does things, is to be able to see if you can find another truth in it.

Am I not liking this because it is mean and unfair, or am I not liking this because maybe I should do something differently? And if you can accept legitimate criticism and do something about it, then that takes the sting away. After a while, if it’s just recreational criticism, you move on.”

ON BUILDING HER PERSONAL BRAND “I think what I have always tried to do is be credible and fair and keep my commitments. So I think people believe me when I tell them something. I will always try to be a bridge builder.”

WOMEN IN THE MEDIA BY NUMBERS 28.6% of news directors at TV stations in the top 25 markets are women 26.7% of news directors at radio stations in markets with more than 1 million listeners are women Source: Radio Television Digital News Association 2014 Annual Survey

Seven female top editors at the 25 biggest U.S. dailies in 2004 Three female top editors at the 25 biggest U.S. dailies in 2014 Source: Nieman Reports

$53,600: median income for male journalists in 2012 $44,342: median income for female journalists in 2012 Source: Indiana University study

IN NEWSPAPER NEWSROOMS

Male reporters/writers – 61.9% Female reporters/writers – 38.1% Male copy/layout editors – 58.4% Female copy/layout editors – 41.6% Source: 2015 Women’s Media Center study

“I don’t think it’s a healthy thing in this country when we segment ourselves so that we’re only living in what we call the ‘echo chamber,’” she says. Consuming info with which someone agrees even though it is not accurate isn’t a healthy way to consume media.

TO NEVER RETIRING Russell’s first goal in her post-Trib life is to stay engaged on her boards and in the community. She serves as Stephens College Board of Trustees chair, vice chair for the corporate board of The Callaway Bank, member of the Sharp End Heritage Committee, and chair of the board for the Missouri Press Foundation, a statewide organization that provides education for newspaper employees and support for the Missouri Press Association. Those activities have allowed her to stay engaged with the community.

Russell doesn’t really consider herself retired. She’s getting settled in her office, tending to housekeeping items. And then?

“We’ll see.”

She’s been asked many times when she’ll retire. But as a person who’s been constantly motivated by projects and dead-

lines, it’s important for her to keep going.

She says, “I can see myself creeping into my office with my walker when I’m 97 years old, and by that point you can just annoy everyone else and get away with it.”

Russell says it’s been “kind of fun” to experience the Tribune from a different perspective. She wants it to thrive. She also feels less restraint, like she now has the ability to react to the news without wearing her publisher’s hat, the ability to react as a citizen and express her opinion. And she supposes she’d call up her former colleagues if she felt something “was amiss,” she says. “An important thing for people to remember is that if they feel like their newspaper should be doing something to make it better, most newspapers want to hear that.”

She’s looking forward to new adventures in the future: golfing with friends, traveling out of town at a moment’s notice.

But there’s one thing that will not change.

“Things are so interesting in our state and in our country,” she says. “Just from a personal perspective, I think we need newspapers now more than we ever have. I will keep reading them.” CBT COLUMBIABUSINESSTIMES.COM 53

54 APRIL 2017

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OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK!

Mon - Sat 8:30am - 6pm | Sunday 11am - 5pm COLUMBIABUSINESSTIMES.COM 55

r e t p a h C Why three recently retired community leaders just can’t seem to slow down.

BY ANNA COMFORT

56 APRIL 2017

RETIREMENT IS SUPPOSED TO BE A good thing — the reward for a job well done, a career well spent. But for many, it’s downright intimidating. After decades of finding daily purpose and satisfaction in a career, the prospect of life after retirement can fill a certain type of hardworking person with dread.

But it doesn’t have to. Valerie Shaw, Virginia Wilson, and Karen Miller are among those who have found opportunities for growth and fulfillment in their retirement. For them, leaving their post just means moving on to their next job. (Or jobs.)

The Hard Work of Leaving Work “I knew in March of 2015 that I wasn’t going to run again,” says Miller, former southern district commissioner for Boone County. “But I had to digest it for a while before I was willing to make that commitment.” As an elected official, she couldn’t choose to put off retirement for just one more year. If she ran again in 2016, she would be committing to another four-year term.

She didn’t make her announcement until the fall of 2015. “It took me those few months to see whether I could get everything done at work that I felt like I needed to complete,” she says.

During her remaining time in office, and in addition to performing her regular duties administering the county, Miller sorted through all the documents that had accumulated in her 24 years as southern district commissioner. “I really worked hard that last year,” she says. “I went in on weekends. I cleaned out files so that they were ready for scanning, so people could more easily access them.” Filing cabinets containing her seven terms’ worth of documentation lined an entire hallway in the commission office — records of her achievements, like the passing and subsequent renewals of the halfcent sales tax for roads, which she ran on back in 1992, and her time spent as president of the National Association of Counties.

Miller passed the reins to her successor, Fred Parry, on December 31, 2016. “I left him a note,” she says, “reminding him that he had to count to two. There are three county commissioners, and you have to have another vote to get anything done. So if you can’t count to two, you can get your legs chopped out from under you.”

Shaw ended her tenure as executive vice president and retail manager at Commerce Bank last spring. “I was with Commerce Bank for 36 years, and I loved it,” she says. “It was a hard decision to retire, because I loved what I

did. I loved the people who worked for and with me, but I was just ready.”

Each year, Shaw chose a theme word for her team; for her final year, she chose “intentional.”

Each step she took towards retirement she took with intention, including the work of preparing for someone else to take her place. She spent a year working closely with David Whelan, a member of her team who she believed was a great leader. “My goal was to make sure that he was positioned as well as possible to be eligible for consideration,” she says. When he was eventually selected for her position, Shaw knew she was leaving the 14 branches she oversaw in good hands.

Facing the Transition Virginia Wilson officially retired as director of small business development at the Small Business Technology and Development Centers at MU Extension in October of 2016. She spent 18 years counseling aspiring entrepreneurs through the process of opening their own businesses — the work was rewarding, and she says retiring wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision.

“A lot of my friends had already retired, and I was at that age,” she says, laughing. “I had been thinking about it for probably about a year, year and a half before I actually retired.”

During that time, Wilson decided that she wasn’t ready to completely let go of her work.

She still works as a part-time contractor with the SBTDC, teaching some of the same classes that she had scheduled during her final months as program director. “I had always said that when I retired, I was going to stay engaged in the business world,” she explains. With the contract work, “I’m staying engaged, doing something that I love to do. So that’s what makes it a lot easier for me. It’s good that I can say, ‘I can do this today or I don't have to.’ Setting my own schedule — I’m loving that part of it.”

In the days and weeks after retirement, she says, “I was just going through things around the house, going to the ARC. I stayed very busy.

And I thought, my gosh, how did I get anything done while I was working?”

Miller makes sure that her new lifestyle retains a familiar structure. She gets up at the same time every day and follows her morning routine, even if she plans to spend the day cleaning and organizing at home. Her mental transition from work to retirement was smoothed over by all the cleaning and organization she did at the office; having finished sorting all her papers at work, she’s now tackling the tubs full of documents that had accumulated at home. “I’m purgCOLUMBIABUSINESSTIMES.COM 57

ing electronically one day and then through a closet or drawer the next,” she says. Recycled papers were followed by unused Christmas decorations. She’s been donating materials like picture frames to Columbia Public Schools to be used in class projects.

For many retirees, the end of a career can cause identity stress. Shaw put some thought into that as she prepared to leave Commerce Bank.

“Your identity gets tied to your company — it really does,” she says. “So it was important to me to develop my own personal identity. I think that’s important for people to figure out ahead of time. What do you want to do? Where is your passion?” Finding that out will prevent retirees from feeling adrift. “Don’t let retirement just happen,” she says.

“Think through it the way you would think about a job, in a sense.”

Retirement is, after all, the next career move.

Reconnection Years ago, when Miller’s grandmother lived with her, the two began mapping their family tree based on her grandmother’s prayer cards.

“My great-grandfather came over on the boat with a brother,” she says.

“He never talked about his parents, his siblings — I didn't know if there were any. So in October of 2015, I went to Poland, found 33 cousins I didn't know I had, and met my grandmother’s first cousin. She had my mother's wedding picture in her photo album.” It was on that trip, with her sister and sister-in-law, that Miller made up her mind about retiring. After she finishes purging and organizing, Miller will return to her genealogy project with renewed focus. She plans to spend time learn-

58 APRIL 2017

“Your identity gets tied to your company – it really does.

So, it was important to me to develop my own

personal identity.

I think that's important for people to figure out ahead of time. What do you want to do?

Where is your passion?”

VALERIE SHAW

ing Polish so she can have more natural conversations with her relatives when she returns to Poland. “One day, Amazon delivered me a Rosetta Stone package for Polish, and it came with a note that said, ‘Thank you for what you’ve done for us and will continue to do,’” she says. “And I have no clue who it was from.”

“Connecting is really my key,” Miller says. “I was thinking about Lent. I’m going to do 40 days of writing a note to people I haven't seen in a while. I've been looking up addresses, getting ready for it.

Some of these people I haven’t seen in 30 years, but I found their addresses. So they’ll be surprised when they get a little card!”’

Having stepped away from the daily hubbub at the bank, Shaw makes sure to stay in touch with her connections from Commerce.

“When I miss the people I worked with, I go to lunch with them,” she says. “Then I’ve got a nice dose of them and I can go back to my retired world and be happy.”

Shaw has always enjoyed travel — she and two friends have traveled to a new place each year for the past decade — but now, she’s able to add more frequent getaways. “We decided that we would take our big trip once a year, but since we’re retired, we’re doing long weekends, and we drive. We started out saying it’s going to be a radius of 300 miles, somewhere that we can drive in a day.” They visited Ste. Genevieve, Missouri last year, and they plan to go to Oklahoma City soon. Shaw is a rodeo fan — she hopes to see one while she’s there.

Claiming Your Purpose Wilson can look back on two decades of helping people achieve their dreams and say that she’s not done yet. “I just enjoy it thoroughly, and there’s such great satisfaction that comes from doing the kind of work that we do,” she says. Some of the business counseling she does now is volunteer work. Her next big project will be working with the SBTDC to focus on developing and supporting minority-owned businesses in the area. When she started her

“One day, Amazon delivered me a Rosetta Stone for Polish, with a note that said,

Thank you for what you've done for us and will continue to do,’ and I have no clue who it was from.”

KAREN MILLER COLUMBIABUSINESSTIMES.COM 59

research, she says, “I didn’t know how many minority businesses were in Columbia. Or what their needs were, what resources they needed.” On top of that work, Wilson sits on the finance committee at Second Baptist Church, as does Shaw.

Miller now volunteers with the Boone County Historical Society in her spare time. “Genealogy made me a history nerd, much more than I ever was,” she says, “and I want to preserve our county history, so it just fits my skill set and my interests.” She’s helping to reprint Boone County’s first record book for the county’s 200th anniversary. “My grunt work will just be scanning the photos and stuff,” she says, but Shaw accuses Miller of being too modest: “I’m on the board of the Boone County Historical Society. Karen did a fundraiser for them so that we can develop a digital library in honor of Hank Waters, and it was a record fundraiser. She developed the fundraiser that made it all possible.”

“I had always said that when I retired, I was going to

stay engaged

in the business world.

I'm staying engaged, doing something that I love to do.”

VIRGINIA WILSON

As for Shaw, who has always been heavily involved in community service, she sees it as her duty to spend her retirement giving back to the community she loves. “If everybody would just do something — they don’t have to be in six or seven things, but if they would just do one thing — just think what a difference that would make.” Among Shaw’s many volunteer commitments: raising scholarship money for young black women through the Delta Sigma Theta sorority, serving as treasurer for the local chapter of the NAACP, and developing courses for Osher, a service through MU Extension providing classes for people over 50. “We have to keep our minds engaged,” she insists. “The role I was in [at Commerce Bank] was about resolving issues. The decisions I made impacted people, so they needed to be well thought out, more strategic. To go from that and not do something to keep your mind active, I can see how people dread retiring.”

But that’s not so with Shaw. She says, “I can hardly say the word ‘retirement’ without smiling.” CBT 60 APRIL 2017

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& Wo me n e nt re p re ne ur s c re ate co mmu ni t y to s o l ve p ro b l e m s .

BY DAVID MORRISON

COLUMBIABUSINESSTIMES.COM 65

“asks” and “gives” flowed fast and furious around the sun-dappled table just inside the entrance of the Panera Bread on Brickton Road.

The four members of the unofficial “megamind” collective of female entrepreneurs that meets here every two weeks come to each meeting with one of each: an “ask,” to get the group’s input, and a “give,” to benefit their fellow business owners.

That’s the outline, at least.

“It goes off the rails sometimes,” says Beth Snyder, owner of 1canoe2, an illustration and letterpress studio. The collective is a space in which Snyder, Jesse Bodine, Kristen Graham Brown, and Liz Tucker can share everything: from an issue they’re having with an employee to the name of an NPR podcast they find inspirational, from frustration over the subtle sexism of a recent business interaction to mining ways they can motivate their employees to be self-starters.

A little more than a year ago, Snyder and Brown, who is the founder, executive director, and creative director of Hoot Design Co., heard about a similar group in St. Louis but didn’t want to be involved in something quite so regimented. So they banded with two other Mid-Missouri female entrepreneurs who own artistic endeavors — Bodine, of Scout & Nimble, an online interior design repository, and Tucker, who owns Poppy, the arts and gifts shop downtown — to create something a little less formal.

66 APRIL 2017

They started off meeting once a month.

They now meet twice as often. “I think it’s been really instrumental just to have that support and bouncing those creative ideas off each other,” says Bodine. “People say it’s kind of lonely at the top because you can’t talk about everything with your employees.”

They’ve found their niche with kindred spirits, entrepreneurs who work in related fields that have run their own businesses for about the same amount of time.

Columbia is a fitting microcosm for the rest of America, where the bulk of venture capital and small-business loans are reserved for male entrepreneurs. But it is also a community that offers resources for hard-working women in all stages of business development — not to mention the benefits of a growing and accommodating network.

“What women do have that maybe men don’t is a real support system,” Tucker says. “If you seek it out, there is a ton of support as far as other female business owners.”

THE GENDER GAP

According to Sara Cochran, entrepreneurial programs manager for the UM System, you can look at a set of data and come away with two vastly different impressions when it comes to the current state of female entrepreneurs.

A 2014 Babson College national study found that the percentage of early stage companies with a woman on the executive team that receive venture capital tripled from five to 15 percent in the previous 15 years. The same study found that, while female entrepreneurs are majority owners in 36 percent of all businesses, only 2.7 percent of the businesses funded by venture capital from 2011 through 2013 had a female CEO. The Kansas City-based Kauffman Foundation combined the U.S. Census Bureau’s

inaugural Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs, released last September, with the bureau’s latest Survey of Business Owners data and found that the average revenue generated by female-owned businesses rose nearly nine percent from 2012 to 2014. It also found that, while the average revenue generated by maleowned businesses declined slightly over the same period, it’s still more than two times the female cohort.

“You can find data that show that women own more businesses but, even if they do, their businesses are smaller in revenue, size, and all that kind of stuff,” Cochran says. “It’s interesting — some people will spin it like, ‘Woo hoo! [Women] entrepreneurs are doing great!’

Well, they are, but it’s still bleak.”

Males owned almost 65 percent of the country’s businesses in 2014 and women owned a little more than 20 percent, according to Census data. While the disparity had lessened from seven years prior, those numbers didn’t budge much from 2012 to 2014.

The Kauffman Index of Main Street Entrepreneurship found that 3.85 percent of the adult female population in Missouri owned a business as their primary occupation in 2014, roughly in line with the national average (3.88). The overall rate of business owners across the state, though, was 6.24 percent.

Cochran says there are efforts across the state when planning entrepreneurial events or speakers to increase the diversity of the panelists and include more women entrepreneurs.

Collin Bunch, REDI’s entrepreneurship program coordinator, says the REDI Innovation Hub has a pretty even mix of male and female businesses among the 18 to 20 that are using its services. He says REDI is putting a premium on programming that would attract more female entrepreneurs.

Bottle Rocket

B U S I N E SS PLAN PLAN BUSINESS Growing up, it didn’t take long for Liz Tucker to corner the market on bottle rockets in her Columbia neighborhood.

She recognized that her brother and his friends were always in need of things that go boom around the Fourth of July every year. There’s your demand.

She also recognized that snapping up the bottle rocket supply from local fireworks stores early in the season could work to her advantage. There’s your supply.

So when the neighborhood boys ran low on bottle rockets, where do you think they turned? Liz. Even with the mark-up she built into her prices. “I ran the El Chaparral [subdivision] firework market,” says Tucker, who now owns Poppy, the handmade art and gifts store in downtown Columbia.

Kelsey Meyer knows the feeling. Growing up in St. Louis, she would collect rocks from her neighbors’ yards, paint them, then sell them back to her neighbors at a tidy profit.

That was when she was 5. Now she’s president of Influence & Co., the content marketing agency she co-founded.

“My mom likes to joke that, when I was young, the neighbors all hated me because I was constantly at their doors trying to sell them stuff,” Meyer says.

Meyer and Tucker share a key part of their backstory with many female entrepreneurs: the earlier they exhibit that entrepreneurial spirit, the more likely it is that they’ll be their own bosses as adults.

Sara Cochran, entrepreneurial programs manager for the UM System, quoted a study that found that teenage girls are more likely to want to become entrepreneurs if at least one of their parents is one.

The study found the correlation does not hold for teenage boys.

For women, early exposure to the entrepreneurial world is an important determinant, whether it be from observing a father running his own real estate company — as Meyer’s did — or cornering the bottle rocket racket.

The Missouri Women’s Business Center opened in Columbia in June. Director Jaime Freidrichs says the center has worked with 75 one-on-one clients since then. While the WBC also helps men, the overwhelming majority of the entrepreneurs Freidrichs sees are, unsurprisingly, female. The center is a program of Central Missouri Community Action, which started it with a grant from the Small Business Administration.

The startups she sees aren’t the ones that secure venture capital and scale rapidly. What most of the center’s clients seek is help building a compelling business plan and getting connected to community resources for startup capital. All they need is a little push.

“The women we work with tend to want to go over things multiple times and really make sure all of their ducks are in a row and that they’ve covered all the bases and looked at all the angles,” Freidrichs says. “In a lot of ways, that makes women entrepreneurs a great bet.”

Women tend to be more reticent than men when it comes to going out on a limb and starting their own ventures. Part of that, Cochran says, is because men are more likely to secure capital, and part of it is “socialized” traits of men as the bold risk-takers and women as the risk-averse types that can nurture a business from infancy to fruition.

It’s a dynamic that has worked perfectly for Kelsey Meyer and John Hall at Columbia-based content marketing firm Influence & Co. Meyer started the business and brought in the first few clients, then Hall came on board as co-founder and vastly expanded the customer base. Influence & Co. now has more than 70 employees COLUMBIABUSINESSTIMES.COM 67

between Columbia and satellite offices in St. Louis and Kansas City.

“One thing we talk about a lot is how if he weren’t here, we wouldn’t have any clients. And if I weren’t here, we wouldn’t keep any clients,” Meyer says. “Throughout our time together, we’ve kind of learned from one another. It’s still good to have some tension there — if he’s pushing for us to do and try more, that pushes me, and if I’m pushing for how to do things the right way, that pushes him.”

M egaminds!

COMMON GROUND Tucker took over Poppy from its original owner, Barb McCormick, in 2012. She had worked in the shop since 2004 and considers McCormick a mentor.

McCormick once told Tucker about the time when she and her business partner were looking for space to open Poppy in 1981. They scouted out a rental property that met their needs and were ready to make an offer.

The owner said he needed to see their husbands’ financials first.

“They decided not to go with that space,” Tucker says.

While Columbia’s female entrepreneurs might not experience such stark reminders of gender inequality, challenging experiences persist.

Meyer says she’s always felt supported in the Columbia community but once, at an outof-town conference, someone in her field told her that he didn’t know if he could take her seriously because she reminded him of his daughter. Brown had someone tell her recently that she was “all about the money” in her business dealings. She’s convinced she wouldn’t have drawn such a comment if she was a man.

Snyder told the story of a male colleague she encounters regularly who does not tread softly in a female-dominated industry.

“He has no problem really aggressively asking for things, and nobody discredits him for being that way,” Snyder says. “Whereas if I would be like that, it’d be like, ‘Who does she think she is?’”

Confidence is a big topic of discussion at the megamind group: things like over-apologizing or devaluing their own work come up a lot.

Bodine founded Scout & Nimble with her husband, Sam. She says the differences in their managerial styles are striking.

“When I’m saying something, I’m very aware of other people’s feelings,” Bodine says. “My husband is able to be more assertive because he doesn’t think about when somebody else is 68 APRIL 2017

going to hear that. He’ll say something to one of our employees and I’ll be like, ‘I can’t believe you just said that,’ but they don’t take anything from it. When I’m giving them a task, it’s a lot softer. I think that’s something where I need to know that they’re going to be OK.” Sandra Marin, who helps advise fledgling tech and science businesses at both the MU Extension’s Business Development Program and the Small Business and Technology Development Centers, says: “We have been able to engage most of the women here because of the sense that they are not starting a business by themselves. What we have created is also a good relationship in which they know that they have somebody that can support them at any time.”

Female entrepreneurs wield influence, whether conscious or not, on the next generation. Snyder says she regularly talks to her 12 employees — 11 of whom are female — about “being an entrepreneur in their own jobs.”

Brown’s Hoot Design proudly touts itself as a “woman-driven creative agency in a male-dom-

inated field.” Influence & Co.’s seven-member leadership team includes five females.

“I’ve seen a new group of female leaders coming up in our community, and I’m so proud of those women,” Meyer says. “It’s one of my favorite things about my job — that I get to support and help develop other women to be leaders and become involved in our community.”

So it goes with the megamind group, meeting over breakfast and coffee, trading war stories during a fast-paced, two-hour session that leaves all of its members refreshed and optimistic. They urge fellow female entrepreneurs to find their own support team, one that can ask and give in equal measure.

“I do think it’s a little bit of a unique experience,” Brown says. “The more that we are honest and transparent about what it feels like — hearing about how hard something is — is better than painting a beautiful picture. When you’re down and in a really bad place, you’re thinking, ‘Clearly I’m not cut out to be a business owner.’

But if you knew that Jesse stayed up until 3 a.m. crying last night too, it’s a lot better.” CBT

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70 APRIL 2017

1

CREATING A

2

ClIMATE Companies that have women in leadership positions are more successful than those that don’t. So why are women still underrepresented in business leadership? And what can you do to change it?

BY SARA L. COCHRAN

M

illennials (those born from 1982 to 2003) began graduating from college and entering our workforce in 2004 and will continue to make up the bulk of college graduates until about 2023. Women make up the majority of college students, yet they're the minority in many programs: entrepreneurship; science, technology, engineering, and math (or STEM) fields; and some areas of business. And beyond college, women are under-represented in senior leadership of organizations and make only 79 percent of the wages of men, according to the American Association of University Women.

But research shows that women-led Fortune 1000 companies perform more than two times better than the S&P 500 and have greater societal impact. What’s the answer to this problem? How do we get more women in leadership roles and maximize their potential? By creating a climate for women in business.

THE STUDY As an entrepreneurship educator, I’ve spent several years working with undergraduate business students. I love the drive and energy I see in these young adults and can’t wait to see the world in their hands. However, I continue to see a disproportionate number of men in these programs, a sentiment that’s echoed by colleagues from around the country. Mid-

way through my Ph.D program, I interviewed a female student who said, “My entrepreneurship program is the first place I’ve ever felt like I belonged.” I left that meeting inspired — I knew I wanted to focus on women entrepreneurship students.

I’m near the end of my program now, and I’ve had the opportunity to study the role of gender in higher education for my dissertation, for which I conducted a qualitative case study of an entrepreneurship program through the lens of Joan Acker’s theory of gendered organizations (that organizational structures are often built around men at the expense of women).

For this case study, I traveled to a four-year institution and conducted a focus group and individual interviews with 10 undergraduate women students ranging in age from 19 to 28, interviews with faculty and staff members, class observations, and an analysis of documents and artifacts. The women who participated in the study were in years two to five of their schooling, pursuing degrees ranging from management to manufacturing, and involved in the entrepreneurship program. (I’ve changed their names here to protect their anonymity.)

Through my research, I’ve come to some enlightening conclusions about how we create a climate of women in business in order to close this gap and provide an opportunity for organizations to thrive under women’s leadership.

COLUMBIABUSINESSTIMES.COM 71

WHAT I LEAR NED According to my research, many women in business feel they have to prove themselves, feel they’re treated differently than men, and feel isolated. These women are often in a male-dominated environment, making it difficult to have a sense of belonging or find role models who look like them. On top of that, they feel the need to compensate for being a woman: to work harder, dress nicer, and find the right balance of everything. This constant concern about doing things “just right,” and the constant balancing act it creates, distracts women from focusing on things they should be focused on, like their work. One participant, Elizabeth, verbalized this by saying, “I just feel like females have more responsibility being in the business world, because I feel like I have to prove something — that I can hang with the boys.”

Many of the subjects felt they have to work harder to fit in because their ideas are often subtly devalued by their male peers. They reported that their male co-workers dominate conversa-

these women take on the details and logistics, do the bulk of the work, and see that the project is completed (many of the participants described this as their role). Their professors said that these students come to class more prepared and earned better grades than their male classmates.

The participants’ success seems to be advanced by relationships. Relationships are key to their experiences, including those with peers, mentors and role models, and family members. Women are often encouraged to become involved by their peers or by a faculty member, and once in the program, they thrive from a supportive environment where women encourage one another and support one another’s endeavors, even when they’re opposed in the same competition.

One participant, Georgia, said: “We’re all really close. We’re all extremely supportive of each other. If somebody gets a win or if somebody makes a stride toward something, we are all just really excited for each other. And we express that and we show it. That’s a really nice culture to be a part of.”

Women seeing other women’s progress makes the work less intimidating. And, by acknowledging their great work, you’re also creating a culture that encourages workers to be supportive of one another. One person’s success is everyone’s success. tion in team meetings, and women are left out of conversations on group projects. As another participant, Nicole, said, “When they talk to each other about the project, they’ll often talk amongst themselves, and then I’ll be sitting over here and I’ll try to put my input in, and it’s kinda like, ‘Hello?’”

Understanding the struggles women in business face makes one wonder about the women who succeed despite these challenges — what do they have in common? These women work hard and take on a great deal of responsibility. The students I talked to are the kinds of people who have taken on leadership roles their entire lives; many of them study, work multiple jobs, take heavy course loads, lead campus organizations, and even care for family members. In group projects, 72 APRIL 2017

The women also persist because of the encouragement and mentoring of faculty and staff members. Emily, talking about the impact of a professor, said: “It just showed me that I really need to continue on. So I’ve been slowly working at it since then. Yeah, I have a lot of ideas now. It’s like this litany of ideas of what I should be doing with it. Before it was like nothing — now it’s a litany.”

These relationships create a sense of belonging and camaraderie and give students an increased belief in their ability to be succeed.

First, highlight women. Feature women who are doing great things and who are serving in leadership roles. This could be in small ways, such as acknowledging their great work in front of the team during a staff meeting, nominating them for an award, or asking them to take on leadership of a project. Women seeing other women’s progress makes the work less intimidating. And, by acknowledging their great work, you’re also creating a culture that encourages workers to be supportive of one another. One person’s success is everyone’s success.

Traditional gendered organizations explicitly or implicitly demonstrate what roles are “appropriate” for women and men. Change it up. Put a man in charge of office birthdays. Ask a woman to head up the office basketball tournament. When you assemble teams, be sure they are gender diverse and assign roles so that the women don’t always take on the “housekeeping” tasks and leave men to the strategy. Hold each team member accountable for their contribution to the project. Create a system in which everyone speaks at a staff meeting.

And, as I said before, promote relationships.

Create ways for employees to get to know one another at work. Using work time for play time will pay off as you build a sense of community, which leads to more productivity and teamwork. Specifically give women an opportunity for mentoring by pairing an up-and-coming leader with two people already in leadership roles: one man and one woman.

That brings me to my last point: incentivize the use of resources. Make it clear that the resources you have available are for everyone, not just the men and not just leaders. Encourage question-asking and knowledge-seeking.

Some women don’t even see their own potential, so encourage them to take the next step: apply for funding, enter a contest, apply for a training program, or nominate them for an award. Be an advocate for success, be approachable to help, and serve as a resource.

Is it possible these tactics may be helpful for men too? Absolutely. But for those areas where women are underrepresented, it’s important to create a climate for women to thrive — because that helps your company thrive too. CBT

NEXT STEPS So what do we do with this knowledge? We use it to create a nurturing environment that attracts and retains millennial women into the workforce. I have a few suggestions.

Sara L. Cochran is the entrepreneurial programs manager at the UM System; a Ph.D Candidate studying higher education at MU, and the owner of Pomegranate Enterprises LLC.

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OR G A N I ZAT I ON AL H EALT H

STRATEGY #2 Tune-out day. Oh no, he’s not going to suggest it, is he? Yes, I am. You need days where you shut it off. Shut of the cell phone, don’t check e-mail, stay off Twitter, and fill in your favorites. About five years ago, I turned off my e-mail auto checker. I got tired of that little window coming up in the lower right corner, distracting me when I was concentrating on a project.

Now, I check my email purposefully three or four times a day and answer expediently. If you can’t bring yourself to do it for a whole day, do an afternoon or evening, but pick at least one period of time each week.

STRATEGY #3

ORGA N I Z AT IONAL H E ALTH

Five Strategies to Re-energize Yourself As a Leader

BY TON Y RICHA R DS | Fou n de r of C le ar Visio n Deve l o p m e n t G ro u p

BECAUSE OF THE TECHNOLOGY AT our fingertips these days, leaders have more freedom than ever before. What we don’t seem to have is time. The world around us feels like it’s speeding out of control, and our many cool gadgets don’t help slow things down. And because we’re able to work more than ever before, it can seem like we’re being less productive. Having a quality output shouldn’t require high-octane coffee.

Here’s the situation: We have just as much time as we have always had. The days are the same length. For some leaders, the difference is the energy-sucking technology. How do we re-energize ourselves in this strange world that’s moving 24/7? After all, we are connected 24/7, we are full of information 24/7, we are addicted to 24/7!

To be a leader and a change catalyst, you must be able to adapt to challenges in any environ74 APRIL 2017

ment. For that, you need energy. For that, you need to rest from all your hyper-speed work.

You may think some of these are too much of a change for you, but I offer them as suggestions to you regardless.

STRATEGY #1

Get comfortable with tools that work for you. If you are typically an early adapter, you may be trying to utilize everything in the technology, information, or social media world.

You know these people, right? Just when you were learning Facebook, they became the mayor of so-and-so on Foursquare. You said, “What’s Foursquare?”

Lately, I’ve been getting a ton of invitations to Branchout. I don’t accept them. I have LinkedIn, so why do I need Branchout? Point being: find things that work for you and refuse the temptation to try to keep up with everything.

Chill. Relax a little bit by yourself or work on a project uninterrupted. When you’re unplugged, be cool with that and get some work done. I promise you’ll feel more energized by getting real work done than by being plugged in to all your information sources and gadgets.

STRATEGY #4 Get clarity on your expectations. How much time do you want or need to be an information junkie? Make decisions on what you expect from yourself as far as information and productivity go. I’m not saying you don’t need to be informed; I’m saying you need to constantly be aware of how much balance you need to maintain a high energy level as a leader.

STRATEGY #5 Remove your triggers. If you have events or instances that trigger your technology fix, identify and remove them. You might have a habit of checking your email at traffic lights.

Worse yet, you may fiddle with your phone while you’re waiting for dinner and your loved one is sitting across from you trying to wait patiently. Try leaving your phone in a place you can’t get to while driving. If you go out to lunch or dinner with someone, leave your phone in the car. Your relationships will improve and you’ll find relief.

You may be wired-in and love it, but you can’t know everything at every moment. After all, isn’t that what meeting interesting people is for?

Meeting someone for coffee, dinner, or lunch to soak up what interesting things they know? It’s a great distraction from everything else that’s fighting for your focus and attention. CBT

BU SINESS • P EOP L E • IM P ROVE M E N T • F YI

DI VER SI T Y

because they learned how to listen with their hearts versus debating who was right and who was wrong. They started healing, and the work continues today.

The division was not limited to the St. Louis community; it echoed across the country, and it certainly echoed here in Columbia. Many people felt the need to discuss the issues, and many others continued to avoid the topic of race and the many other ways we’re different from one another. If we are to move forward toward more diverse and inclusive communities, the change must start with us. Here are some ways to start talking about it with family, friends, and co-workers:

DI VERSI T Y

Talking through Discomfort

BY NIKKI McGRUDER | Regional Manager of Diversity Awareness Partnership

IT’S NO SECRET THAT WE WOULD rather avoid conversations, situations, people, places, and things that make us feel uncomfortable. It’s easier to play the avoidance card than deal with discomfort. It’s human nature. However, when conversations of importance come into play – such as those that deal with basic respect for fellow colleagues, friends and family – we should pay close attention. These situations often require that we step outside of our comfort zones.

Our country and our respective communities have never had a shortage of topics that we’d rather avoid. This is especially true when the topic of discussion revolves around issues of social justice and equity, or the lack thereof.

It’s unavoidable: someone that we know, care about, or even love is going to have an opinion different than our own. Either we find ways to continue enjoying one another by avoiding those hot topics or we figure out how to talk through them with one another. In a business setting, it’s crucial to be able to honestly com-

municate with your co-workers and preserve and improve your relationships.

So how do we do that? How do we talk through sensitive topics without feeling uncomfortable or risking irreparable damage to the relationship? These are valid concerns. In 2014, the City of Ferguson experienced an event that caused an immediate division across racial lines in the St. Louis area — the shooting of Michael Brown

by Officer Darren Wilson. It was as if a line had been drawn right through the community. Yet few seemed to notice that there were serious, complicated topics about the event that needed to be faced. For many, either you were for or against your neighbor and their perspective, and nothing else mattered.

The DAP St. Louis branch was deeply affected by this division, and sought solutions to address it. DAP created an opportunity for community members to be in a room where they could be their authentic selves and learn the art of healthy dialogue. Participants saw and felt the concerns of their neighbors

Identify the area of discomfort you want to overcome. If race is the issue, then let race be the issue. Don’t try to call it something else that might be perceived as less controversial. We can’t heal the wound without addressing the cause. To move forward, we must be honest with ourselves and others about the lived experiences that have contributed to our biases.

Intentionally place yourself in situations that make you feel uncomfortable. This sounds hard, and it is. But what better way to counteract fears and biases than to place yourself in situations that make you squirm? It’s a good tactic to push through challenging situations. You don’t have to do it alone.

Find one person or a group of people willing to walk with you during your process.

Be okay with making mistakes. They are part of the process. This is where finding a person or group of people willing to walk with you comes in very handy. These should be people who accept your mistakes and can help correct your path. In any relationship, this should be the norm. We need people who will not turn their backs on us as we move through a difficult process.

Create a support system for others.

Be an ally for others struggling with similar challenges. Have go-to people who can be the calm in the storm of change, because it will not be easy. It will be a challenge, and you will have days when you want to give up. Please don’t.

Seek out resources, such as DAP, to help you find your new and diverse network. CBT COLUMBIABUSINESSTIMES.COM 75

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ARE YOU WORKING TO IMPROVE YOUR CLOSE RATIO?

M ARKET I NG

Should I Do Email Marketing?

BY MON ICA P ITTS | C h ie f C re at ive D ire ctor o f Maye C re ate D e s i g n

EMAIL GENERATES THE HIGHEST return on investment for marketers — For every $1 spent, email marketing generates $38 in ROI, according to marketing company Campaign Watch. But some businesses are still reluctant to take the leap.

Evaluate a few factors to determine whether email marketing would be a good fit: blogging, promotions, slipping sales numbers, and desired expansion.

DO YOU BLOG? Blogging feeds the website with new content, which is great for generating organic traffic and boosting organic search rankings. But once you’ve got people there, then what? What if they really love what you have to say? What if they want to hear more? That’s where email marketing steps in. People won’t be stopping by your website on a daily basis and holding their breath while you churn out more goodness. You have to remind them to come back.

Eighty-six percent of consumers would like to receive promotional emails from companies they do business with at least monthly, and 15 percent would like to get them daily, according to Statista, a market research firm. Subscribers just need a little nudge, a link and a reminder saying, “I know we’re friends but, well, we haven’t spoken in a

while, so why don’t you come over?” Without the email, posting your blog is like when you’re thinking about inviting your friend over for coffee, but you don’t. And then your friend thinks you don’t like them and gets sad. Don’t make people sad.

Email them about your blog posts.

DO YOU OFFER REGULAR PROMOTIONS OR SPECIALS? There was a time long ago when it was 25 cents to mail a letter. Remember that? And we’d mail the heck out of stuff. It’s still fun getting mail, but now it’s electronic. MarketingSherpa reports 72 percent of people prefer to receive promotional content through email, compared to 17 percent who prefer social media.

Let’s do some quick math. Say your email marketing software costs $25 a month to reach your list of 2,000 people. Even if you only send one email to your 2,000 subscribers per month, each email costs you about a penny. Back in the late ’80s, the height of snail-mail marketing, your $25 would only reach 100 people. It would cost even more now (and you’d actually have to print the mail, which we didn’t factor into this math problem). Sending out specials and coupons on a regular basis is an expensive pain in the neck. Plus, it hurts less when people throw away my 1-cent email.

Two words for you: segmenting and personalization. Segmenting is when you break your list into groups of subscribers with like interests, values, or buying history; personalization is when you call people by name and make them feel special.

Here’s two more words for you: drip campaign.

Those two actually go together, and when you use automated drip campaigns, which send your emails automatically on a predetermined schedule, and pair them with segmentation and personalization, you’re crafting a bunch of personalized messages. You can nurture your leads via email, then pick up the phone when the time is right to close the deal. Over 75 percent of email revenue is generated by triggered campaigns (automated emails that send in response to a specific behavior) rather than one-size-fits-all campaigns. And automated email campaigns account for 21 percent of email marketing revenue, according to the Data and Marketing Association. Even without hitting send, you can educate your prospects and start developing a relationship.

ARE YOU TRYING TO FIND NEW BUSINESS? I know, I’ve heard it. You don’t want to send emails to get new business because you think you’re going to annoy people. Here’s what’s crazy: We all know people are emailing us to ask us to buy things, and we just keep opening the emails anyway. For 89 percent of marketers, email serves as the primary channel for lead generation, and email is 40 times more likely to acquire new customers than Facebook or Twitter. And prospects can’t hang up on your email.

They can trash your email, yes, but you can email again. And you can see all the data: if they opened the email, if they clicked on anything.

Armed with that information, you can make an educated decision about whether that prospect is interested in your services or not.

When you sign up for something online, what’s one of the first things you have to fill out in the form? When you sign up for social media, including Facebook and Twitter, what do you absolutely have to have? An email address!

Email is the currency of the web, so even if you’re not doing email marketing right now, gather addresses from your clients and prospects — each one can be an asset to tap into for a quick, cost-effective contact. CBT COLUMBIABUSINESSTIMES.COM 77

NOW LEASING New Retail Building

• 4,000 S.F. Available, will sub-divide • Located next to Columbia Pool and Spa • Great visibility from I-70 • Call for more details

ArtInTheParkColumbia.org

(573) 443-8838

Achieve Balance Chiropractic, Boone Olive Oil, Central Investment Advisors, Compass Flower Press, Fretboard Coffee, Ingredient Restaurant, Missouri Cotton Exchange, Treats Unleashed, Robinson & Ries, The District, Wilson’s Garden Center

Contact John Hancock Broker-Salesperson 573-489-5201 JohnHancock33@gmail.com

We Know CoMo Business

Offering prime commercial & investment properties MaherCRE.com 573-228-6321 78 APRIL 2017

B U SINESS • P EOP L E • IM P ROVE M E N T • F YI

AS K A N N E

TRUSTED ADVISOR. INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS. ENHANCING SUCCESS.

Top IT

A SK A N N E

Attitude Adjustment

Company

BY A N N E W ILLIAM S | P re side n t of JobF in de r s E m p l oy m e n t S e r vi ce s

Q Dear Anne, I have problem employees and don’t know if I should try to save them (they do good work) or just fire them all and start over.

I’m at wit’s end — help please!

FIRING PEOPLE IS ONE OF THE hardest things to do, especially if you are personally invested in the employee. I know this from personal experience.

My company hired an employee years ago that seemed bright and fit the mold of our culture very well. We expected big things from this person. Once on board, the employee seemed to catch on. Things were good.

About six months into the job, their manager started seeing little things not being done the way they were taught. But the manager thought, “Hey, it works for them.” Later, when we tried to get back to basics, this person got downright nasty about it. Their manager decided to ignore the situation and things got worse. The employee truly got too big for their britches — they talked behind the manager’s back

and eventually skipped major steps in our processes, which led to really bad practices.

Once upper management learned what was really going on, we watched and listened intently. We saw that the employee in question had a need to be validated for their innovative ideas, even if they weren’t used, and wanted to see a clear career path for themselves. (They also needed counseling for things in their personal life, which we could not address.)

So what did we do? We moved the person into a different role. It worked for a bit, maybe eight months. Then the employee decided they were part of the management team, tried exercising authority they didn’t have, and worked against all company policies. The employee had to go.

We really tried to save this person. All the managers had invested hours upon hours in this individual. In the long run, we learned a lesson: Everyone is replaceable. I hope you’ll think about this when you are thinking about saving or terminating. My word to the wise, as always: Hire slow and fire fast, especially if an employee has natural traits that aren’t going to change. CBT

 IT Consulting  Cloud Computing  Data Backup Services  IT Support Call us today for a FREE network assessment, and see what all the hype is about.

573.499.6928 MidwestComputech.com

Anne Williams is not an attorney. All content in this column is not guaranteed for accuracy and legality and is not to be construed as legal advice.

COLUMBIABUSINESSTIMES.COM 79

B U SINESS • P EOP L E • IM P ROVE M E N T • F YI

B U SI N ESS SM AR TS

affecting customer data, communicate any substantial changes to customers before they take effect.

KEY QUESTIONS TO ANSWER IN YOUR PRIVACY POLICY • What type of data is being collected?

B U SI N ESS S MARTS

Your Company Needs a Privacy Policy

BY SEAN SP ENCE | Re gion al D ire ctor of Be tte r B u s i n e ss B u re a u Co l u m b i a

DON’T YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW businesses are using the private information they collect from you? Don’t you think your customers want the same thing?

Depending on where you live and what you’re doing, having a privacy policy for your customers’ information may actually be required. The Federal Trade Commission, for example, recommends privacy policies for most websites that collect and share consumer data, whether they do so actively or use cookies; federal law requires privacy policies for businesses collecting sensitive data, including personal information from children under 13, protected health information, or information related to certain financial products or services such as consumer loans, investment advice, or insurance. A few states go even further, with laws that require privacy policies for websites collecting certain types of data. BBB requires a privacy policy for its accredited businesses if they collect sensitive information.

But even if it’s not required, a privacy policy can help you build trust with customers and set yourself apart from your competition. Even if you’re not using your site to make sales, you may be collecting visitors’ personal data to generate leads, make appointments, manage newsletter subscriptions, or share with advertisers. You 80 APRIL 2017

may also be using web analytics to optimize your website’s performance. It’s useful to at least have some sort of policy in place for navigating and using all this information.

HOW TO PROVIDE AN EFFECTIVE PRIVACY POLICY • Be accurate and complete. Your policy is

a pledge to your customers about how your business will handle and protect their personal data. It should reflect data practices unique to your business. You can check out policies of similar businesses for inspiration.

• Keep it simple. The policy is a legal document, but consumers don’t want to read a bunch of technical jargon. Your privacy policy should be written in plain language so your customers can readily understand how you’re handling their information.

• Make your privacy policy easy to find.

Consider including a prominent link in the header or footer of every page so visitors can check out your policy before they interact with your site. At the very least, your privacy policy should be linked from your homepage and any other pages where data is collected.

• Update your policy as necessary. If you change your business and privacy practices

In addition to names, home addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, credit card information, and IP addresses, you may be collecting information about purchase histories, gender, age, income, or marital status. Your analytics provider, your advertisers, your third party shopping cart, or your payment processor may all be collecting information throughout your site. These activities should be identified and your customers should be directed to any third party privacy policies that may apply.

• How is data being collected? Online forms used to gather data may be obvious to the consumer, while cookies and other trackers placed on the visitor’s computer browser may go unnoticed. You should clearly explain all data collection practices to customers.

• How will the data be used? Answer this question and tell your customers how, where and how long you will store the information you collect. If you share customer data with affiliates or service providers, sell data you collect to business partners, or allow marketers or others to collect data on your site, be sure to explain what information is being shared or sold and how it may be used.

• How do you protect the data? You should be protecting customer data with strong security measures. In your policy, you can explain what you’re doing to provide assurance to your customers, but avoid getting too detailed: revealing too much about your security practices could put your systems at risk.

• How can customers control their data?

Provide a point of contact at your business (usually an email address or phone number) to help customers change passwords, unsubscribe from mailing lists, close accounts, or address a problem. If marketers are using your site to collect data for interest-based advertising, you should also provide customers with opt-out information for this activity.

Keep in mind that you are legally responsible for keeping the privacy promises you make in your policy. If you have questions, seek legal advice before finalizing the policy. This is important — you want to be thorough. CBT

FEATURED LISTING PRICE REDUCED TO $570,000

Hwy 63 & Stadium Columbia, MO 65201

Price: Type: Acreage: Price:

$570,000 Land 1.25 $10.47/SF

Ideal highway retail location, large factory nearby employing thousands. Holiday Inn Express has 121 rooms. Close proximity to Domain Student Housing with an average of 680 students. All utilities available to the site.

GINA RENDE

314-477-4462 gina@malyrealty.com

COLUMBIABUSINESSTIMES.COM 81

B U SINESS • P EOP L E • IM P R OV EM EN T • FY I

ECON OM I C I N DEX

Economic Index January 2017 – Columbia, Missouri

Labor Force: 65,912 Employment: 63,960 Unemployment: 1,952 Rate: 3 percent

January 2017 – United States

Labor Force: 158,676,000 Employment: 150,527,000 Unemployment: 8,149,000 Rate: 5.1 percent

CONSTRUCTION February 2017

January 2017 – Boone County

Labor Force: 96,823 Employment: 93,912 Unemployment: 2,911 Rate: 3 percent January 2017 – Missouri

Labor Force: 3,067,580 Employment: 2,926,736 Unemployment: 140,844 Rate: 4.6 percent

Residential building permits: 60 Value of residential building permits: $11,926,210 Detached single-family homes: 37 Value of detached single-family homes: $9,862,719 Commercial building permits: 26 Value of commercial building permits: $15,164,735 Commercial additions and alterations: 17

Value of commercial additions and alterations: $4,733,173

Single-family pending listings on market: 128

HOUSING

UTILITIES

January 2017

Single-family homes sales: 106 Existing single-family home sales per month: 87 New construction single-family home sales per month: 19 Single-family active listings on market: 508 Single-family homes average sold price: $210,768 Single-family home median sold price: $169,500 Single-family homes average days on market: 71

A little planning

Water

February 2017: 48,562 February 2016: 48,050 Change #: 512 Change %: 1.066 Number of customers receiving service on March 1, 2017: 48,563 Electric

February 2017: 49,574 February 2016: 48,698 Change #: 876 Change %: 1.799 Number of customers receiving service on March 1, 2017: 49,590 CBT

Member SIPC

LABOR

may be a great move for your heirs

By designating a non-spousal beneficiary, your IRA can provide your heirs with decades of tax-deferred growth from their inherited assets. When an IRA is stretched, the assets can continue to grow tax-differed, even as the balance is gradually drawn down.

Let me show you how your IRA can be stretched to help benefit future generations of loved ones. Call today for your confidential appointment.

Mark Richardson ,CFP® 2415 Carter Ln Suite #104 Columbia, MO 65201 573.442.1276 mark.richardson@edwardjones.com

82 APRIL 2017

If a distribution is taken before age 59½, it is subject to a 10% early withdrawal penalty in addition to ordinary income tax based on the taxable amount of the distribution, unless certain exceptions apply.

Mark Richardson, CFP® Financial Advisor

BU SI N ESS • P EO P L E • IM P R OV EM EN T • FY I

New Business Licenses APRIL 2017

Stay Home Instead LLC

Out of Line

4505 Avondale Pl.

4800 Santana Cir.

573-268-8970

573-489-7840

Mobility product provider

Wine wholesale

C&C Carpet Care LLC

Danner Counseling LLC

7801 E. Southern Dr.

1100 Maplewood Dr.

573-819-1842

573-819-3874

Carpet cleaning

Part-time psychotherapy practice

Route B Car Wash

3103 Paris Rd. 573-819-9883 Car wash

Winfield Flooring

1302 Omaha Ct. 573-818-8030 Floor covering

The Paper Closet

3804 Gailcrest Dr. 479-461-6226

Columbia Security & Training

1200 Blue Ridge Rd. 573-673-7174 Security consulting, training and house watch service

Senior Care Services

1201 S. Old 63 573-823-9104 Nonmedical caregiving

FEATURED LISTING

404 Portland Street 14,700 sq ft office building +/- 6 Acres

ZONING

Zoned O-1

PRICE REDUCTION

$3,300,000 to $3,200,000 Two seperate parcels that can be divided or sold as one +/- 14,700 sq ft office building available in highly desirable Keene Medical Corridor. Building sits on a total of 6 acres that is already platted as two parcels and can accommodate additional future development. Site is zoned O-1 (Office District) and is ready for development. Call Mel Zelenak for additional detail.

Paper goods provider Cricket Wireless Benchmark Testing & Inspection

1150 Grindstone Pkwy.

911 Rollins Rd.

636-524-9006

573-999-9009

Retail wireless sales

Home inspections Central Development Academy Sports

Group LLC

2651 Trimble Rd.

1312 Westview Ter.

281-646-5427

573-442-2727

Retail sporting goods

Project development CBT

MEL ZELENAK

573-999-3131 mel@malyrealty.com

COLUMBIABUSINESSTIMES.COM 83

B U S I N E SS • P E O P L E • I M P R OV E M E N T • F Y I

T A X I P S

TAMI R. BENUS, CPA

SMALL BUSINESS BIG SUCCESS



Try New Ideas Be Innovative when necessary.

The fact that something isn’t currently being done in your industry area shouldn’t keep you from trying something different.

Watch the Numbers Use your financial statement to give you important management information.

Compare inventory turnover year by year. If turnover drops, consider it a warning sign and investigate further.





Use Your Advisors Wisely Keep your accountant, banker, insurance agent, and lawyer informed about your business. These professionals can help you avoid pitfalls in making business decisions.

See our tips and blog at trbcpa.com Tami R Benus, CPA 1808 Monroe St. Columbia 65201 573.499.1990

tami@trbcpa.com

trbcpa.com

84 APRIL 2017

DEEDS OF T R U ST

Deeds of Trust WORTH MORE THAN $500,000

$19,500,000

$1,070,000

$796,500

District Flats-Ucal, L.L.C. Berkadia Commercial Mortgage L.L.C. Lt 87 Pt Columbia

Building Eight Properties L.L.C. Coil, William Randall & Cydney J Lt 1505 Broadway Farms Plat 15a Lots 3-5

Missouri Alpha Chapter Of Pi Beta Phi House Corp.

Great Southern Bank Lt 18 Pt Columbia

$4,325,000

Brink & Ball Land Company L.L.C. Landmark Bank Str 10-48-12 //Ne Sur Bk/Pg: 256/351 Ff W/ Exceptions $3,400,000

Triple Crown Ltd L.L.C. Central Bank Of Boone County Lt 1 Arbor Falls Plat No 3 $2,080,000

Boone County Equipment L.L.C. Mid America Bank Lt 201 Bocomo Industrial Park Plat 1 $1,800,000

Doctors Park L.L.C. Central Bank of Boone County Lt 3 Garths Add

$1,056,000

Odle, Jonathan B & Anntonette R/The Sentry Trust UMB Bank Str 15-48-12 //Ne Sur Bk/Pg: 1611/799 Ff Pt Tract F $1,007,297

Widel Realty Company L.L.C. First Midwest Bank Of Poplar Bluff Lt 1a Leawood Plaza Plat No 1 $1,000,000

Harold E Johnson Companies The Central Bank Of Boone County Lt 5 Tower Industrial Park $850,000

$1,547,000

Ota Properties L.L.C. Landmark Bank Lt 16 Pt Ff Central Add

Sisson, Lisa Standard Insurance Co. Lt 1 Ryan’s Sub Ff W/Esmt $840,000

$1,360,000

Campbell, Robert G Living Trust Landmark Bank Str 4-47-13 //Sw

Pfenenger, George A & Joan D UMB Bank Lt 12 Woodrail Sub Plat 3

$1,147,000

$820,000

5280 L.L.C. Enterprise Development Corp.

Lt 3 Bl 2 Boone Industrial Park North

Fairview Road Church Of Christ Central Bank Of Boone County Lt 37 Broadway Farms Plat 3

$699,000

MVM Properties L.L.C. Phelps County Bank Lt 21a Longwood Sub Plat 2 Lt21a,22a,22b,23b,24 $637,659

Triple Crown Ltd L.L.C. Hainen, Benny & Glenda Trust Lt 1 Arbor Falls Plat No 3 $630,000

American Truck Repair L.L.C. Landmark Bank Str 3-48-13 //Nw Sur Bk/Pg: 289/188 Ff Tracts 1 & 2 W/ Exceptions $540,600

Zm-1501 Rosemary L.L.C. Central Bank Of Boone County Lt 9 Ff Batterton & Pemberton’s Su $505,696

Morse, Timothy S & Kimberly K Revocable Trust The Central Trust Bank Lt 111 Parkside Estates Plat No 1 $500,000

Doctors Park L.L.C. Central Bank of Boone County Lt 3 Garths Add CBT 413 deeds of trust were issued between 1/30 and 2/24

“CONNECTION EXCHANGE has helped me reach customers I otherwise wouldn’t. Having a person, go out on your behalf, and speak to new business owners is invaluable. They are able to reach clients at a critical time, when they are starting their business. Their warmth and genuine attention to my business shows me that they really care about our growth and success. I would recommend CONNECTION EXCHANGE to anyone wanting to get their foot in the door with new businesses in a very effective way!”

FEATURED LISTING

—Kristen Brown Hoot Design Co.

Cara Owings & Jennifer Schenck 573.312.0628 connection-exchange.com

ions Solut ke Ma That e Sens

We make employee management easy

Old Hawthorne Site PRICE: $9.00-16.00/SF TYPE: Land ZONING: C-P ACREAGE: 6.77 Property located just west of The Club at Old Hawthorne at the corner of Old Hawthorne Dr. W and Hwy WW NORTH PORTION OF PARCEL: $9.00 SW CORNER OF PARCEL: $13.00 SE CORNER OF PARCEL: $16.00 884 RESIDENTIAL LOTS IN NEARBY OLD HAWTHORNE DEVELOPMENT

Seller willing to divide

•Expert: Certified payroll & HR staff •Dependable: 50 years of reliable service •Payroll: Payroll/tax, workforce management

Hometown values — Nationwide service Call us for your consultation

ColumbiaEDP.com | 573-474-8431 | payroll@columbiaedp.com

GINA RENDE

314-477-4462 gina@malyrealty.com

COLUMBIABUSINESSTIMES.COM 85

B U SINESS • P EOP L E • IM P R OV EM EN T • FY I

BY T H E N U M BER S

66.7%

71 cents What women make for every dollar a man makes in Missouri.

Source: The Status of Women in Missouri Report 2016

How much black and hispanic women make compared to white men in Missouri in 2015.

Source: The Status of Women in Missouri Report 2016

33%

Women who say their employer is doing very well at allowing them to work from home when needed.

Source: Gallup Women in America: Work and Life Well-Lived Report

46%

4.6%

Female employees who say flex time is the most important benefit a company can offer.

The unemployment rate for women in Missouri, compared to 5.3% for men.

Source: Gallup Women in America: Work and Life Well-Lived Report

Source: The Status of Women in Missouri Report 2016

86 APRIL 2017

1.4x

How much male full-time employees make over female full-time employees in Boone County.

Source: Data USA

TOP B2B PRODUCT OR SERVICE

TOP COFFEE MEETING LOCATION

TOP JANITORIAL SERVICES

TOP ENGINEER

First Place: CoMo Connection Exchange Second Place: Influence & Co.

First Place: Kaldi’s Coffee Second Place: Dunn Bros. Coffee

First Place: Atkins Second Place: City of Refuge

TOP BUSINESS WITH A COMMITMENT TO PHILANTHROPY

TOP BUSINESS ROOKIE

First Place: Crockett Engineering 2608 N Stadium Blvd., Columbia crockettengineering.com 573-447-0292

TOP ADVERTISING AGENCY First Place: Caledon Virtual 1906 Corona Rd. #200, Columbia, 573-446-7777, caledonvirtual.com

Second Place: Word Marketing

TOP PLACE TO WORK First Place: Veterans United Second Place: Fresh Ideas

TOP LOCAL TEAM-BUILDING EXPERIENCE

First Place: Veterans United Second Place: The Bank of Missouri

TOP BUSINESS INSURANCE First Place: Columbia Insurance Group Second Place: Mike Messer – Shelter Insurance® Agent 908 Rain Forest Parkway, Columbia, 573-442-5291, shelterinsurance.com/ CA/agent/mikemesser

TOP HAPPY HOUR First Place: Logboat Brewing Co. Second Place: Houlihan’s

TOP CHAMBER VOLUNTEER First Place: Wally Pfeffer Second Place: Michele Spry

TOP FACE OF BUSINESS First Place: Bill Costello Second Place: Kit Stolen

First Place: Logboat Brewing Co. Second Place: Paint the Town

TOP COMMERCIAL LENDER

TOP NATIONAL IMPACT

First Place: Logboat Brewing Co. Second Place: Stoney Creek

TOP PLACE TO CLOSE A DEAL

TOP ACCOUNTING SERVICE

First Place: Logboat Brewing Co. Second Place: Boone Central Title Co.

First Place: Williams-Keepers Second Place: Accounting Plus

First Place: Lift Division 308 S 9th St., Columbia 573-445-0658, liftdivision.com

TOP IT COMPANY

First Place: Flat Branch Second Place: 44 Stone

First Place: Midwest Computech Second Place: 43Tc 1000 W Nifong Blvd., Ste. 220, Bldg. 6, Columbia, 855-647-43TC, 43tc.com

TOP COMMERCIAL PHOTOGRAPHER First Place: L.G. Patterson Second Place: Casey Buckman

TOP CATERER First Place: D. Rowe’s Second Place: Hoss’s

TOP HR FIRM First Place: Moresource Inc. 401 Vandiver Dr., Columbia 573-443-1234, moresource-inc.com

First Place: Veterans United Second Place: True Media

First Place: John Keller, The Bank of Missouri Second Place: Todd Hoien, Hawthorn Bank

TOP EVENT LOCATION

Second Place: THHinc McClure Engineering

TOP FAST-GROWING COMPANY

TOP CULTURE First Place: Veterans United Second Place: Delta Systems Group

First Place: Kaitlin Warner Second Place: Lydia Melton

First Place: CARFAX Second Place: Veterans United

TOP WEB DEVELOPER

TOP PLACE FOR BUSINESS LUNCH TOP REAL ESTATE DEVELOPER First Place: Mike Tompkins, Tompkins Homes & Development Second Place: John Ott, Alley A Realty

TOP BANK First Place: Central Bank of Boone County Second Place: The Bank of Missouri

Second Place: Caledon Virtual 1906 Corona Rd. #200, Columbia, 573-446-7777, caledonvirtual.com

TOP COMMERCIAL BUILDER

Second Place: Accounting Plus

TOP OFFICE DIGS First Place: Veterans United Second Place: Delta Systems Group

TOP COMMERCIAL VIDEOGRAPHER First Place: Chimaeric Second Place: The Evoke Group

TOP STAFFING COMPANY First Place: JobFinders Second Place: Pulse Medical Staffing

TOP ARCHITECT

First Place: Coil Construction Second Place: Little Dixie

First Place: Simon Oswald Architecture Second Place: Peckham Architecture

TOP SEASONED PRO

TOP OFFSITE MEETING LOCATION

First Place: Mary Ropp Second Place: Kat Cunningham

First Place: Logboat Brewing Co. Second Place: Stoney Creek COLUMBIABUSINESSTIMES.COM 87

B U SINESS • P EOP L E • IM P R OV EM EN T • FY I

T H I S OR T H AT

BARBARA RAMSEY Executive Director, Masonic Home of Missouri

Mac

Big-Picture

Cursive

Print

Early Bird Cinema Michael Jackson Firefox 9-5 Learn At your Desk Wine Pie Improviser Modern Skeptical City

Optimistic Business

Flexibility Teach 1 In a Meeting Beer 2 Cake Planner Traditional Certain Country

Dog Driver Plane Mountains Realistic Casual

Solo

Team

For here

To Go

Books

Magazines

Reading

Writing

Creative

Analytical

3 Introvert Podcast Cluttered Card Game

88 APRIL 2017

Chrome

Winter

Car

nature, but my job has helped me become an extrovert

The Beatles

Spend

Ocean

1. Both - I love to learn, but I teach more in my current role. // 2. Both – as long as the wine is dry and the beer is hoppy! // 3. I’m an introvert by

Netflix

Save

Passenger

AM E N DME N TS A N D CONDI TI ONS

Night Owl

Summer Cat

Photography by Keith Borgmeyer

PC

Details

Concept Fiction Text Soup

Extrovert Playlist Minimalist Board Game Execute Non-fiction Call Sandwich

ADVERTISER INDEX ACCOUNTING PLUS............................................................................................91 AFFINITY OFFICE FURNITURE......................................................................55 ANTHONY JINSON PHOTOGRAPHY............................................................. 9 CARPET ONE.........................................................................................................76 CENTRAL BANK OF BOONE COUNTY........................................................61 CENTRAL TRUST COMPANY..........................................................................63 CHIMAERIC............................................................................................................... 6 CITY OF COLUMBIA WATER & LIGHT...........................................................4 CLEAR VISION DEVELOPMENT GROUP......................................................11 CMSE GIVING GARDENS..................................................................................55 COLUMBIA ART LEAGUE.................................................................................78 COLUMBIA COLLEGE....................................................................................... 69 COLUMBIA EDP....................................................................................................85 COLUMBIA MALL..................................................................................................16 COLUMBIA REGIONAL AIRPORT..................................................................22 CONNECTION EXCHANGE..............................................................................85 D & M SOUND....................................................................................................... 30 EDWARD JONES..................................................................................................73 EDWARD JONES-MARK RICHARDSON.....................................................82 FIRST STATE COMMUNITY BANK.................................................................78 GFI DIGITAL............................................................................................................. 3 HAWTHORN BANK.............................................................................................92 HOOT DESIGN COMPANY.................................................................................14 JENNING'S PREMIUM MEATS.........................................................................76

JOHNSTON PAINT & DECORATING DIRECT.............................................12 LAMMTECH............................................................................................................ 10 LANDMARK BANK................................................................................................ 2 MAHER COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE.........................................................78 MALY COMMERCIAL REALTY........................................................ 81, 83 & 85 MEDIACOM............................................................................................................... 8 MERCEDES OF COLUMBIA............................................................................. 54 MIDWEST COMPUTECH....................................................................................79 MISSOURI DEPT. OF CONSERVATION.......................................................... 7 MISSOURI EMPLOYERS MUTUAL................................................................. 34 MORESOURCE INC.............................................................................................36 NATHAN JONES LAW.........................................................................................13 NAUGHT NAUGHT INSURANCE AGENCY.................................................76 RESTORATION EYECARE............................................................................... 69 ROGUE STUDIOS.................................................................................................63 SOCKET.................................................................................................................. 30 STANGE LAW FIRM.............................................................................................89 STATE FARM INSURANCE - STEPHANIE WILMSMEYER......................81 STEPHENS COLLEGE..........................................................................................18 SUPERIOR GARDEN CENTER/ROST LANDSCAPE................................81 TAMI R BENUS, CPA.......................................................................................... 84 UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI HEALTH CARE................................................ 5 WILSON'S FITNESS............................................................................................62

COLUMBIABUSINESSTIMES.COM 89

B U SINESS • P EOP L E • IM P R OV EM EN T • FY I

FLASH BAC K

Peace Park

BY HUN TER MY E R S | P HOTOG R A P HY BY M ATT PATSTO N

A PLOT OF LAND ON THE NORTHERN edge of the MU campus looks as though it’s been painted green. There are seven large trees and myriad other plant life; it’s an official botanical garden, after all.

The land off Eighth Street and Elm is formally named McAlester Park, due to its proximity to McAlester Hall on MU’s campus. After the protesting of the Vietnam War in 1970, however, it was renamed Peace Park.

On May 7, 1970, three days after four Kent State University students were killed by the National Guard during protests, MU students gathered on the Francis Quad, near McAlester Park, with a list of demands. According to the Columbia Missourian, one of these demands was “that the MU administration take a position against the war.” Over 2,000 students gathered in protest. The group continued to grow until it reached nearly 3,000 — equivalent to a quarter of the student body at the time.

Later, the demand for then-Chancellor John Schwada to take a position against the war

went away, but the other demands, involving the rights of the faculty members to protest without punishment, remained.

A ceremony marking the renaming of the McAlester Park was held May 5, 1971, a year after the Kent State shootings. Students and faculty placed stones on the northeast side of the park in the shape of a peace sign and installed a plaque, displaying the names of the deceased students, below the rocks.

The protests in 1970 weren’t the first on campus, nor were they the last. Like many college campuses, MU has had its fair share of demonstrations, including those in 2014 through 2016 affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement. Peace Park — while not the center of every demonstration — has been the host of many rallies. In 2014, the Go Topless Parade to show support for women’s rights was held at Peace Park, as was another march in February protesting the travel ban introduced by the newly inaugurated President Trump.

But Columbians don’t just use this spot to express disapproval. Each April, Peace Park is home to Columbia’s annual Earth Day festival.

Booths are set up along the park’s outer edge and performers with Hula-Hoops and instruments fill its center. And on any given day — particularly when the weather is nice — people can be found napping in hammocks or sauntering the sidewalks and crossing the stone bridge.

According to campus legend, couples that cross the bridge together are destined to marry.

Many stories lie within this small patch of land in the middle of the city — years of strife, determination, and community alongside the plants that grow there. As the winter months wane and spring approaches, the plants and trees prepare for another round of regrowth.

While the seasons bring change to the foliage in Peace Park, the memories forged there remain rooted in history. CBT

Peace Park 401 S 9th St.

We love Columbia business history. If you have any interesting photos and stories, please send them to Editor@BusinessTimesCompany.com 90 APRIL 2017

“

They don’t teach business skills in medical school.

Denise and Alicia at ACCOUNTING PLUS have a wealth of financial knowledge; from bookkeeping to payroll, accounting to 401k deferrals.

Their staff are always accessible, quick to respond and amazingly friendly.

ACCOUNTING PLUS takes the stress out of running a small business so I can do what I love; take care of patients.

“

KRISTIN OLIVER, MD Owner, Bluetail Medical Group

Leave it all to us!

573.445.3805 | www.AccountingPlusInc.com Come see us for your Business Accounting & Tax needs!

1604B Business Loop 70W | Columbia, MO Right across from Cosmo Park!

COLUMBIABUSINESSTIMES.COM 91

COLUMBIA BUSINESS TIMES \ 2001 CORPORATE PLACE, STE. 100 \ COLUMBIA, MO 65202

“Hawthorn makes the loan process really easy. It’s like you’re working off a handshake.”

– Arthur Basnett, Basnett Construction “When we made the transition from rehabbing to construction, I needed a bank that would believe in me. Hawthorn said, let’s make it happen.”

“Now, when I need a loan, I make a phone call, we meet for lunch and sign the papers. It feels like you’re dealing with a hometown bank.”

Call Brandon Kalista at 573-449-3204.

Member FDIC NASDAQ: HWBK NMLS #1285754 ©2017, Hawthorn Bank

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