B Magazine, April 2018

PROGRESS 2018

B MAGAZINE | ISSUE 02 SMART. POWERFUL. BUSINESS IN SOUTHEAST MISSOURI.

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BETTER THAN A MARATHON This is the Progress Edition of B Magazine, an annual look at what’s moving forward in our regional economy and the businesses that play a vital role. In addition to profiles of businesses doing important work in southeast Missouri, you’ll find stories about workplaces that inspire progress through their culture, environment and people.

In the spirit of progress, consider this question: in what areas of your life — personal or professional — do you want to progress?

I am a Type A personality. With that comes a desire to always grow, improve, learn. This comes in any number of forms, ranging from reading Scripture to listening to a favorite podcast to hearing great talks that challenge me to think about things in a different way.

That was the case for me this past year at the Global Leadership Summit, hosted by LaCroix Church in Cape Girardeau. Marcus Buckingham, the famed author and leadership guru, spoke about performance evaluation, based on his 2015 Harvard Business Review article titled “Most HR Data Is Bad Data.”

In his article, Buckingham discusses the idea of the Idiosyncratic Rater Effect. When completing an annual performance evaluation, we don’t evaluate the same way. It’s a subjective exercise that does not contribute, in many cases, to improved performance of the team member because it reflects more about the team leader’s rating pattern than it does about the work of the team member.

“The research record reveals that neither

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you nor any of your peers are reliable raters of anyone,” Buckingham writes in his HBR article. “And as a result, virtually all of our people data is fatally flawed.”

Speaking at the summit, Buckingham shared research on the top eight statements around building the best teams. The questions can be broken into four categories: Purpose 1. I am really enthusiastic about the mission of my company.

2. At work I clearly understand what is expected of me.

Excellence 3. In my team, I am surrounded by people who share my values.

4. I have a chance to use my strengths everyday at work.

Support 5. My teammates have my back.

6. I know I will be recognized for excellent work.

Future 7. I have great confidence in my company’s future.

8. In my work, I am always challenged to grow.

Buckingham suggests a model similar to Facebook’s culture — one size fits one.

BY LUCAS PRESSON

52 SPRINTS ARE

This takes the focus back to the individual. It’s not about feedback, something Buckingham compares to throwing a grenade.

It’s about attention.

“We want attention,” Buckingham said at the Global Leadership Summit. “And in particular, we want coaching attention.”

So what do we as leaders do to ensure that our employees will strongly agree with the above statements? The answer, per Buckingham, is frequent strengths-based check-ins about near-term work.

These are weekly, one-on-one meetings with team members. The leader asks two questions: what are your priorities this week, and how can I help?

Since the fall, I’ve incorporated this practice into my work. I find it is not only helpful for those who report to me, but also a force for good that keeps me focused on important issues.

Buckingham paints the picture of 52 sprints. For leaders, it’s our job to ensure that sprint number 37 is as focused as sprint number one.

If you’re in a leadership position — and at some level we all are leaders — consider what progress you can make with your team.

Lucas Presson is the publisher of B Magazine.

His email is lpresson@semissourian.com.

S TA F F M I A PO H L MAN, edi to r D O N NA D ENSO N, adver t i si ng di rec to r R U STMED I A, desi gn R E AC H US B MAGA ZI NE 3 0 1 B ro adway, PO B ox 699, Cape G i rardeau, MO 63702 w w w.B magazi ne.i o i n fo @B magazi ne.i o S TO RY + P HOTO SUBMISSIO NS m p ohlman@ru st medi a.co m A D V ERTISING O P P O RTUNITIES 8 0 0 - 879- 1210 / 573- 335- 6611 ACCO UNT EX EC UTIV ES L AUR A H U LC Y, LO GAN CL I PPARD, NI CH O L AS SMI TH , G L ENDA MAYB ERRY and PAU L WAL K ER B M agazi ne i s pri nted si x t i mes a year.

All co ntent s © ru st medi a + S o u t heast M i sso u ri an

COVER PHOTO: The Cape Girardeau Regional Airport now offers flights from Cape Girardeau to Chicago through United Express, operated by SkyWest.

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SPONSORED CONTENT

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EVERY SURGERY HAS ITS RISKS.

“We don’t believe being ‘pretty good’ is an acceptable goal.”

STEPHANIE LAPIERRE, chief performance improvement officer, Saint Francis Healthcare System

So, every patient, before going under, has explained to them the risks particular to the surgery at hand. The patient, if they’re worried, tends to focus on dramatic complications, however unlikely. They tend not to focus as much on the boilerplate stuff like post-operative infections. After all, those are preventable.

But healthcare-associated infections like surgical site infections (SSIs) or catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) affect hundreds of thousands of patients nationwide every year. The fact that they are, in many cases, preventable, only makes those infections that do occur more frustrating.

In 2015, the national SSI rate was between two and three percent (20-30 infections per 1,000 patients). At Saint Francis, that rate was 0.8 percent (eight infections per 1,000 patients). Process improvement coordinator Lori DeBrower, BSN, RN, explains that while keeping below the national average is generally considered acceptable, Saint Francis staff decided to make further reduction a priority.

“Bottom line, it’s a patient safety issue,” she says. “It can have a disastrous impact on the patient.”

SSIs, she says, can mean more time in the hospital for a patient, more strain on their family and more time away from work. Solving SSIs seemed an opportunity to significantly improve outcomes with relatively minor changes.

“We made that one of our main focuses in our operating room,” she says. “Obviously, it had always been an aim of ours, but it was in 2015 when we really started ramping up those efforts.”

The first step, she says, was a comprehensive audit of existing procedures. Could patients be better prepared for surgery? Were there better products or tools available?

Were there more efficient cleaning protocols?

“We went back and picked apart every single aspect of our care,” DeBrower says. “Just to see what we could do to change or improve our SSI rate.”

Surgical, nursing and performance improvement staff eventually identified more than a dozen ways to further minimize infection risk, including more specialized dosage guidelines for patients according to body weight, more and better resources to help patients keep sites clean after surgery, and an in-house push to make focus on SSI reduction a core part of the workplace culture.

Collaboration was crucial, DeBrower says, both in the development of better protocols and in their implementation.

“Now, it’s something we discuss more at staff meetings,” she says. “We’re always asking for input and the staff is more engaged. They’re more empowered to speak up if they see something that could be done better or if they need something.”

The SSI rate is now 0.3 percent, among the lowest in the nation. If you’re doing the math, that is three infections for every 1,000 patients.

“Year after year, our rates have continued to steadily go down,” DeBrower says.

And it’s not just SSIs, says chief performance improvement officer Stephanie LaPierre. Saint Francis has made similar progress in reducing other types of health-associated infections.

“We don’t believe being ‘pretty good’ is an acceptable goal. We’re serious when we say our goal is to be the best in the nation,” she says. “The progress we’ve made in reducing health-associated infections is, I believe, proof that we are perfectly capable of reaching such a goal.”

SAINT FRANCIS CUTS POST-OP INFECTION RATES BY MORE THAN HALF SINCE 2015

THE PATH TO ZERO

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No detail too small.

When it comes to things like routines, regimens, and good, old-fashioned rules, we believe in strict adherence.

We’re particular about our patient’s safety.

Quite particular, indeed.

sfmc.net | see more on Facebook

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What do The Chateau Girardeau and the Marquette Tech District have in common?

SPONSORED CONTENT

STATE-OF-THE-ART IT SOLUTIONS — THANKS TO CPU INC. IN CAPE GIRARDEAU. Harry Rediger uses CPU’s recently installed campuswide Wi-Fi in his home at The Chateau Girardeau.

CPU develops IT strategic plans from an angle of understanding each individual business’ unique needs.

“The first step is understanding their business,” says Tom Albertson. “We take an inventory of their current environment, get the state of where things are and then prioritize.”

CPU began supporting The Chateau’s IT in 2017, after providing payroll services to The Chateau for a number of years. The first project was to help transition the retirement community from cable to fiber internet that provided higher speed, reliability and availability. The improved internet performance was critical, since The Chateau’s health system and resident care now function in a cloud-environment.

CPU also supported The Chateau in establishing campus-wide Wi-Fi. The Wi-Fi solution is cloud-managed so CPU is able to effectively monitor the Wi-Fi service remotely, and thus ensure a high level of business continuity in the day-to-day campus needs for both residents and the administration.

The Marquette District had overall IT needs similar to The Chateau’s: high performance,

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reliability, security and availability.

“We looked for a leading-edge technology because it was going to be the Marquette, so we didn’t want to just provide the same solution everyone else was going to provide,” says Albertson. “We wanted, from an IT perspective, something cutting-edge, kind of sexy, something cool that grew with demand in high tech.”

CPU’s solution recommendation was centered around the Meraki product line — a leading brand for networking systems within a cloudbased architecture. The Meraki system provides high capacity, enhanced security and a high degree of flexibility that meets the evolving needs of the Marquette’s users. Whether you’re a member of the Codfi private network using the gigabit fiber internet, or simply a guest wireless user enjoying a cup of joe at Baristas — Meraki provides the customized solution to fit the end users’ networking needs.

“Once the advanced IT network is installed, CPU doesn’t go away, we’re here to support the customer base,” says Albertson. “We’re part of the Marquette Tech District’s networking solution, going forward.”

PAYROLL

we get IT.

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John P. Hall, D.O., F.A.C.S. • Gregg S. Hallman, M.D., F.A.C.S. James E. Outman, D.O., F.A.C.S. • Vincenzo Galati, D.O., F.A.C.S. Mitchell L. Ogles, M.D., F.A.C.S. • Jocelyn Huber, FNP-C Karen Abt, FNP-BC • Michelle Welker, AGPCNP-BC Sara Pilsner, FNP-C

Cape Girardeau Urology Associates, Inc. 3 Doctors Park, Cape Girardeau, MO 63703 573-334-7748 • www.capeurology.com

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SPONSORED CONTENT

Great Care Close To Home

Cape Girardeau Urology Associates: Here We Grow Again Due to the loyalty of our patients and our diligence to providing quality care, Cape Girardeau Urology Associates continues to be the largest independent urology practice in the area. Our physicians and nurse practitioners treat all aspects of urological conditions for both male and female patients of all ages, including children.

We currently have five Board Certified urologists and four Board Certified nurse practitioners on staff. Additionally, in August of this year, we are excited to be adding our sixth urologist, Tyler Haden, M.D. He is currently completing his residency at the University of Missouri, Columbia.

Our urologists provide advanced urologic oncology services for all types of urologic cancers. Where indicated, robotic surgery can be performed and is available at both Cape Girardeau hospitals. We also offer a full range of treatment options for all types of urinary problems such as kidney stones, voiding dysfunction, incontinence, BPH and many others.

Additionally, we provide patients with cost saving, in-office procedures such as vasectomy, cystoscopy, prostate biopsy, urodynamics, Botox injections for overactive bladder and incontinence, intravesical immunotherapy treatment of bladder cancer (BCG) and hormonal treatment for prostate cancer.

The City of Miner Provides a Place for Off-Site Company Meetings The City of Miner has a location for your next company meeting: their Convention Center’s breakout rooms.

The rooms, which accommodate 10 people and include Wi-Fi, a coffee pot and microwave, rent for $40 every four hours, or $100 a day with a projector. They are available Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and are within walking distance of hotels and restaurants.

“A lot of companies don’t like having board meetings on-site, so they’ll schedule those meetings off-site, and it works,” says Glenda Wilson, administrative assistant.

The conference rooms function as a central location for many out-of-state farming businesses to host meetings. To rent a conference room, contact (573) 471-8520.

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Cape Chamber Invests in

The Cape Chamber held the first Emerge Young Professionals Summit in March, with more than 130 people in attendance. The conference is one of the Cape Chamber’s efforts to help develop and retain leaders in southeast Missouri.

FUTURE COMMUNITY LEADERS Servant leadership.

This was Navy SEAL Team 6 member Marcus Capone’s message to approximately 130 young professionals at the Cape Chamber’s first Emerge Young Professionals Summit in March. The day featured local business people’s insight into issues such as collaboration, networking initiating difficult conversations with bosses.

The summit is part of the Chamber’s plan to develop and keep qualified workers in southeast Missouri. This plan addresses the biggest workforce issue that Chamber members have expressed: finding qualified candidates to hire.

The Cape Chamber is implementing two additional solutions for developing qualified workers; both focus on educating young people.

The first, connectCAPE, provides job shadowing opportunities for Southeast Missouri State University students. Students gain valuable work experience, while companies gain a low-cost way to influence the future workforce, getting to know potential employees beyond a one-time interview. After its inaugural fall 2017 semester, 100 percent of student participants said they would recommend connectCAPE to others; 91 percent of companies said they would host an intern again. Plans are

underway to extend the program to high school and career and technology students.

The Cape Chamber’s second solution is Capable, which will commence during 2018-2019. Led by Cape Girardeau County Commissioner Charlie Herbst, Capable will bring businesses, schools and civic organizations together to connect our community with key resources for essential skills. Students, businesses and organizations will focus on a different soft skill each month, including making eye contact, shaking hands and communicating effectively.

“It’s harder and harder to find qualified workers — that’s what we’re hearing across the board,” says John Mehner, Cape Chamber president and CEO. “We want to retain good workers here in the southeast Missouri region. To do this, we need to make sure we get our young professionals involved, helping them transition into community leaders.”

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MIKE VAN DE VEN Southwest Airlines chief operating officer talks business at Codefi

BY MIA POHLMAN PHOTOS BY KASSI JACKSON

Mike Van De Ven, Cape Girardeau native and chief operating officer for Southwest Airlines, is “Cape’s best kept secret.”

That’s how Glen Campbell, co-founder of LIDS, introduced Van De Ven on March 8 at Codefi’s Fireside Chat in downtown Cape Girardeau.

The event, which Campbell emceed, is part of a speaker series that hosts business leaders, entrepreneurs and technology enthusiasts at Codefi, giving the Codefi community opportunities to converse with leaders involved in diverse business pursuits.

Van De Ven, who has been with Southwest Airlines for 25 years and now resides in Texas, focused his chat on the growth of the airline over the past four decades, as well as the company’s vision for success.

In 48 years, Southwest Airlines has grown from a fleet of three airplanes with flights between Dallas, Houston and San Antonio, to become the second largest carrier in the world in terms of passengers carried. They currently fly to 100 cities with a fleet that is 706 airplanes strong, employ over 52,000 people and take in more than 20 billion dollars in revenue yearly.

Their strategy? Scour the marketplace to find where they can stimulate travel, then drop the fares by 25 to 40 percent in those areas. This, not to steal business from other carriers, but to generate traffic in the marketplace from people who might not otherwise fly. Add in employees who care about customers in order to keep fliers coming back, and you have the Southwest Airlines formula for success.

In four words: low fares, good service.

It’s their culture. Southwest Airlines’ mission is to connect people to the important things in their lives. They do this through staying focused on the people — both their customers and employees.

One way that Southwest Airlines focuses on their customers is by remaining the only airline that doesn’t charge baggage fees.

This was “one of the more courageous decisions a CEO could make,” Van De Ven says of Southwest Airlines’ former CEO Herb Kelleher’s decision to remain committed to Southwest’s complimentary baggage policy. This was a bold move at the time because Southwest

Airlines’ margins were not as high as their competitors’.

“We soul searched — is that the way we want to be with our customers?” Van De Ven says of the option to charge for bags. “We concluded that no, we didn’t want to go do that.”

Southwest continues to see this decision as revenue-positive, earning more customers who pay a full fare to their airline than the revenue they would make from baggage fees.

Southwest Airlines also looks to their employees on the frontlines who “have servants’ hearts, fun-loving attitudes and warriors’ spirits” for input on how to solve problems.

“We want to be able to outsmart, outserve and outhustle the competition,” Van De Ven says of why Southwest Airlines asks their employees to help streamline processes. The people who do the jobs everyday, such as walking between the truck and cockpit to stock food, have the ideas about how to make processes better, Van De Ven says.

This gives Southwest Airlines’ employees a sense of purpose in their work.

“Our employees feel energized with what they’re doing,” he says. “I hear people say all the time, your company’s so big, you’re going to lose your culture. I tell people it’s exactly the opposite. The culture is so big and powerful at Southwest Airlines, if we really believe in it, it’s not going to allow itself to change. It’s going to spit people out that don’t fit our mold.”

To help create this culture, the company sends birthday, anniversary and graduation cards to their employees and employees’ family members.

“We are a family,” Van De Ven says. “We spend a lot of money and a lot of effort trying to make sure we keep that intact.”

These values resonated with many Codefi community members in attendance at the chat, who attested to the above-average service they have received while flying on Southwest Airlines.

“Service is always going to be important,” Campbell says of Southwest Airlines. “Being good to people and treating people fairly will never go away, and that’s why they’re successful.”

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The voice of regional development.

The Cape Chamber strives to be the lead advocate for business, serve as the primary catalyst for a vibrant economy that stimulates and retains jobs, and be the champion to create strong communities for the Cape Girardeau region.

HELPING DEVELOP

A stronger regional workforce.

Leadership Cape

CYP

Leadership Cape is an innovative community program

CYP, Chamber Young Professionals, is a network of

led by the Cape Chamber, designed to identify and

businesses professionals where individuals develop

motivate emerging leaders and to develop their

stronger professional connections, learn from established

potential for community leadership roles by exposing

community leaders and grow as future leaders in the Cape

them to the opportunities, realities and challenges

Girardeau region. CYP recently underwent reconstruction

of our area. Individuals who have a genuine interest

to better fit the needs of our area’s young professionals.

in leadership, who desire to increase their own

This involved the establishment of a variety of new events

levels of involvement and who wish to broaden their

including the Emerge - Young Professionals Summit

knowledge are encouraged to participate in this

and Elevate, a quarterly networking and professional

program.

development event. To learn more about all things CYP, follow the group on Facebook.

SPONSORED CONTENT

Alliance Bank Opens Full-Service

LOCATION IN JACKSON Alliance Bank’s fourth fullservice location will open in Jackson in June 2018.

In the 1990s, a group of local business owners saw a need in the community for a locally headquartered bank. Together, they established Alliance Bank.

Fast-forward twenty-one years: Alliance Bank’s approximately 100 shareholders are still primarily from southeast Missouri. In addition, this year the bank is remodeling the second floor of their Cape Girardeau branch. They are also constructing their fourth full-service location, in Jackson.

This new location will open in June.

Once open, Alliance Bank’s deposit and loan operations will be headquartered on the second floor of the new Jackson location, along with their accounting and technology departments.

The first floor will include retail-oriented services for customer accounts, as well as commercial and agricultural lenders, with space for new lenders and lender support. The second floor of the Cape Girardeau branch will house lending services.

“We felt like it was the right time to expand into

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the Jackson market,” says Cord Polen, president and CEO of Alliance Bank. “Since day one we’ve been busting at the seams; now we are expanding for ongoing growth.”

In addition to the full-service locations in Cape Girardeau, Sikeston and Oran, Polen says that a full-service location in Jackson has been needed for years, as the bank has had customers who are Jackson residents since its establishment in 1997. While electronic banking helped these customers do much of their banking without driving to Cape Girardeau, Alliance Bank hopes the new Jackson full-service location will provide another level of convenience for their customers’ banking needs.

“We try to learn our customers’ names and make them feel at home. We get to know them pretty well,” says Polen. Of the practicality the new branch provides for Jackson customers, he adds, “There’s nothing like having a physical presence in a community.”

we’re just a small-town community bank, but...

we’re big on 217 N Kingshighway,Cape Girardeau,MO

2320 East Jackson Blvd., Jackson,MO

Cord Polen President/CEO

Kevin Greaser Community Bank President-Cape

PeeWee Bartels Community Bank President-Jackson

Alliance Bank is the only community owned, locally headquartered bank in Cape Girardeau.The bank was formed by a group of area business leaders who had a vision of a bank that would be responsive to the needs of the communities it serves.The name Alliance was chosen to tie into the basic philosophy of being in a partnership with our communities.The philosophy was to have a broad base of shareholders that truly understood the needs of local businesses, farmers and individuals. We currently have over 100 shareholders that help ensure we stay focused on the needs of our local communities.

Board of direCtors Left to right, seated: Catherine (Cathy) White, CPA; Heidi Duckworth, CFO/Corporate Secretary (Alliance Bank); Robert (Bob) Basler, CPA; Jerry Pullen, Chairman of the Board (Alliance Bancshares, Inc); Jack Lopp, Grayson Erlbacher. Left to right, standing: Mike Pobst, Community Bank President (Alliance Bank - Sikeston); Jerry Kratochvil, CPA,Vice Chairman (Alliance Bank) and Treasurer (Alliance Bancshares, Inc.); Robert (Chad) Hartle, Chairman of the Board (Alliance Bank) and Vice Chairman (Alliance Bancshares, Inc.) Cord Polen, President/CEO (Alliance Bank); Randol (Randy) York, President (Alliance Bancshares, Inc.); Todd Petzoldt and Frank Bean, Director Emeritus.

Cape Girardeau 573-334-1010

Sikeston 573-472-4600

Oran 573-262-8891

Jackson 573-243-5803

B MAGA ZINE • PROGRESS EDIT ION | 17

SPONSORED CONTENT

360 Living Offers a Different Approach to Health Care 360 Living is excited to announce their new facility at 3203 Blattner Dr. in Cape opening in May 2018.

“My doctor spent ten minutes with me, handed me a pill and a six-month follow-up. I still feel bad. There has to be a better way!”

Dr. Carmen Keith, MD, felt she should have more to offer patients, so she created 360 Living to do exactly that. A Harvard-trained, double board-certified physician, she became frustrated that the traditional medical system forced her to treat people as conditions, rather than personalizing plans for individual needs.

At 360 Living, Dr. Keith practices functional medicine — a root-cause approach to health. She looks for the reason people

feel bad and treats those causes, not the symptoms.

People are looking for this type of care.

“Doctors told me for years everything looked good, but I felt bad,” one patient says. “Dr. Keith helped discover why I felt bad and formulated a plan for me. I wasn’t a condition, I was a person.”

Dr. Keith empowers her patients to leave a vibrant legacy.

“I was meant to help people heal, and I couldn’t do that in the traditional medical system,” she says. “360 Living allowed me align my career with my calling. Health is everything — if you have no health, you have no life.”

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(573) 803-3603 • 2502 Tanner Dr. Suite 206 in Cape 360 Living is the result of Dr. Carmen Keith’s education and health journey. Integrating her purpose for helping people with her passion for health and wellness, Dr. Keith desires to partner with individuals seeking to live a life of vibrancy and experience full-spectrum health. Her desire is to pass on a legacy of health and wellness to future generations. 360 Living provides a path to make that dream possible.

living free. living healthy. living 360.

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SPONSORED CONTENT

Two active prospects are considering moving their businesses to the new spec building marketed by Cape Girardeau Area MAGNET, located on Hwy TT in Jackson.

Cape Girardeau Area MAGNET Markets New Spec Building A new 50,000 square-foot manufacturing speculative building in Jackson is one of the many ways the Cape Girardeau Area MAGNET — with The Missouri Partnership, Missouri Department of Economic Development and local developers — is marketing the southeast Missouri region to prospective businesses.

Speculative buildings are often a critical component of a business’ decision to move their business to a town, says John Mehner, director of MAGNET. He says that often businesses look for existing facilities, wanting to move faster than it would take to build a new building.

The spec building was funded by the Jackson Industrial Development Council, built by Penzel Construction and financed by area banks. Currently, two active prospects are considering moving their businesses to the building.

Cape Girardeau Area MAGNET — founded by Cape Girardeau, Jackson, Scott City, Cape County and the Cape Chamber — has been supporting current businesses and recruiting new ones to southeast Missouri since 1992. This year MAGNET is updating their strategic plan; as part of this, they will be getting new branding.

“MAGNET has a great working relationship among its members,” Mehner says. “It’s a regional effort. It really is a good thing for the area.”

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The Chateau Girardeau Implements Campus-wide Wi-Fi

SPONSORED CONTENT

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Recently implemented campus-wide Wi-Fi allows The Chateau Girardeau residents to stay connected with family and friends.

Nursing and Memory Care

Wi-Fi has become essential to staying connected with the people we love, and now The Chateau Girardeau provides it campus-wide for all of their residents.

This is just one of The Chateau’s focused technological efforts over the past year to help link their residents with the people and things most important to them. The retirement residential community now also furnishes Spectrum cable across the community.

Not only has this technology expansion benefitted residents wanting to stay connected with their children, grandchildren and friends, it has also helped improve The Chateau’s healthcare and administrative efficiency, aiding in their migration to electronic medical records.

“We are very proud of the substantial upgrades we have made to our technology infrastructure over the past year,” says Keith Boeller, CEO. “We have migrated our software systems to allow us to better document our care and provide electronic medical records for our residents and provider partners.”

Both residents and staff are excited about these changes, progress that will lead them into the future.

“As a result of these upgrades,” Boeller says, “We have developed a platform for us to operate efficiently for years to come, and provide a campus-wide Wi-Fi system to improve our resident experience.”

The Chateau Girardeau is making other developments, too. Residents have moved into each of the seven new estate homes that The Chateau completed building this past year. One of the on-campus communal dining rooms is receiving a facelift, including installing LED lighting and new fixtures, window treatments and carpet.

As a continuing care retirement community, the care team has also had their share of developments this year. A full-time clinical excellence nurse joined the team. The Chateau Girardeau also engaged Infinity Rehab to provide inpatient and outpatient rehab services to residents.

No matter what level of care, The Chateau Girardeau is always working to provide a great resident experience that promotes safety, well-being and quality of life.

Independent Living # #

Assisted Living

2016 2015

#

2 2016 2017

2016

Care that grows with you.

As the region’s only accredited continuing care retirement community, The Chateau Girardeau offers multiple levels of maintenance-free, worry-free care on a beautiful 40-acre campus.

From independent living to assisted living to skilled nursing, rehabilitation and memory care, The Chateau Girardeau encourages residents to live at their highest level of independence while promoting safety, well-being and quality of life.

Rehabilitation, Skilled Nursing and Memory Care

This is living. This is The Chateau Girardeau.

Check us out online at www.chateaugir.com or call Kim at 573-651-8112 to schedule a tour.

3120 Independence St. | Cape Girardeau, MO 63703 573.651.8112 | 800.428.0069 | chateaugirardeau.com

Q&A with Dr. Alberto Dávila Southeast introduces new dean of the Harrison College of Business

BY MIA POHLMAN

Dr. Alberto Dávila will soon become a familiar face to the Cape Girardeau community, as he assumes his role as the new dean of the Donald L. Harrison College of Business at Southeast Missouri State University in June. A Brownsville, Texas, native, Dávila spent his teenage years in the metropolitan hub of Mexico City, the major industrial city of Monterrey, Mexico, and the smaller coastal city of Tampico, Mexico, after his family moved for his father’s job. For his undergraduate studies, Dávila went back to Texas to study economics at Pan American University, followed by graduate studies in economics at Iowa State University. Upon graduation, he took a job as a research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, where he did regional research and economic development research. From

1989 to 1996 he taught economics as a tenured professor at the University of New Mexico, where he met his wife, Marie. He served for 18 years as the chair of the Department of Economics and Finance at The University of Texas — Pan American. He currently serves as the interim associate dean for administration, graduate studies and research for the College of Business and Entrepreneurship at his alma mater, which was renamed

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The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley after the consolidation of The University of Texas — Pan American and The University of Texas at Brownsville/Texas Southmost College.

Dr. Dávila has published and edited numerous books and articles about Hispanic entrepreneurs and issues involving economics along the U.S.Mexico border.

Dr. Dávila recently took some time to sit down with B Magazine from his

office at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in Edinburg, Texas, to discuss his priorities for Southeast Missouri State University’s College of Business, his past experience serving as chair and interim associate dean at The University of Texas — Pan American and The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, and his excitement to become part of the Southeast Missouri State University and Cape Girardeau communities.

What attracted you to Southeast Missouri State University and to Cape Girardeau?

Southeast has a very strong student success focus; it’s very student-centered. The community is very close-knit. I like the small town feeling that Cape Girardeau has — I am from an area composed of medium to small towns, and I also lived in Mexico City. I know what it is to live in a huge city, and I made a decision after living in Mexico City: I would rather live in a smaller environment. Cape Girardeau has that small city feeling, the warm, welcoming feeling, but on any given day, you could drive to St. Louis and experience a bigger city. Obviously I was very attracted to the college — that’s my top priority — to be able to work with people in the college and with the administration. But from a personal level, where you live is also important, and Cape Girardeau is — how can I put it — it meets the requirements in that regard.

What do you hope to bring to SEMO’s College of Business, to the university, and to the broader community?

The short answer to that is a wealth of experience. I’ve been going over the strategic plan [for the Harrison College of Business], and many of the areas in the strategic plan are areas that I have dealt with over a 20-year period. So I bring experience to a lot of these goals and priorities that the college has developed. For example, the strategic plan talks about maintaining and enhancing faculty resources and making sure developed tenure track faculty become scholastically academic-qualified. Well, I’ve lived in that environment for 20-some years, and we’ve been successful in that area.

The strategic plan also talks about continuing

activities to create more of a global environment for the College. Well, I have been actively involved in developing joint partnerships with universities in other countries like Mexico. In fact, I’m flying to Nigeria next week to meet with some people over there to start a relationship between Nigerian executives and our MBA program here [at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley]. Southeast has a wonderful international program, and I bring to the table additional insights on how we could even make it better.

The Harrison College of Business’ strategic plan talks about implementing a new technology called digital measures to better monitor the teaching and the research progress of the faculty, a system that we pioneered at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley; I have insights in that regard. So as I go down the priorities, which the faculty and administration have done a wonderful job of putting together, I see so many things that I’ve already done and worked through that I can bring to these discussions to help the faculty and the administration sort through these priorities and meet these goals.

How did living in Mexico during your coming-ofage years shape you and your worldview? How has it shaped your educational goals for the students you will oversee as the dean of SEMO’s College of Business?

My wife and I travel extensively to many parts of the world, certainly all of Europe, Japan, Australia, and like you said, having lived in Mexico, the importance of that global experience is something that has shaped my way of thinking about teaching. I very much believe that when students go through their university experience, they should develop the skills

to effectively compete in the workplace, and I also believe that experience should be very well-rounded in a hands-on way, in that experiential way where they’re applying what they’re learning to what they will be doing when they graduate from college. And that involves the global experience that Southeast has been really promoting.

I played football when I was in Mexico, if you can believe that; discipline and doing things in a timely manner is very important to me. So I am going to be keeping a very close eye on students graduating on time and creating roadmaps so that each student will be able to navigate through their coursework in a way where they can graduate on time. I also believe in teamwork. I believe that we should teach our students to appreciate the university and the College in a way that they will want to come back to future generations to mentor them, to help other students become successful. I really do believe that you have to prepare students in the right way, you have to provide them with a well-rounded education, you have to instill in them that they should have the discipline or the vision of graduating on time. I also believe that there needs to be a sense of community to come back and help other students.

You mentioned experiential learning — can you talk a little bit more about the ways you’ve implemented it in the past? How do you hope to bring experiential learning to SEMO and to Cape’s business community?

For close to 18 years I have promoted the idea of students having internships. When students ask me for an elective, I advise students to use one of their electives to take an internship. For example, since I was the chair of economics and finance [at The

B MAGAZINE • PROGRESS EDITION | 23

It is a goal of mine and a goal of the faculty to continue to develop our faculty on the state-of-the-art, cutting-edge new business techniques that are out there.

University of Texas Rio Grande Valley], if a student came to me on the econ side, interested in going to law school, I would tell them they could get an internship at a law firm. If it was on the finance side and they told me they were interested in working in the banking sector, I would promote the idea of getting an internship in a bank or a financial services-related field. So that was something I built into the culture of the department.

On the business side of internships, I recruited.

I went to the local banks and law firms and talked about the skills our students have and how they could help them as interns in their respective businesses. So I have a lot of experience in that area, and it is something that is done at Southeast in the College of Business that I would like to promote and that I would like to enhance. It’s extremely important for the well-rounded aspect of the student, for them to have some experience in the hands-on experience in what they’re learning.

Boeing is there in St. Louis, you’ve got Proctor and Gamble there, you have the hospitals in Cape Girardeau; there are just so many opportunities.

In the little time I was there in Cape [during my interview], I thought it’s a good environment to get students out there and to participate in these internships. The hospitality industry, for example — I didn’t know the Drury came out of Cape Girardeau.

We have one right here [in McAllen, Texas]. So when I was in Cape Girardeau and I stayed at the Drury, as I drove in, there were two of them. I said,

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“How can you have two?” But I was told the corporate national headquarters of Drury are in Cape Girardeau. So there are a lot of exciting opportunities regarding internships. I know the faculty are doing a very good job in placing students, but there’s always a way to make it better, bigger, to create more opportunity for students.

thing I will do is visit with their community affairs division there to see how we can have a relationship between Southeast and the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, to promote economic education and financial literacy.

What kind of opportunity do internships create for businesses?

To the extent that economic development and job growth are pretty much driven by the small business sector, I think it’s important to highlight to the business community that Southeast’s Douglas C. Greene Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, led by Dr. Judy Wiles, is a good vehicle for that purpose.

They’re doing fantastic things there, and I’m sure many in the community know about this effort, but it’s one that is very consistent with the College of Business trying to reach out to the community to foster small business relationships, job growth and economic development.

One of my big priorities is to be out there in the community — in the business community and the community in general — and to be as present as possible. We need to learn what it is the community wants us to be teaching our students. I feel very impressed with the faculty, and there are a lot of really good efforts, and I would really like to continue to promote that. I want people to feel comfortable in talking to us about what it is that they would like to see in our graduates, what kinds of skills they should have. At a recent conference, I was in DC and talking to some entrepreneurs there.

There is a sense that there is a disconnect between what we do as colleges of business and what the community needs. We need to bridge that gap. I’m going to be out there. I’m going to be out there talking to people.

For one, students will be at the state-of-the-art of the new business ideas that are developed. It is a goal of mine and a goal of the faculty to continue to develop our faculty on the state-of-the-art, cuttingedge new business techniques that are out there. So a business would benefit greatly from this — you would have a student who might intern to apply a new technique in accounting or in finance or in management that would be a great asset to the businesses.

You are active in the American Society of Hispanic Economists (ASHE)?

I am one of the founders of the American Society of Hispanic Economists. It’s been around for close to 20 years now, so I am past president of ASHE, and I was just named the treasurer of ASHE this past year.

Is that something you hope to promote at SEMO?

Certainly. I’d like to promote that, but I’d also like to promote a stronger relationship with issues that have to do with financial literacy and economic literacy. I have been part of a network of economic education through the National Council of Economic Education and the Texas Council of Economic Education. Being part of that for the last 20 or so years, I became aware of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis’ great work in the area of financial literacy and economic education. So one

Anything that we haven’t talked about yet that you would like to discuss?

Helping put fraud on lock down.

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B MAGAZINE • PROGRESS EDITION | 25

SPONSORED CONTENT

Cuba Financial: 35 Years of Helping People Achieve Financial Independence The handwritten financial plan Richard Cuba prepared for his family in 1982 hangs on an office wall inside Cuba Financial Group. While still an engineer at Procter and Gamble, the eight yellow pieces of paper detail the financial steps he committed himself to, to reach financial independence within 30 years. The frame hangs as a reminder: great things are possible with a plan in place.

What Richard didn’t realize was that he would turn this love for detailed financial planning into a thriving business, helping generations of clients’ families achieve financial success. What’s even more impressive is that at the end of 2011, his son Tyler purchased half of Richard’s share of Cuba Financial Group. Rick had achieved financial independence, just as his plan from 1982 had stated.

Now entering their 35th year, Cuba Financial Group has spent decades crafting personalized financial plans to help families working to

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reach their own financial independence. What started as a small business in the home Rick and his wife still live in has grown into a financial planning and wealth management firm advising clients in 15 states.

“When I joined the firm, I realized our future was going to be a function of how well we embraced future technology,” says Tyler.

“As a result, we’ve been able to grow our brand and develop and nurture relationships outside of Missouri. Living in Cape Girardeau is now a choice, not a limitation, when it comes to our potential.”

“I have made it my life’s work to make sure our clients feel protected and looked after,” Rick says. “Our biggest achievement is that we are now working with the fourth generation of our very first clients. We feel we’re delivering something bigger than just financial advice that makes generations of families want to stay with us.”

Richard Cuba and his son, Tyler Cuba, co-owners of Cuba Financial, examine the original financial independence plan Richard drafted in 1982.

1 in p e C r n m m G e h A

1983: sally ride becomes first woman astronau in space. 1984: ApplE introduces the macintosh personal computer. 1986: Space Shuttle Challe explodes. 1987: DNA first used in a Criminal case; world population reaches 5 billion.

1993: nokia sends first text message between two mobile phones. AGO CUBA FINANCIAL GROUP 1998 Google introduces OPENED ITS DOORS. SEARC engine to the web. 1999: Y2K scare; world pop hits 6 billion. 2000: Dot-Com bubble. 2013: INtro AIRBNB & UBER YOUR WEALTH. YOUR LEGACY. to eco

35 YEARS The world has changed considerably in the last 35 years.

However, one thing has been constant: Cuba Financial Group.

Crafting personalized financial strategies since 1983.

cubafinancialgroup.com 573.334.7000 Registered Representative offering securities through First Allied Securities, Inc. A registered Broker/Dealer, member FINRA/SIPC. Investment Advisor Representative offering services through First Allied Advisory Services, Inc.

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SPONSORED CONTENT

KRM Agency Implements Hatchbuck Utilizing drone and 4K Cinema technology for advertising was unheard of throughout Southeast Missouri in 2013.

That is, until KRM brought this tech to the region.

With visionary thinking, the full-service digital marketing and advertising agency hasn’t stopped bringing innovative technological solutions like drone technology and 4K Cinema to their clients. KRM works to improve clients’ digital image, customize content marketing workflow and help businesses reach customers online. And they do this by utilizing technology the right way.

One of the right ways they introduced in 2018 is Hatchbuck, software that helps small and medium-sized businesses nurture relationships with their clients by combining email marketing, CRM tools and marketing automation. As of February 25, KRM is a Hatchbuckcertified agency partner.

“Hatchbuck is the most recent tool that we’ve added to the toolkit of technology to help our clients,” says Robert Spurlock, president and CEO of KRM. “We can help clients nurture business by utilizing this program.”

Hatchbuck, according to a press release, provides an affordable solution for managing marketing campaigns that create tangible and trackable ROI. Through the software, KRM can now help their clients save thousands of dollars in marketing and advertising each year.

Hatchbuck is only one of several new technologies that KRM plans to rollout within the year.

“Our goal is to be the agency of progress,” says Spurlock. “We were the first to utilize 4K Cinema tech in our area, we were the first to bring drone tech to our area and we’ve just made the Hatchbuck announcement, whereby we’ve become a certified provider for their tech-platform. And we’re just getting warmed up.”

Robert Spurlock, president, CEO and co-founder of KRM, adjusts lighting in the photography studio.

B MAGAZINE • PROGRESS EDITION | 29

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SPONSORED CONTENT

EBO MD: a Solution for a Broken Healthcare System If we stay the same, we won’t ever fix the healthcare problems in our country.

Such is the philosophy of EBO MD and other Direct Primary Care (DPC) models like them.

DPCs offer a new way to think about healthcare and health insurance that leaves more money in the patient’s hand, rather than in corporate-run healthcare insurance providers’ pockets.

EBO MD is at the forefront of this progress, leading the way to lower healthcare costs for individuals and businesses through direct primary care. With this model, members pay a monthly fee for access to general adult physicals, women’s healthcare, newborn and pediatric care, wellness education, chronic disease management and minor procedures. There are no co-pays or limits on visits.

The model is what many people have been looking for — DPCs are growing at a rapid rate.

There are currently close to 1,000 DPC practices across the U.S.; EBO MD is among the fastest-growing. They recently acquired Cape Urgent Care and Family Medicine upon the retirement of Dr. Byron Glenn, MD, another medical practice members can access with their monthly fee.

“We’re excited to be bringing new primary care providers to the region, as well as some innovative options for businesses and individuals to keep more of their healthcare dollars for

themselves,” says Tony Thompson, CEO. Since their 2015 inception, EBO MD has added two new gym memberships. Members can now receive discounted cash pricing at Planet Fitness and Simply Fitness. Membership is perfect for new and growing families to save money for everyday healthcare needs, Thompson says, while maintaining a catastrophic insurance plan to cover hospital stays.

“We are more than a healthcare management company,” says Thompson. “We are your providers, your neighbors — your healthcare family.”

Stay tuned to for upcoming major announcements from EBO MD.

Co-founder and CEO Tony Thompson stands by EBO MD’s recently acquired Cape Urgent Care and Family Medicine in Cape Girardeau.

B MAG A ZINE • PROGRESS ED IT ION | 31

Laura Collins, of Willow & Co., shows the technology used in one of their planter tractors while on her farm in Bell City. Technology in machinery is not limited to apps or software used on computers, but also the mechanics and engineering that goes into the pieces of equipment.

INNOVATION IN THE BOOTHEEL Technology charting new course for agriculture in Missouri CONTRIBUTED BY THE SOUTHEAST MISSOURI STATE UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, ECONOMIC AND BUSINESS ENGAGEMENT CENTER AND UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS PHOTOS BY KASSI JACKSON

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Strike up a conversation with Missouri Bootheel natives and they’ll regale you with stories of “cotton holiday” from school and hand-picking cotton as children during harvest season — a pivotal experience that defined them as a generation.

Those days are a distant memory, but the spirit of the region that boasts some of the nation’s most agriculturally fertile farmland is alive and well, and innovation is changing the complexion of this agriculture dynamo as it considers its future.

Sales from agricultural production in the Bootheel — the six counties of Dunklin, Mississippi, New Madrid, Pemiscot, Scott and Stoddard — are a $1.2 billion industry annually, with more than 90 percent of regional sales from crops such as cotton, rice, wheat, soybeans and corn.

Many are surprised to learn that grain produced right here in the Missouri Bootheel often winds its way through the food chain before becoming an ingredient in Gerber baby food, Rice Krispie treats and even Japanese brewed beer. Some southeast Missouri grains feed Iowa cattle, and Bootheel cotton is often

sent overseas for processing, then returned to the United States for use as a fiber.

“Agricultural products from southeast Missouri may end up anywhere in the world,” says Dr. Julie Weathers, chair of the Department of Agriculture at Southeast Missouri State University. “Niche markets are becoming increasingly popular as well, with farm-to-table products, and with locally grown and organic labels gaining popularity.”

Farmers are creatively developing new products that can be sold for more income than traditional grains with innovations such as biodiesel facilities, non-GMO organic rice, potato and sweet potato production, production of fresh produce — including sweet corn, watermelons, pumpkins and peppers — cotton seed sold as feed for dairy cattle, organic popcorn and corn meal made from organic popcorn, hydroponics to provide year-round produce, greenhouse tomatoes, non-GMO organic feed for livestock produced at a soybean crushing plant and the production of blueberries, specialty grown rice and peanuts.

Crystal Jones, director of the Southeast Missouri State University Economic and

Farmers use early technology to spray cotton for the eradication of army worms in New Madrid in 1938. Photo by Lee Russell.

Business Engagement Center, says Southeast Missouri is uniquely positioned to reach a broad agricultural commodity market. After all, the Bootheel boasts 200 miles of access on the Mississippi River with ports at Scott City, Caruthersville and New Madrid, Missouri. The region is served by both BNSF and Union Pacific railroads. Interstate 55 runs north and south with ready access to I-57, and US Highway 60 runs east and west.

“Within a day’s drive, agricultural products can reach the major metropolitan markets of St. Louis, Memphis, Little Rock, Chicago and Nashville, important for certain agricultural products, such as fresh vegetables, fruit and specialized local foods,” Jones says.

While top Bootheel crops include rice and cotton, a plethora of traditional agricultural products also are raised here, including corn, soybeans, wheat and Missouri beef. Cattle raised in southeast Missouri are traditionally sent to feedlots in Kansas. From there they are sent to packing plants in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

Once packaged, boxed beef can be shipped to any plant in the United States, Weathers says.

AGRICULTURE AND TECHNOLOGY Agriculture is big business in southeast Missouri, and with it comes enormous responsibility to feed the world. Southeast experts say the region is poised to meet these challenges and grow agricultural production into the future, thanks to rapid technological advancements.

Drones are now being used for assessing the nutrient status of crops and scouting for diseases and insects in fields. Drones also are gathering accurate data about crops and improving efficiency in agriculture fields. By improving accuracy in the data-gathering process, the precise amount of chemicals, fertilizers and nutrients the soil needs are better gauged, with the goal of reducing farm runoff to help reduce farming costs and protect the environment.

Drones also are improving precision in agriculture fields. They can fly over fields and crops to take measurements and gather data in ways easier and more effective than past satellite processes.

“Today’s agriculture is advancing in science and technology,” says Dr. Indi Braden, Southeast Missouri State University professor of agriculture. “Precision agriculture using spatial imagery

and remote sensing, like the drone, will help producers evaluate and improve production on a whole different scale. With this technology, crop systems can be viewed on a micro-scale or a landscape survey.

Apps are also making an impact in this area, with farmers in this region regularly using them now to perform their work.

“There are literally apps for every application of agriculture,” Weathers says. We can turn the center pivot on with an app from our phone. We can sell grain with an app. I can check the pedigree of our cattle with an app. The way people interpret their crops as worldwide commodities is even changing agriculture. With more up-to-date news and price updates, people are able to get the best marketing plans out there.”

The reliance on technology is driven by continued growth in agricultural operations in the Bootheel. The average market value of farm operations is significantly higher in southeast Missouri as compared to the rest of the state, Jones says. Estimated market value of farm land and buildings in southeast Missouri averages $3.6 million while the Missouri average is about $800,000.

B MAGAZINE • PROGRESS EDITION | 33

Sales from agricultural production “Agriculture in general is becoming a bigger operation,” Weathers says. “It is still family farming, but as more people get out of traditional farming, the farmers who remain take on more land, and therefore individual operations become larger. It is becoming more technology-heavy with things like drones, unmanned tractors, mechanization of fruits and vegetables, which are traditionally hand-harvested, and Radio Frequency Identification ear tags for livestock.”

Agriculture also is becoming “more trendy,” she says, with consumers becoming more interested in controlling their foods through community gardens and backyard chickens, and through the prevalence of modern-day victory gardens.

INTO THE FUTURE It is estimated that to meet the increasing worldwide food demand, food production must increase by 70 percent over the next 40 years, according to a Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations report entitled “How to Feed the World in 2050.”

Machinery and equipment are becoming an increasingly important part of that equation, and a larger part of a farm operator’s budget. The estimated market value of farm machinery and equipment averages nearly $350,000 per farm in southeast Missouri, while the state average is just under $90,000, according to Jones.

“Southeast Missouri farmers have tremendous expense in their assets, and this investment demonstrates their commitment to the industry and staying on-trend,” she says.

To support further agricultural advancements in this region, access to broadband in rural areas of southeast Missouri will be key. Rural areas have historically been at a disadvantage, and this comes at a time when the use of data and technology are crucial for this important industry to be able to innovate, she says.

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in the Bootheel — the six counties of Dunklin, Mississippi, New Madrid, Pemiscot, Scott and Stoddard — are a $1.2 billion industry annually.

So what’s on the horizon for the next generation of southeast Missouri farmers?

Because farming has become a far more data, technology and market-driven industry, those without education and training in these areas will be at a business disadvantage, Weathers says.

“Now a lot of people are coming to college to major in agriculture or agribusiness to focus on not just how to grow a better crop or animal, but how to be successful with the new technologies that support that, and especially how to market those products to get the best bang for their buck,” she says.

To keep consumers buying food at reasonable prices, farmers will need to be more creative and knowledgeable. Experts agree that change already in motion in agriculture in southeast Missouri must continue.

While an agriculture degree remains important for future farmers, skills in entrepreneurship also will be crucial as southeast Missouri continues to innovate in the agriculture industry.

“Farming knowledge needed to produce crops will remain a necessity, but the region also is going to need entrepreneurs and innovative thinkers to help support the industry into the future from a technological perspective,” Jones says.

The southeast Missouri region is an agricultural powerhouse. Experts agree that with technological advancements and innovations pushing new boundaries, agriculture as we know it is rapidly evolving. Natives will still reminisce about “cotton holiday” for years to come, but agricultural innovation will be at the heart of new memory-making, as this sector of the Bootheel charts a new course.

Laura Hunter Collins of Willow & Co. runs a 6,500 acre farm operation with her brother, Will Hunter, in Stoddard, Scott and New Madrid Counties.

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SPONSORED CONTENT

Montgomery Bank Opens New Conference and Training Center Montgomery Bank needed a central place to gather and train employees from St. Louis to Sikeston, so this past year, they built the Montgomery Bank Conference and Training Center.

The impressive facility, located at 526 West Main in Jackson, is a 17,000 square-foot center equipped with state-of-the art facilities. It features a 4,000 square-foot terraced auditorium with eight rows of theater seating, a 3,000 square-foot concourse area and two 220 square-foot meeting rooms. The concourse area features a bar with a full catering facility for events. The 20-person capacity board room features video conferencing equipment, to decrease travel time for employees located in other areas.

Montgomery Bank hopes the center brings renewed life to this part of Jackson. For consistency, all of the bank’s new employees will be trained at the

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facility.

“This is a sign of our investment in our people,” says Jim Limbaugh, executive vice president and community bank president. “It is our responsibility to equip our employees with skill sets to deliver the finest experience possible. This is a demonstration of our commitment to that.”

Much thought went into not only the comfort and functionality of the training center, but also into the artwork. The photographs adorning the walls are of iconic landmarks representing each of the markets Montgomery Bank serves. Many of the photographs are by the late Dr. David Crowe from Cape Girardeau.

Limbaugh hopes the center will become a gathering space not only for Montgomery Bank, but also for other businesses and the community.

The new Montgomery Bank Conference and Training Center located at 526 W. Main St. in Jackson will serve as a gathering space for Montgomery Bank employees, local businesses and the community.

B MAGAZINE • PROGRESS EDITION | 37

To our community, As if you didn’t already know, technology has and will continue to take over every aspect of our lives…it is 2018, after all. And it begs the question why our region has lacked successful efforts to develop a technology sector.

Leadership? Knowledge? Accessibility? Maybe a bit of each.

There are industries in our region which started small and are now nationally (some internationally) recognized that have seen significant growth: healthcare, education, hospitality, retail. But some of those industries are experiencing challenges and may not continue to grow.

Could the organizations within those sectors be aided by the addition of a tech hub in our region? We think so. And those outcomes bleed out to the rest of the community.

According to Enrico Moretti in The New Geography of Jobs, for every new innovation job in a city, five additional non-innovative jobs are created, and those workers earn higher salaries than their counterparts in other cities.

We’re going to tell you what it takes to build a technology sector in a community. And then we’re going to tell you what we’re doing to make that happen in ours. We’re not looking for pats on the back or a “good job.” We’re writing this because we need you to get involved. We still have a lot of work to do. This shit is hard. But the results will be profound.

We need our community, the organizations, its people to step up to the challenge. Everyone will benefit. Our futures will benefit. After reading this, and questioning what you can do to be a part of building this with us, please get in touch. We’ll tell you how.

It’s no longer true that tech companies and jobs are only meant for the coasts, or even metro areas. It’s becoming more and more apparent that rural America has significant advantages. We have an incredible opportunity to make changes now that will significantly impact our personal and collective future. We urge you not be satisfied with the status quo, to not keep doing what’s always been done.

Help us forge an even better future.

- Codefi

November 2014 Codefi opened

December 2014 Traverse Ventures startup venture fund established

January 2015 1ST50K startup competition launched

March 2015 Google Startup Weekend

October 2015 MTC MOBEC $325,000 grant awarded to support startups

MISSOURI DEVELOPERS IN THE WORKFORCE

2.4%

Average Percentage of developers in the workforce throughout the United States

Columbia

St. Joseph

0.49% Kansas City

3.36%

Northern Missouri

Jefferson City

0.44%

2.52%

Southwest Missouri

0.54%

Springfield

1.55%

REGION

1.75%

St. Louis

2.78%

Central Missouri

Joplin

Cape Girardeau Southeast Missouri

0.56%

0.36%

Fayetteville/ Springdale/ Rogers, AR Area

1.81%

Infographic by Codefi, 2017

Kansas City

3.36%

St. Louis

2.78%

Jefferson City

2.52%

Fayetteville/Springdale/ Rogers, AR Area

1.81%

Columbia

1.75%

Springfield

0.36%

0.66%

PERCENTAGE OF DEVELOPERS

1.55%

Joplin

0.66%

Cape Girardeau

0.56%

Southwest Missouri

0.54%

St. Joseph

0.49%

Northern Missouri

0.44%

Central Missouri

0.36%

Southeast Missouri

0.36%

85,000

$

Annual Mean Wage for Developers

< $45,000 Annual Mean Wage for All Other Occupations

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics (https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_mo.htm#15-0000)

TALENT

Marquette Tech Institute: Youth Coding

The most vital piece to building a tech sector is the talent that does the work. There must be modern initiatives in our area to attract, develop, and retain that talent. Until recently, we essentially had none here. What’s striking is that more than 1,000,000 tech jobs will go unfilled by the year 2020. There is no end in sight for opportunities, especially considering the annual mean wage for developers in our region is almost DOUBLE the annual mean wage for all other occupations.

Unfortunately, we severely lack this type of talent. Our region has one-fifth the percentage of developers in the workforce compared to our state and national averages. One-fifth. We’re legitimately the worst region in the state.

Not acceptable. And our growth in this area is less than the national average, as well, so the gap is only going to grow. We have a crisis on our hands.

So how do you get kids interested in computer programming and make it fun? How about using robots? What about letting them design video games? Or, we could make it competitive—like youth sports— and then we could give away thousands of dollars in awards. Check.

Check. And check.

In 2016, we started day camps teaching kids to program, getting inspiration from the likes of Angry Birds and Minecraft. In 2017, we launched two summer camps where kids programmed robots. This year, we are expanding to four, week-long summer camps. And this fall, we are introducing Google’s CS First curriculum through a Youth Code League in area middle schools. Students join teams and will compete regionally against each other for thousands of dollars in cash and prizes.

Code Labs One

Code Labs One Colleges and universities have a solution to prepare individuals over a 4-year path. But we needed to fill an immediate need. So, we launched Code Labs One, a rigorous adult computer programming course that takes an individual from no prior knowledge to entry-level job ready in just 20 weeks. No joke.

One of the first participants went from being unemployed with a wife and kid and living on $900 a month to making over $50,000 a year. Talk about impact. And you don’t have to be some math wizard or fit some stereotype to succeed. Past applicants include high school dropouts to PhD’s, 70%+ making less than $30,000 a year, and a third of them are over 40 years old. Applications for the next cohort open May 1.

We’re working on the immediate need. To double down on our efforts and make an investment in our long-term future, we needed to introduce these concepts to youth.

April 2016 $20 million real estate development project announced for Marquette Tower and H&H building

May 2016 Marquette Tech District Foundation created to accelerate economic development

Youth Coding

Outcomes We’ve introduced computer programming to over 100 kids and have accepted over 120 adults into Code Labs One in just the first year.

Talent is THE critical piece for building a tech sector. And that talent goes on to work in the companies that drive the economy.

July 2016 First annual Marquette TechFest, a celebration of technology progress for the region, was held

August 2016 DRA SEDAP $200,000 grant awarded to buildout fiber and provide free Wi-Fi downtown

STARTUPS AND INNOVATIVE COMPANIES According to Dr. James Stapleton’s research in collaboration with the Delta Regional Authority, from 1992-2012, entrepreneurs created more than 91 percent of net new jobs in our region. Having a support system to develop and launch startups is critical to building a tech sector.

We’ve had the good fortune of traveling across the country to rural communities from the West coast to the East coast, and you’d be hard-pressed to find another small community with the high quality of life of Cape Girardeau and such a quality group of entrepreneurial people. It just seems to be part of the DNA of the region. There are the household names of entrepreneurs: Drury, Rust, Limbaugh, Kinder; and we have Lindy Duncan, Glenn Campbell, and Earl Norman. Success is not a stranger to us.

The obstacles we have to overcome in our region is the prevailing “what’s in it for me” mentality—folks stuck in silos, focusing to just keep the same piece of the pie. Startups break things. Innovation is disruptive. But, as we build these companies, the entire economic pie will get larger—for everyone.

Ann Butler, Edible Education

1ST50K The most expensive and hardest-to-get money for a founder is typically the first dollars. Debt financing isn’t an option, and venture funding requires giving up lots of equity because of the high risk. We needed a way to increase accessibility to capital for startups. So, we launched the 1ST50K Startup Competition, a program that helps turn innovative startup ideas into scalable ventures, where winning founders receive $50,000 equity-free investments (an attractant for Cape) and pro-bono development services.

Lindsey Radcliffe, Morning Star Behavioral Associates

carGO We have some big ideas with building a technology sector. What better way than to build a tech startup ourselves and lead by example, a la carGO Technologies? The carGO platform uniquely connects people seeking on-demand rides and delivery of restaurant food, alcohol, and other items. And talk about building a bigger pie. There are over 100 active drivers that earn $200-500 a week driving a few hours here and there, with some working full-time making over $1000 a week.

We’ve received applications from almost 40 countries and over 30 states across the U.S. since the competition launched in 2015. We’ve awarded $250,000 in grants to innovative startups since then, and those companies have generated over $2 million in revenue and created 23 new jobs. The program was recently awarded a $200,000 grant from the Missouri Technology Corporation, and another $200,000 was matched by private donors to continue the support. We’re currently taking applications at 1ST50K.org.

We launched carGO just over a year ago, and the company now provides nearly 10,000 rides and deliveries in the Cape Girardeau area each month, partnering with nearly 40 local restaurants. In fact, our McDonald’s here on Broadway does more business in deliveries than McDonald’s in Atlanta…damn. carGO recently announced its expansion to the Poplar Bluff, Missouri, area, with growth plans into other local markets coming soon. Try it out on us. Download the carGO Carryout app and use the coupon code startup for 50% off your delivery fee.

October 2016 Code Labs One adult computer programming training started

December 2016 Codefi expanded from Broadway Federal Building to Marquette Tower

January 2017 carGO launched

May 2017 Marquette Technology Institute youth coding camps announced

July 2017 Hack & Help Hackathon hosted, solutions built for Big Brothers Big Sisters

A HUB OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT A snowball effect starts to kick in when the talent pool increases and startups begin to launch and grow. Growth becomes less linear, but exponential. But the spaces in which all of this activity happens must be in close proximity, which is why we consider Codefi to be a catalyst to increase the formation and growth of technology-based companies in our region.

The people that call Codefi home (over 225 members now) have kicked some serious ass. We started this thing a little over 3 years ago. So far, almost 100 jobs have been created by 35 new startups that have received over $7.5 million worth of investments, with over $6 million of that being venture equity. We canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even begin to quantify the collective impact the established companies at Codefi have made. You are undoubtedly missing out if you do not have a presence here.

To build a technology sector, you must successfully attract, develop, and retain talent; invest in, groom, and scale startups; and have a hub that connects, supports, and empowers the cluster.

Those three concepts feed off of each other, and when executed properly, create widely successful economic impact. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re just getting started.

And we need your help.

Infographic by Codefi, 2017

January 2018 Codefi expanded into 4th floor of Marquette to over 16,000 square feet

Fall 2018 Marquette Tech Institute Youth Code League coming

SPONSORED CONTENT

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“Kasten has been in business for over 123 years because we carry high-quality products with great customer service,” says Craig Bohnsack, Kasten CEO. “Our goal is to enhance the lives of our customers.”

Bohnsack believes that what makes Kasten stand out — along with their quality products — is the service after the purchase.

“A big advantage with Kasten is that we stock parts,” Bohnsack says. “You don’t ever have to worry about where to have an item that you buy from us serviced; we service everything we sell.”

Start building your family memories by visiting a Kasten store at one of their locations in Carbondale, Illinois, Bonne Terre, Jackson or Cape Girardeau.

42 | B MAGAZINE • PROGRESS EDITION

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345 S. Kingshighway Cape Girardeau, MO 573-803-3324 30 N Wood Bonne Terre, MO 573-358-5402

1

Highway 61 & 25 in Jackson, MO 573-243-3591 210 W Industrial Park Rd Carbondale, IL 618-457-8721

B MAGAZINE â&#x20AC;¢ PROGRESS EDITION | 43

44 | B MAGAZINE â&#x20AC;¢ PROGRESS EDITION

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BY JON K. RUST SPECIAL TO B MAGAZINE PHOTOS BY AARON EISENHAUER, EISENPHOTO LLC

Every child athlete brings a family

Inside the 121,000 square-foot Cape Girardeau SportsPlex on a Sunday afternoon in April, it’s a whirl of color, energy and sound. Hundreds of girls are playing volleyball, many clad in neon jerseys, hair bows and knee pads. Their talent is impressive. Packed into the bleachers, rooting on the players, are parents and grandparents and siblings. Teams that are waiting for the next games gather around the edges of the bleachers — or in the lobby of the facility. A spike on one court leads to a big cheer from the stands. A great block on another leads to the team high-fiving each other — and more cheering. These are scenes repeated across the massive space on 12 different courts, in bright lights and above gleaming floors. And each of the visitors — the players, their families, the coaches — is spending money in Cape Girardeau.

For this particular tournament, organized by Gateway Region Volleyball, many of the teams drive the 100 miles to Cape Girardeau from St. Louis, staying two nights in local hotels. Others hail from Illinois. The visiting teams with a late start on the first day might drive into town in the morning and stay one night. Because of the tournament, hotels in the area are sold out. The organizer is expecting the event to grow even bigger in the future.

“It’s a fantastic venue,” said Linus Shyu, event and technical specialist for Gateway. “There’s nothing like it in this area,

even St. Louis. You’ve got so many people crammed into one place, the sound, the noise, the cheering, it makes it much more exciting, compared to a traditional local court tournament with eight teams.

“I know the people that are here want to come back,” Shyu said. “They’re going to tell their other coaching friends and they’re going to tell their clubs, ‘You’ve got to see this facility.

You’ve got to come down here.’ This week, we rented two additional courts at the university. Next year we will need even more.”

It’s not just volleyball that is drawing visitors to town. Cape Girardeau has long been a popular destination for baseball, softball and soccer tournaments at the soon-to-be-enhanced Shawnee Sports Complex, where Cape has developed a national reputation. Now, indoor events draw competitors for volleyball, basketball, cheerleading, soccer and more at the SportsPlex, which opened just less than a year ago, in May 2017. The Show Me Center, the area’s largest performance hall with a multi-purpose student recreation center adjacent, attracts its own crowds around college and high school sports, including an annual Missouri State High School Activities Association volleyball tournament in the fall, which draws more than 10,000 players and spectators.

Increasingly, travel team tournaments are filling the venues

THE NEW ECONOMIC WARRIOR

B MAGAZINE • PROGRESS EDITION | 47

The business of sports Attracting such events is big business: in a conservative analysis, with 400 room attendees, the Gateway volleyball tournament pumped $76,000 directly, without a multiplier, into the economy. This leads to sales tax revenue, which is turned around to build, operate and maintain more facilities, helping to inject more revenue and ultimately maintaining or improving city services.

This has been an intentional strategy of Cape leadership for several years, says city manager Scott Meyer.

“Staff and council identified that experiential venues are an important target for us as a regional hub, especially as the economy is impacted by new consumers who are more apt to spend money on experiences and shop more online,” Meyer says.

In fiscal year 2017, according to analysis by the Missouri Division of Tourism, total tourism expenditures in Cape Girardeau County exceeded $194 million and accounted for 4,449 jobs. The exact portion of that spend on sports tourism is complicated to assess, but it’s growing.

“Youth sports tourism is basically considered recession-proof,” says John Mehner, president of the Cape Girardeau Area Chamber of Commerce, which oversees the city’s convention and visitors bureau.

Statistics indicate Mehner is right.

— even crossing into multiple sites — and this is good for local businesses, because travel teams mean more demand for hotel rooms, food, gas and family experiences.

According to Tom Dempsey, director of sales and marketing for Mid America Hotels which owns three hotels in Cape Girardeau, “Sports tournaments have been huge for us.

Once school is out, there will be a lot of people just traveling for leisure and that kind of stuff.

But this past weekend, we wouldn’t have filled our hotels without the volleyball tournament.”

Nationally, when other tourism categories dropped after 9/11 or the Great Recession of 2007, sports tourism — especially around youth sports — grew. Part of the reason: parents aren’t bashful about spending on their children.

According to a Sportsbusiness Journal interview with Don Schumacher, who retired as executive director of the National Association of Sports Commissions in 2017, “Parents will forgo a regular family vacation to make sure their child and his or her team go as far as possible in league play. Those families spend nights in hotels, fill restaurants and take in the local sights while attending a tournament. As cities and organizers have come to realize that these dollars don’t go away, we’ve seen a shift from nonprofit events to more profit-minded.”

In some areas of the country, parents may spend $20,000 to $30,000 on a single child’s sport in a year, including travel. The numbers aren’t so high in this market, but still, it’s not cheap. St. Louis resident Courtney Cox, who brought her mom to watch her daughter compete in the Gateway tournament at the SportsPlex, estimated most parents on their team spend $1,500 to $2,500 in club fees, uniforms, equipment and tournament registrations per year per child, not including food and travel. During the season, she said they compete in eight to nine tournaments. She was smitten with Cape.

“I’m so impressed with the place. Because we had an 8 a.m. game, we came on Friday night. The whole team stayed at Auburn Place, which has a really great setup for families,” Cox says. Besides eating out at a wings restaurant and ordering pizza into the hotel another night, the whole team also watched a movie at the recently refurbished, luxury multi-cinema just a couple of minutes away from the hotel.

Regarding the SportsPlex itself, Cox says, “I love the facility. It’s huge. It’s nice. What’s not to like about it?” Cox says they travel to

Increasingly, travel team tournaments are filling the venues — even crossing into multiple sites — and this is good for local businesses, because travel teams mean more demand for hotel rooms, food, gas and family experiences.

The youth sports economy A TIME magazine story from September 2017, “How Kids’ Sports Became a $15 Billion Industry,” identified that the U.S. youth sports economy — which includes everything from travel to private coaching to apps that organize leagues and livestream games — is now a $15.3 billion market.

“And the pot is rapidly getting bigger,” TIME reports. “According to figures at WinterGreen Research, a private firm that tracks the industry, provided exclusively to TIME, the nation’s youth sports industry has grown by 55 percent since 2010. The numbers have been catnip for investors … and municipalities that once vied for minor-league teams are now banking on youth sports to boost local economies, issuing bonds for lavish complexes that they hope will lure glove-toting tykes and their families.”

City manager Meyer told the Southeast Missourian newspaper in the run-up to a recent ballot issue to fund parks and sports facility improvements, “It used to be people came here just to shop. Now they come for sporting events and conferences, and shop while they’re here.”

The tax vote passed April 3, with 81 percent of the vote. Of the $58 million estimated to be raised over the next 15 years, $27 million will go to parks and recreation; about $10 million for stormwater infrastructure projects.

Roughly $21 million will go toward maintenance and operations associated with both parks and stormwater. The biggest project: a new aquatic center, though partners with the city will be necessary to build it at a size conducive to serious travel competitions.

In the case of Cape Girardeau, the plan appears to be working. Cox, the mother from St. Louis, explains why. “It’s about the

tournaments in Chicago and Indiana, but “Cape’s the best tournament we’ve ever been at.”

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Situated for success Cape Girardeau, of course, is not alone in building firstclass tournament sports facilities. In fact, compared to some of the “megacilities” being developed around metro areas, Cape’s offerings could be deemed tame. Although if you count all the high quality venues available for tournaments in the city from Shawnee to Houck, the Show Me Center to Osage, Stuber Field to Arena, the breadth of quality offerings is among the best in the Midwest. More importantly, Cape has placed itself in the center of a very important niche.

In many metro areas, attracting major tournaments is often dog-eat-dog, necessitating the payment of big incentives to tournament organizers and high prices for venue amenities.

“It’s kind of like when cities bid for the Super Bowl, but obviously on a much smaller scale,” says Michael Grade, senior vice president of sports operations for a major sports destination outside Atlanta, who was interviewed by Athletic Business.

Paying bids has not been a factor in Cape’s success, however, in large part because of location. Alyssa Phares, who helps market Cape Girardeau to tournament organizers as director of sales at the city-funded Visit Cape, says national tournaments usually require bid money.

One that was considered, until the price tag was understood, started at $20,000.

experience. The kids grow up playing CYC [Catholic Youth Council Sports], churches against churches. With travel teams, it’s more competitive. It’s fun. And there’s a lot of team bonding.

“It’s a whole new world of sports competition,” Cox continues. “If you’re not involved, you just don’t know.

And parents spend money on their kids.”

Shyu, who understands venue design, is particularly impressed by what Cape Girardeau has created with the SportsPlex.

“We’re one of 40 regional volleyball associations dotted across the U.S.,” Shyu says, “and we take feedback from our tournaments. This facility has been designed at the highest level of our profession. The lighting, the spacing, the netting, the safety. It’s great for the bleacher spectators.

“People in St. Louis wish they could build something like this,” Shyu says. “When you build something from scratch, it’s ideal. This facility is so well designed for so many different sports, it’s obvious to me that expert thinking was taken into account.”

“We just can’t meet that,” Phares said. One national tournament that did schedule at the SportsPlex, Adidas March Madness, generated 450 hotel room nights, according to event founder Sam Swinford, CEO of AthElite Sports Management, and drew competitors from over 10 states. The CVB provided an incentive of $1,500 to AthElite.

Instead, Cape’s sweet spot is regional youth sports, which is not bid-dependent — and for that, the city is particularly well-positioned between St. Louis, Memphis, Louisville, Indiana, Chicago, Arkansas and Nashville.

The biggest draw, though, is from St. Charles and St. Louis.

“For so many places, we’re an easy drive,” Phares says.

“We’re family-friendly and we’re affordable. You can get anywhere in town in 15 minutes or less. I have people who come up to me and rave about how little Cape Splash costs compared to what they’re used to, and they can take their whole family there during a tournament and not have to break the bank. We also have a good range of room rates, and with the Marriott opening late summer, pretty much all the major hotel awards programs, which is important to these families who travel a lot.”

Shyu reinforces why Cape’s location and venue is particularly attractive to his group — and many of the traveling teams in St. Louis.

“Other volleyball regions have multiple metropolitan areas that can do local tournaments. So on one weekend you’ll play in this city, next weekend you’ll play in another city and the third week someplace else. All of them are within two or three hours of each other,” Shyu says. “Our region doesn’t have that luxury in terms of having several large metropolitan areas. Roughly half our teams are from St. Louis, the other half from outlying, rural areas.

“Because the center of most of the player population congregates around the St. Louis area, we traditionally throw our larger tournaments there,” Shyu says. “But it’s challenging to organize. You know the number of courts you need for the number of teams that would like to play, but there’s not a place with 12 courts all under one roof. In St. Louis, you have to rely on local high schools, but then you’re competing for availability with winter and spring sports.”

The much higher cost incurred by teams and parents for tournaments in metro areas is also a major advantage for Cape Girardeau.

Traveling teams want the “one roof ” experience, Shyu says. They want the travel experience, the night in a hotel, competition against other teams they don’t regularly face,

Attracting such events is big business: in a conservative analysis, with 400 room attendees, the Gateway volleyball tournament pumped $76,000 directly, without a multiplier, into the economy.

B MAGAZINE • PROGRESS EDITION | 49

A TIME magazine story from September 2017, “How Kids’ Sports Became a $15 Billion Industry,” identified that the U.S. youth sports economy — which includes everything from travel to private coaching to apps that organize leagues and livestream games — is now a $15.3 billion market.

the bonding with friends and family. But because a lot of his teams are rural, “they don’t want to spend the obscene amounts of money it takes for some of the large, national qualifiers,” he says.

According to Shyu, registration at a national qualifier is anywhere between $600 and $700. “The cost of a hotel at one of these metropolitan areas depends on where you stay. If you stay really far away from the venue it might cost $130-$150 a night, and then you have to pay for parking at the venue, which might be $30 per day or more. If you stay in downtown, within walking distance, it could be $200 to $250 for a hotel room. At these centers, it’s $6 for a bottle of soda, $10 for an individual slice of pizza. So the money stacks up very quickly,” Shyu says.

Costs at the Cape SportsPlex are more reasonable to visitors. According to Heather Davis, facility manager, parking is free. A whole pizza can be bought for $7.50, and a slice for $3.50. Combo meals, which include fries and a drink, range from $4.75 for a turkey sandwich to $6 for chicken strips or cheeseburger.

“We want families to eat out when they visit, and surveys indicate that the restaurants nearest the hotels do the best: Olive Garden, Texas Roadhouse, Chickfil-A, Golden Corral. And Subway, because it’s closest to us,” Davis says. “But it’s important we keep the concession prices reasonable, because we also service the local market here.”

Julia Thompson-Jones, director of parks and recreation for the City of Cape Girardeau, underlines the push-and-pull on pricing at the SportsPlex.

“Our goal is by year five to be able to cover all the operational costs. We are hopefully going to make it sooner,” Thompson-Jones says. She explains they’ve already identified areas where costs can be backed down from what was originally budgeted.

Revenue, meanwhile, continues to grow.

“And then if you count the economic impact, we’re way ahead of schedule,” Thompson-Jones says. “But this market is a tough market to make money because of the demographics, and we have a lot of price sensitivity here.

The people who come from out of town are astounded our concession pricing is so affordable, they wouldn’t blink an eye at much higher prices. But we’re not a big city, and we pride ourselves on trying to keep things affordable to our local market.”

Davis presented numbers to the Cape Girardeau City Council in December, saying she expected the SportsPlex to generate $475,000 for the first full fiscal year, which ends in June. Expenses, according to Davis, are on pace to total about $650,0000. In the coming year, as many as 34 weekends could be booked for tournaments, she says.

The goal is to get that total up to 37 weekends.

Jon K. Rust is publisher of the Southeast Missourian and co-president of Rust Communications. He is a special contributor to B Magazine.

Keeping it local Part of the challenge for Cape Girardeau is balancing the use of its facilities for in-market and travel-oriented events. So far, it hasn’t been a difficult balance to make.

For example, most of the tournaments at the SportsPlex take place on Saturdays and Sundays, so community sports activities can be scheduled regularly on Friday nights and throughout the week.

According to Thompson-Jones, more of that community scheduling is being done, now that they have a better understanding of tournament needs. Other sporting events have been moved to the SportsPlex from Osage and Shawnee community centers, which opens those venues for more community events.

Moreover, local sports coaches who run their own travel teams, along with parents of the players, are saving considerable money by not having to travel as much to face top competition. Instead of Cape-based and other local teams going on the road with all the hotel and other expenses involved to compete in other markets, other teams now come to them. This saves local families money and time.

“We know that sports involves families,” ThompsonJones says. “We know that sports keep both parents and children fitter, and that’s actually the underlying role that we play as parks and recreation. We need the business part, it’s necessary to run our programs and be fiscally responsible. But the satisfaction of providing good services to our citizens and visitors is that we know that we’re contributing to the quality of our community and to the quality of our young people. Through sports, they have the ability to build character. They understand what competition is about. We try to emphasize it’s not always about winning. So for us, it’s all about how do we make it the best experience possible.”

Casey Skelton brought his daughter to the Gateway tournament at the SportsPlex from Creve Coeur. They travel “all around the area, but this is our only overnight tournament,” he says.

The reason they’re involved in travel sports is to keep his daughter “active.”

“It’s a step up in competition from local leagues,” Skelton says. “And in her eyes, it’s a step towards competing in high school volleyball. I’m not thinking she will play in college, but she likes the girls, the experience.

And…” “It’s a lot of fun,” his daughter chimes in.

“And as long as it’s fun,” Skelton says, “We’ll keep doing it.”

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In 2018, price is more important to many, and Johannes Auto Sales is responding to this need. They have added a self-service auto salvage yard to their business, located across the road from their current location.

The yard, U-Wrench & Save Auto Parts, is a new concept for southeast Missouri â&#x20AC;&#x201D; itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the only self-service yard between St. Louis and Memphis.

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Father-daughter co-owners Jim Johannes and Donna Schuette have worked for two years to make U-Wrench a reality. The yard opens April 30, with 850-900 cars on site for parts. Inventory will be constantly updated. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not new to the auto salvage business,â&#x20AC;? says Schuette. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We have 55 years of experience. This is a new concept weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to try, to stay on top of the industry.â&#x20AC;?

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SPONSORED CONTENT

Kiefner Bros., completes Cape Police Station and Municipal Court The new Cape Girardeau police station and municipal court is up and running at 2530 Maria Louise Lane, recently completed

by Kiefner Bros., Inc. In contracting for the new facility, the City of Cape Girardeau used the design/build delivery approach. Using this method, the City was the benefactor of continuous collaboration with the designer and Kiefner Brothers. This teamwork allowed for all building needs to be met, while maintaining budget and schedule.

The new police station includes a defensive tactics room with padded walls and large training rooms with video monitors. It features space for forensics and evidence storage, and

dedicated spaces for various law enforcement departments. A modern, secure 20-bed jail completes the project.

The municipal court is housed in the same building, with separate public access. It features a spacious courtroom that comfortably accommodates 80 people and a public accessible court clerk’s office with a separate area for the judge.

According to Tom Kiefner, president of Kiefner Brothers, the company has been in business for nearly 100 years, performing design/build work for five years.

“We have been building southeast Missouri for generations,” Kiefner says. “We are very proud to have our name associated with this one.”

The courtroom at the Cape Girardeau Municipal Court, recently completed by Kiefner Bros.

Kiefner Brothers Inc. Proud to have been the Design-Build Contractor for the new City of Cape Girardeau Police Station

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Generations of Experience Make the Difference B M AG A Z IN E • P ROG R ES S ED I T I O N | 51

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Reppert’s Office Supplies Offers Sit-to-Stand Desks Office workers who sit eight hours a day have increased risks of obesity, heart disease and high blood sugar levels.

Reppert’s Office Supplies has found a solution: sit-to-stand desks.

The desks have become popular this past year, sales representative Tyra Johnson says. They come as whole desks or desktop monitor risers, manual or electric.

Dr. Chris Crawford recommends these desks to his patients.

“They’re a good tool to keep people out of back pain,” he says.

Reppert’s Office Supplies has been a family-owned business since 1968, providing next-day delivery for office, break room and janitorial supplies and furniture.

“It’s about building relationships with businesses,” says Johnson. “When you know your delivery person and sales rep, that’s a benefit.”

Saxony Lutheran High School Students Excel in the Classroom and Out Five National Merit scholars in three years. A student body 24.4 average ACT score, three points higher than state and national averages. One of the few private schools in the country to host an FFA chapter, organized by students.

Saxony Lutheran high schoolers are doing impressive things.

“Our teachers come in early and stay late to help students achieve their goals,” principal Mark Ruark says.

Beyond the classroom, the school is putting in a track and renovating the soccer field for their championship-winning track and soccer teams.

Faith is the foundational pillar — mornings begin in chapel or small groups.

Family, academics and activities also help Saxony students become well-rounded adults, poised for success.

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52 | B MAGAZINE • PROGRESS EDITION

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Ramsey Branch, located in Jackson, is the only 55+ active adult living community in southeast Missouri.

People 55 years or older looking for community need look no further than Ramsey Branch in Jackson: the 33-acre active adult living community on Old Cape Road East, near Klaus Park, provides a built-in network of people with which to enjoy life. All residents of the subdivision are 55 years of age or older, or married to someone who is 55-plus.

Ramsey Branch, which was established in 2016, is unique in southeast Missouri; the closest adult community like it is in St. Charles, Missouri.

Ramsey Branch provides ready access to I-55, shopping, parks and hospitals.

“It’s pretty convenient,” says Sheila King, who founded the community with her husband, Bill. “You have a lot

of perks there that you wouldn’t have if you rented or bought on your own.”

Some of these perks include Cable, internet and phone package, lawn maintenance, common area maintenance, clubhouse and more. A clubhouse with exercise facilities and communal gathering space for activities and events is also being built on the property.

Custom-built homes are available with choices in lot, house plan and amenities. House styles include all-siding, siding with decorative stone or all-brick, with two- or three-car garage options.

is not just a place to live, it’s a place to begin the new chapter in your life. The chapter of you.

Offering a variety of floorplans, allows you to enjoy a custom-built home featuring open concepts, modern appliances, unique architecture and much more.

The maintenance free community allows you to enjoy the life you’ve worked so hard at achieving. is the only 55+ active adult community between Memphis and St. Louis. Conveniently located in Cape Girardeau County, residents have access to two major hospitals, a variety of dining options and entertainment. Within the community itself, there are wide sidewalks, parks and beautiful trails for walks, runs and bike rides. A community center will host happy hours, group exercise classes and other seasonal events.

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B MAGAZINE • PROGRESS EDITION | 53

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GET S*** DONE LockerDome’s Gabe Lozano on creating a workplace environment that works

BY BRANDI HOLDER PHOTO BY FRED LYNCH

In a rare public appearance, LockerDome co-founder and CEO Gabe Lozano participated in a recent fireside chat hosted by Codefi in Cape Girardeau. Lozano revealed his thoughts on his work at LockerDome and with GlobalHack, the internationally recognized nonprofit he co-founded. He also spoke about what it means to live out his company’s motto and “get s*** done.”

LockerDome LockerDome was founded in St. Louis, Missouri, in 2008 as a sports-themed social media platform. Over the years, it has morphed into an advertising and publishing platform with real-time ROI metrics and content widgets embedded in third-party websites.

When asked about the drastic pivot, Lozano respectfully pushes back, saying it was not so much a pivot as an opportunity to embrace natural outgrowth.

Lozano and his team noticed many LockerDome users were disinterested in using the platform for social networking and instead were connecting around common interests.

Collecting this early feedback allowed the team to build tools for businesses that touched consumers, lifting LockerDome out of a passive social networking model.

“It’s actually hard to make business to consumer stuff because you have to get a big enough base to make a serious amount of money,” Lozano says. “That can be a challenge when you have a finite market.”

Creating the business to business tools to address the consumer (B2B2C) led to more significant projects giving rise to a powerhouse platform with far greater reach than they ever imagined.

Prior to launching the 2.0 version, Venture Capitalist Brian Matthews came forward as their first major funder. With Matthews’ investment also came an invitation for Lozano to set up an office in

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Matthews’ office. Lozano used that time to ask a lot of questions.

“When you first start out as an entrepreneur, it’s easy for your interests and focus to be all over the board,” Lozano says. “Eventually you start to sharpen that focus and hone in on what provides value.”

Lozano says it is not uncommon for companies to find traction and sustainability with something that is different than where they started. For LockerDome, the traction gained from the 2.0 version led to additional funding and notable backers and board members, such as Square’s Jim McKelvey.

GlobalHack LockerDome started up during a time when St. Louis did not have the nurturing tech environment like other big cities. However, demand for a technology ecosystem was growing amidst a general frustration with programs and software competitions that failed to turn ideas into action. As a response, Lozano and two other St. Louis entrepreneurs, Drew Winship of Juristat and Travis Sheridan of Venture Café, launched GlobalHack in 2013 with a focus on putting solutions in the market.

By year three, GlobalHack hosted the largest civic hackathon in history. Following Lozano’s mantra of “investing in people, not projects,” they offered prizes and funding to get top projects into the hands of area nonprofits. In this way, GlobalHack marries technology to social impact, filling in the gaps where technology solutions are desperately needed.

GlobalHack has now grown beyond hackathons into youth education to address social issues that will impact the future of our economy.

The culture of LockerDome Sometimes founders try to compartmentalize obstacles or life tragedy. However, Lozano says, “Each part of our lives will always overlap. If an entrepreneur is

Gabe Lozano, co-founder and CEO of LockerDome, speaks at Codefi.

honest with you, probably every day is a day they want to quit, but the reality is — you just keep going.”

For Lozano, obstacles reinforce his work. He says LockerDome, “is an engine to create wealth, it is an engine of influence, but the things I truly care about sit on the other side of that.”

Speaking of wealth, LockerDome has raised $22 million to date. But Lozano is careful to note: money isn’t just money — it is time, and reputation as well.

This responsibility is where his drive comes from — a drive that in the past has painted him as someone with unreasonably high standards.

However, Lozano says, “people that produce a lot of work don’t watch the clock. That’s what the company culture is really about. It’s about getting s*** done.”

Lozano learned early on just to keep going, and it has been this perpetual motion that has kept the LockerDome team moving forward together.

There is a great deal of respect for everyone’s work — as a nod to the company culture, there are no meetings at LockerDome. Ever. People show up, produce work and keep meticulous development logs. Lozano feels that meetings are not productive in the context of a serious work plan, that they instead “clog output.”

Lozano works long hours because he enjoys problem-solving. For him, “the intensity of a founder seems to be very natural because your credibility is on the line. However, I want people to enjoy the job and have work-life balance, even if I can’t have that for myself.”

When it comes to defining success and failure, Lozano says, “increase your dataset and assume you are wrong” and measure everything. There are no hard rules; what we know today will change as future conditions change. But in order to keep moving forward, you have to keep moving forward, even if you are not sure how.

SPONSORED CONTENT

Plaza Tire: 55 Years of Service to the Region This year, Plaza Tire Service is celebrating its 55th anniversary.

Founded and headquartered in Cape Girardeau, Plaza Tire Service has locations throughout Missouri as well as southern Illinois, western Kentucky and northeast Arkansas.

The company has grown through a commitment to service, selection and price. Plaza Tire Service stocks more than 100,000 tires. The company offers competitive prices; if a customer finds a lower price on a similar tire, Plaza Tire Service will match it with its Low Price Pledge.

What sets Plaza Tire Service apart is a commitment to exceptional service.

“We know people have plenty of options,” says Mark Rhodes,

president of Plaza Tire Service.

“We earn people’s business by treating them the way we would expect to be treated. Our extensive selection of tires means we can usually install them right away, making the process more convenient for the customer.”

Earlier this year, Plaza Tire Service opened its 63rd location — its third store in Springfield, Missouri. The goal is to continue growing where good opportunities exist.

“Through floods, fires and other challenges, we’ve been here for 55 years,” says Scott Rhodes, vice president of Plaza Tire Service. “We’ll be here tomorrow and down the road.”

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Plaza Tire Service is celebrating their 55th anniversary. Their company was recognized in 2017 as “Tire Dealer of the Year” by Modern Tire Dealer, a leading national trade publication.

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Notre Dame High School Students Serve Our Community “Give us your child and we shall return you an apostle.”

This is the promise of Notre Dame Regional High School, where students learn that service to the community is transformative.

During this past Holy Week, all seniors and sophomores at the school served together for a morning at local nonprofit organizations such as the SEMO food bank, Catholic Charities and Birthright. While they were serving, the freshmen and juniors participated in a religious retreat with the St. Louis REAP team. On the following day, the groups switched roles.

This is only one of many traditions of service at Notre Dame, and this real-world experience applies to academics, too. One example: much of the school’s graphic design is done by students learning Photoshop.

“Our teachers do a phenomenal job of practically applying what students are learning in the classroom in unique ways,” says Alex Jackson, development director.

And it shows: Notre Dame is one of only 27 Catholic schools in the U.S. to be a Catholic Education Honor Roll school, ranking them among the top five percent of Catholic schools in the nation.

Through service and academics, Notre Dame students live their motto: “Enter to learn, leave to serve.”

Notre Dame Regional High School

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As a Regional Catholic High School, we prepare students academically for the work force. As a community, we prepare students to be Christ to others in word and deed.

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B MAGAZINE • PROGRESS EDITION | 57

TO CHICAGO AND BEYOND Cape Girardeau Regional Airport Launches New Flights With United

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Few things symbolize progress more than a jet, literally connecting our region with the world.

“We’re thankful to Cape Air who put us on the domestic map,” says Bruce Loy, Cape Girardeau Regional Airport manager. “But now United Express flights operated by SkyWest takes us ‘higher’ with new flights to Chicago O’Hare and access to the United connections beyond.”

Now, local travelers who were used to eight-passenger prop planes can experience the 50-passenger airline jet with a flight attendant as SkyWest propels southeast Missouri into an economic hub for businesses and leisure travelers alike.

The speed and convenience are obvious.

“It’s a different ballgame as we now fly to Chicago instead of St. Louis, connecting Cape with hundreds of cities in the United States and World — daily,” says Katrina Amos, deputy airport manager. “Many flights out of St. Louis were connecting through Chicago, anyway. This just removes one connection and a considerable amount of time.”

Chicago flights also open the region to businesses looking to relocate.

“Recruiting and executive travel are key drivers to how a business looks at a location. This certainly helps economic development in our region,” says Loy. The 1.5-hour flights are operated by SkyWest Airlines utilizing the 50-seat Canadair Regional Jet (CRJ200). SkyWest is a leading CRJ200 operator and has been named the manufacturer’s

most reliable operator in North America five times.

Already traffic is above what it was last year this time. The most popular flight is the direct Chicago flight in the afternoon. The early morning connecting flight through Quincy is a quick stop as its passengers remain on the plane, arriving in Chicago for a day of business or transfer options.

One-way tickets can be as low as $89 if booked in advance. Anything later than a couple of weeks may see a substantial increase, as ticket price becomes more competitive.

“We encourage people to book early,” says Amos. “People should know that pricing is more dynamic than with Cape Air. And early bookings will offer better pricing. The best thing to do is to look at your options online at www.united. com. Having worked out many of the logistics, we are now ready to promote — helping people and businesses know their options. We do our job right, and the new jet service will drive travel and economic development for better business and leisure travel.”

Tickets are available to book at www.united. com, or by calling United reservations at 800.864.8331.

The lowest fares can always be found on www. united.com. Cape Girardeau customers who fly United may also accrue MileagePlus Miles as members of United’s MileagePlus loyalty program.

SPONSORED CONTENT

Cape Girardeau Regional Airport manager, Bruce Loy.

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HARRY REDIGER One of the most impactful men in the history of Cape Girardeau

BY JON K. RUST SPECIAL TO B MAGAZINE

Harry Rediger retired as mayor of Cape Girardeau in April 2018 after serving two terms, eight years.

Due to term limits, he could not run for re-election.

Holding public office capped a long career of business success and community service.

For 20 years, Rediger was manager of the JCPenney store at the Cape Girardeau mall, where he also became heavily involved in the community through civic and charitable leadership, top positions in economic development and church and hospital boards. A native of Nebraska, he spent the early part of his career climbing the corporate ladder with JCPenney, and living in towns both big and small, including Dallas and Kansas City. He was a recipient of the Southeast Missourian Spirit of America Award in 2009 and was arguably one of the most impactful mayors in Cape Girardeau’s history.

Rediger sat down with Jon K. Rust, publisher of the Southeast Missourian and contributor to B Magazine, to talk about what motivated him throughout his public service.

B MAGAZINE: All of your life, you have been volunteering to serve, whether that’s with city advisory committees, the hospital, your church, the United Way, the Chamber of Commerce, Greater Cape and more. Why has service been important to you?

HARRY REDIGER: Well, it really hasn’t been all my life, because early on in my JCPenney career, we moved every two to three years. And by the time we got settled into a community, I was asked to take a position elsewhere. That was kind of true here, when I first came to Cape Girardeau in 1977. But after getting to know people here, and wanting and asking to stay, it gave me the opportunity to see community needs and respond to needs, and my involvement grew from there.

I just believe in service, and I believe in paying it forward. I also found it very difficult to say no when asked. So there are some things I did and volunteered for, where I kind of wanted to say no because I was busy, but I just couldn’t. And it becomes a habit.

It becomes a part of your life.

Then it just followed that I really enjoyed the service, and it became rewarding personally.

You talk about there being times when you wanted to say no to volunteering. You told the Southeast Missourian that after retiring from a successful career you had no intention to run for mayor of Cape Girardeau. But you were encouraged to do so, and it ultimately was one of the best decisions you ever made. What would you say to others who have never considered running for political office?

Why should they do it?

Number one, they have to have a love for their community. They have to believe in their community and believe in the direction of the community.

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Number two, again, it’s paying it forward for what the community has done for the individual. And for their family. And then it just becomes very rewarding and enjoyable. Don’t be too quick to say no when you’re asked. I tried to say no, and that would have been a horrendous mistake on my part.

But I would say to others if you’re interested in the community, it doesn’t have to be an elected position. It could be an advisory board that you might have an interest in to kind of start to get involved, kind of test the water. Then see what happens. It could be Old Town Cape, a library board, your school parent committee, or some other part of the community, just to kind of test the water. Then see if it grows on you.

I spent 19 years on planning and zoning, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I liked seeing exciting things come about and the different methods that people used to attack the problems. Helping people make projects work when there are some difficulties is very rewarding to me.

But I would go back and say that if you really love your community, like the direction it’s going, getting involved with making it better is a rewarding experience that you will never forget.

We just had an election, and as I looked around at sample ballots throughout the region there were a number of races where there was no candidate, or maybe there were four spots but only two candidates for the four spots. Are you concerned in any way about American democracy and civic society?

I am, especially concerning the younger generation. I feel that some of the younger generations do not have that will to get involved, to serve, not just in elected positions, but in other ways, too.

It’s difficult sometimes to get young people involved. They’re busy. They’re busier than we were when we were young with so many different activities. Their time is precious, and they have commitments to family, and rightfully so. But, yes, I do have that concern.

So you said that early in your career you, too, were working, building a family and career, moving around. What would you say to a younger version of yourself, to a young business man or business woman?

Well in my situation, I didn’t get all that involved early, because I wasn’t in one place for a while. But I would tell young professionals to learn about their city, understand the issues and get involved. Leadership Cape is a perfect example of a place to start. They don’t really have to serve that much, as long as they are aware. It can be working with a non-profit or one of the city boards. It really doesn’t take a lot of time. But it does take some time. And, I think just as you tithe money to your church, you should tithe time, devote a portion of your time to service.

Cape Girardeau Mayor Harry Rediger sits atop a 1948 Farmall, the same tractor he drove 68 years ago at the age of 10, before the SEMO District Fair Parade in Cape Girardeau. (Glenn Landberg). Taken Sept. 2015.

A major focus your last year as mayor was on the Purpose Built Community model for lifting up a section of Cape Girardeau that has not progressed like other areas of the city. Why has this priority been so important to you? What is it about this model that resonates?

First of all, in 2010, I got more involved in downtown than I’d ever been. And as I looked at downtown, I came to understand better what was happening on the Southside, too, and their needs there, and how a lot of those needs were ignored through the years, for a number of different reasons, and it was no one person’s fault. Then I was introduced to the Purpose Built model in Atlanta, and it really resonated with me. I thought, “This is something that we can do here.”

We don’t know yet whether we’ll become an official Purpose Built Community, but if we don’t, we’re going to do the model ourselves. The more I started getting involved there, the more I saw the need and the more I saw the skepticism of residents down there, who believed, “Yeah, right, you’re going to help us.” But, really, the model is about helping the area grow from the inside out.

Purpose Built has a motto that it uses: “What you do for me, but without me, you do to me.” And that’s been kind of the problem a little bit, in people expecting others to solve their problems. And we

are right about to the point where we’ve got a group ready to take the lead, to identify a quarterback committee, and it’s going to be theirs. It’s got to be.

It’s got to be individuals from that area taking the lead. There’s interest there, and I think it can blossom. The other thing is that this helps address the crime issue there, on a positive note, rather than a punitive one. It’ll be worth all the efforts that all those people in that area put into it. But it’s not a short process, it might be 10-15 years to develop all that’s needed.

The city can support, agencies can support, we’re here to support, but the neighborhoods themselves have to be involved and do it for themselves.

You talked about the importance of loving your community as a motivation for service. What do you like best about this area that made you want to stay?

We had four kids, and we fell in love with the school district first. We had come from a very strong school district in Plano, Texas, and we were proud about our kids, so we had a concern before we arrived. But we were very much impressed with the quality of the education here, the teachers, the commitment of the teachers and the commitment of the district. So we really liked the school district.

The other thing that got us into this community

is that we are a regional hub. We have a university, which is really important to us. Great health care.

Centrally located. It just has all the amenities. And Fran and I kind of looked at each other and said, “if we can stay here, it would be good.” It was pretty unusual for the Penney company back in those days to allow someone to do that.

This is really, really home. 42 years ago, it just evolved and evolved and felt more comfortable every year.

You’ve had many accomplishments as mayor.

Bringing the casino here, which has helped tremendously with downtown development, improving parks, specifically with Cape Splash and the SportsPlex, improving roads and having various successful tax votes including the Transportation Trust Fund, redeveloping several large buildings in downtown, which could have been an inflection point for the city…

I remember standing on the intersection [of Broadway and Fountain streets] in downtown, January 2nd or 3rd, 2011, and all four of those corners, those big buildings were empty or were going to be empty within the year. If we couldn’t do those four corners, those big buildings, it was going to be difficult to continue the growth. It was so close at one point that the Marquette was going to be B M A G A Z I N E • P R O G R E S S E D I T I O N | 61

condemned and torn down. And look, this year they’ll all be full.

of the shining star up and down the river with what we have with flood control.

Your tenure also marked a strengthening of the relationship with the city of Jackson, the new convention center, the improved conversation with Southside residents and so much more. Is there something I haven’t listed that stands out to you?

The city’s infrastructure. I remember going to a meeting in December of 2010, on a very cold night, down at public works when they were unveiling the plan for the wastewater treatment plant, and then through a partnership with Republic, we got the transfer station. And we were able to build out the last of the fire stations, so now we’ve got all new fire stations and a new police station. Our infrastructure is in really good shape. Our airport yet has needs, and City Hall has needs. But I think we’ve made great progress in the last 10 to 15 years with city infrastructure that will carry us into the next generation. I think that’s a big win.

And it comes about because of our partnership with our citizens. It took votes to accomplish. I am very proud of our city and our staff and our council. But the citizens have really responded well to give us good, basic city infrastructure.

You know, the mayors up and down the river are very jealous of us. They envy our certified wall. We haven’t had those flooding issues because of the wall and the buyouts. We’re kind

Do you have any concerns about the future of sales tax revenue, and the dependency the city has on sales tax, particularly with the trends toward internet retail? And, where does property tax fit into the city’s plans for the future?

Internet retail is a threat, and property taxes are hard to come by.

The city of Cape is very dependent on sales tax. Sales tax is at risk because of the internet, and it puts city services at risk because of our dependence on sales tax. The positive part of sales tax is that as a regional hub, people around the region that use our infrastructure and who use our facilities, they help pay the bill when they’re in town. So that’s a plus to sales tax. But we’re going to need to get a use tax passed, and that will be coming up next year.

People really need to understand how important this is.

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We’ve talked about your career with JCPenney, a company that has seen a lot of ups and downs the past 10 years. Penney’s has made some major changes in their management and marketing strategy. How do you look at what they’re doing?

I’m just so disappointed in the company that they do not see service as an intricate part of the operation. They’re squeezing where they can, and the topline is suffering.

So if you’re going to differentiate yourself from the internet retailer, it’s got to be on the service side?

Sure it does. And that’s the secret to success for small, hometown business people, who can provide that touchy-feely service, where customers may pay a little bit more. I think it’s a plus for small business compared to the internet and even the brand stores, where the owner can get to understand their customers better and answer their needs, know them, serve them.

I look at Lowe’s and Menards, and then I go out and see Elias hardware succeeding, because they say hello when you come in and ask what you need. And they’ll take care of you.

As we close, anything you’d like to share that we haven’t covered?

My 20 years at Penney, we couldn’t have survived and our city couldn’t survive without our neighbors and friends in the region.

If we weren’t a regional hub, we wouldn’t have near the city that we have, so it’s really the whole region that has allowed us to grow. We have a very stable economy, and that is because of our regionality and diversity. We don’t boom as high on the boom times, but we don’t suffer during the weak times as much. So we have really enjoyed and continue to enjoy people from five different states coming to Cape Girardeau to shop, work and play. They’re our partners, and we appreciate that.

B MAGAZINE â&#x20AC;¢ PROGRESS EDITION | 63

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We are a local architectural firm with diverse building experience with both large and small projects.

Atlas EPS Recycles Expanded PolyStyrene Many people believe Expanded PolyStyrene (EPS), also known as foam, is not recyclable.

Atlas EPS is here to tell you that’s not true.

Many foam products are recyclable, and Atlas EPS in Perryville is one local location recycling it.

Atlas EPS began their recycling program 40 years ago, to reduce the amount of EPS going to the landfill. The program also helps reduce costs for customers.

Uses for the recycled material include loose material sold in bags for products such as bean bag chairs, densified blocks for use as raw material by other plastic manufacturers, or introduction into EPS blocks in controlled amounts, where suitable.

Although Atlas EPS doesn’t accept food and drink containers, they do accept EPS packaging and other products that contain the recycle symbol with the number “6” on it. Materials can be dropped off 24/7 outside of Atlas EPS at 911 Industrial Drive in Perryville or during business hours at Perry County Recycling Center.

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Established in 1953, Dave LeGrand has continued on with his father’s business. Located on 4340 State Hwy W in Cape Girardeau, LeGrand Brothers Transmissions offers automatic standard transmission remanufacturing and repair, transfer case, differentials and more. They have free diagnostic checks, free estimates and free consultations. They have a large parts department, courtesy shuttle service, pickup and delivery of manufacturers’ units, and a nationwide warranty on all rebuilt and remanufactured transmissions.

“My dad, Ben LeGrand, opened for business in 1958,” says Dave LeGrand. “He worked for a dealership for several years and saw a need for a transmission shop in this area. Sixty-five years later, we have numerous employees, with over 120 years of combined experience.”

LeGrand Brothers uses the latest technical updates and upgraded parts as they build each remanufactured unit, ensuring that LeGrand Brothers’ remanufactured transmissions are the most durable transmissions on the road today, outperforming any of their competitors.

“In the sixty-five years since Dad started the business, our competition has increased significantly,” LeGrand says. “We tend to focus on ourselves as opposed to the competition, believing that if we continue to build quality products and take care of our customers, we will continue to succeed.”

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B MAGAZINE • PROGRESS EDITION | 65

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LeGrand Brothers Transmissions Celebrating 65th Anniversary

Commercial • Industrial Locally Owned in Southeast Missouri

Drury Plaza Hotel and Conference Center. Cape Girardeau Police Station. Kelso C-7 New Hamburg Elementary School. West Park Mall. The upcoming Kidd’s Convenience Store on Broadway in Cape Girardeau.

These are just some of the projects Riverside Roofing Company has worked on since its 2015 establishment.

The commercial and industrial roofing company founded by Kyle Schuessler and Charlie Menz specializes in flat, modified, slate tile, wood shake, BPDM and PPO roofs.

“There’s years and years of experience behind this,” says Schuessler, co-owner.

Combined, Riverside Roofing’s owners have 44 years of commercial and industrial roofing experience, and their field staff of 19 employees has a combined total of 173 years.

That’s experience you can count on.

We’re proud to have helped.

Congratulations to

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66 | B MAGAZINE • PROGRESS EDITION

2511 Independence, Suite 100 Cape Girardeau, Missouri 63703

Terri Penrod & Associates Thank Our Loyal Customers Terri Penrod & Associates are hoping to continue our successful 2017 year into 2018, thanks to all of our loyal customers and clients. Terri Penrod, Kim Wengert and Alan Wengert are here to help you with all of your real estate needs.

Our knowledge of the market and the area is beneficial to all parties. Realty Executives, 573-335-8111.

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Computer 21 is under new ownership.

Sound Advice Hearing Doctors staff members Steve Brown, Au.D; Trent Essner, Au.D.; Sheila Rhymer, office manager; Cathy Willen, Au. D; Kristi Cavaness, hearing instrument specialist.

Sound Advice Hearing Doctors has a big year ahead.

The exciting changes for the hearing aid provider formerly known as Brown and Willen Audiology Center start with new membership in a larger network.

As part of this network, Sound Advice obtains better prices from their manufacturers, passing this savings along to customers.

In May, this business boasting the largest, most experienced team of hearing aid professionals in Cape Girardeau, will move to a new facility at 201 S. Mt. Auburn Rd., Suite D. They will continue to offer the latest products from all six major hearing aid manufacturers, walk-in repair services and state-of-theart machines to meet patients’ fitting

needs.

Their inventory includes the latest products and services, including hearing aids with rechargeable batteries that last for two full days and wireless rechargeable hearing aids.

Cathy Willen, audiologist, says some customers want hearing aids that connect to their smartphones, while others want manual ones. The doctors at Sound Advice build relationships with patients to help them understand their options.

“It is not a one-size-fits-all with hearing aids,” says Willen. “We help with style, fitting and formula for your lifestyle and budget. We customize each fitting to match the needs of the patient.”

What this means to the community and our patients.....

What Is Sound Advice?

WE ARE!

The Audiology Center (Brown & Willen Audiology) is now

SOUND ADVICE HEARING DOCTORS.

In addition to changing our name we will soon be moving into a new and larger office.

We have been in our current location since January 1998, and in May 2018, we will be moving into our new facility.

• Same Great Staff • Same Great Service • Latest in Technology • Lowest Prices Call on Sound Advice – Cape’s Largest and Most Experienced Hearing Care Team!

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Current Address: 262 South Mt Auburn Cape Girardeau, MO 63703

573-837-1179

B MAGAZINE • PROGRESS EDITION | 67

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Sound Advice Hearing Doctors Joins New Network

“THIS CAN BE ART” Catapult Creative House constructs workstations for computer science students

BY MIA POHLMAN PHOTO BY BEN MATTHEWS

An online program that teaches coding languages like Java and Python to high school students in developing countries, in their native languages: this is what senior Southeast Missouri State University students and tech start-up team members Faizel Khan, Chandrashekhar Singh, Arham Chowdhury and Prathyush Viswaroopan have been working on developing over the past six months. And they’re using the spaces at Catapult Creative House — complete with new computer science-specific workstations — to create it.

Launched in March 2018, the goal of the new workstations is to attract computer science students to Catapult, providing a place for them to work and collaborate with the Southeast student artists and entrepreneurs who also utilize the building.

The new space includes four computer workstations with printer access. The computers are imaged with approximately 30 software programs, including all of the software available on the computer science-specific computers at Southeast’s main campus, plus programs computer science students requested in order to meet their additional programming needs. In addition to state-of-the-art software, computer science students have 24/7 access to the building, workstations, professors, and art and business students who spend time in the building. Plus coffee.

These workstations were funded in their entirety — including equipment, printing and the March launch event seminar featuring Microsoft’s Chad Lich and Alex Zisser — by the Southeast Missouri State University Harrison College of Business, under the leadership of Dr. Judy Wiles.

The interrelatedness of the sciences and humanities — which is at the heart of Catapult’s mission — is something Khan, Singh, Chowdhury and Viswaroopan understand well and want to promote through their tech start-up.

“If students have a hard time understanding basic math concepts, they can be really good computers, but they cannot be artists,” says Chowdhury. “Some of the greatest work that has been done in the past century in the sciences has actually been leaps in intellect. Einstein did his Gedankenexperiments — his thought experiments — and that was not something that you teach, you know? It’s art. So we want to show that math and science and computer science, these are not just hardcore science-y things, this can be art.”

In today’s environment, computer science can be used by any discipline, ranging from art, linguistics, music, psychology to business, chemistry, engineering and math, to name a few, explains Dr. Sumanth Yenduri, professor and chairperson of Southeast’s computer science department.

“In today’s world to do business — mobile apps, web applications, whatever you want to do — you need computer science,” says Dr. Yenduri. “Our [computer science] students are brilliant with ideas; what they lack is getting the help in taking their ideas and building upon them to develop into a big organization. We would like our computer science students who work at Catapult to get the business expertise of the entrepreneurship professors and students.

Then maybe the next Google comes out of there.”

Dr. Yenduri estimates there are currently more than 15 computer science students utilizing the space at Catapult; at the beginning of

the school year, before the incorporation of the new workstations, there were zero.

“You don’t know if a computer science student is going to work with an art student and come up with something you’ve never imagined because of their way of doing something, combined with the art student’s idea about how that could be put together,” says Dr. Yenduri.

With the advent of the computer science workstations at Catapult, students now have a place for these opportunities.

THE START-UP Khan, Singh, Chowdhury and Viswaroopan all tutor high school and college students, and are passionate about education. They cite their own experiences with education as the catalyst for their start-up.

“My elder brother, he’s a principal of a government school in my country,” says Khan, who is from India and studying computer science at Southeast. “I went to his school and I saw that there are many students who are very talented, but they don’t have good resources, they don’t know anything about this. So that’s why we decided to create these types of resources, so we can provide these types of resources that will help the students.”

Chowdhury’s belief in the start-up comes from his own high school experience.

“I got internet in my home when I was in the eleventh grade, and at that point a whole new doorway came open to me,” says Chowdhury, who is from Bangladesh and studying math and physics at Southeast. “I was passionate about physics and astrophysics all my life, but I’d never actually experienced anything. So I went online and tried to look up video lectures, and I found this amazing website called MIT OpenCourseWare, where it had amazing video courses from MIT, and I was fascinated. I watched the entire series of three courses and then that brought me to Khan Academy, where I learned a new, intuitive way to learn math. Those jumping points made me realize that we’ve been missing out on so much, and there’s a lot of people who have been missing out on so much.”

The missing link, the team members found, was a lack of command of the English language.

“The students are keen to learn, they have internet, but they don’t know English very well, and that’s why they cannot access all the tutorials that are there on the internet in English,” says Khan.

“That’s why we are focusing on local languages. Since they have internet, they can go on the portal platform we are making and teach themselves.”

The team would like to eventually expand their program to all disciplines, for all students — from rural India to inner-city Chicago. The world, opened up for teenagers from all backgrounds.

And the ideas are being born at Catapult Creative House in Cape Girardeau.

“For me I think this space is very open, energetic — it brings out creativity,” Chowdhury says of Catapult. “When we are in our apartments, it’s like, okay, four guys in an apartment — it’s all jumbled up. When we are here, we feel like, okay, this is a very artsy place, and we feel very imaginative and very positive.”

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SPONSORED CONTENT

First Missouri State Bank Launches Online Mortgage Loan Application

Steve Taylor, president, CEO and chairman of the board, and Jay B. Knudtson, executive vice president stand in front of First Missouri State Bank’s Mt. Auburn location in Cape Girardeau.

Mortgage loans are a large part of what First Missouri State Bank does. As such, the bank is working to make this process as simple as possible for their customers, through education on mortgage loan products and helping to get customers loans that meet customers’ needs.

Within the next couple of months, the bank is launching an online mortgage loan application process. With this tool, customers will be able to file a mortgage loan application while sitting on their couch at home, from their phone.

While integrating technology into banking, First Missouri State Bank is committed to maintaining personal connections with customers.

One way they are doing this is by welcoming Gunnar Knudtson to their business development team. Knudtson will be a presence in the community generating deposits in the current rising rate environment and helping customers with mortgage loans.

In addition to new faces, many familiar faces remain at First Missouri State Bank: ten of the core people who founded it in 2002 still work there.

“We are a locally chartered bank, which means decisions are made right here,” says Steve Taylor, president, CEO and chairman of the board. “The people making the decisions know the people they’re making the decisions for.”

Power HITTerS brIngIng you a Home run In bankIng every TIme.

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2 S. Mount Auburn Rd Cape Girardeau wherefirstmeansmore.com

573-334-9000

70 | B MAGAZINE • PROGRESS EDITION

800 N. Kingshighway Cape Girardeau

573-335-9000

Jay B. KnudtSon

1846 E. Jackson Blvd.

Jackson

573-243-9000

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DILLE TRAXEL Architecture Celebrates 15 Years Serving the Region Marking their 15th year of business, DILLE TRAXEL Architectureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s goal has always been to provide quality, full service, professional architectural services to their clients. In 2003, they opened for business in Poplar Bluff and have served several hundred clients since then. With the firm continuing to grow, a second office location was opened in Cape Girardeau in 2014.

The team at DILLE TRAXEL includes licensed architects, construction administrative staff and support staff with a broad range of project types. Offering over 50 years of combined experience, the founding partners Brett P. Dille and Benjamin F. Traxel are registered architects and members of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). The team designs and manages architectural projects for K-12 schools, higher educational institutions, commercial, religious, municipal, civic, financial and healthcare businesses in Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee and Kansas.

15

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Do you know someone who has made a significant impact in the community? Nominate them for recognition as a B Magazine Newsmaker 2018.

w w w. d i l l e t r a xe l . c o m

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573-778-0033 Poplar Bluff 573-339-4536 Cape Girardeau

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The Bank of Missouri Expands Through Mergers and Tech

Adrian Breen, CEO, at The Bank of Missouri’s William Street location in Cape Girardeau.

72 | B MAGAZINE • PROGRESS EDITION

They began from humble origins as a single branch in Perryville 126 years ago.

In the past few months, The Bank of Missouri has closed two mergers, growing from 23 branches to 35 across Missouri. The Bank of Missouri’s more than 500 employees now serve customers across the state of Missouri.

“We are not a big bank,” says Adrian Breen, CEO. “We are a collection of community banks throughout Missouri. As our customers and our communities grow, we will grow with them, while remaining true to our core values and operating as an independently-owned community bank.”

The bank’s focus for the upcoming year is cultural: bringing new employees into The Bank of Missouri’s “employee-driven,

customer-centric” heritage.

The bank is also working on coupling technology with maintaining a focus on people. They have purchased their first ITM, or Interactive Teller Machine, which at the touch of a button features a live person on-screen, helping customers complete transactions. This will provide extended hours and services, including bilingual capabilities.

“We are making investments in people, processes and technology, all to prepare The Bank of Missouri to be the preferred community bank throughout the region,” Breen says. “We remain focused on connecting the bank to customers’ life events and showing how the bank can help guide customers through them.”

Students at Central Junior High use 3D virtual reality goggles purchased through the Cape Girardeau School Foundation’s Innovative Teaching Grants.

Cape Girardeau School Foundation Grants Make Innovative Learning Possible Imagine being able to experience any location in the world without paying for a plane ticket.

That is a reality for Amy Coffey and Barb Randolph’s language students at Central Junior High School, thanks to a $4,000 grant from the Cape Girardeau School Foundation.

The Virtual World Expedition grant, written by Coffey and Randolph, purchased 10 pairs of 3D virtual reality goggles.

“It really teleports you into another world,” says eighth grader Nate Margenthaler. “It’s one thing to talk about stuff in Spain; then there’s when we feel like we are there.”

This past year, the Foundation also awarded a $5,000 Engineering Technology and Immersion in the Classroom grant to Kelly Branch at Central Middle School, for 50 laser peg 12-in-1 formula kits.

The Foundation’s mission states its goal is to “promote exceptionalism by funding innovative projects not included in the school budget, to try to enhance the education for our students.” The Foundation does this through supporting all district needs.

The Foundation raises funds through contributions from the business community, donations from citizens and fundraising events.

The FuTure Looks BrighTer For everyone When you supporT your schooLs Your support of the Cape Foundation can bring an even richer experience to our students and our future.

• Penguin Party • Back to School Scavenger Hunt • Farm to Fork • Golf Tournament • Planned Giving

can you see our FuTure? geT invoLved!

For more information contact Amy McDonald Executive Director at 573-651-0555 foundation@capetigers.com

B MAGAZINE • PROGRESS EDITION | 73

SPONSORED CONTENT

First State Community Bank: Expansion, Service-Minded Employees and Popcorn

Henry ‘Butch’ Holyfield, president of First State Community Bank

In the past year, First State Community Bank has expanded into several additional markets, bringing their total number of branches to over 50, with nearly $2.4 billion in assets.

Locally they also had another record-breaking year, serving the citizens in the greater Cape Girardeau area through merchant processing, home and commercial loans, and commercial and consumer credit cards. Their US Postal Unit located in the main branch also served a record number of customers.

First State Community Bank’s staff works passionately with the FSCB Gives Back and #CommittedToCape initiatives. For the past two years, the staff has chosen to give the

money used for their Christmas luncheon and gift to community organizations.

“Although the trend in banking has become mobile, we still have so many people come in to our main branch in Cape on a daily basis, that most times it’s hard to find a parking spot,” says Butch Holyfield, president. “I attribute that to our customers feeling at home with our staff, where even though they can do almost everything remotely, they would rather come in and sit down with our staff to conduct their business.”

As a bonus, he adds, “And we have popcorn on Fridays.”

2 Convenient Locations: 2527 William St. (Pictured) 1602 N. Kingshighway (573) 339-0303 Apply online @ fscb.com NMLS# 412605 | Member FDIC

74 | B M AG A ZINE • PROGRESS ED IT ION

SPONSORED CONTENT

Jackson Area Not Your Average Chamber Chamber Named We believe that a chamber needs to be more than 2017 networking over coffee Chamber of and donuts. the Year JACKSON AREA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

Big Things, From a Small Chamber New & Improved Events Revamping Old Programs Business Leadership Series Women’s Impact Network

125 E. Main St. Jackson • 573-243-8131 www.jacksonmochamber.org

The Jackson Area Chamber of Commerce experienced tremendous growth in 2017, investing in additional staff. The chamber was named the 2017 Missouri Chamber of the Year by the Missouri Chamber of Commerce & Industry and awarded the 2017 Torch Award by the Better Business Bureau.

The chamber is working to enhance program and professional development in 2018, through continuing to offer the Business Leadership Series sponsored by the Bank of Missouri. They have also introduced Jackson Leadership & Development, incorporating professional development sessions by GlennView.

In addition, they are initiating a Women’s Impact Network, a personal and business development group dedicated to helping women reach their full potential while making a difference in their lives, community and world.

Serving Southeast Mo sinc

e 1980

Advanced Pest Control Systems, Inc. offers pest control, termite control, weed control, rodent control, and Sentricon Colony Elimination System for your entire home.

821 Progress St. Cape Girardeau 573-334-4215 800-696-4215 www.advpest.com

New Bed Bug and Spider Sprays at Advanced Pest Control Systems Rodents. Termites. All types of pests.

Advanced Pest Control Systems, Inc. in Cape Girardeau takes care of that. This past year, they have introduced new sprays for bed bugs and brown recluse spiders that have proven successful. They also specialize in Sentricon termite control.

Owners Gene, Dorothy and Gary Schuessler believe in

treating people as they want to be treated, and treating a customer’s home as if it were their own.

Gary is a member of the Cape Chamber and River City Networkers. He is on the board of the Missouri Pest Control Management Association and a member of the National Pest Control Management Association, giving him access to the latest resources in the industry.

B MAGAZINE • PROGRESS EDITION | 75

WRITING FROM THE MOST ‘BORING’ CITY IN MISSOURI

BY MARTHA THROEBECK, HUMORIST WITH A FAKE NAME

Social media has been buzzing lately about a study proclaiming that Cape Girardeau is the “most boring city in Missouri.”

There’s no need for hand-wringing, though. The real news is that Cape is now large enough to qualify as a “city” under the methodology used by the study’s author, Business Insider. By including Cape Girardeau, Bollinger and Alexander counties, the “Cape Girardeau, MO-IL Metropolitan Statistical Area” can boast a population of 97,514.

Since we’re the smallest of eight metropolitan statistical areas in Missouri, it’s no surprise we’d be declared the most “boring” of the group since all the rating does is compare things like the number of movie screens and bars.

But who cares? Cape Girardeau has arrived! Based on current trends, the population figure for the metro area should eclipse 100,000 by the 2020 Census. That’s a healthy jump from 90,312 as tabulated in the

2000 Census.

This steady growth around Cape Girardeau has led to some major changes in recent years.

I remember when the Marquette Hotel was a derelict eyesore and the thought of a “tech district” in downtown Cape would have been met with blank stares and/or endless laughter.

“You have to go to a big city to find tech jobs!” we would say.

We don’t have to say that now.

I remember when we could drive across town in a matter of minutes without having to stop at every. single. stoplight. “At least we don’t have the terrible traffic of St. Louis!” we would say.

We can still say that, but the growing population is taxing our inefficient stoplights and interchanges. Unfortunately, the solutions pitched by engineers — roundabouts and diverging diamonds — have a serious drawback: some terrified local drivers will avoid them at all costs, spreading the congestion elsewhere.

I remember when Sainte

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Genevieve was a sleepy town.

“Why should we exit here? This town can’t even spell ‘saint’ right!” tourists on the interstate would say.

We can’t say that now. With a National Historical Park now a sure thing, Sainte Genevieve is poised to become a destination, and the park rangers will have plenty of opportunities to explain the reason for the extra “e” in the name. Hopefully this new source of tourism will boost the whole region.

I remember when local towns were sports obsessed, building playing fields everywhere, and Cardinals baseball was everything. “At least our team has won the World Series since the Teddy Roosevelt administration!” we would say to Cubs fans.

So this is a mixed bag.

It’s harder to make fun of Cubs fans these days, and the Cardinals are more frustrating than ever. But we’re even more obsessed with sports. Cape has a new SportsPlex, Jackson has Whitey Herzog Stadium and an

expansion baseball franchise is coming to Capaha Field.

I remember when downtown Cape and uptown Jackson had a surplus of vacant storefronts. “Big box stores are destroying hometown America!” we would say (while still shopping at them).

We can’t say that as much now. Main and High streets are hopping, while national retailers are struggling.

I remember when people actually talked to each other — in person! — without staring at a smartphone all of the time. “At least technology hasn’t turned us into zombies!” we would say.

We can’t say that now. But that’s not a problem unique to us.

Perhaps the revelation that the conspiracy theorists were right all along about Facebook’s world domination schemes will nudge people to wean themselves from their smartphones.

Better yet, maybe people can wean themselves from sharing clickbait stories about city rankings. If Cape Girardeau is boring, then bring on more boredom!

B MAGAZINE â&#x20AC;¢ PROGRESS EDITION | 77

SPONSORED CONTENT

WORKFORCE WELLNESS

SoutheastHEALTH’s Katie Wallis provides onsite wellness and occupational health services for area businesses and their employees.

SoutheastHEALTH partners with businesses to maintain employee health

SoutheastHEALTH offers services to help employers work proactively toward their employees’ health needs.

Their aim is to work collaboratively with area employers to engage their workforce to stay healthy and safe.

The program is centered on two areas: employee wellness and occupational health.

Southeast provides on-site wellness services for employers, including immunization clinics, health screenings and CPR training. In listening to the employer’s needs, they have implemented an online portal that allows

employees to engage in their health and hold them accountable to reach their wellness goals. Employers share a benefit when they encourage wellness at work.

“We are able to identify employees who are potential health risks, encourage preventive health measures through health coaching and eventually reduce the financial impact of health claims for the company,” says Katie Wallis, who has been connecting businesses to these services on behalf of SoutheastHEALTH since April 2015.

Southeast Occupational Medicine

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Clinic is conveniently located inside HealthPoint Plaza in Cape Girardeau.

There you will find a collaborative, communicative culture between SoutheastHEALTH and area employers. They offer flexible scheduling and adapt to requests for specialized testing requirements. From the pre-employment exams to the unfortunate injury exams, Southeast’s seasoned team of providers partner with employers to achieve a healthy workforce.

Tyson Foods in Dexter has been a client of SoutheastHEALTH for both their occupational health needs and

employee wellness.

“The team at Southeast provide excellent care for our team members, and that in turn is a reflection on our company,” says Rhonda Arnold, nurse manager at Tyson Foods. “We ‘choose to care’ regarding the health and wellness of our team members, and it is nice to see the same mentality reflected at SoutheastHEALTH.” To connect your business with any of these services, contact Katie at (573) 519-4909, or email kwallis@sehealth.org.

B MAGAZINE â&#x20AC;¢ PROGRESS EDITION | 79

In 5 YEARS I will: Complete the sentence. Tear out the page. Tack it up.

MAKE IT HAPPEN.

To all the GAME-CHANGERS. The ENTREPRENEURS. The START-UPPERS and GOAL-CHASERS.

WE CAN HELP: www.BankWithSouthern.com

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SPONSORED CONTENT

SOUTHERN BANK

Expands into the Cape Girardeau market

Southern Bank has seen great expansion over the past 12 months, including expanding into the Cape Girardeau market through the acquisition of Capaha Bank and its six area branches.

The bank also recently completed an acquisition of Southern Missouri Bank and its two branches in Marshfield, Missouri. These latest acquisitions have allowed the bank to grow to over $1.9 billion in total assets and 41 branches in three states. With these expansions, Southern Bank has added knowledgeable bankers to their team and received excellent support from the new communities in which they serve.

The key to Southern Bank’s success starts with their people. The company believes banking is about building relationships by earning trust, and pride themselves on being a community bank with local, knowledgeable team members at each location. In addition, they pride themselves on offering state-of-the-art products that enhance the customers’ banking relationships.

One of these products is the Certificate of Deposit Account

Registry Services (CDARS). With CDARS, customers can work with one financial institution and still have their deposits insured by the FDIC, even if their account balances exceed $250,000. The service allows depositors to work directly with one financial institution, eliminating the need to work with multiple financial institutions. “‘Strong roots, strong branches’ is more than our slogan, it’s our foundation,” says Brian Rivenburgh, market president.

As part of this foundation, Southern Bank is committed to being accessible through their branch locations, mobile applications, website and ATMs. They are dedicated to being dynamic, growing and adapting to meet the ever-changing needs of customers. They are also innovators, offering cutting-edge products to help customers put their hard-earned money to work. They offer the quality products that can be found at the mega banks, without losing their personal connection with customers, remaining true to their roots of service and philanthropy.

Janet Varnon, senior commercial loan officer; Lorie Grossheider senior loan officer; and Brian Rivenburgh, market president of Southern Bank.

B MAGA ZINE • PROGRESS EDIT ION | 81

What started with Stag and Schlitz in 1968, selling 30 SKUs in four southeastern Missouri counties, has grown to become southeast Missouri’s premium beer and beverage wholesaler. Today it operates in 19 counties, representing over 35 beer and beverage suppliers and selling well over 1000 SKUs. Yep, we’re talking Kohlfeld Distributing.

In the past few years, Kohlfeld has more than doubled its warehouse space in Jackson, due to the acquisition of brands like Schlafly, one of the area’s largest craft suppliers.

During their past 50 years in business, Kohlfeld Distributing has diversified its portfolio of brands. In 1984, Kohlfeld Beverage was incorporated because ownership realized that branching out into other beverage categories — particularly the non-alcoholic segment — would be key in its markets. Over 30 percent of Kohlfeld Distributing’s volume is now comprised of soda, juice, tea and water.

Kohlfeld Distributing strives to provide its customers with a superior level of customer service through knowledge, relationships and diverse product portfolio.

“We view our customers as our partners; without them we would not have a business,” says Courtland Kohlfeld, sales manager. “Our success depends on theirs, and that has always been how we direct our focus as a company.”

Thanks to Southeast MO for supporting us over the past 50 Years!

Adult Daycare Now Offered at The Lutheran Home The Lutheran Home, as a nonprofit organization, has since its establishment focused on serving its residents, employees and the southeast Missouri community with compassionate, Christian care.

One way the home does this is through its newly revamped adult daycare program. The daycare, which is open to both residents of the Lutheran Home as well as the larger community, now has its own space in the assisted living area. Here attendees can do crafts and activities, bake, rest and watch television. They can also participate in larger group activities with the residents who live at the home, providing an opportunity to meet new people. Daycare participants also go on outings, such as the recent trip to an azalea farm.

In addition to adult daycare, the home offers short-term overnight respite stays for people who need care while their caregiver may be out of town.

“It’s a need in our community that is going to continue to grow,” says Melody Harpur, director of marketing and community development, of the adult daycare program and respite stays. “It’s a nice thing not only for the person being taken care of, but also for the caregiver, so they are able to rejuvenate.”

You call it having the time of your life.

We call it a Tuesday.

You call it freedom. We call it Saxony Village, where you can have the time of your life, every day.

O

W

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Explore Saxony’s worry-free duplex and apartment options today by scheduling a free tour.

N

SPONSORED CONTENT

Kohlfeld Distributing Celebrates 50 Years of Business

LEASING OPTION NOW AVAILABLE: Saxony Village now offers a leasing option on 2-bedroom, 1-bathroom apartments.

www.saxonyvillage.com (573) 986-6290 • 2825 Bloomfield Rd., Cape Girardeau, MO 63703 82 | B MAGAZINE • PROGRESS EDITION

The right level of care, when you need it most.

Discover a complete spectrum of compassionate care.

The Lutheran Home’s full line of services offer high-quality, convenient care at every stage: Nursing Home | Assisted Living | Home Health | Hospice Outpatient Rehabilitation | Memory Care Adult Day Care | Rehab-to-Home

Providence Place at the Lutheran Home: A unique rehab-to-home experience. www.thelutheranhomecape.com (573) 335-0158 • 2825 Bloomfield Rd., Cape Girardeau, MO 63703

An EYE CARE Partnership for Progress!

The recent consolidation of EYE CARE Specialists, LLC, a multi-specialty ophthalmology practice, and Eye Consultants, Inc., a comprehensive ophthalmology practice established in 1972, creates a premier state-of-the-art ophthalmology group focused on providing the highest quality of specialized eye care to patients in a caring, personalized, and service-oriented environment throughout the tri-state area. This partnership means that our patients, regardless of their eye disorders, receive exceptional medical care across diverse ophthalmic subspecialties.

Eye Consultants, Inc. Consolidates with EYE CARE Specialists, LLC General ophthalmologists and cataract surgeons, Todd Lumsden, DO, FAOCO and John Kinder, MD, FACS, recently became partners of EYE CARE Specialists in January 2018. In 1997, Dr. Lumsden moved to Cape Girardeau to join Eye Consultants, Inc. after completing two residencies in Erie, Penn.

Dr. Kinder returned to his hometown to join Eye Consultants, Inc. in 2000 after completing his residency at the University of Iowa.

Through the Eye Consultants, Inc affiliation, we are pleased to also gain the services of general ophthalmologist and cataract surgeon, Richard Kies, MD, FACS, who has a long-established rep-

utation in Cape Girardeau with over 35 years of experience. In addition, this union also enhances the specialty services we offer through the association of retinal specialist, T. Kim Krummenacher, MD and oculoplastics specialist, Byron Santos, MD. The relationship between the two practices began in 1989 when David Westrich, MD, FACS returned to his hometown of Cape Girardeau, Mo. after completing his vitreoretinal surgery fellowship at Vanderbilt University. He worked for Eye Consultants, Inc. with Dr. Marshall Jung, MD and Dr. C. Nelson Ringer, MD for two years, prior to founding Cape Retinal Surgery Center with low vision services provided

by Michael Katich, OD. In 1998, the name changed to EYE CARE Specialists to encompass ophthalmology specializations by fellowship-trained surgeons including corneal conditions, glaucoma, cataract surgery, and LASIK by corneal and refractive specialist, Shawn Parker, MD, FACS. Subsequently, general ophthalmologist and cataract surgeon Brad Stuckenschneider, MD, FACS, joined the practice in 2003 to become director of a new facility in Poplar Bluff, Mo. Originally from Odessa, Ukraine, Tatyana Metelitsina, MD moved from Chicago to Cape Girardeau in 2014 to fulfill the need for greater vitreoretinal coverage.

EYE CARE Specialists Today Ophthalmologists of our practice collaborate in the area of complex ophthalmologic conditions. Our surgeons perform basic and complex cataract surgery including personalized selection of the best option for each patient, meticulous measurement calculations, provision of premium intraocular lens options, and management of the most complex cataract and intraocular lens problems.

We provide the newest technologies available for vision correction including the VISX STAR S4 excimer laser and the IntraLase™ FS laser.

We pioneered bringing DSEK (Descemet stripping endothelial keratoplasty), a partial-thickness corneal transplant, to patients of the area.

Our retinal surgeons treat diabetic retinopathy, macular degeneration, retinal detachments or tears, macular holes, retinal vein occlusions, uveitis, and eye trauma in addition to numerous other vitreoretinal diseases.

Finally, we also perform various cosmetic procedures to address issues that affect the tissues around the eye and adjacent facial areas (including eyelids and brows).

EYE CARE Specialists is progressive in being hightech, while preserving a service-oriented focus in “caring for the needs of your special eyes.”

B MAGAZINE • PROGRESS EDITION | 83

Rental Land: Cape Girardeau’s Go-To for Wedding and Event Supplies An iconic business, Rental Land will celebrate 53 years next month. For these past five decades, it has been the go-to for wedding and event supplies in Cape County.

New rentals this year include a light feature called Go Bo, chandeliers, rosette tablecloths, new plates and new backdrops. And coming soon are mahogany chairs.

Owner Amy Kasten-Yates says “experience and varied selection” set Rental Land apart from competition. Gesturing towards the large stack of boxes next to her, she adds, “I have 1,500 glasses and 650 plates going out just for one customer tomorrow.”

She works beside her father, Mark Kasten, who also stresses that Rental Land’s helpful and friendly service are just standard.

BUSINESS

BRIEFS EBO MD

EBO MD acquired Cape Urgent Care and Family Medicine located in Cape Girardeau in April, upon Dr. Byron Glenn’s retirement.

MAGNITUDE 7 METALS

New Madrid will soon have its steel mill back with new owner Magnitude 7 Metals, expecting to hire about 450 workers for the plant. The new aluminum smelter will be located at the site of the former Noranda Aluminum plant. The average salary for these jobs is expected to be about $64,000 annually. One line is expected to open in May and the second in November.

PERRYVILLE AREA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

The Perryville Area Chamber of Commerce recently announced a new executive director. Jackie Wengert, who previously served as the director as late as 2004, replaced the outgoing executive director Emily Steele, who resigned March 26.

BANK OF MISSOURI

Bank of Missouri President John M. Thompson will retire later this year. Thompson, who was profiled by the Southeast Missourian recently, has been an active member of the community and served as a member of the SoutheastHEALTH executive board.

THE MISSOURI DELTA MEDICAL CENTER

The Missouri Delta Medical Center announced that Jason Schrumpf, FACHE, MBA, PT, president and CEO of Missouri Delta Medical Center, became a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives (FACHE), the nation’s leading professional society for healthcare leaders.

Uncle Sam wantS yoU to get a Colonoscopy!

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84 | B MAGAZINE • PROGRESS EDITION

ESQUIRE THEATER

The Esquire Theater on Broadway in Cape Girardeau could be in use again with action taken April 16 by the Cape Girardeau City Council that seeks redevelopment proposals and authorizes the city’s Tax Increment Financing Commission to help provide developers financial incentives to redevelop the historic property.

CAPAHA FIELD

Capaha Field in Cape Girardeau will get an upgrade in the coming months with the Cape Girardeau City Council’s decision to spend $1 million on improvements. The field will be home to a new independent wood bat Prospect League team and is also used by Southeast Missouri State University’s baseball team, among other area teams.

SIKESTON JAYCEE BOOTHEEL RODEO

Justin McDaniel rides Smart Water in the bareback riding competition at the Sikeston Jaycee Bootheel Rodeo Wednesday, August 7, 2013, in Sikeston, Mo. McDaniel received a score of 81 for his ride.

The Sikeston Jaycee Bootheel Rodeo announced its entertainment lineup for the annual event Aug. 8-11. The list of performers includes Chris Janson, Brett Young, Justin Moore and Travis Tritt.

THE SOUTHEAST STARTUP PITCH COMPETITION

The Southeast Startup Pitch Competition will wrap up soon when the top five ideas submitted by students are presented at noon May 2 in Glenn Auditorium. The top three proposals will receive cash prizes of $2,000, $1,000 and $500.

For more business briefs, visit B Magazine website at bmagazine.io.

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B MAGAZINE • PROGRESS EDITION | 85

86 | B MAGAZINE â&#x20AC;¢ PROGRESS EDITION

SEMO PORT AUTHORITY — PROGRESS 2017 OFFICE BUILDING ADDITION

HARBOR LEAD TRACK #2 GRADING

Semo Port added three new offices and a small conference room to the existing office building. Putz Construction of Jackson, Missouri, was awarded the contract. This will allow for staff expansion in the future and also provide another small meeting place if needed. Building addition was completed in December 2017.

Semo Port received a Delta Regional Authority grant (along with Port match) earlier this year to do grading work for approximately 3,000 feet of railroad road bed. This project was awarded to Shackelford Construction and Hauling. Work is scheduled to be completed this summer.

MAINTENANCE BUILDING We are in the process of having a new maintenance building built across the parking lot from our office. It will be big enough to hold our Port vehicles and equipment for overnight storage, while also allowing us to work on the vehicles and equipment out of the weather conditions. Zoellner Construction of Perryville, Missouri, was awarded the contract.

US DOT FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES Semo Port applied for two U.S. Department of Transportation funding sources, TIGER and INFRA. The applications were for the Semo Port Loop Tracks Terminal, which would be the next expansion phase for Semo Port Railroad. US DOT awarded 41 projects in the amount of $500 million in the TIGER program; unfortunately, Semo Port’s application was not one of them. We are still awaiting to hear on the INFRA program.

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Night Out! â&#x20AC;¢

HAVE FUN & ENJOY AN EVENING WITH THE GIRLS! â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢ Vendor Market â&#x20AC;¢ Games & Activities Door Prizes â&#x20AC;¢ Live Entertainment Tastings â&#x20AC;¢ Much More

â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢â&#x20AC;¢ For tickets, go to:

women.semissourian.com magazine

A portion of ticket sales go to the Tiger Lilies program at Cape Middle School.