Ingram's April 2023

CLASS of 2023

WILL BLANKENSHIP He just might be the face of an evolving, mobile workforce. Will Blankenship lives in Mission Hills

but works for a Tulsa-based oil and gas exploration company, Samson Energy. He’s also the managing mem ber of an investor group of about 50 people who have combined assets of about $70 million. So why Kansas City? It was a quality-of-life call: “In late 2020, I moved to Mission Hills from Denver to be closer to family, and because my lovely wife, Cary, and I decided we wanted to raise our (three) children in this great com munity,” he says. With his priorities nailed down, he turned his attention to career matters. “My team and I oversee more than 50,000 net acres of oil and gas rights in the Northern D-J Basin of southeast Wyoming,” Blankenship says, and by the end of Fitness site. But blood, it seems, is thick er than sweat. He came back home as part of the third generation of leader ship at Block Real Estate Services, tasked with developing fitness-related aspects of the firm’s multifamily housing strategy. Now specializing in office and indus trial brokerage, Block says that getting a deal done is about much more than the underlying transaction. There is some thing very rewarding; he says, “watch ing companies start in 1,500 square feet and eventually grow to 60,000 square feet and beyond.” His impact on the firm was immediate, earning him the Roger L. Cohen Rookie of the Year award for outstanding transaction volume and community leadership in Kansas City in 2017. For the past four years, he’s had police? Well, Alexander Brown is carry ing some of that burden. The 39-year-old partner at Lathrop GPM isn’t just profi cient in pursuit of justice in such cases, he’s the founder of the firm’s Civil Rights Insurance Recovery Practice. In that role, he says, “I have helped resolve some of the highest-profile law enforcement abuse cases in the country. I founded the practice after securing a $20.5 mil lion insurance-funded settlement for the families of three men in Mississippi who were wrongfully convicted in 1979 and spent a collective 83 years in prison for a rape and murder they did not commit. Sadly, the men died from their injuries.” That case played out over seven years as he litigated law enforcement insurance issues. “Ultimately,” he says, that “result

2023, those assets should be produc ing 10,000 barrels of oil per day. On the investing side, his group is betting on a critical mineral start-up com pany, Ionic Mineral Technologies, which will leverage a next-gen silicon anode material to produce lithium ion batteries that give electric vehic- les longer range and faster charg ing. “My favorite thing to do is to spend time with my family,” says Blankenship, 35. “Family, friends, faith, playing/watching sports, chal lenging the status quo, giving back, and having fun is what life is all about.” He earned a degree in business administration from the University of Oklahoma, with a double major in energy management and finance. the highest office transaction brokerage volume in Kansas City while working toward prized designations in the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors and as a Certified Commercial Investment Member. To date, he’s been involved in 654 transactions and $602 million in gross sales volume and even start ed a pair of small businesses on the side. “The awards and honors I have received,” he says, “serve as further moti vation, inspiration, and determination to help others excel and achieve their own goals.” Outside the office, his agenda for this year includes efforts to support Big Brothers & Big Sisters, the Hot Stiletto Foundation, Renew KC Neighborhoods, and Boys and Girls Clubs of the Greater Kansas City, among others. ed in a 2019 ground-breaking decision holding multiple insurers liable for inju ries sustained by my clients while impris oned.” He’s gone on to secure the two largest wrongful-conviction settlements in U.S. history, including the largest total settlement—more than $60 million paid to four exonerees in Chicago—and the largest settlement for a single exoneree (more than $21 million for an exoneree in California). Last year, my team achieved the largest civil-rights settlements in the history of Kansas, Idaho, and Nevada, with combined awards of $38.7 million, and the largest in Pennsylvania’s history outside of Philadelphia, $8.2 million. In all, the father of two (with wife Kristin) has helped secure settlements nation wide totaling more than $150 million.

ANDREW BLOCK Andrew Block, 34, has a passion for fit ness, and it took him from his native Kan- sas City to Arizona, managing a Planet

ALEXANDER BROWN It’s a question often asked after head line-making reports of abusive behavior by law enforcement: Who’s policing the

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I ng r am ’ s

April 2023

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