Ingram's April 2024

THE LEADERSHIP EDITION | 40 UNDER FORTY | THE HISTORIC SERIES: THE 90S

Ingrams.com | April 2024

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APRIL 2024 • VOLUME 50 , NO. 4

Talk of the Town 7 In the News/Correspondent Business News and Legislative Updates Perspectives 4 Editor’s Note Voters’ rejection of the Royals and

Chiefs’ funding issue had little to do with their loyalty as fans. by Joe Sweeney

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9 Between the Lines

Even schools in Johnson County are losing focus on what matters most. by Jack Cashill

Features 12 Celebration & Solemnity The 2024 Heroes in Healthcare awards also recognized Feb. 14 first responders. by Will Crow 15 Ingram’s at 50: The ’90s

Special Reports 20 The Leadership Edition

11 Reflections

On compensation challenges, finding talent and developing leaders. by Dennis Boone

From trends in leadership develop ment to 40 Under Forty and the example set by our Alumnus of the Year, we explore in detail what lead ership looks like in Kansas City.

Business & Commerce 68 Small Business Adviser

Its’ time to address knowledge transfer as Baby Boomers leave the work force. by Scott Weaver

A decade of transformational change starts with the stockyards closing and ends with a biotech breakthrough.

22 40 Under Forty

For a 26th year Ingram’s spotlights young leaders whose workplace

69 Financial Adviser

Business—banks in particular— need cybervigilance in the Age of AI. by Noah Moravec

achievements and community engagement set them apart. 71 Healthcare & Insurance Quarterly Report The impact of the pandemic onset in 2020 is starting to reveal itself in health-claims data, and if the mental health aspect is an indicator, the true costs of that era will be daunting.

20 On Leadership

To developing business leaders, those in charge must be fully engaged. 22 40 Under Forty Unite The 2024 Class of 40 Under Forty con venes for the photo shoot and fun. 25 40 Under Forty Alumnus of the Year

Leads & Lists 72 Top Area Hospitals and

Medical Centers (By admissions)

74 Top Area Independent Insurance Agencies

Jeff Simon of Husch Blackwell has been a city’s moral compass on social justice.

27 The Class of 2024

Ingram’s 40 Under Forty showcases the rising executive talent in Kansas City.

64 Q&A: Dan Stalp

The demands of leadership today aren’t the same as they used to be.

66 Generations at Work

22

Ingram’s series explores issues of mana ging a mulitgenerational work force.

71 Healthcare Trends

Front cover photo: Matt Kocourek Photography

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EDITOR’S NOTE

by Joe Sweeney

Baseball Isn’t Football, and Vice Versa

The differences in fan appeal, in my view, account for the way voters shot down owner John Sherman’s pro posal to relocate the baseball stadium Downtown. It didn’t help that the team’s positioning had a rushed feel to it—mul tiple site plans, timetables, estimates of community impact (especially on busi ness), and a few other unforced errors creating doubt in the minds of some voters. The nonsense about potentially leaving Kansas City didn’t help, even if the scuttlebutt suggested a new home close by in the suburbs. As for Arrowhead, I believe this would have sailed through had it been presented as a one-issue vote for the Chiefs alone. Let’s face it: The place is a shrine, and you hear its praises sung by every network broadcaster every time there’s a nationwide telecast. But that game-day atmosphere didn’t exist with the first kickoff there in 1972; it had to evolve over decades, and the team has done the right thing to promote a fan experience that goes beyond the 60 minutes of the game clock. It didn’t help to hear thinly veiled threats about “assessing our options” if voters didn’t comply. The right message from 1 Arrowhead Drive should have been: “This is our home, and our fans built it. We’re stay ing no matter what, and we’d like to reward your faith over the years with an even bet- ter experience, but we need your help.” Far from being a potential public gift to billionaires, the $800 million Arrow head upgrade would have been grounded in $300 million from the team and Hunt family. That ain’t chicken scratch. As for new stadiums, Kansas should step up and recruit—as should Clay County. I believe Jackson County officials blew it more than greed from any entity. Wherever the teams land, the Royals benefit from tax incentives should be contingent upon delivering winning teams and seasons. It is refreshing to see signs of progress, but it’s been a long time coming. Way, way too much energy is spent chas- ing tax support instead of fielding a team. Each team is better off going back to the drawing board with stand-alone proposals to address their own interests. The voters and fans deserve that much.

Chiefs and Royals erred in combining their site-renovation funding plan as a straight up-or-down vote in Jackson County. First off, yes, we are a city of bandwagon-jumpers. News flash: so is every other major metro area in the country with a pro sports franchise, with the possible exception of Cubs fans in baseball and Packers fans in football. It’s human nature—people like to affiliate with organizations they see as hugely successful. That said, you shouldn’t draw the wrong inferences from the April 2 debacle of a public vote on extending a county sales tax to finance a new Royals stadium and an Arrowhead makeover. The immediate reaction might be to think that fans here don’t support their teams, and with a margin of better than 58-41 percent opposed, it’d be easy to reach that conclusion. You’d be wrong to think that, on a couple of levels. First, look at the fans. While there’s certainly some overlap, the Royals and Chiefs largely have distinctly separate fan bases. That could be a function of stadium size: Arrowhead has nearly In the history of Kauffman Stadium, going back half a century now and covering more than 4,000 unique home games, the Royals have averaged 22,231 fans per game. Yes, that’s an average. And it comes to less than 60 percent in a stadium with a capacity of 39,700. Think about that. Even with the comparatively lower cost of a ticket to a baseball game, two of every five seats have been empty for more than 50 seasons. And to put that into national context, the Royals for most of the George Brett years were easily outdrawing the rest of the American League—an unbroken 18-year run in that regard, peaking at 153 percent of AL attendance in 1978. But the dropoff since the early 1990s has been profound. Now, go across the parking lot to Arrowhead. I can’t find a comprehensive data set of attendance by game going back to their first season here in 1963, but Pro Football Reference has a pretty robust compilation starting with the 1994 season, and 30 years’ worth of records surely carries some weight. In that respect, the Chiefs have almost always exceeded NFL averages on Sundays. Until the stadium-building craze brought online some enormous venues over the past decade, the Chiefs even led the league in per-game attendance through the late 1990s. Over the past 30 years, they’re beating the NFL’s per-team draw by 15.68 percent, and the average crowd per home game still hits nearly 75,000, even with losing 2,000 seats in the 2010 remodel. twice the seating capacity of The K and host far fewer games. Lots of people who don’t go to Royals games wouldn’t miss the rough-edged pageantry of tailgating and footbal at Arrowhead. More importantly, you have to take into account the way fans here have previously voted— for decades—with their dollars. Let’s be honest: Even with four World Series seasons including wins in 1985 and 2015, people haven’t backed the Royals with the fervor Chiefs’ fans bring to the game.

Fans here support their teams more than they’re being given credit for after a botched vote on stadium funding plans.

Joe Sweeney Editor-In-Chief and Publisher E | JSweeney @ Ingrams.com

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Ingram’s is honored to be the founder and serve as steward of KC’s 40 Under Forty program. Considered among the finest 40 Under Forty leadership programs in America.

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INGRAM’S CELEBRATES 12 TH CLASS OF 40 UNDER FORTY

40 Under Forty Celebrates 15 Years of Leadership

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CORPORATE REPORT 100

Applications Due by Fri, May 31 Ranking in July Edition Continuing a Kansas City tradition, Ingram’s will salute the region’s fastest-growing companies in its 39th annual Corporate Report 100 competition, to be published in the July 2024 edition. The report will measure growth between fiscal 2020 and 2023. Public and private for-profit companies HEADQUARTERED IN KC’S 22-COUNTY METRO AREA, WITH AT LEAST $200,000 IN SALES IN 2020 AND $1 MILLION IN SALES IN FISCAL 2023, ARE ELIGIBLE. Company Name:_______________________________________________________________________________________________________ CEO’s Name:___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Address: ___________________________________________ City: _________ State: _____ Zip: __________________________________________________ Phone: ________________ Fax: ____________ E-mail: ____________________ Web site: _ _______________________________________________________ Communications/Marketing Manager:____________________________________________________________________ e-mail: _ _________________________________________________________ Where is your company headquartered? _ ______________________________ ( Must be “headquartered” in KC’s 22-County Metro Area) GROSS REVENUES Consolidated from all operations/subsidiaries. Please DO NOT round dollars to nearest thousand. Show revenues to decimal . (must have had at least $200,000 in sales in fiscal 2020 and $1 million in sales in fiscal 2023): F i s c a l 2 0 2 0 : _ _____________ _______________________________ F i s c a l 2 0 2 2 : _ ______________________________________ F i s c a l 2 0 2 1 : _ _____________ _______________________________ F i s c a l 2 0 2 3 : _ ______________________________________ BUSINESS SUMMARY Full-time or full-time (equivalent) employees as of 12-31-2023:_______________ Year business was founded: _________________________________________ Describe company’s primary business: _______________________________________________________________ _______ __________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________ _______ __________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________ INDICATE THE REASON FOR YOUR RECENT GROWTH (check one or two): Service New Offices/Location Other:_________ CORPORATE REPORT 100 NOMINATION FORM PLEASE EXPLAIN WHY YOUR COMPANY GREW FROM 2020 THROUGH 2023 (Please be specific. May submit on another page): ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ IS YOUR COMPANY’S PRIMARY ACTIVITY CLASSIFIED AS (check one): Retail trade Manufacturing Services Family owned OTHER LOCATIONS :________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ SIGNATURE: _______________________ _______________ TITLE: ____________________ PRINT NAME:_ ________________________ EMAIL: _____________________ To be considered for CORPORATE REPORT 100, Return or Submit at Ingrams.com or email to Editorial@Ingrams.com by Friday, May 31, 2024 2049 Wyandotte, Kansas City, MO 64108 n Phone 816.842.9994 n Fax 816.474.1111 Wholesale trade Construction Other: IS YOUR BUSINESS (check one): Publicly held Privately owned New Products/Services Acquisitions Marketing

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IN THE NEWS

Tidbits of Business News from Around the Region

MISSOURI CASS COUNTY Raymore Lands Nuuly

field and will work to provide enhanced ped- iatric care to patients in southwest Missouri. In 2023, Mercy announced plans for a similar partnership with Springfield-based CoxHealth to build a pediatric hospital, but it didn’t materialize. Several other hospitals were considered for the partnership, and Mercy ultimately chose to proceed with Children’s Mercy. Based on market research, 27 percent of patients in southwest Missouri must travel outside that region for care. City Buys Parade Park Kansas City has purchased the Parade Park Homes complex in a foreclosure sale and is aligning with Flaherty & Collins Development and Twelfth Street Heri- tage Corporation on a $275 million redev- Correspondent News Updates from the Capital cities

elopment project. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development assu- med control of the housing complex in 2022, and set a foreclosure bid amount nearly $12 million. More than 1,000 new housing units are planned when the project is completed. Cold Logistics Expansion Americold Realty Trust says it will collaborate with Canadian Pacific Kansas City on a new $127 million warehouse connected to the railroad’s network. The announcement did not specify a precise location but said the 335,000-square-foot facility would be in Kansas City and create nearly 190 new jobs. CPKC’s MMX service is North America’s only single-line rail service for refrigerated shippers between U.S. Midwest markets and Mexico. Construction is ex-pected to begin before mid-year.

Urban Outfitters has begun con- struction on a 600,000-square-foot ful- fillment center in Raymore for its women’s wear brand, Nuuly, a subscription rental clothing service. The parent URBN, will invest $60 million in two phases over a five-year period to build its second Nuuly fulfillment and laundry facility. Company officials said it would triple the active sub scriber base and create 750 jobs before 2030. Google announced last month that it would expand its presence in Kansas City’s expanding tech sector with a $1 billion data center at the Hunt Midwest Business Center, along with a skilled-trade career development program in partnership with the North Kansas City School District’s alternative-education STEAM program. The firm said its continued investment in technical infrastructure, including its data centers, would play an essential role in sup porting the company’s AI innovations and growing Google cloud-based business lines. JACKSON COUNTY $5MM Sunderland Gift to KCU Kansas City University’s fund-raising for its new Center for Population Health and Equity building topped $16 million in March, propelled by a $5 million grant from the Sunderland Foundation. The university initially announced its plans to establish the CPHE in January, with the goal of serving Kansas City and Joplin by identifying contributors to health in- equities, including race, socioeconomic and geographic location. The Sunderland grant will assist in the construction and capital improvements of buildings that will house the CPHE on both campuses, KCU said. Children’s Mercy Expansion Children’s Mercy is entering into a new partnership with Mercy Hospital Spring- CLAY COUNTY Google $1B Data Center

Washington | Small Businesses Endorse Prove It Act The U.S. House Judiciary Committee has sent to the full chamber a measure meant to strengthen requirements for government agencies to analyze the impact of regulations on small businesses and increase small-business engagement in the reg ulatory process. The Prove It Act targets loopholes in the Regulatory Flexibility Act that advocates say will help address a lack of compliance by administrative agencies. Josh McLeod of the National Federation of Independent Business, an advocacy group, said approval of the measure by the full House and Senate would reduce onerous regulation burdens and red tape facing small businesses. Jefferson City | Leaner Budget Times Projected State budgets that have drawn from a $5 billion state surplus in recent years could be leaner in fiscal year 2025. House Budget Committee chairman Cody Smith, R-Carthage, has introduced a $50 billion budget proposal, coming in about $2 billion below what Gov. Mike Parson had recommended and $1.8 billion below this year’s. Like Parson’s, the House plan would address K-12 education, school transportation, and boost to $40,000 the minimum pay for teachers. It also would give most state employees raises of 3.2 percent. Further, $700 million would go to work on Interstate 44, with expansion to six lanes in Joplin, Rolla, and Springfield, with $100 million more for rural roads. Topeka | Medicaid Expansion Unlikely in ’24 Gov. Laura Kelly had hoped to push Medicaid expansion through the 2024 Legislature, but House Republicans may have put up a roadblock for this session, rejecting a Democratic effort to send the measure to the full chamber. The committee’s five Democrats were overruled by the dozen Republicans on the panel. Rep. Brenda Landwehr, the Wichita Republican who chairs that committee, said there would be no further meetings on the measure. Supporters say polls show an overwhelming majority of Kansas favor expansion, but committee Republicans said there were concerns about whether expansion’s benefits had been exaggerated, while potential cost projects were understated.

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Kansas City’s Business Media

April 2024

IN THE NEWS

Tidbits of Business News from Around the Region

PLATTE COUNTY Eastern Cargo Picks KC

undeveloped land. Three zoning districts com- prise the development site, which will incre- ase in density from east to west. Nearby, Sunflower Development Group plans to build 240 apartments and 62 townhomes. Is Netsmart Sale Looming? A private-equity intelligence service reports that the private-equity owners of Overland Park’s Netsmart are reviewing bids from buyers for the health-care IT firm. According to PE Hub, majority owners GI Partners and TA Associates began the bid review in early March. In January, news reports said the two owners had pegged a potential sale as being worth $5 billion. Netsmart, founded in New York in 1992, relocated to this area in 2011 after former Cerner exec Mike Valentine became CEO.

appli-cation for a permit that would allow practices and games of cricket on his property. Nearby landowners, however, have objected to increased traffic, dust, and noise, so county commissioners have returned the application to planners to consider modifications. The county received complaints after the landowner constructed two fields on a 30-acre plot near 299th Street and Spring Valley Road. Arizona-based Epic Resort Destin-ations says it will build a theme park in Bonner Springs, not far from the Village West entertainment district. Officials said the groundbreaking date had not been set for Mattel Adventure Park Kansas City, but they expect it to open in 2026. It will include roller coasters and other rides themed after various Mattel products and characters, plus a theater, restaurant and bar, and 18-hole miniature golf course. The company’s first such park is in Glendale, Ariz. WYANDOTTE COUNTY Theme Park Coming

Eastern Airlines says KC will be the new home for its headquarters, a move that will bring 165 jobs. In 2021, Eastern acquired Alta Aero Technic, specializing in maintenance, repair, and overhaul, and launched a passenger-to-freighter design firm called Foxtrot Aero. Those operations will be consolidated with the move, and efforts will be made to expand the number of aircraft operating out of KCI. KANSAS . JOHNSON COUNTY Massive Multifamily OK The Lenexa City Council has approved one of the region’s biggest multifamily construction projects, dubbed Oak IQ Copper Creek. Oak IQ Investments will build the 529-unit complex near Wood- sonia Drive and K-7. Plans call for construc- tion of 15 buildings on about 27 acres of

MIAMI COUNTY Cricket-Field Dispute

The Miami County Planning Com mission, which has already signed off on it once, will reconsider a landowner’s

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BETWEEN THE LINES

Pointed Perspectives & Penetrating Punditry | by Jack Cashill

Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide

Even in the suburban mecca of Johnson County, schools ain’t what they used to be. Whither do you flee when the county to which you fled needs fleeing? This is the uncomfortable question more than a few Johnson County residents find themselves asking. A little background is in order. Many moons ago, when my wife Joan and I moved to Kansas City and started looking for a home, we had one non-negotiable requirement: the house had to be within walking distance of UMKC, where Joan had been hired to teach. Having but one car, we had to reserve it for yours truly should any unknowing fool outside the neigh borhood deign to hire me. What surprised us was how few of Joan’s colleagues lived in our generally affordable and agreeable neighborhood. When we inquired as to why, we got the same cryptic, one-word response over and over again, “Schools.” Over the years, we watched the pattern play out in real time. Our friends would

decline in Johnson County’s most notable asset, indeed the county’s very raison-d’etre , its vaunted “schools.” The test scores coming from the Shawnee Mission School District would seem to back Sullivan up. At Shawnee Mission West, for instance, according to the Kansas Department of Education, only 33 percent of the 10th graders were rated “proficient”— meaning college- and career-ready—in English/Language Arts. For math, that figure was 20 percent. West is hardly an outlier. At Shawnee Mission South, the numbers were 37 percent for English and 30 percent for math. At Shawnee Mission Northwest, 37 percent and 31 percent.

have a child or two, and when the oldest child reached school age, it was time to move. When asked why, we got the same sheepish answer, “Schools.” The destination of choice was inevita bly Johnson County. Our friends had good reason to be embarrassed. For years they had been telling us how the supposedly staid, stuffy, homogenous county to our west offended their hip, inclusive, progres sive values.

At Shawnee Mis- sion East, the his- toric apple of the district’s eye, less than half the stu- dents tested profi cient in math and barely half in ELA. Do the parents know this? I pick on Shaw nee Mission for a reason. Close to the historic heart of Kansas City, it is

Shawnee Mission North teacher Caedran Sullivan has a warning: “Our district,” she says, “is no longer academically focused.”

Like thousands of other Catholics, we spared ourselves this dilemma by sending our kids to parochial schools. These schools are the reason why western Kansas City has remained stable and family-friendly, despite the city’s dysfunctional public school district. What has not remained stable is Johnson County. Many of the Kansas City refugees have refused to assimilate. To make sure everyone knows where they stand, they post yards signs that explain in fulsome detail the things “this house believes in” that the neighbors presumably don’t. If still feeling guilty about abandoning Kansas City, these migrants run for things like school board. A year ago, their newly imported values clashed with indig enous Johnson County values at Shawnee Mission North High School. An advanced placement English teacher, Caedran Sullivan, took to the pages of “The Lion,” an online publication, to say the obvious: “We are being manipulated and intimi dated by a divisive ‘woke’ ideology that is creating a culture of contempt and disrespect.” Sullivan elaborated, “Our district is no longer academi- cally focused.” That lack of focus, alas, has accelerated a

the district Kansas City refugees have found least alien. Olathe? De Soto? Are you kidding? Lately, however, these folks have been taking the Santa Fe Trail to Blue Valley, which, I’m told, is now the district of choice in metro Kansas City. If a district were judged by the sparkle of its buildings, our migrants have found the promised land. If judged by academics, maybe not. As a case in point, students at Blue Valley Southwest, which just opened in 2010, tested at 38 percent proficient in ELA and 36 percent in math. At Blue Valley High, the only high school in the district to test more than 50 percent in anything, less than half the

Jack Cashill Ingram’s Senior Editor P | 816.842.9994 E | Editorial @ Ingrams.com

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BETWEEN THE LINES

students are proficient in math. The problem is not money in either district. In Shawnee Mission, for in- stance, the operating budget has increased a court-driven 68 percent over the past decade—twice the rate of inflation. This, despite an enrollment increase of only about 7 percent. The infusion of new money has not goosed test scores a bit. In fact, scores have declined in both math and English. District-wide, less than 30 percent of high school students are now profi cient in math. At Sullivan’s thoroughly modern Shawnee Mission North, test scores are particularly anemic. The Kansas Policy Institute grades North a “D” on per formance. With only 18 percent of the school’s students proficient in math, the school was lucky to avoid an “F.” If the kids paid as much attention in algebra as they do in Social Justice 101, the school would get an “A.” To prove

In October, Sullivan testified before the state Legislature documenting the details of a curriculum that just 10 years ago would have been fodder for a sitcom. A pronoun policy? School district honchos could not deny her charges. DEI was “woven throughout” the curriculum, they admitted. “To pro- vide you access to anything that falls under DEI would be a monumental task.” As one state after another sweeps DEI into the dustbin of history, Shaw nee Mission stubbornly hangs on. And just as stubbornly, Sullivan hangs on to her job. “If parents knew what goes on in our schools,” she wrote, “the majority would be appalled.” Here’s hoping that the majority still holds.

The problem is not money: In Shawnee Mission, the operating budget has increased a court-driven 68 percent over the past decade— twice the rate of inflation. Enrollment? Only about 7 percent.

their ability to absorb propaganda, 60 or so of the little darlings stormed out of class last spring to protest Sullivan’s op-ed. “Our school should feel safe,” read one sign. “We are skip ping our lessons to teach her one,” read another. “Take action against Sullivan,” read a third from a student blithely indifferent to the First Amendment.

The views expressed in this column, which is also published online in the Heartlander, are the writer’s own, and do not necessarily reflect those of Ingram’s Magazine. Jack Cashill , Senior Editor, Editorial @ Ingrams.com

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REFLECTIONS

by Dennis Boone

At the Intersection of Business and Life

Minimum Wage or Maximum Output?

The economic fundamentals of low-skilled work ers are changing. That’ll soon be the case for higher-level workers. Is your business prepared? One of the advantages of pushing retirement age—it’s not a long list—is that you remember things that some folks might prefer to remain forgotten. A reminder of that popped up recently with a news story foreshadowing widespread adoption of fast-food place robotics in California as the state-mandated minimum wage for workers in those establishments officially hit $20 an hour. It wasn’t so very long ago that the livable-wage crowd in Kansas City was demanding a $15 base for such workers. Well, that’ll be gone with the next wind passing through these parts, as well. Thanks to inflation running at 40-year highs—and no, Mr. President, you don’t get to count a slower rate of inflation as a “reduction”—$15 an hour has become something of a floor for those wage-earners. Breezing through indeed.com as April approached, Kan- sas City-area McDonald’s locations had nearly 500 posted openings—at both the corporate level and in franchisee operations—with many of the customer-facing positions starting at $15 an hour. But here’s the thing about long memories I mentioned earlier: Back in the late 1990s, when the nation was experiencing near historic low levels of unemployment at 4.1 percent (compare that to the current 3.9 percent rate), McDonald’s was advertising for counter help at the princely sum of $10 an hour. It wasn’t doing so in response to pressure from social-justice warriors or knuckling under to federal/state mandates. It was simply react ing to labor market conditions as they presented themselves. If you run that $10 an hour through the magic inflation calculator mill today, you get $18.38 an hour. So anybody still arguing for the $15 benchmark is shortchanging themselves by more than 20 percent—and any business executives clinging to 15 beans per as a pay-scale floor deserve to be up all night worry ing about the survivability of their enterprises. Consider this, though: that labor market with 4.1 percent unemployed came against the backdrop of a workforce of right around 129 million. Today, we’re north of 161 million working Americans and a 3.9 percent jobless rate. The work force is 17 percent bigger; the jobless rate is nearly 5 percent lower. Yet companies coast to coast are still hollering about a short age of qualified workers. Perhaps the laws of supply and demand are being validated right before our eyes with wage scales that haven’t kept up with inflation while the supply of available workers was increasing. Of course, everyone who has studied work-force dynamics for more than 15 minutes knows that the issue in America isn’t the numerical availability of workers; it’s the distribution of skills. We have too many people who can’t do things that businesses

really need done today. (Aside to liberal- arts colleges/programs: Are you listening?) Last month in these pages, we ex plored a rather robust network of K-20, public-supported and private-sector education, job-training, retraining and reskilling programs. Yet even multiple pages of magazine text can only begin to scratch the surface of what’s avail- able out there. It’s a lot. Even with that thriving ecosystem to support work-force development, though, companies still sound the klaxon over a talent shortage. The solution should be pretty simple, as a number of our Best Companies to Work For over the years have demonstrated: If you’re among those feeling the squeeze at XYZ Amalgamated, you need to rethink your operating model. The tech tools and content exist to create XYZ University, your own in-house platform for staff training and develop ment, tailored specifically to develop the skills you need on staff. At scale, most companies outgrow the need for outsourced financial re- porting or marketing services; it simply makes more sense and is more operationally efficient to bring those functions in-house. At the same time, the digital age has made the acquisition of knowledge cheaper and more immediate than ever for the rest of your team. That’s only going to pick up steam. This year’s Employer Series in Ingram’s tackles some of the thorniest challenges facing employers in a pot entially pre-recessionary period. In March, interest alone on the $33 trillion national debt overtook all other areas of federal spending. Anyone who has lived out that dynamic at a small business level knows this will not end well. Irrespective of the party that secures the White House for the next four years, we’re in for a bumpy ride. The best way to apply the shock absorbers in advance is to have a staff that’s trained, engaged, flexible, and cross-functional. If you’re not there yet, it’s time to make your move.

Dennis Boone is the edito rial director at Ingram’s. E | DBoone @ Ingrams.com P | 816.268.6402

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HIGHLIGHT | 2024 HEROES IN HEALTHCARE AWARDS BREAKFAST

A Somber Celebration

Awards Breakfast

The 2024 Heroes in Healthcare awards breakfast, always a cause for celebration, added a more serious aspect to the agenda as Ingram’s invited first-response health-care providers who were on the scene of the Feb. 14 Chiefs parade mass shooting. This year’s awards breakfast on March 26 at Union Station took place just a few hundred feet from the scene of that shooting. Dozens of those who attended to the wounded that day were invited to the festivities as 21 health-care

professionals, staff members and volunteers were recognized for their achievement in administrative, physician, nursing and professional staff roles from many of the region’s leading hospitals, medical centers and private practices. It was a powerful reminder that, whether it’s a time of crisis or a business-as-usual day in health care, Kansas City is blessed with first-rate providers who enhance the quality of life for all.

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THE 21 ST ANNIVERSARY

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1. University Health CEO Charlie Shields reflected on the Truman Medical Center response to the Feb. 14 shootings. | 2. Mary Anne Jackson , left, a 2024 lifetime-service honoree, and Jennifer Watts , a physician who helped lead Children’s Mercy’s post-parade response. | 3. Leonard Pittala , recog nized in the volunteer category, said retirees can make a huge impact as volunteers. | 4. Samaneh T. Wilkinson , head of pharmacy services for The University of Kansas Hospital, accepting her hardware from Ingram’s Joe Sweeney . | 5. The medical first responders from Feb. 14 received a stand ing ovation from the crowd. | 6. Terry Engling of Research Medical Center, an honoree in the professional services category. | 7. Swope Health CFO Naimish Patel was an administrative category selection. | 8. Dr. Charles Rhoades , who oversaw the growth of Kansas City Orthopaedic Institute for 35 years, earned his honors in the lifetime-service category. | 9. Cynthia Phillips of Saint Luke’s Hospital was honored for auxiliary staff service. 10. The sold-out conference room at Union Station. | 11. Howard Kilbride , a lifetime-service winner, reflected on his 40 years at Children’s Mercy. 12. Kevin Wake added a personal account to his volunteer work with sickle-cell awareness. | 12. Kelly Reardon was a professional staff choice for her work with PlayAbilities.

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HISTORIC SERIES: The ’90s

The 1990s: A Transformation Begins …

A REGIONAL ECONOMY THAT HAD BLOSSOMED THROUGHOUT THE 20TH CENTURY IS WITNESS TO GAME-CHANGING EVENTS AS A NEW MILLENNIUM APPROACHES.

by Dennis Boone

I n the mid 19th century, an obscure French writer penned this gem: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr never made it to Kansas City, but had he been here a generation after authoring that declaration, he would have indeed witnessed change that really was change: the first transactions in a five-acre plot of the West Bottoms that would eventually become the Kansas City Stockyards.

One could argue that 120 years later when the 1990s arrived, things revert ed to the norm: The stockyards them selves conducted their last cattle sales in October 1991. For a city that had staked much of its reputation on steak, it was a powerful bit of symbolism: Kansas City strips were no longer originating in Kansas City. It was also a signal moment for a new decade that would produce sweeping

change across this region. Cities build identities, nurture them and see them remade as buildings rise and fall, personalities move into power and fade away, highways disrupt long-standing rhythms of life, and companies come and go—often creating jobs, then sending them away. If you look back 30 years, the sweep of that change becomes evident, not only for what might have been lost, but for

WHERE’S THE BEEF: Cattle processing made Kansas City a national center of commerce for more than a century, but changing econom ics sounded the death knell for the famed stockyards.

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Big Three, Sprint Corp. changed the very face of the regional commercial realty market for office space by opening the first in a series of buildings that would eventually span 3.9 million square feet. Sprint, of course, has become a victim of famous change with its formal acquisi tion by T-Mobile in 2020. Yet we continue to live today with the consequences of Sprint’s construction spree as Wichita based Occidental Management breathes new life—and even more construction— into the Overland Park campus. How about some weather-related change? Twice in this decade, first in 1993, then again five years later, Mother Nature unloaded on the Kansas City region in ways that would prove trans formative for its stormwater manage ment and public safety. Just as the city had experienced the Flood of ’77 on the Country Club Plaza, the intensity of each deluge proved deadly. In addition to lives surrendered, the two storms in the ‘90s inflicted an estimated $150 million in property losses. In response, federal, AGENTS OF CHANGE: Within a single de cade, Kansas City voters elected their first black mayor, Emanuel Cleaver, and the first woman to hold the title, Kay Barnes.

Companies Founded in the ‘90s

Among companies founded in the 1990s that continue to operate in the Kansas City area are, by year of founding: 1990: Capitol Federal Foundation, Children’s Mercy Foundation, Perspective 1992: BHC, Franke Shultz & Mullen, Heart to Heart International, Mega Industries, NIC, Inc., VML 1993: Compass Minerals, International Express Trucking 1994: Euronet Worldwide, United Excel (now StructSure), Stowers Institute 1995: ECCO Select, Rouse Frets 1996: Hoefer Welker, Infinite Energy Construction, ProActive solutions, PURE Workplace Solutions, Truckmovers 1997: Berkowitz Oliver, DLR, EPR Properties, Selective Site Consultants, UTXL, Wagstaff & Cartmell 1998: Alexander Mechanical, Dairy Farmers of America, Finkle + Williams Architecture, Freightquote, Nationwide Transportation & Logistics Services, Propio Language Services, The University of Kansas Health System 1999: Center for Drug-Free Sport, DEG, Emfluence, Intouch Solutions, Rhycom, Sanders Warrant & Russe ll Architecture + Design 1991: Branch Pattern, Excel Construction

what those transformations have done to the character of this metropolitan area and our shared identity. Ahead of The Curve Here’s a socially relevant for-instance: While the nation today buzzes about the hierarchy of power and who retains it, Kansas City was at the vanguard of change in the 1990s: On the front end, voters selected Emanuel Cleaver as the city’s first black mayor; after two terms, he passed the gavel to Kay Barnes, the voters’ choice for their first woman in that office. Save for the four-year run of Mark Funkhouser in that role from 2007 2011, no other white male has occupied the office. Here’s an example from the world of commerce: During the 1990s, on its rise to become the region’s largest private sector employer and one of telecom’s

BUSY SIGNAL: When the Sprint Corp. headquarters campus opened in Overland Park, the aftershocks rumbled throughout the regional office market for commercial realty. By the time construction wrapped up, nearly 4 million new feet of Class A space was available.

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