Ingram's August 2022

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M I S S O U R I ’ S B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E

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Destination Missouri Your Guide to Investing in Missouri

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DESTINATION MISSOURI MARKET OVERVIEW

Welcome to Missouri

LIFE, LEISURE, AND BUSINESS IN THE SHOW-ME STATE: A WINNING COMBINATION.

The law of averages breaks down on the west bank of the Mississippi River, where the industrial Midwest transitions into the agricultural Midwest and 69,715 square miles of the thriving state we call Missouri: n With 6.124 million residents, the Show-Me State has a population density of 87 people per square mile, not far off the national average of 93 per square mile. But in how many of those other states will you find the types of urban amenities— restaurants, theater, the visual arts—that you can easily access here, at comparable levels of excellence? n The median household income in the United States is slightly more than $67,000, and that’s roughly $10,000 high er than in Missouri. But how many residents in those higher earning locales enjoy the housing affordability you can find in Missouri, where median homes go for $110,000 less than the national figure of $339,000? n The average one-way commute time in the United States is 27½ minutes, compared to Missouri’s 23½. (Annual differ ence: 17 hours.) No, you can’t recoup that time differential all at once, but really: how many people in urban areas of this country would love to hit the national average, let alone Missouri’s? Flights to the coast? About three hours from either Kansas City International or Lambert International in St. Louis. Com pare that to the all-day slog that is Los Angeles to New York or Miami to Seattle. Shipping and distribution? More than 80

percent of the nation’s population is within a two-day drive from either of those Missouri metro areas; you’re less than 12 hours from a circle whose circumference reaches from Utah to Pittsburgh and central Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. Within that space are Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Dallas and Houston, Detroit, and New Orleans. We could go on, but you get the idea.Missouri is in themiddle of it all but by no means middle-tier. Centrality, affordability, an exceptional quality of life, great schools, first-rate health-care facilities, spectacular outdoor settings, and venues all are part of what makes the Show-Me State something to show off. All of those assets work to the advantage of businesses oper ating here because that centrality translates into lower-cost structures. The quality of life and educational possibilities attract and hold employees here, as does the affordability, particularly for those pursuing the American Dream of home ownership. (And with prices and interest rates where they are in mid-2022, that dream is more elusive than ever inmany parts of the country.) Layered over that are world-class performing-arts venues and museums, award-winning restaurants and vibrant entertain ment districts, championship-level sports at the professional, major college and small-college levels, and much, much more. Thestate thatboasts thenation’sNo. 1-ranked lake-lifeasset— the fabulous Lake of the Ozarks—invites you to come on in; the water’s fine. And what’s on dry land isn’t shabby, either.

Regional Publications

Editor-in-Chief and Publisher Joe Sweeney | JSweeney @ Ingrams.com Editorial Director Dennis Boone | DBoone @ Ingrams.com Vice President of Sales Michelle Sweeney | MSweeney @ Ingrams.com Art Director Traci Faulk | Production @ Ingrams.com Copy Editor Nancie Boland | Editorial @ Ingrams.com

Ingrams.com MISSOURI’S DIGITAL BUSINESS MEDIA

Ingram’s (ISSN #1046-9958) is published monthly by Show-Me Publishing, Inc. at 2049 Wyandotte, Kansas City, Missouri, 64108. Price: $44.95 for one-year, $69.95 for 2 years and $99.95 for 3 years. Back issues are $5 each. Periodical postage paid at Kansas City, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Please email address changes to JRyan @ Ingrams.com, fax to 816.474.1111 or mail changes to Ingram’s Magazine at 2049 Wyandotte Kansas City, Missouri, 64108.

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Destination MISSOURI DestinationMissouri.com

CONTENTS | 2022 Edition

FEATURES 6 Did You Know? Tidbits About the Show-Me State

THE MISSOURI EDITION 43 Top 25 Brands in Missouri A company’s brand is the gateway to a consumer’s perceptions of quality, service, price and more. Here are 25 Missouri-based companies whose brands have not only the power to influence buying decisions but are Ingram’s Editor’s choice as the most powerful brands in Missouri. 54 50 Missourians You Should Know Bankers and builders, CEOs and small- business advocates, rail magnates and researchers—you’ll find all of them, and many more, in our 50 Missourians You Should Know for 2022. Hailing from the small towns of the Show-Me State to its biggest cities, these executives and leaders

8 Missouri Sports: The Emerging Soccer Capital of America 10 Missouri on the Move: An Emerging Powerhouse in Logistics 12 Missouri’s Innovation Ecosystem REASONS TO CHOOSE 15 Transportation and Infrastructure 18 Cost of Living 21 Real Estate Values and Testimonials 24 Education and the Workforce 26 Health Care and Community Services BUSINESS CULTURE 29 A Productive Work Force 30 Business Climate and Economic Conditions 31 Leading Industry Sectors 32 Corporate Headquarters and Largest Private Employers

demonstrate what it means to apply Missouri values to their work and life.

LIFESTYLES 33 Quality of Life

34 Hospitality and Tourism 36 Entertainment and Culture 38 One of America’s Best Recreational Lakes and Regions:

Table Rock Lake and the Greater Branson Area

M I S S O U R I ’ S B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E

Cover photo by Jonathan Tasler

DESTINATION MISSOURI MARKET TIDBITS

• Where did the “Show-Me State” moniker originate? Willard Duncan Vandiver, a member of the congres- sional delegation in 1899, is credited with declaring, “I’m from Missouri, and you’ve got to show me.” • Auguste Chouteau, a French trader, founded St. Louis in 1734 and was also one of the first to settle in what is now Kansas City.

• Far more powerful than the San Francisco disas- ter of 1906, the 1811 earthquake centered near New Madrid, Mo., was the strongest ever measured in the U.S. It shook the ground as far as 1,000 miles away. • Often portrayed in history books as a Kentuckian, pioneer Daniel Boone lived longer in Missouri than in any other state; and was buried here in 1820, and his grave was relocated to the Bluegrass State in 1845. • The Father of Kansas City Barbecue was Henry Perry, who began selling smoked meats in the Garment District in 1908. The old rail car that became his business helped train a generation of pitmasters who fanned out across a growing city. • A Missouri meteorological oddity: the Benton County burg of Warsaw (pop. 2,380) has the lowest tempera- ture ever recorded in the state: minus-40 degrees, on Feb. 13, 1905. Defying the odds, Warsaw also set the state’s high-temperature record on July 14, 1954, topping out at 118 degrees.

• Saint Genevieve, tracing its roots to 1735 is the state’s oldest community.

• Harry Truman is the only U.S. president born in Missouri.

•  Saint Louis University is the oldest university west of the Mississippi River; it received its charter from the state in 1832. •  An ice cream vendor at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis ran out of cups and asked a waffle vendor to help by rolling up waffles to hold ice cream. Result: The world’s first ice cream cone. Attendees to the fair also witnessed the introduction of iced tea and Dr. Pepper.

• Tiny Hartville, in Wright County, with 640 residents, is the population center of the United States.

IN MORE THAN 325 OFFICE, INDUSTRIAL, RETAIL, MEDICAL OFFICE, AND MULTIFAMILY DEVELOPMENTS OVER 45

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DID YOU KNOW?

• Culturally, St. Louis is considered by many the east- ern U.S. city that’s furthest west, while Kansas City is regarded as the western city that’s furthest east.

• Kansas City has more miles of freeway lanes per capita than any other U.S. metropolitan area with at least 1 million residents. • By some counts, the Show-Me State has more than 6,400 caves, earning the alternate label “The Cave State.” In the 1800s, some of those yielded saltpeter, a key ingredient in the manufacture of gunpowder.

• St. Louis is known as the Gateway to the West, and commemorated that distinction by setting the final pieces of the Gateway Arch in place in 1963. • Aunt Jemima pancake flour was invented in St. Joseph and in 1899 became the nation’s first ready-mix food sold commercially.

• The state capitol building in Jefferson City is the sixth in Missouri history. Previously, St. Louis and St. Charles served as capital cities. The current building was completed in 1917 after fires in 1837, and 1911 burned the previous structures.

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Missouri’s Business Media

2022

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Missouri Sports: The emerging soccer capital of America is . . . Missouri? Who knew?

T here is a good argument to be made that the Show-Me State is indeed demonstrating a power flex with the growing appeal and influence in the sport that—by a wide margin—draws more fans than any other. On four continents—Europe, South America, Africa, and Asia—the sport draws from a combined fan base of 3.5 billion people, with 250 million active players (professional and amateur/recreational). This year, Missouri upped its game by earning designation as a host city for the FIFA 2026 World Cup series, with Kansas City beating out far larger U.S. sites for an honor that officials call, appropriately, game-changing. “Using past World Cups as a measure ment, having about six games here would have an economic impact of about $620mil- lion, more than doubling that of the pro jected $260million impact that a Super Bowl would bring,” said Kathy Nelson, whose org- anization spearheaded the drive to win

KC Street Car The World Cup news is just the latest in a generation-long series of developments that have raised the profile of soccer in the Midwest broadly and in KC specifically. Beginning with the purchase of the Kansas City Comets by the founding partners of Cerner Corp. nearly 20 years ago, soccer infrastructure began a serious facelift. In 2011, the pro franchise rebranded fromtheComets toSportingKansasCity and opened what is now Children’s Mercy Park still regarded a decade later as one of the best fan-experience venues in the U.S. Under development, just a few blocks east of that stadium is the $75 million National Training and Coaching Development Center, plan- World Cup host status. “The KC area would host tens of thousands of international visitors, and the broadcast viewing audience would total around 1 billion worldwide.” “We’ve never seen anything like this and will never see anything like this again,” Nelson said in the run-up to the announcement.

ned as a locus of player and coaching development. US Soccer has agreed to a 20 year lease firmly cementing the Kansas City area among America’s soccer elites. St. Louis City SC starts play in 2023 as a newMajor League Soccer expansion fran- chise. It will be at home in Centene Stadium, a 22,500-seat, $457.8 million project now under construction. Women’s socccer, aswell, is taking off, with the Kansas City Current starting out in the National Women’s Soccer

League in the 2021 season. It will play in a $117 million soc- cer-specific riverfront stadium Downtown. The ‘Other’ Football While soccer continues to build its fan base, Missouri already can lay claim to preeminence in American football, thanks to the Kansas City Chiefs.

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The National Football League franchise, which moved here from Texas in 1963, earned im mediate recognition for on- field excellence in the years before the first Super Bowl— and in fact, represented the old American Football League in Super Bowl I back in 1967. A long drought of 50 years followed before the Chiefs made it back, but they did it in fine fashion, defeating the San Francisco 49ers with an epic fourth-quarter comeback to become world champions after the 2019 season. The team made back to-back appearances but lost the 2021 Super Bowl to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and came within a hair of a third straight appearance before losing to Cincinnati in the AFC championship game this past season. Despite the final-game disappoint ments of the past two seasons, the Chiefs’ recent run of excellence has made them the only team in more than 100 years of NFL history to host four straight conference championship games. That has gone a long way to expanding their fan base across Mis souri—indeed, the nation. And those goes for football-starved fans in St. Louis, which lost its NFL bragging rights when the Rams moved to Los Angeles after the 2015 season. That success has made the Chiefs one of the hottest tickets in town. Save for the eminently forgettable 2020 season played largely without fans in the stands (thanks, COVID!), the team has averaged roughly 74,000 in game-day attendance for a decade. So e K a n s a s C i t y t . L o u i s C a r d i n a l s

popular a draw is tailgating at Arrowhead Stadium, fans will show up with smoking units in tow, spending the night before and most of Game Day prepping for a barbecue bonanza—and many of them are there for that experience alone, never setting foot inside the stadium. Baseball For a brief, shining stretch in the mid-2010s, Kansas City was just about the hottest thing going in pro baseball, breaking a 30-year championship series dry spell with back-to-back World Series appearances in 2014-15, winning it all in six games the second time around. That made the Royals the talk of the sports world, but in St. Louis, the Cardinals have appeared in the World Ser- ies 19 times in their 118 seasons, made the playoffs 31 times, and won it all an impressive 11 times. Things have cooled a bit since the last Series title in 2011, but the Cards have nonetheless posted winning seasons every year since 1999. College Sports Missouri—and specifically, the Univer sity ofMissouri—rocked the collegiate foot- ball world in 2010 by declaring its intent to join the Southeastern Conference after more than a century of affiliation with the old Big Eight/Big XII and its predecessors. That put the Show-Me State’s premier Division I athletics program in the spotlight, with Saturdays in autumn challenging some of the nation’s elite. How elite? The SEC has produced the Bowl Series champion in 12 of the past 16 seasons, and from 2006-2012, it won seven straight. That’s the level of excellence that Missouri fans are treated to in football, and the university’s leadership firmly believed that taking the program to new heights would require going head-to-head with that level of competition. The state also boasts two other Div ision I programs, both in the Football Championship Division—Missouri State University in Springfield and Southeast Missouri State. And there is a host of NCAA Division II and National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics programs that bring football to small campus venues across the state. Perhaps the most prominent

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collegiate athletics program is in Maryville, where Northwest Missouri State has long been an annual contender for that division’s football championship. The Bearcats have made it to the Division II championship game 10 times, winning six of those, including back-to-back titles twice—in 1998-99 and again in 2015-16, a stretch that includes three out of four years at No. 1. Recently, however, Northwest has be come a formidable force on the basketball court, as well, with three straight national titles in basketball, a Division II record. Those programs are part of a basketball ecosystem that features five Division I programs—Mizzou, the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Missouri State, Southeast Missouri State, and Saint Louis University. On the Ice Missouri even has a solid foothold in the National Hockey League, with the St. Louis Blues—the only pro team at that level between Columbus, Ohio, and Denver. As such, there’s a large regional fan base for the Blues that extends well beyond the St. Louis metro area. The fans waited nearly 50 years to see their team crowned champions, following three straight years of runner up finishes from 1968-70. But their loyalty was rewarded in 2019 with a Stanley Cup trophy in the only seven-game title series since 2011. Missouri also boasts several minor-lea gue pro hockey teams, including the Kansas CityMavericks and NCAA hockey programs at Mizzou, Missouri State, Maryville Uni versity, and Lindenwood University, the lat ter two both in the St. Louis area.

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2022

Missouri on the Move An emerging powerhouse in logistics

E xecutives across the nation who are tasked with directing their companies’ next strategic choices for distribution would be well advised to study Missouri and think twice before looking elsewhere on the map. What should have the Show-Me State top of mind in their deliberations?  We’re centered. The population center for a nation with 330 million people is smack-dab in Missouri. That means ship ping is closer to more customers and sup pliers, in all directions, than virtually any other state. Half of all U.S. households and manufacturing concerns are within a sin gle-day’s drive, as are eight of the nation’s top 20 fastest-growing metro populations.  We’re built . Infrastructure is bak- ed into the distribution cake in Missouri, which has multiple four-lane interstates crossing the landscape, rail access to Mex ico, Canada and both coasts, Mississippi river ports with lock-free access to the Gulf of Mexico, and a pair of airports sup porting international traffic.  The Bigs are here . The roster of America’s major logistics companies in cludes Amazon, Walmart, Dollar General, General Mills, Toys R Us and Kraft Foods. I. Introduction

Every one of them has major distribution centers in Missouri, and several of them are shipping from multiple sites.  Business? Yeah , we get it. Cost structures in Missouri don’t just blow away those found in major population centers, they’re even lower than you’ll find in most other Midwestern states.  Fill ’erup : Evenwiththephased fuel- tax increased approve by the General Assem bly in 2021, gas and diesel taxes in Missouri are lower than you’ll find in 37 other states.  Ready to work . With almost 300,000 workers in the transportation and logistics industry, Missouri boasts a growing, diverse population, and one with a strong work ethic. In all, it’s a powerful argument for basing a distribution operation inMissouri. “We are really starting to see Missouri’s advantage,” says Mark Long, managing di rector of the Newmark Zimmer commer cial realty firm in Kansas City. “One thing I look at that has been indicative of that, the Kansas City Southern merger (with Cana dian Pacific) is an indication of our truly strategic location, where all of these supply chain and transportation-related benefits come to light.”

What Missouri has going for it, espec ially with the major metro areas relative to their coastal counterparts, is lots of space for expansion, Long and others in that field note. “You have rail, transportation infra structure, location in the middle of the country, you have a unique work attitude here that actually rings loud when people are considering the type of work force they want to fill their factory or building,” Long said. “That, combined with the avail able ground and the infrastructure avail ability, means we do stand to grow.” Growth in the logistics sector over the past decade in particular has made it a pil lar of the Missouri economy, contributing $11.6 billion to the state’s GDP. The Missouri State Freight Plan, pro duced by the Department of Transpor tation, shows that more than half of the state’s economy is affected through the direct movement of freight or the use of freight systems. The good news for the state is that national projections show a surge of growth in U.S. freight movement. Rail commodity value, for example, is forecast to hit $790 billion in 2030, an increase of 70 percent from 2011, when it stood at $465 billion. But even that pales compared to the $1.2 trillion—with a “t”—in trucking commodity value, up from $710 billion a decade ago. And air freight is expected to have bumped 142 percent by then, hitting $27 billion in value. Inland waterway values, though a smaller share overall, are still projected to carry a healthy $15 billion in value. While centrality is good and infrastruc ture is better, nothing gets shipped without the right work force. Again, that’s where Missouri’s strengths become evident based on a combination of skills, supply and work ethic. Already, the state’s logistics work force is the second-largest among the eight bordering states, and its transportation and warehousingwork force is the fourth largest. Filling the pipeline for prospective workers in that sector are a dozen colleges

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LOGISTICS

and universities that with academic pro grams in logistics and supply-chain man agement, both for degree seekers and those needing certifications for specific warehousing and shipping careers. All of those factors have helped make Missouri increasingly competitive as a cen ter for logistics, and that competitiveness has shown up in the markets for industrial space. Even before the pandemic onset in 2020, e-commerce was driving growth in that market and the footprint for large warehouses jumped from 100,000 square feet to more than 1 million in some cases. The pandemic has further altered con sumer purchasing patterns, and the huge surge in on-line ordering has made it more crucial than ever for shippers to reach the biggest numbers of shoppers in the short est amount of time. The population dynamics of Missouri make for an interesting case study: While the St. Louis MSA is considerably larger in population, Kansas City is the bigger stand alone city, and is now considered an upper tier logistics hub with in theMidwest, com pared to the middle-tier status of St. Louis. Some of that might be attributed to ge ography: In Kansas City, there is no short age of highway passage across the state line into Kansas there; traffic flows much more freely there than in a communitywith choke points across one of the nation’s biggest riv ers. Another may be the much more busi ness-friendly climate of Missouri’s western neighbor, as opposed towhat companies find in the considerably more demanding tax cli mate of Illinois, across the river in St. Louis. Site Selection Group, which ranks the nation’s top logistics markets, put both metro areas in its Top 20 nationwide in 2021, with KansasCity’s growthpropelling it up five spots to No. 16, surpassing St. Louis at No. 18. The ranking criteria included population within a one-day drive, international airport and in terstate highway access, distribution worker head counts and concentrations, and the availability and cost of industrial real estate. Area Development , a publication that assesses commercial realty market streng- th, was even more impressed ranking Kansas City fifth nationally, behind Chi cago, Los Angeles, Dallas and Atlanta. That was the same ranking assigned by Freight Cowboy , putting Kansas City be hind only New York, Houston, Minneapo lis and Dallas.

KEY INFRASTRUCTURE: 20 private railroad owners 5,300 miles of railroad, including 4,670 of Class I 5,500 at-grade highway-rail crossings 141 intermodal facilities

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414 million

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$590.4b

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KEY INFRASTRUCTURE: 33,832 miles of state highways, including 1,380 miles of interstate 10,600 public and private truck parking spaces

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KEY INFRASTRUCTURE: 3 primary air cargo facilities at airports located within Foreign-Trade zones

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KEY INFRASTRUCTURE: 1,050 miles of inland waterways along 4 federally-designated marine highways 16 public port authorities, eight locks and dams, more than 120 river transload terminals

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KEY INFRASTRUCTURE: More than 25 major pipelines with 20 operators

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Source: Missouri Department of Transportation

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Missouri’s Innovation Ecosystem The Show-Me State has an impressive array of organizations, public and private, focused on creating technologies and processes that will drive the economy of the future.

I nnovation, broadly understood, might be a little too broad to describe as an attribute that helps define a state. But if you don’t try to eat the elephant at once, and instead look at individual bites, it soon becomes clear that Missouri has a robust web of interconnected pub licly funded, private-sector operated and university-level research entities. While they don’t all march to the same beat, they are responding to a shared under standing that if the state is to remain an attractive place to own and operate and grow a business, innovation in many forms must be the operating standard. Through various cabinet-level agencies and departments, that clarion call is an swered with public dollars, some directed toward enterprises that promote innova

tion; some steered to research universi ties, and some going directly to fledgling companies to help get their visions off the ground. Through private investment, espe cially from foundations, dollars are steered toward programs that foster innovation and provide resources for start-ups and the next generation of “gazelles” to thrive. Across a network of more than a dozen state-funded universities, new products and produc tion processes are being researched that can create new industries and completely transform existing ones. The beauty of that innovation ecosys tem is that there is no one entity pulling all the levers—each part of the system oper ates, sometimes independently, often col laboratively, to drive progress and growth. Here are some of the state’s high-profile ventures, and some whose work may soon earn that level of recognition. Cortex Innovation Community

venture by Washington University in St. Louis, BJC Healthcare, the University of Missouri-St. Louis, Saint Louis University, and the Missouri Botanical Garden. From the wreckage of a blighted, 200 acre parcel and an abandoned warehouse, its backers have created the largest region al anchor of a growing ecosystem of inno vative startups and established technology companies. Since its founding in 2002, Cortex has developed 2 million square feet that are home to 430 tech-commercial companies, university academic units, residential developments, and additional supporting retail. Those entities, com bined, have 6,000 employees working within the district, with a goal of building on the original bioscience focus to include all technologies today. And it’s still growing: By the time the site is fully built out, it will double from its present size to more than 4 million square feet of new and rehabilitated facili ties, $2.5 billion of facility investment, up to 15,000 permanent jobs, and more than 600 companies. T-REX A few miles to the east of Cortex, near the banks of the Mississippi River, stands

KC Street Car tionally and internationally for its work in technology commercialization. It was founded as a collaborative In St. Louis, Cortex is a 20-year-old innovation hub that has earned recognition na

Innovation in Action | Cortex, an innovation hub in St. Louis, has helped ignite growth among start-up businesses by providing work space, network ing and other vital resources for entrepreneurs.

Ingrams.com

INNOVATION

ing Missouri IDEA Fund and the Missouri Technology In centive Program. MTC has invested nearly

Aspiring business owners can either call or go on-line to use the agency’s Re source Navigator to help establish con nections that can assist with financial planning and borrowing needs, sales and marketing strategies, technical issues and product development, operations, educa tional resources and information about government contacting opportunities. KCSourceLink Like it’s statewide cousin, KCSource Link connects entrepreneurs to resourc es—coaches and mentors, funding and educational tools—and also helps them navigate events like Global Entrepreneur ship Week. The program uses data to mea sure outcomes, identify gaps in resources and connects companies to various grant writing organizations and government of fices.

$44 million in over 135 ear ly-stage, high growth tech companies, which have lev eraged those contributions into more than $1 billion in additional private capital. A distinguishing feature of MTC is its reach across the breadth of the state. Through its Innova tion Center Program, which com mercializes research, discoveries and innovations by working closely with various universities. At innovation centers across they state, program participants enjoy business counseling and development guidance, plus financial assistance to move their concepts from the lab or garage into for mal business settings, with a goal of pro ducing more high-paying jobs. In addition to St. Louis and Kansas City, the in novation centers operate in Cape Girardeau, Columbia, Joplin, Kirksville, Rolla, Spring

On Point | The Sharptooth Boardroom is a video/audio conferencing venue at the T-Rex Innovation Center, an incubator for innovative start-ups in the St. Louis region.

T-REX, a non-profit innovation and entre preneur development center that attracts in novation to Downtown and the urban core of St. Louis. With co-working space, tech nology incubator, and entrepreneur reso- urcecenter,itnowservesmorethan400found ers, developers, designers, mentors, edu- cators and others. With a motto of “Building the futureof St. Louis, one start-upat a time,” T-Rex has facilities where entrepreneurs can operate in a reduced-risk environment, with lower capital and operating costs. More than two dozen start-ups cur rently call the T-Rex site their home, and 10 others that found their bearings there have moved on to other locations. Among those housed there are innovative firms ex ploring private-jet mid-air refueling tech- nologies, greenhouses on a classroom scale to introduce students to farming and agricultural concepts, fintech and home-health enterprises and wireless rail car monitoring systems. Missouri Technology Corporation The Missouri Technology Corpora tion is a public-private partnership tasked with supporting entrepreneurship and supporting new and emerging high-tech companies. With its strategic investments in tech-based Missouri companies, MTC funds several statewide programs, includ

field and St. Joseph. MOSourceLink Expanding on its success in the Kansas City area with KC SoureLink, this UMKC - s p o n - sored initiative helps entrepre neurs and small businesses inMis- souri by connecting them to elements across the entrepre

neurial spectrum.Many of those are non-profit organizations that provide business-building services to more than 6,000 Show-Me State entrepreneurs each year.

New Frontiers | The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency has been a St. Louis fixture for 70 years, but its new $1.75 billion campus has been transformational, putting the region in the higher echelon of intelligence analytics for the federal government.

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Missouri’s Business Media

2022

INNOVATION

eFactory Nearly a decade ago, Missouri State University in Springfield became home to eFactory, which serves entrepreneurs and business owners throughout the south west corner of the state. It operates pro grams designed to support businesses of all sizes, from pre-production entrepre neurs to large employers seeking to solve the work-force challenge riddle. It’s part of the IDEA Commons dis trict, MSU’s vision for an urban innova tion park. Its Code Labs is an immersion training program formed to meet the needs of employers and startups seeking qualified software developers. And its Youth Coding League is the only extra curricular coding program designed for middle school and junior high students, introducing students to computer science by combining project-based learning with a competitive youth sports model. Digital Sandbox KC Expert feedback is always vital to startups, but Digital Sandbox KC takes the next crucial step by providing funding of up to $20,000 for companies to help innovate and commercialize their research and production. That

It encompasses more than 240 enti ties that make up the regional ecosystem in an 18-county area serving both Mis souri and Kansas, and it curates an on line directory of support organizations and information on how to connecting with them to promote collaboration and system-wide efficiency. KCSourceLink also compiles a comprehensive business calendar. IT Entrepreneur Network In 2008, the St. Louis IT Coalition and Innovate St. Louis joined forces to create the ITEN, shorthand for the IT Entrepreneur Network. As the found ers like to say, it’s “designed by entre preneurs for entrepreneurs.” ITEN is a nonprofit focused on the needs of the IT ecosystem in Missouri, offering instruc tional programs, events, and access to resources that help tech startups get up and running. More than 220 start-up ventures are operating under the ITEN umbrella, which includes more than 120 volunteer mentors who can coach participants through each step of the process, from concept through design, launch, capital formation and funding and, importantly, rapid scaling. That thought leadership helps entrepreneurs laser in on comple tion of the most essential, efficient tasks and processes. A goal is to eliminate barriers to rapid growth by providing access to in vestors, service providers and qualified talent. The best part? It requires neither payment nor demands an equity stake in exchange for its services. Codefi Rural Foundation Another effort to expand business de velopment into every corner of the state, the Codefi Foundation on Rural Innovat- ion seeks to accelerate economic develop ment outside the major population cen ters. It offers access to education, mentor ing, technology and capital, and provides a higher level of Internet and tech connec tivity to promote business growth. Recent initiatives include a grant funded effort across southern Missouri involving a new pre-accelerator and ven ture investor network, plus an expansion of the Redhawks Startup Fellowship to steer more highly qualified interns and prospective hires to startups.

ming focuses on Kansas City, but with a reach that is often national, even global. It’s the business and civic legacy of the late Ewing Kauffman, who made his for tune in the pharmaceutical realm before becoming an enduring figure to this region by leaving the major-league Kansas City Royals to the community after his death in 1993. Today, the foundation funds its pro gramming through the $2.6 billion in assets grown from the bequest Kauffman made to spur business growth in the region. While the foundation’s work in public policy research and advocacy carries na tional implications, much of its program ming is focused at the grassroots level. Just one example: 1 Million Cups. It grew out of the idea that entrepreneurs discover solutions and engage with their commu nities over a million cups of coffee, and launched the effort a decade ago. It helps entrepreneurs around the country build networks and collaborations with edu cational and inspirational programming. And, true to the benevolent spirit of Ew ing Kauffman himself, it’s entirely free.

includes access to technol ogy, experts who can assist with market validation, and prototyping and

beta testing services. It also provides proof -of -concept support for proj ects that will gen erate additional in vestment and jobs for Missouri. The Ewing Marion Kauff man Foundation Last, though cer

tainly not least of the business-development as sets in Missouri is the Kauff man Foundation, which admin isters a wide range of research and entrepreneurial development program

Still Giving | Ewing Kauffman, memorialized in this sculpture with his wife, Muriel, left his considerable wealth to the foundation that bears his name and works to promote entre preneurship and innovation in Missouri, across the nation and around the world.

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DESTINATION MISSOURI REASONS TO CHOOSE

Transportation and Infrastructure

REGARDLESS OF TRANSIT MODE, GETTING FROM A TO B IS A MULTIPLE-CHOICE TEST.

We’d all still be eating fish and chips and drinking warm beer if the lanterns that touched off Paul Revere’s ride had to be hoisted in 21st-century Missouri rather than 18th-century Boston. That midnight ride would have to start with some clarification: “One if by land? What? You mean rail? Highway? And two if by sea—it includes rivers, right? And what about flight?” Such are the choices afforded to mod- ern-day motorists, shipper, and logistics professionals who have a wealth of trans- portation options to choose from when traversing Missouri for leisure, employ ment, or distribution. Missouri’s centrality has been well- documented for the economic advantages it bestows upon the state, but what are the pieces of the infrastructure and ecosystem that allow companies to cap italize on that edge? It starts with multiple interstate highways, which handle the bulk of the freight passing through the state, leaving it or arriving for last-mile distribution. It continues with 4,800 miles of Class I railroad lines crisscrossing the state and—importantly—running north and south. A further dimension is by air, with (cargo shipments through two international airports). And it concludes with water-borne freight as the Missouri River flows from Kansas City to St. Louis, where it feeds into the famed Mississippi. Those assets, in greater depth: Interstate Highways. Two of the interstate system’s most important routes run through Missouri. Dubbed the North American Superhighway in the days before NAFTA became the infinitely-less pronounceable acronym USMCA, Inter- state 35 cuts through the northwest corner of the Show-Me state. It ties the Kansas City region directly to cargo flowing between Mexico and Canada. The other is Interstate 70, running from Washington west to western Utah before linking to highways into major west-coast cities.

Meeting the Need | The Stan Musial Bridge in St. Louis, one of the newer examples of major infrastructure upgrades in Missouri, attests to the state's commitment to system improvements.

But the action doesn’t stop there: As I-35 turns northeast to Iowa and on to Minnesota and the Great Lakes, I-29 branches off in Kansas City and makes its way to the Canadian province of Manitoba. A slash of asphalt from southwest Missouri running northeast, Interstate 44 connects St. Louis to Oklahoma and Texas, then resumes southwest. And linking the state to the Gulf of Mexico, Interstate 49 starts in Kansas City and heads south through Arkansas and Louisiana. With rare exceptions, all offer four lane, divided-highway connections that reduce travel times and fuel consumption and improve safety for truckers and those in passenger vehicles alike. Railways. Last fall, a new future for North American rail shipping was unveiled, and Missouri was at the heart of it: Kansas City Southern Railway merged into Canadian Pacific, the second-largest rail company in America’s northern neighbor. The $32 billion deal was hailed as a “transformative” change in the parent’s freight-rail business, creating a nearly 16,000-track-mile network that will function as the first U.S.-Mexico Canada system. None of the six other

Class I railroads crossing the U.S. has an equivalent reach. Kansas City will retain the U.S. headquarters for the firm, and the Midwest will see a huge amount of cargo that makes its way from the north deep into Mexico and ports to the Gulf and Pacific. Meanwhile, Canadian traffic will cross the continent from Vancouver in British Columbia to St. John’s in the province of Newfoundland. Companies that benefit from those assets in 2022 can thank generations of pioneers who carved out the trails that became roads and laid the tracks for those railways. Even then, Missouri played a vit al role in the nation’s westward expansion, especially as the intercontinental railroad system became a thing in 1869. As a result of those visionaries, Kansas City today processes more rail tonnage every year than any other city on the continent and moves more rail cars than any city except Chicago. St. Louis, enjoying many of those same attributes, is the nation’s third-largest rail hub. Airports. As it prepares to unveil its new single-terminal design, Kansas City eagerly anticipates the benefits of an inter national airport that could potentially

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DESTINATION MISSOURI REASONS TO CHOOSE

Each has a healthy load of air freight to process; KCI ships nearly 100,000 tons of cargo each year, and St. Louis processes a similar tonnage. In addition to the international airports, Springfield National Airport offers additional options for regional shipments. Waterway. Even international ocean ports are not out of reach from Missouri, thanks to the longest river in the U.S., the Missouri. It forms the state’s northwest border with Kansas before turning east and heading to St. Louis. For shipping, though, the real action starts as the river approaches Kansas City and links with the Kansas River; there, the additional depth allows for barge traffic bound for the Mississippi. And from that point in St. Louis, it’s on to the Gulf of Mexico nearly 1,000 miles downriver. On each end of the Mighty Mo, you’ll find Port KC, the Kansas City port authority, and the St. Louis Port Authority, which help oversee operations that move a wide range of products to markets downriver, including fertilizer, grain, salt, processed steel pro ducts, petroleum coke, and more.

Unique Strength | The merger of Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern Railway this year put Missouri at the nexus of North America's most extensive intracontinental rail system.

attract more airlines, producing more passenger traffic and more cargo demand.

Lambert International in St. Louis gives the state a second international airport.

Satisfying Customers for Over 60Years.

Midway Ford is consistently one of the best Ford Truck dealers in North America. It is also one of the largest Employee-Owned companies in the Kansas City Area.

• 22 consecutive years recipient of Ford Motor Company’s President’s Award • 8-time winner of the Ford Credit Partners in Quality Award • 10 consecutive years recipient of One Ford Elite Award • Midway is the only Kansas City dealer that earned Ford’s 2021 Triple Crown Award

7601 NE 38th Street Kansas City, MO 64161 Sales • Parts • Service (816) 455-3000 www.midwaytrucks.com

Parts and Service Open 7 Days a Week to Serve Our Customers

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Fueling the Tech-Enabled Broker Fifteen of the nation’s top super-regional brokerage firms and 14 premiere insurance carriers and wholesalers are collaborating with BTV’s cohort of technology innovators from across the globe. Working in collaboration with the sheer drive to elevate the industry to help our clients identify risks sooner and drive down costs, faster. Learn how the industry’s first broker-led convening platform is lighting the way to maximize technology solutions and amplify innovation within the insurance industry as we know it: BrokerTechVentures.com

DESTINATION MISSOURI REASONS TO CHOOSE

WITH INFLATION WRACKING THE NATION, MISSOURI ENJOYS A COMPARATIVE BREAK, EVEN IF IT’S HARD TO DISCERN MANY POSITIVES THROUGH THE PAIN. Cost of Living

In almost any other year, the challenge of addressing cost-of-living factors in Missouri is to maintain a sense of humility and not appear boastful. Consider the Show-Me State humbled.

Long a redoubt against the soaring costs that have been standard-issue facts of life on the coasts, residents of Missouri are feeling the pain of the worst inflationary period in America in more than 40 years. With prices up more than 9 percent year-over-year as of July—and produce prices up even, more, topping 11 percent—there’s little solace in suggesting that “at least it’s not as bad here as it is in . . .” According to congressional esti mates, neighboring Illinois has costs up 14.47 percent since the start of 2021. Or Texas, where things are even worse, with a national high of 14.91 percent. Still, the 13.75 percent reading that ties Missouri for 20th nationwide is definitely taking a bite out of incomes

in the Show-Me State. Worse, in fact, than they’re feeling in California and Hawaii (both at 12.41 percent), New York (11.35 percent), or Connecticut (11.06 percent). However, some perspective is in order: In years past, all of those states with rates lower than Missouri’s in crease since 2021 have been off-the charts expensive by comparison. That remains the case in 2022—costs here may have surged more over the short term but from a sharply lower base. The bottom line: It remains more affordable here—by a considerable margin—than you’ll find in most any other state that boasts the types of cultural, educational, healthcare, and entertainment options you’ll find in Missouri. Yes, it may be cheaper to

COST OF LIVING INDEX BY STATE, 2022

$

STATE NAME Hawaii

AFFORDABILITY

RANK

SCORE

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

192.9 151.7 139.1 134.2 131.6 129.9 129.7 127.7 125.1 119.4 117.5 114.5 110.7 109.7 108.5 108.1 106.9 105.6 101.7 101.6 100.7 99.8 98.8 98.4 97.9 97.3 97.0 95.9 94.9 94.5 93.9 92.3 91.5 91.1 90.9 90.8 90.8 90.1 90.0 89.3 89.3 89.2 89.0 88.9 88.7 87.5 87.1 87.0 86.9 86.1

California New York

Oregon

Massachusetts

Alaska

Maryland Connecticut New Jersey Rhode Island

Maine

Vermont

Washington

New Hampshire

Nevada Delaware Montana Colorado

47th out of 50

Pennsylvania Minnesota South Dakota North Dakota Virginia

Utah

Missouri ranks among the most affordable states to live in the United States in 2022 22nd in overall inflation costs 13.75% cumulative inflation rates, January 2021 through June 2022

Florida

Wisconsin

Arizona

South Carolina North Carolina

Illinois

Louisiana

Idaho Texas

West Virginia

Kentucky

Ohio

Nebraska

Iowa

Indiana Wyoming Alabama Georgia Kansas Michigan Tennessee New Mexico Missouri Oklahoma Arkansas Mississippi

Source: Xxx

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