Ingram's August 2022

Steven Mackin Mercy Health St. Louis

Ross Malone Author Union

Steve Mackin represented a very big get for Mercy Health when he came on board in 2017 after nearly 20 years with Cancer Treatment Centers of America. But Mercy Health wasn’t a bad get on Mackin’s part, either: with 44 hospitals,

You think you know Missouri history? If you don’t know Ross Malone, chances are you’re missing a few key pieces. Malone can tell you about Harold Schrier; the young lieutenant tasked with assembling the men in that iconic

photo of the U.S. flag being raised over Iwo Jima; he went to school in Lexington, Mo. Or Sacred Sun, the Osage woman from Missouri who was a tribal emissary to France in 1827. Or the Guy Stern and the other so-called Ritchie Boys, Jewish immigrants from Germany who provided key intelligence for the military during World War II. All of them live on in the works of Malone, who has authored nearly a score of books for adults and children, exploring all facets of the Show-Me State’s history. He was raised in Laclede County, growing up in Lebanon, where he “rode bikes everywhere, as close to a Tom Sawyer boyhood as you could imagine,” Malone says. He turned an elementary education degree into a teaching career in the St. Louis area, from kindergarten classes to GED instruction and adult literacy, and while the youngest students were his favorites, he found the most life-shaping work in teaching history, science, and math to older students. Along the way, he discovered the instructional power of story-telling. “Jesus taught with parables, Aesop with fables, Shakespeare with details and implications,” Malone says. “That’s what did it for me for most of my career.”

900 physician practices and outpatient facilities, 3,400 Mercy Clinic physicians and 40,000 employees across an eight-state region, it ranks among the 25 largest health-care systems in the nation. Moving swiftly through the leadership ranks, Mackin served as executive vice president, president of the system’s east region, president of its flagship St. Louis hospital, and senior executive for business line development. Thus acclimated to the Mercy mission and culture, Mackin was an easy choice last fall when Mercy’s board designated him to succeed the retiring CEO Lynn Britton, taking over those duties earlier this year. In the run-up to that transition, Mackin logged more than 13,000 miles visiting communities Mercy serves. “It was very important to me that I was able to spend time in our Mercy communities,” he said. “We are a diverse organization focused on delivering compassionate, quality health care as close to home as possible for our patients. No matter where we went, I heard from our co-workers how determined they are to do the very best for their communities.”

Brandon Martin University of Missouri—Kansas City Kansas City Athletics Basketball was a lifeline that Brandon Martin seized to get clear of south central Los Angeles 30 years ago. The thing about lifelines, though, is that someone has to be on the other end. In Martin’s case, that was Southern Cal

Michael Rader Bartimus Frickleton Robertson Rader Kansas City Among the life lessons regularly reinforced by his parents during Michael Rader’s youth, two stand out: “They always explained there weren’t many aspects of the world not impacted by

coach George Raveling. “He was a Renaissance man, a model of success, a model of excellence,” says Martin. “He was who I wanted to be as a professional.” Raveling would bring books, newspaper articles, and periodicals to practice, and “he stretched our minds every day after practice. He forced us to be critical thinkers.” With that foundation set, Martin wrapped up his playing career (he was an 85 percent free-throw shooter at USC; if you get a chance ask him why that’s so hard for players today), finished his degree in education, and moved into athletic administration. His career stops included his alma mater, working under Mike Garrett (a name dear to vintage Chiefs fans), Cal State-Northridge, and Oklahoma before coming to UMKC in 2018. One of his biggest initiatives there—other than overseeing every facet of a multi-sport Division I program—has been to rebrand the sports programming as Kansas City Athletics. “I’m in a unique role,” says Martin, fresh off a whirlwind spring that included interviews and hires of three coaching-staff members. “People know me as the director of athletics, but I’m also vice-chancellor. It really was a case of being in the right place at the right time.”

the legal profession,” says Rader, who, sure enough, went into the practice of law. Just as important, though, “I was also raised by my parents to always stick up for those who couldn’t defend themselves and always help those in need.” That would dovetail nicely with the mission of Rockhurst High School and its mandate for each student to live his life as “a man for others.” “I decided being an attorney was the best avenue to pursue the ‘stick up for the little guy’ and ‘help where you can’ ideologies that I’d been taught growing up,’ he says. The tools he uses to do that are courtroom skills for one of the region’s best-known litigation firms. Rader is a Blue Springs native who studied political science and history at Mizzou, then earned a law degree from UMKC. “Litigation is the absolute best arena to even the playing field when someone has been wronged or harmed by a larger, stronger bully,” says Rader, who also helped administer justice during five years as a Jackson County prosecutor. “I am extremely proud of the opportunities I’ve been given (and hope to be given in the future) to help those who have been taken advantage of or harmed by wrongdoers,” Rader says.

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