Ingrams August 2023

Steve Knorr Endovac Animal Health Columbia Growing up on a northwest Missouri dairy farm, Steve Knorr learned quickly what it meant to work every day—and deep into the night. “You learn the value of hard work, family, willingness to do whatever needs

Tina Klocke Various Boards St. Louis It started with a chance networking

opportunity back in the pre-Internet days, where one had to go to the library to find information on notable figures. Tina Klocke looked up everything she could find on Maxine Clark, who had recently started a

new venture. Klocke was … impressed. “In my mind, I conjured up somebody who was 6-foot-5; she had such a great resume,” Klocke says. They arranged to meet at the St. Louis Galleria, where the 5’7” Klocke was somewhat taken aback by the diminutive Clark. “But we sat down on the floor, went through her vision, and I fell in love with it and with her. I was the second person she ever hired.” And that’s how the leadership of Build-a-Bear Workshops began to coalesce. Seven years after its founding, it went public, raising nearly $150 million. Klocke, a St. Louis native and Catholic school product, brought financial acumen and personal drive to the table, eventually overseeing operations, financial reporting, IT—everything but marketing, and product development. “I was,” Klocke says, “a very driven person.” Even after retiring in 2015, she’s applied that drive to non-profit causes, organizations that played influential roles in her own life. Among them: Southeast Missouri State, where she sits on the board, her old boss’s Clark-Fox Foundation, and Cor Jesu, her high school alma mater. “I’m probably working as hard in retirement, but that’s who I am: I give it my all,” Klocke says. “I try to give back to places that shaped who I am today; I don’t think I’ll ever really retire.”

to be done,” he says. “And I loved it. I wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world.” You can take the boy off the farm, but not the farm out of the boy: when he headed to Mizzou with an FFA scholarship in hand, he chose ag economics as a major, and “I also learned that weekends off was a good thing when I went to college,” he says. He graduated during a period of tough sledding for agriculture, worked on ag policy for Sens. Kit Bond and Jack Danforth, then worked for nearly 20 years in various government and university relations roles for his alma mater. Endovac came calling in 2017, and he became the first person outside the ownership family to take the lead. There, he has an insider’s view of the nexus between university research, commercialization, and the animal-health industry. “Being in the Animal Health Corridor,” which runs from Columbia to Manhattan, Kan., he says, “we are positioned well, from a state standpoint, even a Mid-Missouri standpoint. We have the right economic makeup, the right genes, if you will, for this industry to thrive and really to attract other companies to the Midwest and join us in the corridor. We’re very fortunate as a state.”

Jeff Lashley Moberly Area Community College Moberly In a field where institutional leadership can take on aspects of a revolving door, Jeff Lashley personifies “anchored.” His family moved to Moberly when he was in the sixth grade; he finished high school there, earned his associate’s degree there, and

Curt Livengood Roger Livengood & Assoc. Rock Port/Tarkio Curt Livengood has been a business owner, selling fireworks in multiple states. He’s done a turn at farming. He’s worked for a management company, where he learned the ins and outs of operations for truck stops, restaurants and retail stores.

then came back to Moberly Area Community College, where he’s been president of his alma mater for the past 10 years. His career path did take up an hour up U.S. 63 to Kirksville, where he finished his degree in psychology and master’s in counseling (followed by his doctorate from Iowa State). After a 10-year run in mental-health private practice, he rejoined MACC as a faculty member. Six years later, he was named dean of academic affairs, then vice president of instruction, a course, he confesses, that “was no grand design by me.” He could have continued his counseling work, but the faculty position that opened at MACC was being vacated by an instructor who had made a strong impression on Lashley as a student. As for leading the college, his background in psychology “sure doesn’t hurt,” he says, “but I have a theory that many successful people are successful armchair psychologists. You don’t need to have training to be good with people and work with them to help improve whatever they’re doing, to create a healthy environment.” He feels blessed that he can do so at a place that was formative. “It means a great deal to me,” he says, “For me, MACC was providing opportunities from the time I was young through the most important and longest period of my professional life.”

He has a real-estate license, as well, and has even carved out time for public service as a member of the Andrew County Commission, where he’s presiding commissioner. But no matter where he’s been, he’s never lost sight of what’s most important as a father of three: “Trying to figure out what sets us up as a community to be successful 20 or 25 years from now,” he says. “Sure, we want to be successful tomorrow, but are we setting our kids up for success with their future? We’re trying to make good decisions for 25 years down road.” That’s a tall order for a region that, like so many rural areas in America, has struggled to retain population. A native of neighboring Nodaway County, he earned a degree in agribusiness from Northwest Missouri State, worked for a few years in Parkville, then came back to his old stomping grounds, working with his father’s accounting firm in Rock Port, and makes his home in Tarkio. A road warrior for his children’s athletic interests, he leads frequent trips to places like Kansas City and Wichita for their baseball and basketball games. “I don’t feel like I’m the only one thinking about trying to set this area up for success,” he says. “People in general here are always looking to the future.”

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