Ingram's March 2023

Alfonso Clavijo NBAF, Manhattan The pandemic showed us that no one on the planet is safe from a killer contagion. But that was just a virus; how would we defeat an infectious threat to both mankind and the food supply? With the past year’s completion and certification of the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility in Manhattan,

Yolanda Camarena Kansas Hispanic Education & Development Foundation, Wichita Don’t bet against Yolanda Camarena realizing her vision for improving the lives of Hispanic youth and businesses in Wichita—and, by extension, the shared prosperity for the whole city. She’s a woman who sets goals, attains them, then targets new ones. Doubt us? She dated her

the man charged with answering that question is Colombian born Alfonso Clavijo, who was named NBAF director in 2019. Clavijo’s path to Manhattan has retraced some earlier steps; he spent a year as a professor at K-State’s Department of Diagnostic Medicine and Pathobiology in 2015-16, so he knows the lay of the land there. Since taking the NBAF reins, he’s fought his way through a pandemic while trying to build out a research and operational staff. At its operational peak, his facility will have more than 400 full-time employees in a combination of operational and scientific roles. As much as the facility itself represents cutting edge research capabilities, Clavijo is focused on what will really make it tick. “The most important thing that maybe sometimes people forget, in addition to having a state-of-the-art facility, at the end of the day, it’s the people who do the work,” he told an interviewer last year. “We’re investing a significant amount of effort in the safety and quality of the work. We’re very cautious. The team here is working very hard to ensure all the environment is safe. I’m very excited to have a very strong team here at NBAF.”

future husband Gene for 10 years—with multiple marriage proposals along the way—while working her to-do list. “I kept putting it off,” says the longtime board member for the education and development foundation. “I wanted to get my education, have some new experiences in life, then live in another city. When I was 30, I thought, oh, my gosh, everything I set out to accomplish, I have. Everything from here on is a blessing.” And not just a personal one. In addition to the foundation board, she’s held seats on the board for Newman University, chaired a scholarship committee for Harvard College, and assists the Wichita Community Foundation’s grants board, among others. “The foundation was created to be a scholarship program, but since then, has transitioned into college readiness,” she says, with nearly 1,000 students earning $1.5 million in assistance over the years. Efforts like that and a business-incubator model that helps start-ups defer high capital costs until proof-of-concept serve the broader community because many of those earning degrees build their careers in Wichita. “This is where their roots are, where their families are, and where they want to make things better for the community.”

Karrie Clinkinbeard Armstrong Teasdale LLP, Overland Park

Richard Dinkel Koch Industries, Wichita It took a few changes in college majors for Richard Dinkel before realizing that accounting and business were the right fit. “Things just clicked for me,” he said. “I also knew accounting could be a great career choice, which would open doors to broader opportunities.”

Don’t tell Karrie Clinkinbeard that Kansas City-area law firms can’t compete against the big firms on the coast. “You can find strong lawyers everywhere,” she said, “though Kansas City is unique in that our location in the center of the country allows us to

And it was a big opportunity: Now serving as executive vice president and CFO for the Wichita-based behemoth—the second-largest private company in the U.S.—Dinkel realized in his initial interview process how closely the values and business philosophy of the company leaders aligned with his own. “My main takeaway was that it was a place where a curious, hard-working person would have a shot at a good career.” Born in a western Kansas farming community, Dinkel and his family moved soon after he was born to Wichita, where he grew up. He said the city, the largest in Kansas, is an ideal location for a company of Koch’s scale, even if it’s not easily apparent to outsiders. “Wichita—and, more broadly, this part of the country—brings a lot to the table,” he says. “It has an abundance of hard-working, strong work-ethic-based people and many high-quality schools and universities in the region. What we’ve discovered is people might question moving here initially, but once they are here, they often never want to leave.”

deliver a high-quality work product at a fraction of the rates of coastal firms.” In fact, despite the competitive talent market right now, she said the firm has done well to attract some high-profile partners and associates. “We partner with top law schools in the region … and continue to be impressed with the caliber and character of graduates coming out of these schools,” she said. “Perhaps even more exciting is that we’re seeing a lot of talented individuals attend law school on the coasts but then come home to Kansas City to start their legal careers, which is tremendous for growing the talent pool in KC.” A graduate of the University of Kansas School of Law, Clinkinbeard now serves as a partner at the firm. She’s been recognized as a Missouri & Kansas Super Lawyer and Rising Star for 10 consecutive years and received the Missouri Lawyers Weekly Women’s Justice Award in 2022. She’s active with the Kansas City Area Development Council and the Kansas Chamber of Commerce’s Leadership Kansas program and supports the American Lung Association and the American Cancer Society.

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