Ingram's November 2022

Andrea Kimball , VP & General Counsel/Chief Legal Officer SPORTING KC/ PATTERSON FAMILY FOUNDATION

Grass Lake, Mich., wasn’t far from the University of Michigan’s sprawling campus or Detroit’s big-city amenities. But it was far enough to allow young Andrea Kimball to make the most out of outdoor and recreational activities in a town of roughly 1,200 and to gather tinder for the competitive fire that would follow. As a high school freshman, she pushed herself to play four sports at the varsity level, and when she settled on basketball, she was good enough to earn a full ride to Western Michigan U. The experience would have a lasting impact. “Sports have been a huge influence in my life,” Kimball says. “I learned to be competitive, which has translated into my professional life—first as a trial lawyer, and now as in-house counsel to Sporting KC and the Patter son Family Foundation.” The influence, she says, goes even further: “I used to staff my trial teams with former athletes because I liked

dream job. At the time, it was the only GC job in KC for pro sports teams. Now the Current and Royals have GCs, but didn’t then.” And with more opportunities overall, more choices emerge for women. “It is getting better—more women join the male pro sports ranks all the time,” Kimball says. “I have seen

knowing that appearing in court was not as stressful to my teammate as shooting a free throw with two seconds to go in a game.” Whether on a court or in a courtroom, she learned to relish the competition and the preparation. “I was never the most gifted athletically (vertical jump, speed), but I studied my opponent and practiced all the time, so I was ready to compete,” she says. “One of my mentors, a federal judge in San Diego for whom I clerked, was always super prepared, and I adopted his work ethic with preparing my cases.” Originally, she considered law school as the entrée to sports agents “but the mid-’90s were a different time, and female agents were very limited in their opportunities and had not yet broken into representing MLB, NBA or NFL athletes.” Knowing that— one day—she could make her way back to sports, she became a trial lawyer in San Diego, then moved to Kansas City in 2010. She spent five years at Dentons before an opportunity came knocking with SKC. Being legal counsel to a pro sports team, she says, “is my

a jump just in the 6½ years I have been with SKC. We are a long way from true equity, but it is improving.” The late Neal Patterson, an SKC co-owner, inspired her to do non-profit work with the family’s foundation, especially supporting rural communities. “The foundation did so much during the pandemic to lift up small towns and get them the supplies, PPE, etc., that they needed,” Kimball says. “Lifting up rural is so important to me because that is where I came from.”

Cindy McClain , President MCCLAIN RESTAURANT GROUP | CRM STORES CindyMcClain didn’t set out to become the savior of Independence Square, but it’s hard to think of her relationship to the city’s character and its commercial core in any other terms. Going on 25 years since she and her husband, Ken, opened Ophelia’s Restaurant & Inn, she has led McClain Restaurant Group and CRM Stores in a revival of Independence Square. She’s determined that the Square’s turn-of-the century charm—no, not this century—is an essential community asset that must be preserved. Central to that cause has been the success of her husband’s law firm, one of the region’s most successful litigation firms, allowing them to funnel millions of dollars into the Square. Restaurants, bars, retail stores, boutique shops—surely all of that was part of a grand plan, right? “No, it definitely was just one thing led to another, then another,” McClain says, a mother of six. “From the get

she says. “Ken has been very, very blessed in his practice, and this is how he wanted to spend his money; I wanted to help in any way I could. They say he’s the inspiration, and I’m the perspiration. I get into details and get things done, so having six kids was training for me. My work life is now intertwined with my pri

go, we started getting involved in the community and efforts for more and better parks as kids got older. Then when we came for Santa-Cali-Gon Days one year, we realized how much we hadn’t done. So we decided to invest in historic Downtown.” That’s not entirely the life path envisioned when the Colorado girl headed off to Eastern Michigan University for her fine-arts degree. She got the diploma out of the move and a bonus: that’s where she met Ken. After settling here, he went to work building the firm; she trained her attention on raising a family and restoring a piece of the city’s history. “For us, being transplants, we’ve always been astounded at how the city never really embraced this incredible jewel it has,” she says. “All of the history, a president (Harry Truman), a charm of its own, this warmth you don’t find everywhere.” Tackling the challenge of a neglected asset had more than a capitalistic spark to it. “It kind of co-existed with our family motto: To whom much is given, much is required,”

vate life; there’s hardly any separation becausewe have such a passion for helping this city and understand that it des erves nice things.” Having come so far, she hopes the momentum will be unstoppable. “It’s not a money-maker; we just have to keep it going until we can get the square completely sustainable, which was always the goal,” she says. “It’s become this little star of hope. Not everybody believed in it, but they would sure miss it if it was gone.”

32

I n g r a m ’ s

November 2020

Ingrams.com