Ingram’s September 2022

Brad Bergman CEO/CHAIRMAN, MIDWEST TRUST CO.

William Berkley PRESIDENT/CEO, TENSION CORP.

Having seen his team manage a national expansion without having to borrow or bring in private equity over the past year, Brad Berg man lasers in on finding talent to help clients achieve financial goals. “Talent acquisition is an ongoing initiative,” he says. “We have needed to bring in more talent to handle our influx of new clients. … Our focus, since our inception, has been hiring those with a servant heart who are in this business for the right reasons.”

Berkley admires CEOs who lead and transform during periods of significant change. On his watch, that’s exactly what happened as Tension became the nation’s second-largest domestic enve lope manufacturer and a diversified three-division business. His community activity includes the Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute, Civic Council of Greater Kansas City, Heartland Civic Col laborative, and the Hall Family Foundation, among other interests.

COLLEGE: B.S., Illinois State; J.D., Washburn University COVID PERSPECTIVE: “From the very beginning, we viewed the pandemic as an ongoing challenge for everyone around the globe. However, our organization’s cultural foundations were able to guide us toward the right approach: as leaders, we understand that our first obligation is to our customers, then to our staff, and finally to our shareholders.” NEXT BIG THING FOR KC: “Kansas City will demonstrate global leadership in agricultural innovation, research, and biotechnology as we face global food scarcity and drought.” CHIEFS PREDICTION: “I won’t prognosticate on a win/loss record—as long as it ends in a Super Bowl. Flags fly forever.”

COLLEGE: B.A., Colorado College; MBA, Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College DIVERSIFIED LINES: Tension still makes envelopes—billions of them every year, in fact—but it provides a lot of other business-support services, including custom-printed mailing, packaging, promotional, and shipping solutions. GLOBAL REACH: With facilities in China and Taiwan, Tension has become a global player yielding $227 million in 2021 revenues to earn a spot on Ingram’s 100 list of the region’s biggest private companies. WHY TENSION?: The company’s name comes from the style of envelope—the ones with the string and discs used to close mail pieces that in the 19th century couldn’t ship while sealed. Held shut by the string’s tension, it became a reference to the company’s main products and made for an easy branding change.

Marty Bicknell PRESIDENT/CEO, MARINER HOLDINGS

Brent Blake OWNER/CEO, ACENDAS

We could tell you that Marty Bicknell is one of the nation’s elite wealth managers, but don’t just take it from us: How about Barron’s , read by wealth managers the way the rest of us read The Wall Street Journal . Bicknell’s baby, Mariner, has had an uninterrupt ed streak among Barron’s Top 5 Registered Independent Advisory Firms since 2016. He took the firm from startup to that strato spheric recognition within a decade of launching it in 2006.

Brent Blake has been in the corporate travel business for over 32 years, serving as vice president of sales, vice president of opera tions, and chief operating officer since 1997, when what is now Acendas was branded as All About Travel, so it’s no surprise he now owns the company. In addition, he currently serves on the Advisory Board for BCD Travel, the third largest travel company in North America, and is on the Executive Board of the Travel Council.

COLLEGE: B.S., Political Science, Pittsburg State University AUM POWERHOUSE: In its most recent filing to the SEC, Mariner declared more than $55.4 billion in assets under management, serving more than 90,000 client accounts. BROAD VISION: Bicknell’s wealth-management chops are on display with multiple corporate plat forms, from asset management to real estate. “I’m a believer that every corner of this space is going to continue to grow, and I’m just trying to make sure that we’re a participant in as many of those corners as possible,” he said in a 2020 interview with a wealth-management trade magazine. THE FAMILY: Bicknell is also part of 1248 Holdings, a family-owned private investment firm that manages the family’s personal and philanthropic assets. The seeds for those, of course, came from his father, Gene Bicknell, who built the nation’s largest Pizza Hut franchisee from his home base in Pittsburg. The holdings unit and its partners invest in various companies, funds, late-stage ventures, private equity, and real estate.

COLLEGE: B.S., Marketing and Administration, Oral Roberts University COMING BACK: “Rebuilding our staff back to pre-pandemic levels has been a challenge and ex tremely vital to our continued viability and success. With heavy furloughs, we had to rebuild the staff, facing the reality that we had many veteran associates who would retire or opt not to return.” RECESSION OUTLOOK: “Unlikely, but will face headwinds because of the impact of inflation.” CHALLENGES AHEAD: “We have ramped up our staff considerably since January 2022. It is unlikely we will need to continue talent acquisition at that pace for the rest of the year. However, should the impact of inflation lessen, we will likely need to add staff. Talent acquisition will continue to be a chal lenge as the industry rebounds. It is estimated that 40 percent of the hospitality industry talent left the industry. Rebuilding will take time. It also creates a situation where travel agencies will need to be creative in attracting workers—with the realization that there will be movement from agency to agency.

Ken Block MANAGING PRINCIPAL, BLOCK REAL ESTATE SERVICES Ken Block swatted golf balls for 53 years before notching his first hole-in-one; that alone should tell you that there’s a certain measure of determination in the DNA of perhaps the region’s most prominent leader in commercial real estate. Since 2010, when he calved BRES off from the organization, his late father and uncle started post World War II; Block and his brothers, and now members of a third generation, have built the area’s biggest CRE enterprise.

Mike Boehm MAYOR, LENEXA, KANSAS

Mayor Michael Boehm recalls a great year for the City of Lenexa—a new justice center, a major reinvestment in Old Town Lenexa, and major renovations and amenities upgrades at the city’s largest pool. “We also maintained the momentum that Lenexa has cre ated over the past few years,” Boehm said, “with our continued quality growth and development while navigating the economic uncertainty and a changing development landscape.’’

COLLEGE: Michigan State University Honors College MULTIFACETED MONOLITH: More than just a commercial realty firm offering sales and leasing brokerage and property management services in retail, office, and industrial, BRES is deeply engaged in virtually every aspect of commercial property. That includes the investment side, construction, development, and more nationwide. CAREER CAPSTONE: Ken Block’s fingerprints are all over many of the region’s biggest devel- opment projects over the past five decades, but few of them rival the $1 billion cost to build out City Place in Overland Park. Various aspects of the 90-acre project will be under con- struction through 2029, yielding office, retail and multifamily housing on a nearly un- precedented project scale.

COLLEGE: B.S., Business Administration, University of Kansas ON MANAGING TALENT: “We’ve been very proactive. We conducted a total compensation study to evaluate the competitiveness of our pay and benefits against our peers. We made adjustments to both compensation and benefits to include the addition of paid parental leave benefits and recreation center memberships. We are being much more proactive and far-reaching in our recruiting efforts. We have streamlined hiring processes to allow us to hire the right people with minimal delay.” COVID PERSPECTIVE: “COVID illustrated the city’s ability to be adaptable and nimble as we continued to provide full service to our community throughout the pandemic. City Hall and the vast majority of our fac- ilities remained open—one of only a few city halls that never closed. We rapidly deployed new ways of pro- viding services, from virtual court to video inspections, to allow our work and the work of those investing to continue. We’re proud that some of the new, innovative ideas have become a part of our everyday procedures.”

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I n g r a m ’ s

September 2022

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