Ingram's May 2024

BILL NELSON BOATMEN’S BANK/BANK OF AMERICA

MILLER NICHOLS J.C. NICHOLS REAL ESTATE

BOB PAGE THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS HEALTH SYSTEM

Bill Nelson came to town from Repub licBank Corp. in Dallas back in 1988, but it didn’t take him long to establish his place among the city’s

Do you appreciate the fountains, art and sculptures that define the Country Club Plaza? You can thank Miller Nichols for a lot of that. Same with

Kansas is famous for its titans of business built from the ground up, but the chief architect of The University of Kansas Health System’s suc City

business heavyweights. He served as CEO of Boatmen’s First National Bank of Kansas City—at that time, the largest in the market, by a considerable sum— through its $9.6 billion acquisition by NationsBank of Charlotte, N.C., which later rebranded as Bank of America. Nelson’s impact on business extended well beyond the bank lobby. He sat on the boards of directors of DST Systems, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City, and what are now Evergy and MRIGlobal. His civic engagement in cluded stints as chairman of the Civic Council of Greater Kansas City and the Kansas City Area Development Council and vice chairman of the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, among others.

free parking there—he considered it a defining attribute of that district. And the fact that it’s dotted not with filling stations but reclaimed properties serving as courtyards and businesses? That was his doing, as well. Of course, Nichols’ impact on Kansas City went well beyond the Plaza’s confines: He was a driving force behind the restoration of Mill Creek Park, he promoted the type of residential development that defines neighborhoods south of the Plaza, and into Johnson County, his advocacy for education kept him in board service for UMKC for 30 years and helped expand the campus footprint from 75 acres to 225. He also directed $3 million in personal and corporate gifts to UMKC (hence, the Miller Nichols Library designation).

cess had to create it from the wreckage of a nearly-failed enterprise. The hospital abutting Midtown had less than 30 days’ worth of operating cash on hand when it became a public health authority separated from state control. Since then, with a relentless focus on patient satisfaction, Page and his team have turned the mothership hospital into the biggest in this market based on admissions and revenues. On his watch, the health system has further embraced its statewide service mandate with multiple locations in Kansas, and most recently, he brought into the fold the Olathe Health System and forged an operating partnership with Liberty Hospital across the state line. Page is an Illinois native who came to Kansas City after working for what is now BJC HealthCare in St. Louis.

NEAL PATTERSON CERNER

JIM POLSINELLI POLSINELLI, PC

GEORGE POWELL, JR. YELLOW FREIGHT

In the beginning, it was a three-man show, and it wasn’t Cerner—it was PGI Associates, using a monogram drawn from Neal Patte rson, Paul Gorup

Talk about modest beginnings: Jim Pol sinelli recruited a couple of lawyers to start a Kansas City law firm in 1973. That was just five years after he’d left

Back when he was washing dishes at a Northwestern Uni versity sorority— where he would meet his future wife—there wasn’t much to suggest that

and Cliff Illig’s surnames. (Thankfully, Illig’s took a back seat to avoid a branding challenge.) Five years after the health-care software firm debuted, it rebranded as Cerner Corp., and Patterson served as its CEO until his death at 67 in 2017. Along the way, it became a public corporation in 1986, then rocketed up the employer list in this region all the way to No. 1. At its zenith, Cerner had nearly 14,000 on the Kansas City-area payroll and about 25,000 worldwide. He learned about the balance of risk and reward growing up in the wheat belt of southern Kansas and northern Oklahoma, earned a finance degree and MBA at Oklahoma State, and he positioned himself for a career with Arthur Andersen, where he met Illig and Gorup before making history together.

UMKC’s School of Law, and by the time he retired in 2020, he had helped to create the second-biggest in the Kansas City market, with nearly 275 lawyers here and close to 1,000 nationwide. Polsinelli has an extensive service history with civic boards and advisory councils, but the causes nearest his heart involve education, particularly his family ties with Rockhurst High School. He was also on the Rockhurst University board for nine years, and for years sat on the UMKC Board of Trustees. His grandmother and father held masters’ degrees; he has one himself, and two of his children do, as well—a four-generation phenomenon. “Whatever success we’ve had as a family came from a strong belief, going back to my grandmother, in education,” he says.

George Powell Jr. would rise to promin- ence among over-the-road trucking firms. Well, other than his dad’s employment as chief executive for the trucking firm they had purchased out of bankruptcy in 1952, that is. They moved the struggling Yellow Transit Freight Lines from Okla homa City to Kansas City, quickly set it on the road to profitability, and began building one of the biggest brands in logistic transportation. After becoming chairman and CEO in 1968, he leveraged new opportunities in a deregulating industry to amass a work force of 28,000, with $2.3 billion in revenue, by the time he retired in 1991. He served on corporate boards for banks, manufacturers and energy companies, as well as various non profits.

112

I ng r am ’ s

May 2024

Ingrams.com