Ingram's May 2024

John McDonald In distribution terms, it wasn’t exactly one giant leap for mankind back in November 1989, when John McDonald hauled that first-ever keg of his Boulevard Pale Ale 3½ blocks down Southwest Boulevard after that first sale to Ponak’s. In cultural terms, however, the dawn of the craft-brewing industry marked a coming sea change in consumer tastes for hand-crafted ales. Within a few years, beer distributors say, Boulevard products accounted for 10 percent of the tap handles being pulled at bars and restaurants in the Kansas City area. While others trying to emulate his success came and went—in droves—McDonald steadily expanded Boulevard’s product lines to reach broader audiences, bolstered produc tion facilities to increase output and distribution reach across the Midwest, and eventually sold the operation to Belgian brewing giant Duvel-Moortgat in 2013 for a reported $36 mil lion. That’s quite a performance for someone whose own taste in beers ran to American lagers until a transformative trip to Europe in 1984. And “transformative” is exactly the right word: Before that trip, McDonald had been a carpenter with an art-school education. Back home, McDonald lamented the state of beer production in the United States—outside a few specialty brewers largely on the West Coast and Pacific Northwest, there weren’t many choices. And in Kansas City, home to a dozen brewers before Prohibition, there were zero. It was all gone. So it’s hard to overstate what he and his small team of would-be brewers achieved by putting Kansas City back on the fermentation-sciences map. Back in 1989, he said in an interview with Missouri Business Alert, he couldn’t find a banker willing to make a loan on his concept—it had to be funded privately. Food-grade stainless steel equipment, devel opment of yeast strains and cultures and production facilities don’t come cheap. In addition to his passion for craft beer, McDonald has been an advocate for minimizing the industry’s impact on solid-waste disposal. He also founded Ripple Glass, a glass recycling operation to curb the waste problem in the United States that gathered used bottles from more than 100 cities across half a dozen Midwest states and brought it back to Kansas City for recycling. The small brewery he cobbled together 35 years ago grew into one of the nation’s 10 largest craft-beer manufacturers, and today boasts a robust portfolio of 80 varieties, some of which are seasonals only, with others produced year-round.

Bob Page The calendar says retirement can’t be far off, but Bob Page doesn’t appear to be losing so much as a step in transform ing health care in the Kansas City region. Just this year, The University of Kansas Health System has pulled Olathe Health into its orbit, creating an enterprise that produced $15 billion in revenues last year. Last month, Page’s team took an additional step over the state line to forge an operational compact with Liberty Hospital. That extends his system’s reach here from the northeast fringe of the metro area to the southwestern corner. But big deals have long been a part of his executive DNA since arriving in Kansas City back in 1996. In fact, he says, “Many deci sions over the past 25 years, and the people of our organization, have made the health system who we are today for patients and their families. Three game changers from the early days stand out,” he says: Attainment of an independent hospital authority in 1998, buying what is now the KU Cancer Center back and adding to the stable of top-flight surgeons in cardiology and thoracic sur gery, and sharpening the organizational focus on quality nursing. Those achievements continue to pay off for the broader region, he believes. “We are now the largest locally-headquartered health system in our region. We employ more than one-quarter (27 percent) of all health-care workers in Kansas. Our leaders and teams not only work here, but they live here. We are invested in the renaissance Kansas City is experiencing. We believe having a nationally recognized academic health sys tem is part of this renaissance. We put patients and their families first in every decision we make. We’ve done this for 25 years. We also know our growth drives economic impact beyond just the care we provide. Today, we care for patients from all 50 states and nearly 30 countries internationally. We believe creat ing a sustainable, locally based health system offering seamless care close to home supports our region’s growth.” It hasn’t always been a smooth ride; cutting the cord with the state of Kansas in 1998, when cash flows ebbed to a trickle, was a power ful lesson in the demands of leadership. “Leadership is a team sport,” Page says. “The only reason I have been the CEO for 17 years is because I have the honor and privilege to work with the best team I have ever worked with in my career. I believe in my heart that leaders who believe it is all about them are doomed to failure. Leaders who value teamwork and who surround them selves with folks who are smarter than they are will succeed. There is no place for arrogance or narcissism in leadership.”

30 I ng r am ’ s

May 2024

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