Ingram's May 2024

2014 Manufacturing in the Kansas City region is infused with billions in capital improvements, especially in the auto motive sector, leading to thousands of new jobs. Iconic Kansas City com pany Russell Stover sells to Swiss-based Lindt & Sprüngli for a reported price of $1 billion.

2016 The 2.2-mile Downtown streetcar opens in May, run ning from the River Market to Union Station. One of Kansas City’s biggest biotech start up success stories, EyeVerify, sells to China’s Alibaba for a reported $100 million.

2015 After 30 years wan dering pro baseball’s desert, the Kansas City Royals win the World Series, touching off an unprecedented celebra tion in Downtown KC. A 1,000-room Downtown conven tion hotel, later scaled back to 800 rooms, is proposed for completion in 2020.

SMALL BUSINESS MATTERS | CORPORATE REPORT 100 | EDUCATION INDUSTRY OUTLOOK

Ingrams.com | July 2016

Making Tracks: Kansas City’s Fastest-Growing Companies

$5.00

executives understanding that even when change is imminent, a company still has a choice. It can choose to be the agent of change. Or it can wait around to be the victim. The merger, valued at $35 billion, would create the nation’s third-largest wireless cellular telephone company and would go by the name Sprint Nextel. Of ficials for both companies put the com bined entity’s total equity value at $70 billion. 2006 JUNE The Coolest Companies in Kansas City The coolest companies in Kansas City. Now there’s a topic bound to cause heated debate. Five criteria to quantify cool: Imaginative work environment. In novative products and services. Innova tive employment processes. A sense of team cohesion. Passion and pride among employees. Cool companies may be dif ficult to define, but to paraphrase former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, we know them when we see them. They are companies with the competitive edge: Midwest Research Institute (now MRIGlobal), Teva Neuroscience, Per ceptive Software, Dimensional Innova tions, Ferrellgas, Boulevard Brewing Co., Children’s Mercy Hospital and the FBI— yes, the Federal Bureau of Investigation. 2007 JANUARY Bi-State Bio-Mission Converges Cancer. Childhood obesity. Heart dis ease. Bioterrorism. These are just some of the ills and evils that companies through out the Missouri-Kansas region are com bating on a daily basis. This combat has necessitated the area’s becoming a grow

ing force in the biotechnology industry. Kansas City has more than 200 biosci ence companies that employ more than 20,000 people, representing two percent of the city’s total workforce. Kansas City has more than 200 bioscience companies that employ more than 20,000 people. 2008 Can Missouri land mega-projects such as the $400 million Bombardier assem bly plant? Kansas City, Platte County and the state of Missouri have been down this road before. The region has put itself in a position to land that airplane assembly plant and the roughly 2,100 quality, high paying jobs that go with it. In the just concluded General Assembly session, rural and city lawmakers from all corners of the state came together to approve tax-credit legislation in the House. It’s downright astonishing that business and civic leaders in St. Louis were among the biggest proponents of a project slated for Kansas City. (Editor’s note 2024: Of course, the plant never materialized; Bombardier was using the threat of locating to Kansas City as leverage for a better deal elsewhere.) 2009 The pace of bank failures in the U.S. has accelerated and is approaching triple digits for the first time in 17 years. But reflective of what has been dubbed the “Zone of Sanity” with more conservative banking practices in the nation’s interior, it’s worth noting that only three Kan sas banks and four Missouri banks are among the casualties to date. But sane or not, banks in the Kansas City region MAY On a Wing and a Prayer OCTOBER When One Door Closes

2003

MARCH The Compound Fracture of Health Care The problems facing the nation on the health-care front are daunting. The uninsured are no longer the poorest of the poor, not even close. They are often risk-takers, people who choose the things they know they need or people who are unable to qualify for coverage due to the fact they don’t belong to a larger group. The fastest-growing group among the un insured are those who make $75,000 or more a year. 2004 SEPTEMBER Downtown Development Although you may not know it, Kan sas City has embarked on the largest Downtown resurgence in more than half a century. Almost everyone knows frag ments of this explosion—Kansas City voters clearly got the message when they approved last month’s arena proposal. It’s been hard to miss the discussion of the H&R Block headquarters and the nearby Power & Light District project. One thing’s for certain—the Downtown Kansas City we know today will not look the same as it will in 2008. 2005

JANUARY What’s Next?

Things change. In essence, the recent announcement of the Sprint Nextel merg er is a story of two companies changing and scrambling to survive against giants. It is also the story of two bright, energetic

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May 2024