Ingrams September 2023

Matt All PRESIDENT/CEO, BLUE CROSS AND BLUE SHIELD OF KANSAS At 1,600 people and hiring, Matt All marvels at his team’s ability to continue transforming their 80-year-old company while still excelling in the day-to-day work. “We’re proud of who we’ve been over the decades, but we know health care is changing,” he says. “We need to change with it. Doing both at the same time is challenging, but our employees always make it work.”

Damon Anderson FOUNDER/CEO/OWNER, TALLGRASS FREIGHT CO.

How good are things for Damon Anderson and his team at Tall grass Freight? With a bump of nearly 16 percent in the top line last year, the trucking services firm hauled its way into Ingram’s 100, our annual update on the 100 biggest private companies in the region, based on revenues. That made Tallgrass one of a comparative handful of companies that rank in the top 100 for both scale and rate of growth.

2022 REVENUES: $2.3 billion COLLEGE: B.A., Political Science, Univ. of Kansas; J.D., Yale Law School RECESSION ODDS: “Fairly low, but they’re not zero. There’s still plenty of energy in the economy. Recessions in health care behave a little differently, though. If there is a recession, we might see some of the groups we cover shrink and some members forgo elective procedures, but people will still need care. And we’ll still be here to make sure they get it.” NEXT BIG THING: “The obvious answers involve sports. The Royals will probably choose a location for their new stadium and the Jayhawks will have broken ground on their new football complex. But I’m still holding out for that bullet train to Lawrence, Topeka, and Wichita.” THE NEW KCI: “I flew out of the new KCI on its very first day, and I was almost moved to tears. It’s absolutely brilliant. It’s amazing how much of a difference that makes when your job involves travel. It’s comfortable, beautiful, and so much easier to use. It’s going to be an enormous asset for the region for decades to come.”

2022 REVENUES: $165.75 million COLLEGE: Kansas City, Kansas Community College HUMBLE BEGINNINGS: Anderson spent the bulk of his career in sales, making it a personal goal to beat his sales targets and raise them in subsequent cycles. He took the entrepreneurial leap because he believed he could deliver client services faster and better than his previous employers. He was right: he went from startup at his Leavenworth farmhouse—which didn’t even have air conditioning— to managing one of the nation’s fastest-growing companies in just six years. ON A TEAR: Things have “cooled” for Anderson on the growth side to a mere average annual rate of 97.32 percent in the past three years. That earned Tallgrass a No. 20 ranking on this year’s Corporate Report 100, following three consecutive Top 10 finishes. WHAT THEY DO: The company’s brokers arrange truck shipping—full load and less than truckload— along with rail, expedited, and temperature-controlled transit options.

Don Armacost, Jr. CHAIRMAN, PETERSON MANUFACTURING

Adam Aron PRESIDENT/CEO, AMC ENTERTAINMENT

Years after Don Armacost Sr.’s death in 2000, his role as chairman of Peterson Manufacturing remained open while Don Jr. took the reins of the family-owned Grandview maker of vehicle lighting assemblies and related components. After turning over the day-to-day leadership to his brother, David, Don Jr. now occupies the seat formerly held by the man who hired him as a 14-year-old to sweep out the warehouse floor.

After global lockdowns threatened to swamp the S.S. AMC in 2000, Adam Aron and his team at the world’s biggest movie theater chain are now steering around the strike by writers and actors in Hollywood. But the lessons of 2020-21 left an indelible impression on his respect for working capital: “The dumbest thing we could ever do in this industry,” he told investors in an earnings call this summer, “is to run out of cash.”

2022 REVENUES: $243 million TURNOVER TITAN: With not quite 700 people at the Grandview facility and about 770 across its multiple divisions, Peterson Manufacturing boasts a 1.5 percent employee turnover rate. That works out to about one position to fill each month, company-wide. More than a few of those employees represent second and third-generation family members. LIGHTS AND MORE: In addition to vehicle lighting assemblies and harnesses, the company has divisions that perform precision manufacturing for power distribution, marine vehicle parts, injection molding, and custom tooling for clients around the world. THE WHEEL DEAL: The Armacost brothers founded a car museum to help occupy their father’s time in his later years. Today, the Armacost Museum features vehicles ranging from a 1910 International to a Ferrari Testarossa, and it’s a popular venue for non-profit fundraising events like annual galas and black-tie affairs.

COLLEGE: B.A., Harvard University; MBA (with distinction), Harvard Business School 2022 REVENUES: $3.91 billion KINGS OF CAROM: Aron’s time in the front office of the Philadelphia 76ers apparently enhanced his under standing of rebounds. After COVID savaged AMC’s revenues, from $5.48 billion in 2019 to $1.42 a year later, the company’s fortunes headed straight north. Last year, revenues were more than triple the pandemic low. THANKS X 1,870: That’s the number of retail investors squarely behind Aron’s leadership who sent him a digital thank-you tweet in July, expressing their feelings about AMC’s stock performance. The self-proclaimed Apes have reaped considerable rewards by getting ahead of price movements in the company’s share values. ABOUT AMC: Founded in Kansas City in 1920 and now based in Leawood, AMC today boasts roughly 950 theaters (combined screens: more than 10,500) staffed by nearly 37,000 employees around the world.

Jeff Auslander CEO, DYNAMIC LOGISTIX

Mario Azar CHAIRMAN/CEO, BLACK & VEATCH

Just four years ago, Jeff Auslander was leading the fight as Dy namic Logistix pushed its way into the ranks of the region’s 100 largest private companies. That meant getting past $100 million in overall revenues. Last year? His team increased year-over-year revenues by nearly that amount, up 64.62 percent from 2021. Fueled by that growth, the company relocated to an expanded headquarters last year, nearly 45,000 square feet in all.

In the ranks of corporate leadership, he’s the ultimate power player— literally. For more than 30 years, Mario Azar has worked in the energy silo of engineering, dealing with power generation and transmission, oil and gas production, and distribution systems. Last year, he suc ceeded Steven Edwards in the driver’s seat at Black & Veatch, one of the Kansas City region’s iconic names in engineering.

2022 REVENUES: $249.7 million COLLEGE: B.S., Journalism, University of Kansas; MBA, Baker Univ. GROWTH LESSONS: “When you’re a little $5 million or $15 million company, you’re doing everything,” Auslander says. “Then you go from that to $50 million or $60 million, you don’t lose that mentality of scrapping for everything, but you’ve got to figure out a way to let go of some things and get really good people, promote good people up and take on more responsibilities and watch them mature.” FINDING ITS NICHE: Success, he says, flowed from “building a good product that’s disruptive in answer ing so many questions in a market that can’t find answers for where the pain points are.” Many of DL’s clients are Fortune 5001-35,000 companies. “They don’t have a 15-person department running transpor tation; they have one or two guys, no automation, and their reporting is all email and Excel. We knew we could provide them with a product with a web-based hub where they could run all their freight through it and get beautiful reporting live with the previous day’s shipping. But we had to get the product right.” HOW IT WORKS: The company serves shippers with tech tools that help manage shipments en route.

COLLEGE: B.S., Electrical Engineering, University of North Carolina-Charlotte BOOM TIME: After years of flat-lined or even slightly receding revenues, Black & Veatch blew the lid off during Azar’s first year at the helm: At $4.25 billion, the top line popped 28.79 percent over 2021. JOB MAGNET: B&V has nearly 8,450 employees around the world, with almost 2,600 of them working from the mother ship in Overland Park. A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE: Azar addressed the increasing importance of sustainability in power en gineering with an in-house interview. He noted that Black & Veatch is investing heavily in the devel opment of storage and transportation systems for hydrogen, which could become an inexhaustible source of clean energy. EARLY INSPIRATION: In his native Syria, Azar saw his mother break tradition by starting her own business as a beautician, an experience he drew on in formulating his own brand of entrepreneurship. “I couldn’t think of a better role model,” he says.

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September 2023

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