Titan Awards
Educator: Titans who have demonstrated excellence and incomparable benefit to those who are educated at their institutions.
Philanthropy: Titans who have established a record of exceptional generosity and demonstrated outstanding charitable leadership.
Financier: Through their boundless faith in the entrepreneurial spirit, these Titans make things happen by providing the capital to fuel economic growth in our market.
Employer: These Titans effectively employ and manage people in an orderly, respectful and mutually beneficial manner, and they strive to ensure a harmonious and productive relationship in the workplace.
Dealmaker: Titans who are masters of the art of the deal and whose vision and talent bring them success in their chosen field and to the community as a whole.
Educator
Bruce Walker
Bruce Walker, Ph.D., has dedicated most of his life to education.
After serving as dean of the Trulaske College of Business at the University of Missouri for 20 years, Walker made the transition from dean to faculty member in September 2010. He is a professor of marketing and the Lansford Professor of Leadership.
In 2004, Walker coordinated a group of 19 faculty members from five MU divisions that received a grant from the Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City for a three-year research project related to entrepreneurship. He also is the co-author of Marketing, a textbook that is used in many collegiate business schools around the world.
During Walker’s tenure as dean, the business school grew in both enrollments and quality. He and his team helped to attract and retain top-caliber faculty and staff members. Walker was the recipient of the 2008 Pacheco Academic Leadership Award, which is presented to one academic administrator who exemplifies outstanding academic leadership at one of the four University of Missouri campuses.
In January, Ingram’s magazine in Kansas City named Walker one of its 2011 Icons of Education for being instrumental in raising more than $100 million for the college, for helping to secure a new building for the business school, and for heading a team that provided high-quality undergraduate and graduate degree programs for nearly 15,000 graduates.
Walker is a member of the boards of directors at Boone County National Bank and Walsworth Publishing Company, and is the president of our community’s angel-investing group, Centennial Investors. In July 2010, he was appointed to the steering committee for the State of Missouri’s Strategic Initiative for Economic Growth. He and his wife, Pam, also have been strong supporters of the Heart of Missouri United Way, co-chairing the community-wide fund-raising campaign and serving separate terms as president of the organization.
Walker earned his doctorate in business from the University of Colorado. Before coming to MU, he served on the marketing faculties at Arizona State University and the University of Kentucky.
Philanthropy
William T. Kemper Foundation
The William T. Kemper Foundation — Commerce Bank, Trustee, is dedicated to improving the human condition and quality of life by supporting four broad areas: education, health and human services, the arts and civic improvements.
The foundation is named after William T. Kemper Jr., who began his business career in the Kansas City area after graduating from the University of Missouri in 1926. He held the positions of president, chairman and director of the former First National Bank of Independence. His 52-year career in banking also included top positions at banks in Kansas and Oklahoma.
Established in 1989 after Kemper’s death, the foundation continues to serve Kemper’s lifelong interest in improving the human condition and quality of life. Preference is given to projects located in the Midwest, with particular emphasis on Kemper’s home state of Missouri.
Requests to the William T. Kemper Foundation are channeled through representatives in the various markets served by Commerce Bank. In Columbia, the William T. Kemper Foundation is represented by Teresa Maledy, who serves as president of Commerce Bank’s central Missouri region.
Since 1989, the foundation has helped local qualified groups and organizations with much needed funding, such as $110,000 to Columbia College for the purchase of a mannequin simulator for their nursing program; $50,000 to Stephens College for the renovation of Lela Raney Wood Hall and then $120,000 for the technology upgrades to Windsor Auditorium; $50,000 to the YouZeum and $100,000 to the Missouri Theater renovation.
The foundation has made multiple, significant gifts to the Food Bank for Central & Northeast Missouri and Boys and Girls Town (now Great Circle).
The foundation also created and funded the William T. Kemper Fellowships for Teaching Excellence, which are given out each year to five teachers at the University of Missouri. As of this year, 180 awards of $10,000 each have been given.
Philanthropy
Boone Electric Community Trust
The Boone Electric Community Trust has been helping people and communities in the Boone Electric Cooperative service area for nearly 15 years.
The trust is a grant funding, charitable organization established in 1997 by Boone Electric Cooperative. An independent, volunteer board of directors governs the trust.
As a not-for-profit Missouri corporation, the trust makes grants to organizations to assist them in carrying out their charitable, public service and philanthropic activities for the benefit of people living in Boone County and portions of Randolph, Monroe, Audrain, Howard and Callaway counties.
Electric cooperatives across the nation began forming community trusts in the late 1990s to show their commitment to areas they serve. Cooperatives operate on seven principles, one being concern for community. While focusing on member needs, cooperatives work for the sustainable development of their communities and for a better quality of life for their members.
At Boone Electric Cooperative’s annual meeting in 1997, members voted to approve the use of unclaimed capital credits to fund the Boone Electric Community Trust. This source provides as much as $100,000 to the trust each year Financial support of the trust is funded in three ways: Operation Round Up, which enables Boone Electric members to round up their electric bill to the next higher dollar amount each month; unclaimed credits checks that are undeliverable to former members; and one-time donations, estates and other contributions.
The trust’s shining stars are the $2,000 college scholarships that are presented to a dozen high school seniors each May.
To date, the Boone Electric Community Trust has given more than $2 million in grants to such organizations as the Boone County Sheriff’s Department, Missouri River Relief. Columbia Art League, Boys & Girls Town of Missouri, Youth Empowerment Zone, Big Brothers and Big Sisters, Special Olympics of Missouri, Job Point and Voluntary Action Center.
Financier
Mike Crist, Enterprise Development Corp.
Numerous small businesses in central Missouri are growing and helping to build our local economy, thanks to Enterprise Development Corp.
Mike Crist has served as executive director for nearly 30 years, since Enterprise Development was established in 1983. Crist says that, to date, Enterprise Development has participated in more than $300 million loaned to small-business owners and entrepreneurs for more than 150 business projects and assisted in the creation of more than 5,000 new jobs.
Enterprise Development’s success has in large measure been due to the excellent and active board of directors, loan committee, and 40 banks that have contributed to the program The private, not-for-profit organization was first created to administer U.S. Small Business Administration’s 504 loan and refinance programs and Enterprise Development’s own Microloan program.
SBA 504 loans lend money at a low interest rate to businesses so that they can buy land, construct or renovate buildings and upgrade machinery and equipment or furniture and fixtures. Benefits of an SBA 504 include a low down payment of only 10 percent for most businesses and a fixed interest rate for the life of the loan.
Enterprise Development’s Microloan program provides funding for small businesses who cannot yet qualify for conventional bank financing. The goal is to help start-up and expanding businesses succeed by providing both financing and ongoing technical assistance.
Small business loans up to $25,000 are available for businesses located in Boone, Callaway or Cooper counties. The one- to five-year loans are funded at a fixed interest rate and have no penalty for early repayment. Loans can be used for working capital, and the purchase of inventory, equipment, furniture and fixtures.
Crist says the 504 program is fundamentally designed to provide expanding businesses with a stable form of financing while assisting banks in getting worthwhile projects funded. The Microloan program is designed to feed the bottom of the economic pyramid by providng funding for near-bankable loans for businesses worthy of consideration, but not quite in a financial state that banks can assist them.
Dealmaker
Regional Economic Development Inc.
Regional Economic Development Inc., more commonly known as REDI, is a driving force in bringing more businesses to Columbia.
Dave Griggs, owner of Dave Griggs’ Flooring America, was the first Boone County commissioner on the REDI board when it was established in 1988 and currently serves as board chairman. Griggs says REDI has, over the years, acted as a steady liaison between city and county governments and area businesses as they work together to strengthen Columbia’s and Boone County’s economic base and improve entrepreneurship.
Griggs says that in all of his years with REDI, there has never been the level of interest in Columbia from outside corporations as in the past decade. Between 2000 and 2008, the total number of new commercial establishments in Boone County increased by 67 percent, and that trend continues despite the national economic recession that hit in late 2008 and has yet to fully recover.
Mike Brooks has served as REDI president since 2009. Among REDI’s recent successes was the establishment of the IBM service center, which will bring 800 jobs to Columbia by the end of next year. Brooks says the REDI continues to explore opportunities that will bring at least one more large data center to Columbia. He says the area is also attracting interest among animal pharmaceutical companies partly because of the biological research expansion at the University of Missouri.
As the national and local economies continue to climb out of the recent recession, Brooks and Griggs say they are confident that REDI will continue to attract large companies to the area and to support existing businesses as they expand and local entrepreneurs as they build roots in the area. In January, REDI will move to the main floor of the new parking garage at Sixth and Walnut streets. The new space will provide a unique, one-stop business development center for entrepreneurs and small-business startups.
Dealmaker
Gary Drewing, Joe Machens Dealerships
Under Gary Drewing’s leadership since 1983, Joe Machens Dealerships has turned Columbia into a hub for auto sales throughout the state of Missouri.
Drewing serves as owner and president of the dealerships, which comprise seven new stores, 11 franchises, and more than 700 employees. Recently the acquisition was completed for the new Joe Machens Capital City Ford Lincoln store in Jefferson City.
Under Drewings’s leadership, Joe Machens Dealerships comprise nearly 80 percent of the market share of auto sales in central Missouri. Not only is Joe Machens Ford the largest dealership in Missouri for that automaker, it is one of the top five dealerships in the United States based on sales.
Drewing sits on various boards in the community, including the University of Missouri Health Care systems advisory board, the Shelter Insurance Bank board and the Columbia College board of trustees.
Drewing says he also believes in the importance of supporting the community through our many nonprofit agencies here in mid-Missouri, including serving as national vice president for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. All of his dealerships were recognized this year as Pacesetters in the Heart of Missouri United Way community campaign, contributing nearly $70,000 for 2012.
Employer
VA Mortgage Center
Following impressive growth in recent years, the VA Mortgage Center completed a rebranding and officially changed its name to Veterans United Home Loans on Nov. 15. Despite the switch, business will continue to thrive at the company.
In fact, the Veterans United Home Loans hopes to live up to its new name and work toward longer-term engagements with its customers.
Through this, the company is looking toward providing veterans with financial assistance through all life events and not just through the process of buying homes. This would lend the company an all-encompassing image. The company hopes to build its new brand through more traditional marketing techniques, such as sports sponsorships.
From an employee’s standpoint, working at Veterans United Home Loans isn’t like working at a typical bank.
People almost never wear suits, and there’s no elevator music. Instead, employees enjoy catered lunches every Monday, a casual dress code and weekly massages.
Founded less than 10 years ago with just three employees, Veterans United Home Loans has grown to be a regular on Inc. magazine’s annual list of 500 fastest growing companies in the United States.
Brothers Brock and Brant Bukowsky created the company in 2002 to specialize in government home loans, or loans administered by the Federal Housing Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
By 2009, the company had grown to 218 employees. And in June, Gov. Jay Nixon announced the company would receive $6.1 million in state incentives in return for 300 new jobs. The company announced that it will hire another 300 employees over the next five years. In Columbia, the company currently has more than 500 employees and has provided more than $1.1 billion in home loans to military veterans and service members on active duty. With offices in Kansas City as well, Veterans United Home Loans employs 713 people.
The company recently began preparing extra office space on Forum Boulevard.
Employer
MidwayUSA
Back in 1977 it was simply hard work and a passion for serving customers that got Larry Potterfield started.
That passion is still important, but as the founder and CEO of MidwayUSA, one of Columbia’s fastest growing businesses, Potterfield will tell you great customer satisfaction is no accident. It’s listening to customers, planning and continuously making changes.
The figures show that MidwayUSA must be doing something right. The company originally started out at 1,600 square feet and now spans more than a quarter of a million square feet. It provides jobs to more than 350 people in the Columbia area.
In 2009, MidwayUSA was the recipient of the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award — one of only 18 awards issued nationally by the President of the United States in the categories of manufacturing, service, small business, education, health care and nonprofit. As of last year, 91 organizations have received the award.
To Potterfield, his own success is good, but Columbia’s success would be even better. In 2010, Potterfield founded the local chapter of the Baldrige Performance Excellence Group (BPEG), a place for business leaders meet to share ideas and strategies for making Columbia an exemplary city, one business at a time. Currently, 24 organizations are attending the meetings, with representatives from groups including Columbia Public Schools, city management, banks, hospitals and more.
But above all the management practices, he has his own set of priorities and standards. Just a “country kid from Missouri,” Potterfield understands that a company can’t exist without employees; and a large part of his business plan includes gathering and responding to feedback from staff members.
The Columbia BPEG meets at Peachtree Catering & Banquet on the fourth Tuesday of every month except December. To learn more about the group goals and criteria, visit americaneedsbaldrige.com.
Leadership
Bob Roper
Bob Roper began his civic and business leadership in Columbia in the early 1970s as a member of the city’s Historic Preservation Commission and the governor’s task force on crime, and continues to be an active member in the community today.
Roper began his career in Columbia as an attorney after receiving his J.D. in law from the University of Missouri and passing the Missouri bar in 1970. After working primarily in law, Roper joined Boone County National Bank in 1982 as executive vice president and trust officer. He later moved to Central Trust & Investment, where he retired as president and CEO in 2008.
Roper has had a longstanding interest in public issues and over the decades has served in city government and has been active in the March of Dimes, Columbia College board of trustees, Woodhaven School board of directors, Columbia Jaycees, Daniel Boone Little League, Heart of Missouri United Way and the Chamber of Commerce.
Throughout his involvement in the community, Roper was co-chairman of the Yes on Proposition 1 committee that succeeded in establishing a stipend for the mayor and city council members for their service to the community.
Roper is an active member in Columbia’s Chamber of Commerce, Columbia’s Downtown Rotary and the city of Columbia Water and Light Advisory Board. He is a regular participant on KFRU’s Sunday Morning Roundtable with Al Germond and is a columnist for the Columbia Tribune.
Married for almost 40 years, Roper has two stepchildren, Joanna and Jason, with his wife, Ellen.