CBT Power Lunch
Last year’s topics from the Columbia Business Times’ annual Power Lunch series provided plenty of food for thought.
From January to November, 10 Power Lunch noon meetings brought together leaders in business, government, politics and nonprofit organizations to discuss a variety of subjects primarily of interest to Columbia’s business community. The meetings are presented by The Callaway Bank.
The series began big — the Power Lunch in January focused on the pros and cons of the new 10-level parking garage in downtown Columbia. Mayor Bob McDavid, former City Manager Bill Watkins and owners of businesses located in The District offered different perspectives on the dynamics of parking downtown.
In February, Power Lunch attendees discussed whether Columbia Public Schools should invest more money in early childhood education by expanding preschool opportunities through a dedicated property tax levy. The spotlight turned to angel investing in April with a look at Centennial Investors and its funding of Columbia entrepreneurs for the past four years.
Entrepreneur Brent Beshore’s innovative Museao Building was the setting for the Power Lunch in May, which gathered the class of Leadership Columbia 2011 for a roundtable discussion that settled on the need for more social services in the city. Nearly all of last year’s 30 members of the annual Leadership Columbia program—professionals in banking, insurance, media and health care and administrators from colleges, nonprofit organizations and local government — said they were surprised at how overburdened the area social service agencies have become in trying to help ever-growing numbers of poor and homeless people in the community.
The tone of the July Power Lunch was less somber as attendees celebrated the success of local business icons. From Dave Griggs of Dave Griggs’ Flooring America to Joe Bechtold of Midway Truck Stop, owners of local businesses with easily recognizable names told tales of how their stores grew into regional icons. Bechtold brought news that his store was gaining national attention as the soon-to-be star of a new reality television series on the Travel Channel. In all, attendees learned that an unwavering dedication to customers and employees is key to achieving decades of success.
Women-owned businesses were the focus of the Power Lunch in August. The consensus among the attendees was that, as in the rest of the country, women in Columbia had to overcome prejudice and discrimination years ago in order to attain success in nearly every industry from real estate to male-dominated manufacturing and construction.
At the September meeting, the Power Lunch topic turned green. Sustainability was the issue, and owners of local businesses with green efforts and government officials with green initiatives discussed ways of developing new strategies to make Columbia a more energy-efficient and sustainable community.
A special Power Lunch in October focused on Gig U, a consortium of 37 U.S. universities and their communities that aims to encourage telecom operators to build ultra-high-speed networks, potentially 1 gigabytes per second and faster. Area Internet service providers joined city officials and administrators from the University of Missouri — a member of the consortium — and MOREnet to look at Columbia’s existing Internet services and to brainstorm the possibility of providing 1 Gbps connectivity to the area.
Sharing a passion for excellence
The final Power Lunch for the year took place Nov. 16 at the University Club on the University of Missouri campus. With “City of Excellence” as its theme, the meeting gave Larry Potterfield, president and owner of MidwayUSA, an opportunity to tell business leaders about the Baldrige Performance Excellence Group’s Columbia chapter, which he founded in 2010.
Potterfield’s company won the prestigious Baldrige National Quality Award in 2009 because of its commitment to excellence in every aspect of it business — from products to customer service to employee relations to community involvement. At the Power Lunch, Potterfield explained how all MidwayUSA employees use company goals to keep the path to excellence straight and narrow.
“We have four categories for our goals: customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, vendor satisfaction and shareholder satisfaction,” Potter said. “Within each of those categories we have developed key requirements that help us make sure we are achieving excellence at every opportunity.”
Potterfield challenged Power Lunch attendees to put the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program to work in their business or government department, with the ultimate goal of making Columbia a city of excellence. “I turned a small gun shop into a model of success,” he said. “Excellence can happen anywhere and at anytime. All that’s needed is the will and determination to settle for nothing less than the best.”