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June 2011 - Posts
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![]() International fashion retailer H&M will open by the holidays at Kansas City’s Country Club Plaza — the first H&M in the metro area.
Highwoods Properties Inc. (NYSE: HIW), which owns the iconic shopping district, announced the new tenant on Thursday.
H&M will fill a 22,137-square-foot space at 440 W. 47th St. next to The Gap.
The Swedish retailer, which entered the United States in 2000, runs more than 2,200 stores in more than 40 nations. Its goal is to offer “fashion and quality at the best price for the whole family,” which includes women, men, teens and children, according to a...
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International Brotherhood of Teamsters delegates have unanimously approved a resolution “to prosecute chief executives and other Wall Street players responsible for the global financial crisis of 2008,” the union said late Wednesday.
The vote happened at the union’s convention.
The Teamsters held up Overland Park-based YRC Worldwide Inc. (Nasdaq: YRCW) as a prime example of how members helped a company hard-hit by the financial crisis.
“While Wall Street schemed to profit from YRCW’s failure, we gathered our best ideas and were able to keep the company afloat and 25,000 Teamster members working,” Teamsters General Secretary-Treasurer Tom Keegel said in a...
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Some off-airport parking near Kansas City International Airport is changing hands.
Starting Friday, Park Air Express will assume the valet parking services that have been handled by Thrifty Airport Parking, the Kansas City Aviation Department announced Thursday. The department, which already has the Park Air Express facilities, is taking over the lease for the Thrifty Airport Parking facility and plans to combine the two into a 2,200-space operation, effective Friday. Standard Parking operates Park Air Express in partnership with the...
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LightSquared Inc. is pinning some of the blame for interference issues between its national wireless broadband network and Global Positioning Devices on the GPS industry itself, according to a much-anticipated Thursday filing with the Federal Communications Commission.
Olathe-based Garmin International Inc., a subsidiary of Garmin Ltd. (Nasdaq: GRMN), described the filing as misleading.
Also filed Thursday were GPS device test results, which LightSquared said showed that GPS manufacturers prompted the interference during the past eight years by designing products that depend on using spectrum assigned to other FCC...
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With many days of hot, dry weather forecast Thursday, the flooding Missouri River in Kansas City appeared set to crest at 32.5 feet around noon Friday, barely above flood stage but many weeks away from significant declines.
“We’re seeing slight crest from the precipitation event earlier this week,” said Josh Marx, natural disaster program manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Kansas City District.
Several inches of rain fell across Missouri’s northwest tip late Sunday and early Monday, sending new floodwaters into tributaries that feed the Missouri River before it reaches Kansas...
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![]() St. Joseph Medical Center has named Deb Ohnoutka as chief nursing officer.
Ohnoutka has spent the past year performing the same function at St. Mary’s Medical Center in Blue Springs, a sister hospital to St. Joseph that’s about half its size.
Since moving to the Kansas City area from Council Bluffs, Iowa, Ohnoutka has served as administrative director of women’s and children’s services at Shawnee Mission Medical Center and as director of maternity services at Saint Luke’s Northland...
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The Kansas City metro area lost nearly 1,200 businesses in 2009, following a trend that occurred nationwide, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The area had 50,729 businesses that employed 893,093 in 2009, down 3.8 percent from 2008.
Missouri and Kansas likewise saw declines in 2009. In Missouri, the number of businesses with paid employees declined by more than 1,500 to 150,892 establishments. Kansas lost nearly 1,400 businesses to end at 74,698.
The 2009 results marked the second straight decline in the number of...
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![]() Kansas City marketing agency Nicholson Kovac Inc. is preparing a major announcement, possibly that it’s considering restructuring or closing, several industry sources have told the Kansas City Business Journal.
Those sources range from midlevel to high-ranking executives knowledgeable about the local advertising industry.
Agency co-founder Pete Kovac has not responded to several voice mails and emails asking for comment about the matter. Others in the agency have referred all calls to Kovac.
Nicholson Kovac, a specialist in business-to-business marketing with a bent in agriculture, has seen steady declines in work force and revenue during the past few...
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![]() Scout Investments launched a new mutual fund Thursday that is designed for moderately aggressive investors seeking long-term growth.
The Scout Global Equity Fund — a no-load, all-cap, global core equity fund — will identify domestic and global growth-producing companies of all sizes by examining prevailing conditions and worldwide themes. The fund won’t charge upfront fees, rather charging based on the fund’s overall assets.
Scout Chief Investment Officer Bill Greiner will be lead portfolio manager for the...
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Montage Investments, the asset-management arm of Leawood-based Mariner Holdings LLC, has set up an executive team to lead efforts to market the company’s mutual funds.
David Henriksen, Anthony Carrubba and Jenny Rhodus, effective Thursday, will lead a team of 17 professionals offering wholesaling support to financial advisers, institutions and consultants. The latter two most recently worked for a subsidiary of Overland Park-based Waddell & Reed Financial Inc. (NYSE: WDR).
The announcement comes on the heels of Montage affiliates launching several new mutual...
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![]() Average compensation tops $70,000 a worker in five Midwestern counties — including one near Kansas City.
They form a disparate group.
Two of these regional leaders are near major metro areas: Leavenworth County, Kan. ($70,364), west of Kansas City, and Lake County, Ill. ($72,578), north of Chicago. But the other three are the rural outposts of Geary County, Kan. ($75,467); Martin County, Ind. ($82,583); and Oliver County, N.D. ($75,267).
Close behind are two Midwestern giants that also have impressive compensation levels: Hennepin County,...
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Missouri River overflows are "inundating" a Riverside park, affecting nearly a third of it, and a flood wall has been closed off adjacent to the Argosy Casino Hotel to keep pedestrians away from the park, the city reports.
Complete Kansas City-area flood coverage is available here. Cities such as Leavenworth and Parkville also have closed off parks near the swollen river, and boats are on standby in case employees need them to get to a pair of Kansas City Power & Light Co. power plants.
Here is an update Riverside provided late Wednesday:
The Missouri River gage at Kansas City has broken the 30...
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 Talk of the Town LLC has bought the former Ted’s Montana Grill site at 135th Street and Nall Avenue in Overland Park and hopes to open a restaurant and bar there by September.
The company’s second metro-area location will be about 5,500 square feet, including patio space.
“It’s about 50 percent larger than our current location,” said Steve Reynolds, who co-owns Talk of the Town with partners Shawn Smith and Janez Lomshek.
Reynolds declined to say how much the restaurant group paid for the restaurant...
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 Talk of the Town LLC has bought the former Ted’s Montana Grill site at 135th Street and Nall Avenue in Leawood and hopes to open a restaurant and bar there by September.
The company’s second Kansas City-area location will be about 5,500 square feet, including patio space.
“It’s about 50 percent larger than our current location,” said Steve Reynolds, who co-owns Talk of the Town with partners Shawn Smith and Janez Lomshek.
Reynolds declined to say how much the restaurant group paid for the restaurant...
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The U.S. Census Bureau plans to close its Kansas City office as part of a cost-cutting strategy that in 18 months will permanently shutter half of its 12 regional offices, resulting in a net loss of as many as 130 jobs.
The plan, announced Wednesday, is expected to save $15 million to $18 million a year starting in 2014. Those are the first field office structure changes since 1961.
The 30,000-square-foot Kansas City office, 1211 N. Eighth St. in Kansas City, Kan., has 58 full-time employees with an additional 583 in the field, a spokeswoman...
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Overland Parkers can point their fingers at Missouri for Sprint Nextel Corp. not prevailing in a test of the Kansas City metro area’s fastest wireless networks, a PCMag blogger said Monday.
Instead, AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) was the victor with 85 points in neck-and-neck ratings from PCMag, with Overland Park-based Sprint (NYSE: S) and T-Mobile USA tying for the No. 2 spot at 84 points each. In an effort to determine the nation’s fastest networks throughout the United States, PCMag recently tested eight 3G and 4G networks in 21...
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 Bank of America Corp. will pay $8.5 billion in a game-changing settlement that it hopes will put some of its mortgage troubles in the past. But the deal will slap the bank with more than $8 billion in second-quarter losses and dent its mending capital ratios.
The deal, pending court approval, calls for the bank to pay $8.5 billion to settle claims brought by 22 private mortgage investors that bought 530 mortgage securities representing $424 billion in mortgages. The securities originally were bought from Countrywide Financial, the troubled lender BofA bought in...
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 With Missouri River floodwaters rising, buses and perhaps boats will bring essential workers to Kansas City Power & Light Co.’s largest area electrical plant site beginning immediately, a company spokesman said Wednesday.
The Missouri Highway Patrol closed Missouri Route 45 alongside the plant about 5:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Nonessential employees were told not to come back until highways around the two Iatan plants are passable, KCP&L spokesman Chuck Caisley said. That means 90 of the normally 130 workers are on the...
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 The Kansas City metropolitan area’s unemployment rate rose to 8.4 percent in May, according to preliminary numbers released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
A month earlier, the jobless rate was 8.1 percent. In May 2010, it was 8.7 percent.
But the metro’s May unemployment rate still falls below the nation’s 8.7 percent, not seasonally adjusted. With changes to account for seasonal variations, the national unemployment rate in May was 9.1 percent.
The number of unemployed people seeking work in the Kansas City area rose to 87,200 compared with 83,700 the month...
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The owners of an Overland Park medical clinic have filed suit because of Kansas’ new regulations for abortion providers, calling the licensing rules approved by the state Department of Health and Environment “a sham” designed to run abortion providers out of business.
Herbert Hodes and Traci Lynn Hauser, the father-daughter physician owners of Nodes & Hauser MDs PA, which advertises as the Center for Women’s Health, filed the lawsuit Tuesday in federal court in Kansas City, Kan. They seek a temporary injunction to halt enforcement of the provisions, which take effect...
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 Leavenworth closed off its Landing Park indefinitely at 9 p.m. Tuesday because of rising Missouri River levels.
The city said the river was just above 27 feet and rising in that area. It plans to keep the gates to the park closed until water returns to safe levels.
“Our No. 1 concern is public safety, and our officers have been told to have a zero tolerance to trespassing around flooded areas in an effort to keep people safe,” Police Chief Pat Kitchens said in a release.
Last week, Leavenworth began restricting park access, closing the gates between 9...
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 Topeka is getting a sweet investment: Mars Chocolate North America said Wednesday that it plans to build a $250 million manufacturing facility there and hire about 200 full-time operations employees. And that’s just the initial phase.
Mars said it needs the new facility — the first new U.S. chocolate site built in 35 years — to meet rising demand for its iconic candy, such as M&M’s and Snickers.
Mike Wittman, vice president of supply for Mars Chocolate North America, made the announcement Wednesday morning at Topeka’s Washburn University...
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 DineEquity Inc. has made a smorgasbord of changes at Applebee’s since acquiring the casual dining chain a few years ago, with the latest big push targeting the menu.
Applebee’s, a Lenexa-based chain that sold to a California company a few years ago, reported that it has revamped more than 80 percent of its menu during the past 18 months.
The changes appear to be working in a crowded casual dining sector. Domestic sales in Applebee’s restaurants open at least a year increased 3.9 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, and profit margins rose from...
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 Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon has asked President Obama to declare an emergency for the state because of “unprecedented flooding along the Missouri River system.”
The combination of plentiful rain and water releases from reservoirs upstream have affected several Northwest Missouri counties and probably will affect every Missouri county along the river, the release said. Also, there’s been flash flooding in two northeast Missouri counties.
“I’ve ordered the Missouri National Guard to coordinate efforts to protect Missourians and their property, and we’ve mobilized numerous other state resources to help local emergency response and law enforcement officials as well,” Nixon said in the...
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Foundation Workshop Inc. of Grandview and IBS Industries of Independence are merging, forming an agency that focuses on employment for adults with disabilities.
The combined organization, JobOne, has a work force of more than 300 and offers a variety of subcontracting services. Together, the organizations will be able to increase their scale and extend their geographic reach into the business community, particularly in Jackson County and the underserved Lee’s Summit area, according to a...
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 Floodwaters are creeping up into Parkville’s English Landing Park, which has been closed to pedestrians.
Josh Brock, owner of Parkville Coffeehouse, said customers throughout the day have been talking about flooding in the park, which is on the south side of the town.
Brock has a four-phase evacuation plan but remains in the first phase. Last week, artists removed their artwork from the coffeehouse; he’s packing nonessential items into boxes.
Now, it’s a waiting game.
“If water hits the sandbags, we’ll see if we need to start moving furniture,” he...
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The U.S. Justice Department is suing Kansas City-based Farmland Foods Inc., charging that it discriminated against non-U.S. citizens in its hiring.
Justice Department investigators allege that the meat products producer, based near Kansas City International Airport (Code: MCI), demanded that non-U.S. citizens hired by the company and foreign-born U.S. citizens at its Monmouth, Ill., plant provide work authorization documents beyond what’s required by federal law.
The lawsuit asserts that such a practice does not treat all authorized workers equally and violates the Immigration and Nationality...
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An Overland Park-based Google Apps partner, Beloit Solutions Group, has been scooped up by a larger apps reseller based in Atlanta.
Cloud Sherpas announced the Beloit acquisition Monday as a way to strengthen the company’s position in the Midwest, deemed an area long known as “Microsoft country.”
Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
The deal comes a month after Cloud Sherpas expanded its presence on the West Coast with its acquisition of Omnetic Inc., a cloud solutions company in San...
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 Choosing a primary-care physician or picking which hospital you’d want to be taken to in the event of a heart attack isn’t the same as picking a plumber or a brake shop.
Or is it?
Numerous websites have popped up in recent years comparing health care providers on official performance standards as well as patient satisfaction reviews.
Although recent studies have questioned how well these ad hoc ratings truly evaluate medical resources — especially physicians — it can be the only tool available to many health...
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 Downtown Kansas City will be filled with four-part harmony next week when the international convention of the Barbershop Harmony Society lands in its founding city, cueing an estimated economic benefit to the tune of $7.2 million.
The weeklong convention, which starts Sunday, will attract more than 7,000 singers from around the world who will attend sessions, compete against other vocalists and perform in concerts. Melanie Chapman, a spokeswoman for the society, said that 52 quartets, 21 collegiate quartets and 30 choruses were traveling to Kansas City to...
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 NovaStar Financial Inc. has finished a recapitalization plan that ends “a significant demand on NovaStar’s cash,” CEO Lance Anderson said.
The Kansas City-based company (Pink Sheets: NOVS) said late Monday that it converted its Series C preferred shares — on which it owed $74.8 million in unpaid dividends — to more than 43.8 million newly issued common shares and $1.62 million in cash. The offer, which exceeded the required two-thirds participation with 88.8 percent taking part, ended...
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Shawnee Village Shopping Center has a new — and local — owner.
Houston-based Weingarten Realty Investors (NYSE: WRI) sold the shopping center to Overland Park-based Henzlik-Oliver Real Estate Cos. LLC in a deal that closed earlier this month.
The 132,000-square-foot Shawnee Village Shopping Center, located at Shawnee Mission Parkway and Quivira Road, is anchored by Burlington Coat Factory.
A new 9,500-square-foot Dollar Tree store will open at the center in October, Henzlik-Oliver principal Doug Henzlik...
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For those of us who patiently wait for the economy to really and truly “recover” (or did it die and we need a new one?), I find myself clinging to anything that appears to be an “early indicator.”
For example, in Johnson County, I looked at the unemployment rate, which dropped almost a half a point last month from a record high of 7.3 percent down to 6.9 percent. This is a very far cry from the days long ago of 2.1 percent unemployment when my pet parakeet could find work at a call...
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Authorities have charged a former Merriam Municipal Court clerk with embezzling thousands of dollars from the court.
Fabiola Cruz was the subject of an internal city audit that looked into the accounting of Merriam’s court fines collection.
Cruz was charged Monday in Johnson County District Court after an arrest warrant was issued by the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office.
Bond was set at $100,000. Cruz was expected to make her first appearance before Judge Peter Ruddick on Tuesday...
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 An investment group led by RED Development LLC has purchased Mission Valley Middle School from the Shawnee Mission School District for $4.3 million.
The school board approved the sale, which was $1 million over the district's asking price, on Monday.
The investment group includes principals from RED Development, RED Brokerage LLC and Tutera Investments.
"We have assembled a group of local investors — several who live in the neighborhood — and each of us feels honored to have the opportunity to create a development that will integrate seamlessly with the neighborhood, add value and enhance the community experience," Dan Lowe, managing partner for RED Development, said in a...
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 For Tom Hoenig, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, there still is a lot of work to do to address the threats that big financial institutions pose to the U.S. economy.
In a speech to members of the Pew Financial Reform Project and the New York University Stern School of Business, Hoenig said the future of capitalism remains at risk as long as the nation allows single institutions to become so important that they require special support and different rules.
“For capitalism to work, businesses, including financial firms, must be allowed — or compelled — to compete freely and openly and must be held accountable for their failures,” Hoenig...
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 The Regus Group on Monday opened its sixth Kansas City-area office suite at 435 Nichols Road, and it’s eyeing additional growth in the region.
The 41-suite, fully furnished office includes a variety of shapes and sizes in the corner of the building housing Victoria’s Secret. Regus Group develops flex-term office suites that include shared administrative support, meeting rooms and videoconferencing. Leases range from three months to five years.
“High demand in the Kansas City market drove us to expand to the Country Club Plaza location,” Regus regional vice president Jeff Doughman said in an...
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The Regus Group on Monday opened its sixth Kansas City-area office suite at 435 Nichols Road, and it’s eyeing additional growth in the region.
The 43-suite, fully furnished office includes a variety of shapes and sizes in the corner of the building housing Victoria’s Secret. Regus Group develops flex-term office suites that include shared administrative support, meeting rooms and videoconferencing. Leases range from three months to five years.
“High demand in the Kansas City market drove us to expand to the Country Club Plaza location,” Regus spokeswoman Julia Gaynor said in an...
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Kansas City-based Lockton Insurance Cos. Inc. has opened a risk management and employee benefits operation in Memphis.
The new office is led by Joe Lammel, a veteran insurance brokerage executive with more than three years of experience at Marsh Inc., most recently as leader of Marsh’s Memphis office.
“We see a rare opportunity in Memphis to assemble a high-caliber group of professionals,” Kevin McDaniel, president of Lockton in St. Louis, said in a release. “We are thrilled to have a respected industry leader like Joe Lammel lead this exciting...
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 Dodge City Distillery plans to open next month in Olathe, offering vodkas brewed in-house, whiskeys aged in the restaurant and a spirit-infused menu, all while maintaining environmentally friendly practices.
Derek Betz, former COO at KC Hopps and one of the partners in the new restaurant, said the concept came from a Dodge City developer, who eventually wants to open a distillery in the southwestern Kansas town. But he wanted to get the ball rolling, and a former On the Border restaurant, 11935...
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Executive AirShare, a Kansas City-based fractional aircraft ownership company, is expanding in Texas, where it sees potential for revenue to soar.
The expansion includes moving to a 19,000-square-foot hangar and an 8,400-square-foot terminal space on the property of Signature Flight Support at Dallas Love Field, according to a release.
Bob Taylor, chairman and CEO of the company, said Executive AirShare has been at Dallas Love for three years. The expansion gives the company a facility for housing its pilots and a sales...
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A federal judge has sentenced John Cunningham, once the CEO of the Retail Grocer’s Association in Westwood, to 46 months in prison for stealing from the organization.
Cunningham, 56, pleaded guilty to multiple counts of wire fraud and money laundering related to charges that he stole $1.3 million from the retail food industry nonprofit.
He was fired in 2009 because investigators thought he was taking cash from the RGA’s bank account with Intrust Bank, drawing phony money orders to pay off his debt and issuing duplicate paychecks in his...
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 Garmin Ltd. has landed a ruling in its favor, ending an investigation into the company’s imported navigation devices.
The U.S. International Trade Commission issued a final determination Friday, finding that Garmin (Nasdaq: GRMN) isn’t infringing on the patent rights of a Tokyo competitor, Pioneer Corp., Garmin said Monday. Pioneer makes navigation equipment for cars.
“The investigation is terminated,” a commission secretary wrote in the Friday order (download the ITC order here).
The decision is in line with a preliminary determination in December by an administrative law judge who ruled that Garmin did not infringe against three...
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 Truck shipments fell for the second consecutive month in May, according to the American Trucking Associations.
The trade organization reported Monday that its advance seasonally adjusted For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index fell 2.3 percent in May, building on a revised April tonnage decline of 0.6 percent, slightly better than the ATA’s preliminary estimate of a 0.7 percent loss.
The index of tonnage actually hauled, which doesn’t adjust for seasonal factors, was 115.9 in May, 2 percent more than...
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 U.S. gas prices have dropped 23.3 cents a gallon during the past month, and prices in the Kansas City metro area are declining even faster, according to AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge report.
The national average price for a gallon of fuel now sits at $3.57, down 8.1 cents from a week ago.
On the Missouri side of the Kansas City metro, the average on Monday is $3.38 a gallon, down 23.6 cents during the past month and down 10.5 cents from a week ago.
Across the state line, the average gallon costs...
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 Were you at the Kansas City Business Journal’s CFO of the Year awards event Thursday?
Check out our event pictures in the photo gallery (right) to see whether you ended up in front of our camera. And if you weren’t there, see what you missed.
See photos of the winning Kansas City-area CFOs here.
Subscribers can see our special section about the CFO of the Year honorees and winners...
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 A Garmin Ltd. subsidiary has agreed to acquire Tri-Tronics Inc., an electric dog training equipment designer and manufacturer.
Garmin didn’t disclose financial terms of the agreement, which is expected to close by the end of June.
The navigation device-maker (Nasdaq: GRMN), which has its operational base in Olathe, said in a Friday release that the purchase would strengthen its position in the market for tracking and training sporting dogs and pets.
Garmin entered the market in 2007 with Astro, a GPS dog-tracking system for hunters that pinpoints dogs’ exact...
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 Kansas City ranks as the 29th-largest metro area, according to a midyear population estimate.
The estimated population as of July 1 was just less than 2.06 million, and the trend is up, according to figures released Friday. The estimate is the first to take into account results of the 2010 census, publicized earlier this year.
Click here for the latest population estimates for all 942 metropolitan and micropolitan areas throughout the United States.
Business First of Buffalo, N.Y., an affiliate of the Kansas City Business Journal, has developed a computer program that projects the current populations of...
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 Residential building permits in the Kansas City region are recovering but still have a long way to go to return to pre-recession levels, according to recent data from the Home Builders Association of Greater Kansas City.
A total of 1,096 multifamily and single-family construction permits were issued through the first five months of the year, compared with 1,030 for the same period of 2010.
Although the numbers reflect year-to-year improvement, the number of permits issued is roughly one-fifth the volume in 2005 and...
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 Electric vehicles running out of juice soon will have 10 more places to fill up in the Kansas City region.
On Friday, Kansas City Power & Light announced the locations of 10 new electric vehicle charging stations that are available to the public. At least five other public charging stations already exist in the metro area, said Larry Kinder, CEO of Overland Park-based LilyPad EV, which built the five existing stations.
LilyPad has been selected to build the 10 new stations as well, according to KCP&L, a subsidiary of Kansas City-based Great Plains Energy...
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 Saint Luke’s Health System has appointed Dr. Melinda Estes, the head of a Vermont-based health care system, as its new CEO.
Estes, CEO of Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington, Vt., was named Friday as the successor for current CEO Richard Hastings, who announced his retirement in January and will step down July 31.
Estes will take over Saint Luke’s, which operates 11 area hospitals and affiliated clinics and specialty practices, in September. Chuck Robb, Saint Luke’s COO and CFO, will serve as interim CEO during the...
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 NovaStar Financial Inc. met all the conditions for a recapitalization plan that included converting its preferred stock into common stock and cash. It completed about half the exchange on Thursday.
The Kansas City-based company, which posted $1.78 million in first-quarter earnings, owed more than $45 million in deferred dividends on its preferred shares. NovaStar announced the recapitalization plan in December.
On Thursday, the company completed an exchange of about 2.1 million shares of Series D preferred stock for...
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Small business owners in Missouri are a bit more optimistic about the economy than they were a year ago, though they remain cautious about the future, according to a survey by U.S. Bank.
Missouri was one of 25 states — excluding Kansas — studied in the 2011 U.S. Bank Small Business Annual Survey, which included the views of about 3,000 small business owners.
In Missouri, 77 percent of small business owners still think the economy is in a recession, down from 83 percent a year ago. A quarter view the Missouri economy as weaker than the overall...
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 Until at least late August, Missouri River floodwaters will disrupt Kansas City-area businesses, and owners are trying to cope with the uncertainty.
“It’s a ridiculous waiting game,” said Leanne Cofield, president of Visage Inc. “I can’t stay in limbo like this and conduct business for two more months.”
Forecasts call for the river to reach within a few feet of Visage’s front door at 12 East St. in downtown Parkville. Cofield has moved all unnecessary items out of Visage’s office, including product samples, office equipment, furniture and...
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This week in the print edition, the Kansas City Business Journal ranks the top 25 chambers of commerce in the Kansas City area. This list has few big changes from year to year, but participation varies among chambers outside the top five. Of note: The Black Chamber of Commerce of Greater Kansas City participated this year and made the list at No. 10.
Check out which ones made the top five, starting with No. 5:
Kansas City, Kan., Area Chamber of Commerce
2011 Rank: 5
2010 Rank: 5
The Kansas City,...
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Prairie Financial Inc. has sold to Boulevard Bank for an undisclosed amount, according to a Thursday announcement.
Founded in 2000 by Paul Muller, Lee’s Summit-based Prairie Financial offers custom finance and leasing of equipment for the outdoor amusement, family entertainment and short-line railroad industries.
St. Louis-based Boulevard Bank, which had $141.1 million in assets as of March 31, has locations in Neosho, Mo., and in St. Louis. The bank is well capitalized, with $12.7 million in equity capital and...
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A federal grand jury has charged five Kansas City-area men — including a former bank executive and former police officer — for their involvement in a mortgage fraud scheme.
Among those named in a 13-count indictment was William Vaughan, 57, of Shawnee, who was vice president of Northland National Bank in Gladstone.
Craig Chambers, 47, of Shawnee — a former police officer for the Gladstone Police Department — also was charged in the $485,000 conspiracy. During the alleged February 2006 to June 2008 conspiracy, he worked as a mortgage...
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 H&R Block Inc. saw income drop 15.3 percent during a trying year that required the company to quickly make adjustments.
The Kansas City-based tax preparer (NYSE: HRB) had earnings of $406.1 million, or $1.31 a share, for the fiscal year that ended April 30, down from $479.2 million, or $1.44 a share, the previous year.
The company’s earnings took a hit from the Internal Revenue Service deciding to no longer provide the debt indicator tax preparers use to know whether a taxpayer refund would be diverted to cover debts such as unpaid child support or delinquent student...
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 Toss the funky glasses, but brace yourself for a migraine.
Sprint Nextel Corp.’s 3-D phones hit the shelves Friday, and they’re getting mixed reviews.
Touted as the United States’ first “glasses-free” 3-D 4G device, the HTC EVO 3-D costs $199.99 at Sprint stores with a new two-year service agreement or eligible upgrade.
Here’s how Sprint described the multidimensional phone in a written statement:
“Built with the Android 2.3 operating system (Gingerbread), HTC EVO 3D features America’s first...
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Allstate Insurance Co. is expected to settle its legal malpractice claim against Overland Park law firm Wallace Saunders Austin Brown & Enochs Chtd. and one of its former partners.
Both parties filed a notice to a federal judge in Kansas City asking to put off an Aug. 22 trial date after mediation sessions led by former Jackson County Judge Jay Daugherty in June resulted in a confidential settlement, pending the preparation of final documentation.
The filing said both parties wanted to avoid paying attorney’s fees involved in preparing such a case for...
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 About 300 people attended the Kansas City Business Journal’s CFO of the Year awards luncheon on Thursday, honoring the area’s top financial executives.
Winners in each of four categories were revealed at the event.
Michael Upchurch, executive vice president and CFO of Kansas City Southern, was the winner in the large company category.
David Leavitt, vice president and CFO of The Victor L. Phillips Co., won in the medium company category.
Kent Galley, vice president and CFO of Saepio Technologies...
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 Kansas City remains a buyer’s market heading into the summer residential selling season, with about a 10-month supply of new and existing homes for sale on the market, according to the Kansas City Regional Association of Realtors.
KCRAR reported that the total number of homes sold in the region plummeted 24 percent in May compared with a year prior.
Combined sales of existing and new homes were 2,185 in May, compared with 2,878 a year earlier.
On a positive note for real estate agents, the number of houses sold last month represented an 8 percent increase from...
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 Kansas City is among the top five cities for renters, according to Forbes.
With an average monthly rent of $649, up 1.9 percent during the past year, paying rent is $213 cheaper than a monthly mortgage payment, Forbes said. The first-quarter rental vacancy rate was 7.5 percent.
The worst city for renters is New Haven, Conn., which has a rental vacancy rate of 4.5 percent and average monthly rent of $1,504. Average monthly mortgage payments are $69 less.
The best city for renters is Tucson,...
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 Kansas City can be a tough labor market for young workers.
Among workers ages 16 to 34, the local jobless rate was 11.7 percent, putting Kansas City at No. 111 in a ranking of 385 markets by The Business Journals, with which the Kansas City Business Journal is affiliated. Kansas City had about 408,899 workers in that age group, 47,824 of which were unemployed, according to 2009 figures, the latest available from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. Those come from the depths of the...
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 Paris Brothers Inc. has been chosen as the National Small Business Contractor of the Year by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The Kansas City-based company, which offers distribution services particularly for specialty foods, received the award Wednesday in Washington. In a letter to the company, Bruce Nelson — acting administrator for the USDA’s Farm Service Agency — said Paris Brothers received the award because of its overall contract performance and “for doing your part to make our commodity programs so...
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 The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee once again has put off a decision about former Kansas Attorney General Steve Six’s appointment to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Senators on the 18-member committee were supposed to discuss and vote about Six’s nomination a week ago and delayed it to Thursday. Now, they’ve delayed it once more.
Further meetings about Six’s nomination to the Denver-based court, which takes up federal appeals from the U.S. District of Kansas, have not yet been...
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A former University of Central Missouri student pleaded guilty to stealing the identities of thousands of his fellow classmates and faculty with the intention of selling the information.
Daniel Fowler, 21, of Kansas City, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to computer hacking and conspiracy, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri announced.
Fowler’s codefendant in the case, Joseph Camp, is scheduled to go to trial in October.
The two were indicted in October 2010 for the alleged scheme, which prosecutors said involved developing a computer virus during the fall of 2009 that gathered user information from infected computers across the UCM campus and sent the information to computers in Fowler’s dorm...
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 Turnover for long-haul drivers in large truckload fleets hit an annualized rate of 75 percent during the first three months of the year, the American Trucking Associations reported Wednesday.
That’s a leap from the low of 39 percent during the same quarter last year and up from 69 percent during the fourth quarter — the highest turnover rate for that sector since the second quarter of 2008, according to the trade organization’s Trucking Activity Report.
“The driver market is tightening,” ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello said in a...
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Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon has signed a bill extending a state program offering small business owners low-cost investment capital.
The bill received unanimous support in the General Assembly.
House Bill 109 permanently extends the Missouri Linked Deposit Program, getting rid of the five-year expiration date, which was Dec. 31, 2015.
“These low-interest loans have real impact, and their continued availability is critical to investments in jobs and agriculture,” Missouri Treasurer Clint Zweifel said in a written statement...
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Companies shouldn’t ignore negative comments posted online, particularly from victims of a situation, a new study suggests.
Bo Kyung Kim, a doctoral student in the University of Missouri School of Journalism, found that such comments can propel negative views of an organization in crisis because the public puts so much stock in unsubstantiated information online.
“During crises, organizations need to make an effort to respond to negative online comments from users,” Kim said in a written...
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The Kansas City area came in 29th among metros in a ranking of young brainpower.
Locally, there are 476,973 residents ages 18-34, according to 2009 figures. Of that population, nearly 28 percent have a bachelor’s degree or higher, according to an analysis by The Business Journals, with which the Kansas City Business Journal is affiliated.
The metro area beat out St. Louis, which ranked 47th, with 25.3 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds holding at least a bachelor’s degree.
Topping the list were Washington,...
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 Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. expects to double its use of local produce this year.
The Denver-based monster-burrito chain (NYSE: CMG), which began using local produce in 2008, said Wednesday that it used 5 million pounds of produce from local farms in 2010 and expects to use more than 10 million pounds in 2011 at its 1,100 restaurants, 20 of which are in the Kansas City area.
Chipotle defines “local” as produce grown within 350 miles of the restaurant where it is served. Kansas City-area suppliers include Bates County Farm south of the metro area, which provides jalapenos and bell peppers, and Stanberry Produce in Northwest Missouri, which provides those plus red...
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 The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday unveiled its latest weapon to combat smoking — a series of nine health warnings that will appear on every pack of cigarettes sold in the United States and in every cigarette advertisement.
The nine warnings, which must be placed on all cigarette packs, cartons and ads no later than September 2012, are designed to graphically depict the consequences of smoking. They include images of smoke curling from the neck of a smoker with a tracheotomy, rotting teeth, diseased lungs and a corpse of a...
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 Vianney Industries LLC’s Midland Metal Manufacturing company plans to expand its Kansas City operation, meaning a $2.6 million investment and 54 new jobs, the Missouri Department of Economic Development announced Tuesday.
That represents a local employment surge for the Kansas City company, a wholesale distributor of plumbing accessories, which currently has 35 area workers out of 38 total. The new jobs, to be added during the next five years, will have an average annual salary of $33,000.
To help buy new equipment and improve a facility at 3122 Gillham Plaza — where it will move from its current location at 1219 Lydia...
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 As flood managers continue to lose space in massive reservoirs upstream from Kansas City, the closest Missouri River dam is scheduled to release more water into the swollen waterway beginning Wednesday and Thursday.
“Missouri River levels will remain dangerously high for the foreseeable future,” said Steve Iverson, deputy engineer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Kansas City District.
Releases from Gavins Point will increase to 160,000 cubic feet per second by Thursday morning, Omaha-based Corps Water Management Division Chief Jody Farhat said Tuesday...
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 The Kansas City metro just missed the top quarter of largest metropolitan economies with a $105.6 billion gross metropolitan product in 2010, ranking it 26th of the 100 largest metros in a U.S. Conference of Mayors report.
The New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington and Houston metro areas topped the list with the largest gross metropolitan products (GMP).
But the Kansas City metro came in much lower in terms of average GMP growth, averaging 3.4 percent increases from 2000 to 2010 for a rank of 258 among 363...
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 In a move to preserve desperately needed cash, the U.S. Postal Service plans to suspend contributions for the defined benefit portion of the Federal Employees Retirement System, also known as FERS, beginning Friday.
The Postal Service said Wednesday that suspending the biweekly payments of about $115 million to FERS would conserve about $800 million during the current fiscal year. The Postal Service estimates that it currently has a FERS account surplus valued at $6.9 billion.
Employees’ contributions to FERS will continue to be made every two weeks, as will employer and employee contributions to the Thrift Savings...
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 Bank of America Corp., the third-largest bank in Kansas City with $4.28 billion in local deposits, plans to nearly double the ranks of its financial advisers to more than 1,000 by year end.
The Charlotte, N.C., bank (NYSE: BAC) says the advisers will cater to its preferred customers, or those with investable assets of $50,000 to $250,000 — the fastest-growing segment in the financial services industry. BofA counts 8 million such customers.
“Preferred customers have a complex set of needs and concerns that go beyond what the standard retail bank can offer, but they don’t typically require a full-service financial adviser or a private banker,” said Dean Athanasia, preferred and small business banking executive at...
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Downtown Kansas City will be filled with more than 15,000 people this week for the National Leadership and Skills Conference at Bartle Hall and Municipal Auditorium, and local hotels are reaping the benefits.
More than 5,600 students will compete in the SkillsUSA Championships on Thursday. Also at the conference are teachers and business partners.
The students, who go to career and technical education schools, will compete in 94 categories related to fields such as precision machining, electronics, computer-aided drafting and culinary...
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 Price Development Group is proposing an upscale $30 million, 188-unit apartment building just north of Kansas City’s Country Club Plaza.
The 46 Penn project would be built north of 46th Street between Washington Street and Pennsylvania Avenue and would include rental units ranging from 657 square feet to 1,500 square feet.
Rent would range from $1,200 to $2,200 a month, said Aaron March, an attorney for the developer.
The four-story project, which includes 322 parking spaces, would require rezoning in a neighborhood that has been outspoken about large development...
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 You win some, and you lose some — but not often both in a 24-hour span.
Litigation-averse employers reacted favorably to a U.S. Supreme Court decision Monday that throws another hurdle before employees trying to claim discrimination in class-action lawsuits.
Then came news Tuesday that the National Labor Relations Board plans to change regulations, probably making it easier for workplaces to unionize.
It’s a win-loss situation, whether you’re an employer or an employee.
On the discrimination front, the Supreme Court reversed a 9th...
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 Members of the GPS community seem none too thrilled about an action by LightSquared Inc. to resolve its interference issues, calling it a “bizarre” move that does little to fix the problem.
LightSquared, a Reston, Va., company that reportedly sealed a $20 billion 4G wireless network deal with Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S), is backing off a frequency that GPS devices also use. The retreat comes after months of defending the practice and saying it was publicly open to examining the issues. A study about the interference issue is due to the Federal Communications Commission by July...
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 Thirty percent of businesses in the Kansas City region experienced a modest sales increase during the past year, and 34 percent saw roughly flat sales, according to a survey released by the Mid-America Regional Council. Yet hiring remains slow.
According to the survey, employment change was “very modest” compared with a year ago, though it was positive for most industries. Just more than a fifth of businesses (22 percent) said they had current job openings.
The sales outlook for the next year is rosier, with...
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 When pharmaceutical companies need help developing or testing new drugs, many head to Kansas City.
A new study, released Tuesday, found that the metro area boasts more than 70 contract research organizations and contract service providers that generate an estimated $1.33 billion in annual revenue and employ more than 9,000 workers.
It’s the first study to inventory the area’s drug testing and consulting resources, including firms involved with discovery, clinical trials, manufacturing, marketing and consulting to pass muster with federal...
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 Half of all U.S. employees have one foot out the door or are extremely unhappy at work, and young people are leading the way in the trend, according to a new survey about job satisfaction.
A recent Mercer “What’s Working” survey found that nearly one-third of U.S. workers are considering leaving their jobs and that an additional 21 percent view their bosses unfavorably.
POLL: Are you unhappy at work?
Mercer surveyed almost 30,000 workers in 17 countries, including 2,400 in the United...
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 Sprint Nextel Corp. shouldn’t throw stones, AT&T Inc. said in response to Sprint’s Monday filing with the Federal Communications Commission.
Neither should AT&T, a Sprint spokesman said Tuesday.
The drawn-out dispute between the two wireless carriers — AT&T (NYSE: T) at No. 2 and Sprint (NYSE: S) at No. 3 — continued this week with Overland Park-based Sprint submitting a roughly 300-page document to the FCC outlining ways AT&T could increase its spectrum without what Sprint deems an anti-competitive merger with...
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 The University of Kansas Cancer Center and the Kansas City Cancer Center said Tuesday that they have completed their proposed merger, creating one of the area’s largest oncology programs.
Announced in March, the merger closed late Monday and combines 52 medical and radiation oncologists at 12 locations in the metro area.
In addition to expanding treatment options for each group’s cancer patients, the parties said the combination will enhance the KU Cancer Center’s coming application for National Cancer Institute designation because it will greatly increase the number of patients able to participate in Phase I clinical...
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 Kansas City isn’t the best place for young adults. But it’s not the worst, either.
As often happens in such rankings, the Kansas City metro landed in the middle of the pack in an analysis of 65 metros with populations above 800,000, based on qualities that would appeal to workers in their 20s and early 30s. The analysis comes from The Business Journals, with which the Kansas City Business Journal is affiliated.
The Southwest has become the new frontier for young Americans — the region that offers the widest range of opportunities for men and women getting started in their...
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Enterprise Financial Services Corp. has named Joseph Gazzoli as chief executive of Enterprise Trust, the company’s wealth management and trust business.
Most recently, Gazzoli was retained by AHM Financial to establish an asset management capability for that organization. Previously, he was executive vice president and head of asset management for Kansas City-based UMB Financial Corp. (Nasdaq: UMBF), responsible for investment and wealth management, institutional asset management and personal and corporate...
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DST Systems Inc. has bought Subserveo Inc., a Canadian company that provides software for broker-dealers and investment advisers.
The companies did not disclose terms of the deal.
Kansas City-based DST (NYSE: DST) announced the deal late Monday, saying it would be marketed under the DST Brokerage Solutions banner in the United States.
Here’s the release:
KANSAS CITY, Mo., June 20, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- DST Systems, Inc. (NYSE: DST) announced today that it has acquired Subserveo, Inc. (“Subserveo”), a Vancouver,...
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 Sprint Nextel Corp. plans to file documents with the Federal Communications Commission on Monday afternoon that seek to undermine AT&T Inc.’s capacity arguments in its proposal to merge with T-Mobile USA.
Overland Park-based Sprint (NYSE:S), the nation’s third-largest wireless carrier, with more than 51 million customers, vehemently opposes the merger, saying it would create a duopoly between current No. 1 carrier Verizon Wireless and the proposed new entity, which would take the No. 1...
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 Forecasters nervously watched as a freak summer storm threatened widespread heavy rains throughout the flood-soaked northern High Plains on Monday, bringing further havoc to the Missouri River basin, where the river and its flood control reservoirs still were brimming from snow melt and spring rains.
“I think there’s no doubt we’re going to see this,” National Weather Service forecaster Bruce Terry said Sunday night, predicting “1- to 2-inch rainfall amounts for much of Nebraska, the Dakotas, over into...
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 Johnson County Community College is cooking up plans for a $10 million hospitality and culinary academy on its campus after meeting a fundraising goal.
The school raised $3.29 million from private donors to meet the “Wysong Challenge.” Former Kansas State Sen. David Wysong and his wife, Kathy, gave the school $750,000 in 2008, kicking off a capital campaign for the facility.
The board of trustees then challenged the college’s foundation to raise 30 percent of the building’s cost. Once the foundation reached that goal, the trustees said they would consider favorably providing the last 70 percent from the college’s capital reserves and capital outlay...
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 National chain steakhouses got the lukewarm side of the grill in a poll of Kansas City Business Journal readers.
The city known for its barbecue and cattle history leaned toward cooking its own steaks, according to the informal, unscientific poll, which prompted comments from many readers. The do-it-yourselfers — either on the grill or in the kitchen — made up 41 percent of the 817 responses so far.
“McGonigles, and then straight to my grill,” Alex H. commented, apparently referring to McGonigle’s Market in Kansas...
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Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback appointed local employment lawyer Paul Seyferth as one of five members to a commission charged with studying the state’s public pension program.
Seyferth, a Fairway resident and founding member of Kansas City-based Seyferth Blumenthal & Harris LLC, will help make recommendations about how the state can pare down its estimated $7.7 billion unfunded liability to the Kansas Public Employee Retirement System. Edward Condon, a Leawood resident who is COO of Sterneck Capital Management LLC, and Christopher Long, a Mission Hills resident who founded Palmer Square Capital Management LLC, also were named to the KPERS Study...
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A federal credit union regulator filed a pair of lawsuits in Kansas accusing major financial institutions of selling credit unions mortgage-backed securities that were far riskier than they represented. The suits seek a combined $800 million.
The National Credit Union Administration Board filed the actions Monday in the U.S. District of Kansas in Kansas City, Kan., against J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, RBS Securities Inc., Novastar Mortgage Funding Corp. and several other units, accusing each of securities fraud against credit...
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 Almost 20 percent of claims payments issued by big health insurance carriers earlier this year included some error, up 2 percent from a year ago, the American Medical Association says.
In its fourth annual National Health Insurer Report Card, released Monday, the Chicago-based AMA said the 19.3 percent error rate represented an extra 3.6 million inaccurate payments and an estimated $1.5 billion in added administrative costs.
“A 20 percent error rate among health insurers represents an intolerable level of inefficiency that wastes an estimated $17 billion annually,”...
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 Sprint Nextel Corp. and LightSquared Inc. reportedly have reached a nearly $20 billion deal.
Citing a letter obtained by Bloomberg News and sources close to the deal, the news agency reported that Overland Park-based Sprint (NYSE: S) struck a 15-year deal with LightSquared about splitting 4G network expansion costs and providing the high-speed wireless service.
“LightSquared and Sprint will jointly develop, deploy and operate LightSquared’s 4G LTE network,” hedge fund manager Philip Falcone reportedly wrote in the...
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 Charitable giving rose last year — in real dollars — for the first time in three years, a new report finds.
In 2010, total charitable giving amounted to $290.89 billion, up from the revised $280.39 billion in 2009, according to estimates in a Monday report from the Giving USA Foundation and the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. That 3.8 percent increase in current dollars — 2.1 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars — hints at a slow rebound from the recession, the researchers said in a...
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 Cerner Corp. has entered a joint venture to offer health care technology in Saudi Arabia.
On Saturday, the North Kansas City-based maker of health care software and records systems (Nasdaq: CERN) announced that it had a deal with Saudi government-owned investment firm Riyadh Valley Co. of King Saud University and business firm Zamil Group.
The three partners are forming the Riyadh Valley HIS (Health Information Systems and Services) Co., which will provide Cerner’s health care technology to hospitals throughout Saudi...
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 The meat of health care reform remains two-and-a-half years away, but nearly a fifth of companies say they may drop employee health care rather than deal with the new regulations, according to a new report.
In a Lockton Cos. Inc. survey of 1,034 of its insurance clients, 18.8 percent said they would consider terminating their group health plans when the employer “play or pay” mandate takes effect in 2014.
The mandate requires companies with 50 or more full-time employees to provide them and their dependents with health care coverage that meets federal...
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 Pilots for Frontier Airlines approved a deal with the carrier’s owner Friday that could lead to a restructuring of Frontier’s ownership.
The Frontier Airlines Pilots Association voted 498-58 in favor of the deal, which was worked out with union leaders and announced June 10. Frontier is among the largest carriers at Kansas City International Airport (Code: MCI) with about 11 percent market share so far this year. It recently added flights and slashed prices out of KCI.
In exchange for certain concessions, the pilots will get “an equity stake in Frontier,” according to Republic Airways Holdings...
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The Senate Judiciary Committee has delayed its vote about the nomination of former Kansas Attorney General Steve Six to an appeals court judgeship.
Senators are expected to take up Six’s nomination on Thursday.
Both Kansas senators have opposed Six’s nomination by President Obama to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. Sens. Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran, both Republicans, issued statements on Thursday making clear their stance.
What was less clear was why they opposed Six, a Democrat, other than expressed concerns about his testimony and...
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Cramer Products Inc., a Gardner-based maker of sports medicine and physical education products, has bought Stromgren Athletics.
The Hays, Kan., company, which will operate independently with its current staff, develops and distributes sports medicine, athletic compression and protective performance apparel. Terms of the deal, which closed Friday, are not being disclosed.
Cramer has 50 employees; Stromgren has 24.
“We have always been impressed with Stromgren’s reputation and commitment to quality,” Cramer CEO Tom Rogge said in a...
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 The number of Kansas City-area public companies has dwindled in recent years, allowing smaller local companies to gain access to the Kansas City Business Journal’s list ranking the area’s largest.
This year’s newcomer was No. 25, Butler National Corp. Leaving the list was American Italian Pasta Co., which was sold since last year’s list was prepared.
Here are the list leaders, starting with No. 5:
Garmin International Inc.
2011 Rank: 5
2010 Rank: 5
Garmin International Inc. reported $2,689,911,000 in annual revenue in its most recent fiscal...
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Bayer HealthCare LLC has persuaded competitor Farnam Cos. Inc. to stop running advertising that it claims falsely inflates the effectiveness of Farnam’s flea and tick control products.
Bayer HealthCare, which has its animal health division based on Shawnee, said Friday that it had resolved a legal fight with Farnam about print and online ads for Bio Spot.
In the ads, Farnam claimed that Bio Spot was “as effective as popular vet brands” and “the best flea and tick control available.”
Bayer, the maker of Advantage II and K9 Advantix II flea and tick control products, said those claims were not based on any studies or other...
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 The Kansas City Council has voted down an ordinance banning the manufacture of nuclear weapons components at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s new facility in south Kansas City.
Councilman Ed Ford sponsored the measure and stood alone in the 12-1 vote. The ordinance would have dramatically altered plans for a nearly $700 million manufacturing plant near Missouri Highway 150 and Botts Road.
“It’s one thing to be concerned about nuclear proliferation,” Ford said. “It’s another thing to have your city be an active...
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Federal prosecutors in Kansas have charged the owner of a Missouri construction company with misrepresenting his military history to receive federal contracts set aside for service-disabled veterans.
Warren Parker, 69, of Blue Springs, is accused of culling four separate contracts worth a combined $6 million through the Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business program for his Silver Star Construction LLC business.
An indictment charged Parker with providing false claims to the U.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs that he served tours of Vietnam and received various distinctions, including three Purple...
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 Nordic Windpower USA, a California wind turbine technology company that’s relocating to Kansas City, has named a new CEO who hails from GE Energy Services.
The company announced Thursday that Jeff Brown had been appointed CEO and director, succeeding Tom Carbone.
Carbone, Nordic’s CEO since March 2009, will remain as an adviser but has opted to resume his role as a private wind developer, Brown said in an interview.
In December, Nordic announced plans to relocate to Kansas City, bringing more than 200 jobs and a capital investment of nearly $16...
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 Former Kansas Attorney General Steve Six is finding no support from the Sunflower State’s U.S. senators in his nomination for an appeals court judgeship.
Jerry Moran, R-Kan., and Pat Roberts, R-Kan., issued statements Thursday announcing that they will not support Six’s nomination by President Obama to serve on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Neither senator’s statement cited specifics behind their opposition to Six’s nomination.
“After thoroughly reviewing Mr. Six’s record and his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, I will not support his nomination,” Roberts said in a written...
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Kansas City expects to save more than $6 million in energy costs during the next 15 years through a program with Johnson Controls Inc.
Wind generators, solar hot water systems and a solar photovoltaic rooftop array on city buildings all are part of the plan, which Johnson Controls (NYSE: JCI) designed using renewable energy technologies.
The company also offered an environmental education course to more than 4,500 Kansas City staff members, as well as the 12 City Council members and Mayor Sly...
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The Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City raised $396,818 during its fifth-annual ArtsKC Fund Campaign.
The results, announced Wednesday, mean a five-year total of almost $2.5 million raised for the arts in the Kansas City area. Workplace giving campaigns made up most of the contributions, with 10 businesses boosting participation or giving by at least 20 percent: American Century Investments, the Arts Council, Heartland Combined Federal Campaign, KCP&L, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Owen/Cox Dance Group, Parris Communications, Paul Mesner Puppets and UMB Financial...
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 Zaarly Inc.’s barely 1-month-old social marketplace website has reached $1 million in posted transactions.
Zaarly, which Kansas City entrepreneur Bo Fishback launched May 18 after capturing $1 million in seed financing from Ashton Kutcher and other investors, crossed that threshold Wednesday.
“This means that we’ve had some significant traction in less than a month of our platform of being live,” Zaarly Marketing Director Adam Hofmann said in an email. “We have tens of thousands of users posting things every...
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 The Kansas City Council again faces a decision about plans for a Country Club Plaza office building.
A proposal that will appear on the docket for first reading at the council’s Thursday meeting seeks to effectively quash Plaza owner Highwoods Properties Inc.’s (NYSE: HIW) plans for a 200,000-square-foot office tower at the Neptune Apartments site at 46th Terrace and Broadway. An earlier measure, approved 9-3 by the council, had rezoned the site for the office project, overturning a Kansas City Plan Commission ruling and a veto by former Mayor Mark...
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 The Petro America Corp. affinity scam has rounded up eight more defendants after a new federal grand jury indictment.
Federal prosecutors in U.S. District Court in Kansas City announced late Wednesday that grand jurors think a total of 12 defendants participated in a securities scam involving a purported $284 billion-asset Kansas City-based petroleum company that actually was little more than a shell corporation.
Federal prosecutors allege that Petro America was the vehicle used by 12 defendants — not counting two ministers who waived their rights to a grand jury and pleaded guilty to federal charges on Tuesday — to bilk investors out of as much as...
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 The Kansas Bioscience Authority plans $29.7 million in new investments for life sciences research and business startups during its next fiscal year.
The KBA’s executive committee adopted the plan, which takes effect July 1, on Wednesday. It envisions $20 million in commercialization projects and $9.7 million in research and development projects.
The biggest piece of the spending plan includes $7.5 million for the state’s four Centers of Innovation programs, which develop research in particular...
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Richards Building Supply is moving as many as a dozen jobs to Kansas City as part of a corporate expansion.
The roofing and general building supply distributor, based in Peoria, Ill., has leased more than 10,000 square feet at 1120 E. 13th St. It is the company’s first Kansas City-area office.
John Hassler of Zimmer Real Estate Services LC represented the landlord, Privitera Realty Holdings LLC, in the transaction.
Chris Foresee of Heise-Meyer LLC represented Richards Building...
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 The conversion of Halls Crown Center into a Sea Life Aquarium and Legoland Discovery Center attraction is reaching new depths.
Escalators in the three-story store have been dismantled, and crews are shoring up the building’s foundation to withstand the 160,000-gallon tank that will serve as the aquarium’s primary exhibit.
“It is going to be very sturdy, and it’s a big tank,” said Dave Roesler, Crown Center facilities design manager. “We are under way with our ‘white box’ work for the Sea Life project, which means we are taking the whole store and doing some basic work to convert it into an...
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Friends of the Plaza has been notified by the Kansas City Election Board that it has collected more than enough signatures to force a citywide vote about a proposed Country Club Plaza office project.
“We are very pleased, and we have asked the mayor and the City Council to repeal the rezoning ordinance outright as opposed to having a referendum election in November,” said Dan Cofran, attorney for Friends of the Plaza, which is spearheading the campaign against the seven-story office building Plaza owner Highwoods Properties...
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Friends of the Plaza has been notified by the Kansas City Election Board that it has collected more than enough signatures to force a citywide vote about a proposed Country Club Plaza office project.
“We are very pleased, and we have asked the mayor and the City Council to repeal the rezoning ordinance outright as opposed to having a referendum election in November,” said Dan Cofran, attorney for Friends of the Plaza, which is spearheading the campaign against the seven-story office building Plaza owner Highwoods Properties...
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Prairie Village-based A-1 Staffing has sold, splitting it from sister staffing company A-1 Careers, both of which were owned by Bruce Putman.
Effective June 5, A-1 Staffing sold to Spartan Staffing of Greenville, S.C. Spartan is a division of TrueBlue Inc. (NYSE: TBI) of Tacoma, Wash., and is the largest provider of industrial temporary labor in the United States.
Putman, former CEO of A-1 Staffing, said Spartan acquired his company because Spartan had moved as far west as St. Louis and was looking for strategic geographic...
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Google Inc. said Wednesday that it has no plans to build a data center in Kansas City and reiterated that it would hire few local employees for its ultra-fast Internet project.
The statements came the same week sources close to the Johnson County data center community said Google officials had been seen eyeing data space there.
Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) has been pretty quiet since it announced May 17 that it would add Kansas City, Mo., to its Kansas City, Kan., Internet project.
But the company recently has been posting information in a question-and-answer format on its Google Fiber...
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Jim Heeter (Greater Kansas City Chamber CEO) and I finished the last of our “No Bad Ideas” Big 5 meetings this week.
Yes, I’m exhausted.
We had originally planned on 17 meetings, wanting the process to be as inclusive as possible, but ended up having a total of 23. I don’t have the final count, but I’d be surprised if total attendance didn’t pass the 400 mark.
Anyway, what a great influx of ideas — old and new, fantastic and well, let’s just say interesting. Jim and I, along with chamber staff, spent the better part of two days poring over every meeting this week and have the list finally...
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Longtime KMBC-TV and KCWE-TV President and General Manager Wayne Godsey plans to retire this year.
Godsey has held the role with the Hearst Television Inc. ABC and CW affiliates in the Kansas City market since 1999.
According to a Wednesday release, his successor will be named later.
Godsey’s television career has spanned more than four decades.
“Wayne was a longtime colleague when he took the reins at KMBC in 1999,” Hearst Television CEO David Barrett said in a release. “His stewardship at KMBC, one of Hearst’s earliest and most honored stations, even further solidified Wayne’s reputation as a top...
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 Animal Haven and No More Homeless Pets KC have merged to form Heartland SPCA.
By combining a humane society/animal welfare organization with an affordable veterinary care and spay/neuter services provider, the entities form a full-circle solution for the Kansas City area, according to a Wednesday release.
“Several months ago, both organizations began looking at ways we could work together to help more pets and expand our respective footprints in the community,” Courtney Thomas, executive director of Heartland SPCA, said in the...
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 Overland Park ranks as the most expensive place in the Kansas City metro area for homes, based on cities included in a new Coldwell Banker Home Listing Report.
The Coldwell Banker LLC report, which considers the average listing price of four-bedroom, two-bathroom homes listed on its website between September and March, put Overland Park’s average at $223,287, which also is the most expensive in the state and ranks No. 1,027 overall. The report includes homes in more than 2,300 North American...
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DST Systems Inc. reportedly has received buyout interest, which analysts said may be low-balled but will increase scrutiny of management at the Kansas City-based data-processing company.
Citing sources “with knowledge of the situation,” Reuters reported late Tuesday that DST (NYSE: DST) had attracted an informal buyout venture from Russell Glass, the founder of New York-based RDG Capital, whom Reuters called an activist investor. Reuters reported that Glass and a private equity firm made a preliminary offer in the mid-$60s a share but that DST management called it too...
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 Kevin Gray, who was president of the Greater Kansas City Sports Commission, died of cancer on Wednesday at age 51.
Gray, who joined the commission in 1989, played an integral role in establishing the Women’s Intersport Network (WIN for KC). He was a big proponent of construction of the Kansas Speedway, Sprint Center arena and the College Basketball Experience.
Gray was diagnosed with cancer in March and his duties were transferred to Cindy Smith, national director of events for the...
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 Kevin Gray, who was president of the Kansas City Sports Commission, died of cancer on Wednesday at age 51.
Gray, who joined the commission in 1989, played an integral role in establishing the Women’s Intersport Network (WIN for KC). He was a big proponent of construction of the Kansas Speedway, Sprint Center arena and the College Basketball Experience.
Gray was diagnosed with cancer in March and his duties were transferred to Cindy Smith, national director of events for the commission and interim...
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 Baggage fees collected by the nation’s largest airlines totaled $3.4 billion in 2010, nearly eight times what airlines collected in baggage fees three years earlier.
Numbers from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics say airlines collected another $2.3 billion in reservation cancellation and change fees last year, compared with $915,000 in similar fees in 2007.
Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL) collected the most baggage fees from its passengers in 2010 — more than $952 million. Delta is among the larger carriers at Kansas City International Airport (Code: MCI) with about 16 percent market share last...
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 I just had the opportunity to sit in on one of the Greater Kansas City Chamber’s Big Five meetings with Chairman Greg Graves and CEO/President Jim Heeter. The chamber’s Health Council, composed of many terrific health care leaders in our community, had the goal of trying to convince them that health most certainly needs to be one of the Top Five. After all, without your health, what else do you really have?
Here are a few facts:
• Health care, as a part of our economic cost, is more than 17 percent of gross...
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A pair of ministers with key roles in an alleged $7.2 million affinity fraud case have pleaded guilty in federal court.
Edward Halliburton, 56, of Kansas City, Kan., and Joseph Harrell, 49, of Waco, Texas, admitted that they helped perpetrate the Petro America Corp. fraud.
Petro America purported to be a $284 billion company when, in fact, it had little or no real assets.
A federal grand jury indicted four people in the scheme in November. Pitches for the bogus stock often used religious language, and investors often were recruited through churches, with the defendants paying church figures, the indictment...
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Centerpoint Medical Center is adding two operating rooms, part of a $5.2 million expansion of its surgery department.
The hospital announced the project Tuesday and said it will enlarge the department from eight to 10 operating rooms. Contractors roughed out space for the two rooms when they built Centerpoint five years ago.
The project also includes turning one of the existing operating rooms into an endovascular suite, where doctors can use blood-vessel catheters to perform minimally invasive surgery or diagnostic...
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Garmin Ltd. plans to acquire a German company known for a popular navigation platform for smartphones.
The navigational device-maker (Nasdaq: GRMN), which has its operational headquarters in Olathe, said Tuesday that it had signed a letter of intent to acquire Navigon AG, a privately held navigation provider.
Navigon has a roughly 7 percent share in portable navigation devices in Europe.
“With Navigon, we are also acquiring one of the top-selling navigation applications for the iPhone and Android platforms — something that we expect will help drive revenue for the combined company going forward,” Garmin COO Cliff Pemble said in a written...
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 The University of Kansas Medical Center has received a $20 million grant to speed up the development of promising research into full-fledged patient treatments and cures.
The National Institutes of Health on Tuesday announced the five-year, $19.8 million Clinical and Translational Science Award, adding KU to a small group of 60 U.S. universities doing work in this area of research.
The university said it will use the money to create Frontiers, a program that expands the work now done at KU Med’s Heartland Institute of Clinical and Translational Research, a coalition of regional health care and academic institutions cooperating on...
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Article In:KC Infozine03/30/2010
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Children’s retailer buybuy Baby on Tuesday opened a store in Overland Park, its first Kansas City-area location.
The 30,000-square-foot store at 12055 Metcalf Ave. is also the New York-based retailer’s first store in Kansas.
The retailer took over the SouthGlen Shopping Center retail space adjacent to Bed Bath & Beyond and formerly occupied by Borders, which closed in January. Buybuy Baby reportedly had been looking at the space since at least January.
The store geared toward babies and toddlers will offer furniture, strollers, clothing and learning and development...
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The McClatchy Co. named Mi-Ai Parrish as publisher of The Kansas City Star on Tuesday.
Parrish succeeds Mark Zieman, who became vice president of operations at McClatchy in May.
“The Kansas City Star has a storied history, and I’m humbled to be part of its future,” Parrish said in a release.
Parrish comes to Kansas City from The Idaho Statesman in Boise, where she was publisher. During her time at the paper, it was named as a Pulitzer Prize finalist for its coverage of U.S. Sen. Larry Craig’s men’s room...
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The winners have been selected for the Kansas City Business Journal’s Women Who Mean Business class of 2011.
The program honors corporate executives, entrepreneurs and professionals who are at the top of their game.
This year’s class marks the program’s 12th anniversary and brings to 300 the total number of women recognized. Previous winners have formed a network of ongoing support and friendship.
To identify potential honorees, the Kansas City Business Journal solicited nominations of women who have made significant contributions to business and industry in the Kansas City...
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It’s going to be tough to deal with the growing poverty in suburban communities.
Elizabeth Kneebone, a senior research sssociate with the Brookings Institution, made that clear Tuesday morning at the Human Service Summit hosted by United Community Services of Johnson County.
Kneebone said that the lack of public transit in suburban areas hindered residents who wanted to connect to jobs. She also said that the “social service infrastructure” was generally weaker in suburban areas and that philanthropic institutions tended to focus more on poverty in the urban...
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The National Cable Television Cooperative has picked a former Ascent Media Corp. executive as its new CEO and president.
The Lenexa company announced Tuesday that Rich Fickle would lead the cooperative’s membership efforts after the spring exit of previous CEO Jeff Abbas. Fickle begins his new duties on July 5.
NCTC is a not-for-profit organization that buys programming and hardware for more than 1,100 independent cable operators, their 6,000 individual systems and more than 14 million subscribers...
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 The Kansas City metro area is expected to have more than 230,000 seniors with poor access to public transit by 2015, according to a Transportation for America report.
The report found that aging baby boomers and older generations were outliving their capacity to drive, affecting their ability to get to the doctor’s office, shopping centers and other necessary services.
Options for other forms of travel are limited, especially in the Kansas City metro area, where 88 percent of residents 65 and older will not have easy access to public...
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Artile In:Pitch Weekly04/01/2010
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 Frontier Airlines pilots and the carrier's parent company have worked out a deal that would restructure the Denver-hubbed airline's ownership.
According to the tentative agreement reached Friday between the Frontier Airlines Pilots Association and Frontier's owner, Republic Airways Holdings Inc., the pilots would get an equity stake in the airline.
The deal also calls for Indianapolis-based Republic (Nasdaq: RJET) to reduce its stake in Frontier to a minority interest by the end of 2014.
The agreement is subject to ratification by the pilot union's members and a final Republic board...
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Article In:Kansas City Business Journal4/20/2010
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Congratulations to the delegations from 23 cities that will travel to Kansas City to vie for the coveted designation of All-America City. The three day event begins Wednesday, when towns as diverse as Buffalo, N.Y., and Kenai, Alaska, will present to a national jury of business, nonprofit and local government experts how they have addressed three of their most pressing challenges.
The finalist cities have spent months getting ready for the competition.
Friday evening, 10 cities will be selected as All-America Cities from among the...
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America's Best Adventure Townshttp://adventure.nat ...
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Article by:Kansas City Business Journal
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Article In:The Kansas City Star
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Article In:The Kansas City Star
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Research Medical Center has received Level 1 trauma center designation from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services — the fourth local hospital to achieve the highest rating for emergency services.
The 511-bed south Kansas City facility was told of the designation late last week, said Dr. H. Scott Bjerke, medical director of trauma services at Research Medical.
The hospital has operated as a Level 2 trauma center for about 20 years, Bjerke said
“Our primary objectives of injury prevention, community education, outreach and providing that high level of tertiary-care service — it just absolutely matches with us becoming a Level 1,” Bjerke...
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 Less than a week after raising $2 million in investments, LockPath Inc. has gone international, solidifying the company’s first formal partnership. LockPath leadership expects the deal to catapult the startup to a global market via the cloud.
BT Group, a London communications and IT services provider, announced Monday that it had selected Overland-Park based LockPath as its governance, risk and compliance (GRC) application for its cloud infrastructure.
LockPath’s Keylight platform will be the first of multiple applications BT uses in its BT Radianz cloud that are provided over the Internet in a method known as software as a service, or SaaS, the British company...
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 Overland Park-based Spinal Simplicity LLC will begin selling its first product, an implantable spinal device, this summer in Europe, another big step to entering the U.S. market.
Jonathan Hess, the medical device startup’s vice president, said the company has received a CE Marking approval, symbolizing it has met the health, safety and environmental standards of the European Union, and International Organization of Standardization certification, a management system requirement for medical device...
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U.S. utility leaders think energy and commodity prices will rise significantly during the next five years, according to a survey Black & Veatch released Monday.
The Overland Park-based company’s fifth-annual survey, which included more than 700 U.S. utility leaders, also found that water is becoming a more prominent business issue.
“For the first time, water supply has become the top environmental concern among survey participants, and water management was rated as the business issue that could have the greatest impact on the utility industry,” Rodger Smith, president of Black & Veatch’s management consulting business, said in a...
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A federal judge in Kansas City sentenced a former Lee’s Summit man to five years in federal prison, more than $1 million in restitution and $1.1 million in forfeiture to the government.
Matthew Tucker’s Friday sentencing came after a March 18 guilty plea on a mail fraud count related to illegal investment schemes.
Tucker was accused of representing to investors that he was running a currency arbitrage operation called the Bunker Group. Tucker would collect people’s investments and in return provide them with bogus monthly...
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 Perkins & Marie Callender’s Inc. announced Monday that it will close 58 stores nationally as part of a financial restructuring, including one of the six Perkins restaurants in the Kansas City area.
On Monday, the company filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy to financially restructure. It operates two dining chains: Perkins Restaurants and Marie Callender’s, which are concentrated heavily in Florida, California and Nevada.
Perkins has six locations in the Kansas City area: Kansas City, Kan., Lenexa, Olathe, Lee’s Summit, Gladstone and...
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Kansas and Missouri experienced economic growth during the past year, but they grew more slowly than more than half the states.
New information from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis shows that 48 states experienced economic growth last year, with North Dakota at the top of the pack.
The analysis is by G. Scott Thomas of The Business Journals, a national affiliate of the Kansas City Business Journal. Gross state products were adjusted to 2005 levels to eliminate problems of inflation.
Kansas’ economy grew by...
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 The Kansas City area lost 900 retail jobs during the past three years, faring better than more than 80 U.S. metros.
The metro had 105,500 retail jobs in April, down from 106,400 in April 2008. Retail jobs accounted for 13 percent of private-sector jobs.
Kansas City ranked No. 17 on the list, under cities such as Houston; Little Rock, Ark.; and Baton Rouge, La.
G. Scott Thomas for The Business Journals completed the analysis, looking at employment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the country’s 100 largest metro areas, ranging from April 2008 to April of this...
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North Kansas City Hospital plans a $16 million expansion of its emergency department to deal with the continual rise in patient visits.
The hospital plans a Tuesday announcement about the project, which will move the emergency room across Clay Edwards Drive from the hospital and expand it from the current 18,000 square feet to almost 31,000 square feet. The number of beds won’t change from the current 42, but all will be private rooms and benefit from more natural light. The project also will provide the emergency department with a dedicated CAT scan machine so ER physicians won’t have to compete with other...
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 General Motors will invest $20 million in its Fairfax Assembly Plant in Kansas City, Kan., to add machinery and equipment that will allow for improvements to the Buick LaCrosse, which is produced at the plant.
The plant, which employs more than 3,900, makes the Chevrolet Malibu and the LaCrosse, both of which saw sales decline last month after posting gains in April. The investment is not expected to bring new jobs.
Last week, GM said the 2012 Buick LaCrosse with eAssist — expected to have highway fuel economy as high as 37 miles per gallon — would be priced starting at $29,960 before an $860 destination...
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 Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon on Friday announced $172 million in additional spending cuts from the $23 billion fiscal 2012 budget.
The cuts include:
$99 million in MOHELA (Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority) capital improvement projects.$16.8 million restriction for two- and four-year higher education financing. (For most institutions, that's a 7 percent cut, higher than the 5.7 percent cut lawmakers approved.)$14 million restriction in Medicaid. $8 million in public school transportation.
Missouri Budget Director Linda Luebbering said several factors prompted the additional...
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 An aging flood wall in Kansas City, Kan., attracted the attention of U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., on Friday as he toured low-lying areas near the surging Missouri River.
The river is not expected to rise high enough to endanger the flood wall this year, but the spot is regarded as the weakest link in the flood-protection system guarding the Fairfax District.
Steve Dailey, general manager of the Fairfax Drainage District, said that money to strengthen the flood wall hasn’t been appropriated and that the...
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More than 25,000 immigrants in the Kansas City area hold a college degree or greater, according to a new study by the Brookings Institution.
The study shows that the immigrant population for the metro area totals 119,152 people, which makes up 5.8 percent of the population.
Mid-skilled immigrants, or those who have a high school diploma, make up the biggest population, totaling 38,096. The total number of low-skilled immigrants, those who lack a high school diploma, comes to 30,619.
Acccording to the study, an immigrant qualifies as someone born outside the United...
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 Businesses looking to go green should go “Dumpster diving,” a senior engineering associate at Clorox Co. said Friday to more than 200 people attending a sustainability summit at the Burns & McDonnell headquarters in Kansas City.
As part of Clorox’s sustainability initiative, the company picked plants with reportedly strong recycling programs and had workers tip over their trash bins in a company parking lot and then sort through the contents. During these exercises, employees see firsthand how much of what they threw away should have been set...
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Kansas City has joined the likes of Baltimore, San Francisco and Washington as a good place to find a job online.
The city ranked 10th in Monster.com’s list of Top 10 metro areas to find a job.
Monster.com said jobs in the creative and marketing sectors, office administration and health care support roles were most available in Kansas City.
Bob Marcusse, CEO of the Kansas City Area Development Council, said it was important for Kansas City residents to know about the ranking and realize that the area was doing well compared with the rest of the...
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 Trader Joe’s will open its two Kansas City-area locations July 15.
The Leawood store, in the One Nineteen center at 119th Street and Roe Avenue, and the Kansas City store, in the Ward Parkway Shopping Center, will open at 8 a.m. that day. The Leawood store is the first Kansas location for the grocer. The Kansas City store will join four other Missouri locations, all in the St. Louis area.
Trader Joe’s began in 1958 and has more than 300 stores nationwide. In 2000, the chain opened its first stores in the Midwest, in...
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 I’d done a walkthrough of the Livestrong Sporting Park construction site midway through the process. I’d talked to our reporters after they interviewed team officials and contractors about the fabulous facilities, electronics and amenities. And, as a fan, I devoured everything I could get my hands on about the project.
Still, the stadium’s opening night on Thursday not only blew by my expectations, it trounced even my wildest hopes.
Forget the specifications and technical terms. Let’s talk in more visceral...
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We all sit on some sort of advisory board, don’t we?
I know I do, and consider it a sense of pride that somebody cares what I think enough to ask me to be on one. They are usually sorry after they get me, however.
I am quick to recognize whether they want to advise me of something or ask my advice.
The former has an advisory board so the organization can present its recommendations and gather concurrence from the board. The board members look at one another like deer in the headlights and wonder what basis they might have to object, or even really...
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 Sporting Club, the ownership group for Sporting Kansas City, announced that it signed a multiyear, multimillion-dollar founding partnership with TheCoolTV.
Lawrence-based TheCoolTV is a multicast TV network available in more than 70 cities. It will be the official music content partner, event production partner and alpha technology partner of Livestrong Sporting Park. TheCoolTV also will receive naming rights for the Members Club and produce content for the more than 300 StadiumVision televisions at Livestrong Sporting Park, and the club’s recently launched online...
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 This week, the Kansas City Business Journal ranks the fastest-growing businesses in the Kansas City area.
Many newcomers join this year’s list, including three of the top five. Information technology companies dominate the list, accounting for 10 of the 25 companies listed.
Here’s No. 5:
Perfect Output of Kansas City LLC
2011 Rank: 5
2010 Rank: 2
Perfect Output of Kansas City LLC reported 32.9 percent average annual revenue growth from 2008 to 2010.
Click here for No. 4 on the list.
For the full 2011 list of Fastest-Growing Area Businesses, ranked by average annual revenue growth from 2008 to 2010, take a look at this week’s subscriber edition of the Kansas City Business...
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 The owner of the former Katz Drugstore building at the corner of Westport Road and Main Street in Kansas City will sell the property at public auction.
Developer Westport & Main LLC had been seeking tax abatements to open a bakery and cafe at the site, but its tenant, Farm to Market, abandoned the project in 2010.
The art deco building with an iconic clock tower most recently was a CVS drugstore. Built in 1934, the building is on the Kansas City Register of Historic Places.
Cates Auction & Realty...
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 Kansas City’s Holiday Inn-CoCo Key Water Resort is wading toward a $2 million upgrade.
WRDH KC Operations LLC, which bought the property for an undisclosed price, also will retain the Holiday Inn franchise flag and the CoCo Key connection, CoCo Key spokeswoman Amy Wewers said.
The hotel and indoor water park sold at auction in February, along with nine other CoCo Key-anchored hotels.
The opening bid was set at $1.9 million, according to Chicago-based Jones Lang LaSalle hotels, which brokered the...
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 Sprint Nextel Corp. is teaming up with Motorola Mobility Inc. to launch at least 10 new wireless devices this year through Sprint’s prepaid, or no-contract, brands.
The devices — smartphones, tablets and push-to-talk devices — will be sold through Sprint’s Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile USA brands, starting with the Motorola Photon 4G and Motorola Triumph. Overland Park-based Sprint (NYSE: S) is the nation’s third-largest wireless carrier with more than 51 million customers.
The touchscreen Photon, which will hit shelves in the summer, is Motorola’s first Sprint 4G device and runs on Google’s Android operating...
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 Victory Junction, a camp for chronically ill children, will be hiring roughly 200 full-time and part-time employees before the camp opens in the spring of 2013.
Pattie Petty, CEO and co-founder of the camp, said there will be between 90 and 120 full-time, year-round positions and the same number of seasonal positions in the summer.
“There will be a lot of jobs available for people in the Midwest,” Petty said.
This will be Victory Junction’s the second camp, which is planned for 65 acres east of Kansas Speedway in Wyandotte...
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 A federal grand jury named two additional defendants in the alleged Hereford House arson scheme.
Vincent Pisciotta, 56, and Mark Sorrentino, 45, both of Kansas City, join Rod Anderson as defendants in an alleged arson scheme designed to go after a $2.5 million insurance payout. Anderson was indicted in June 2010.
Pisciotta, Sorrentino and an unnamed co-conspirator are accused of setting fire to the Hereford House building on Oct. 19, 2008, in downtown Kansas City at 2 E. 20th St.
Federal prosecutors allege that Anderson, who has pleaded not guilty, sought a $300,000 advance from Travelers Property Casualty Insurance...
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 Layne Christensen Co. posted a dramatic boost in profits for its fiscal first quarter, which ended April 30.
Layne Christensen
Revenue: $267.37 million, up 15.9 percent
Earnings: $13.1 million, up 98.8 percent
Earnings per share: 66 cents, compared with 34 cents
Quote: “Layne Christensen Co. had an all-time record first quarter in revenues and the third-best first-quarter in earnings, excluding the gain on sale of our Fontana, Calif., facility. The Mineral Exploration Division was up significantly over last year in both revenues and earnings, and the Water Infrastructure Division improved in an environment of continued weakness in municipal...
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SFP, a Leawood-based fertilizer products company, has signed a multiyear deal to sponsor the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Kansas Speedway.
The sponsorship starts in 2012.
“This is an exciting announcement for us today as we just completed another successful NASCAR Camping World Truck Series event that saw Kansas native Clint Bowyer win his first race at Kansas Speedway,” Speedway President Patrick Warren said in a release. “I look forward to working with SFP to promote our truck series event and to continue to make it one of the best truck series races in the...
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Kentucky-based Lightyear Network Solutions Inc. has entered into a mobile virtual network operator agreement with Overland Park-based Sprint Nextel Corp.
On Wednesday, Lightyear (OTCBB: LYNS) announced the five-year deal, which lets the Louisville data and wireless telecommunication services provider work with Sprint (NYSE: S) on new wireless products, including prepaid and postpaid mobile phones. The contract allows Lightyear to use Sprint’s nationwide network.
Lightyear immediately will offer the new services to more than 60,000...
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 The Kansas City Royals are teaming up with the St. Louis Cardinals, Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association to help the Joplin, Mo., community recover and rebuild after the deadly May 22 tornado.
The Cardinals and the Royals are dedicating to Joplin their three-game series June 17-19 at Busch Stadium in St. Louis.
Players will wear a “Teams Unite for Joplin” jersey patch during each of the weekend’s three games. Fans will be able to buy the patch at Busch Stadium and the Royals’ Kauffman Stadium, as well as have the opportunity through the Cardinals’ website to bid on game-used and autographed items that include commemorative “Teams Unite for Joplin” baseballs, game-used bases and lineup...
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 Sprint Nextel Corp. took steps to detach itself from Clearwire Corp.’s financial risk Wednesday, reducing its voting rights.
The anticipated step by Overland Park-based Sprint (NYSE: S) comes after concerns in the fall that Clearwire could be considered a subsidiary because of Sprint’s majority ownership stake. The risk is that if Clearwire defaults on its debt, lenders could pursue Sprint.
Clearwire (Nasdaq: CLWR) said in a Wednesday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that Sprint notified the Kirkland,...
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President Obama on Tuesday nominated U.S. Attorney Beth Phillips for a federal judgeship.
If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Phillips would serve on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri.
The nomination marks the second time the Obama administration has recommended her for a federal post. In 2009, Phillips became U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri. She was named as an assistant U.S. attorney the previous year.
The University of Missouri Law School grad’s experience includes working as a prosecutor and as a lawyer in the Kansas City firm of Bartimus Frickleton Robertson & Gorny...
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If the controversy about AT&T Inc.’s merger with T-Mobile USA was a lunchroom food fight, Sprint Nextel Corp. should get ready to dodge a slew of tuna sandwiches.
The likes of Facebook and Microsoft are picking sides.
Several of AT&T’s friends with big names are throwing their weight around with the Federal Communications Commission this week, The New York Times reported Tuesday.
Eight “technology giants” plus 10 venture capital firms submitted letters in support of the merger on Monday to the FCC, agreeing that the deal would let AT&T (NYSE: T) expand its data network throughout the...
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 TranSystems Corp. has named a member of its senior management team and board as chief strategy and marketing officer.
Richard Morsches will keep his previous roles as board member and market-sector leader for TranSystems’ states and municipalities group, the professional services consulting firm announced Tuesday. But he’ll be shedding his title as principal/vice president of transportation projects in Chicago and regional vice president of the Northeast and Great Lakes regions.
“Rick has been instrumental in helping transform TranSystems from a $20 million firm located in six Midwest cities to a $240 million multimodal firm located in 40 cities through the United States,” CEO Brian Larson said in a written...
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The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reduced flows at a second Kansas reservoir Tuesday to decrease flood risks on the Missouri River as high water begins arriving downstream from unprecedented reservoir releases in Montana and the Dakotas.
The corps cut flows from Tuttle Creek Reservoir north of Manhattan on Tuesday to its minimum allowed level after doing the same at Milford Reservoir on Monday, Public Affairs Specialist Diana McCoy said. Flows from Perry Reservoir northwest of Topeka will be cut back on Wednesday, and flows from Clinton Reservoir west of Lawrence will be reduced on...
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 SolarTAC, a 74-acre research and demonstration campus in the Denver area for solar technologies and the largest such facility in the United States, held a grand opening ceremony Tuesday.
SolarTAC — the Solar Technology Acceleration Center — was announced in 2008, with Kansas City-based nonprofit research organization MRIGlobal one of the handful of entities backing the effort. MRIGlobal, formerly Midwest Research Institute, manages and operates SolarTAC.
“When we broke ground for this facility in October 2009, it was our vision to see the development of a world-class solar testing and demonstration center that would bring together technology providers and users, research institutions and government agencies,” Dick Kelly, outgoing chairman and CEO of Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy...
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As Google Inc. engineers its ultra-high-speed Internet projects in the Kansas Cities, KCK Mayor Joe Reardon expressed concerns Tuesday that not everyone in his city will be able to take advantage of the service when it goes live in 2012.
The conduit system that will connect directly to homes and businesses will thrive on participation and use, raising red flags for residents who may not be able to afford Google’s service, even if prices are as competitive as expected, said Reardon, officially mayor/CEO of the Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City,...
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 When I heard Kansas City, Kan., Mayor Joe Reardon’s announcement that Google had chosen the city as the home of Google’s first fiber test network, I was excited … but I didn’t know exactly why.
When I heard Google Access Services General Manager Kevin Lo say that company officials were “blown away” by the Kansas City, Kan., leadership — including the mayor and the city staff — I was excited … but I didn’t know exactly why.
When I heard new Kansas City, Mo., Mayor Sly James announce that Google had expanded its offering to include Kansas City,...
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Increases in commodity prices offset revenue gains and slashed profit margins during Overland Park-based propane retailer Ferrellgas Partners LP’s fiscal third quarter.
Ferrellgas (NYSE: FGP) posted $732.4 million in revenue, up 19 percent from the third quarter of 2010.
But a 21 percent increase in the wholesale cost of propane impinged on Ferrellgas’ margins, cutting quarterly earnings to $3.1 million for the quarter, or 4 cents a share. That figure includes a $10 million one-time charge for debt retirement and a $10 million litigation...
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 Floodwaters have begun disrupting Parkville businesses, and rain forecasts made flood forecasting dicey throughout the Kansas City area Monday as the Missouri River continued to swell with record-breaking runoff from Montana, Nebraska and the Dakotas.
The Parkville Chamber of Commerce called for volunteers to help Monday evening with the relocation of its offices to temporary quarters on higher ground from its railroad depot headquarters near English Landing Park along the river.
The chamber also called for volunteers to help with sandbagging at 2...
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 Fuel prices in the Kansas City metro area are edging up on both sides of the state line compared with a week ago, but they’re still down 17 cents from a month ago.
Prices for unleaded gas were up 4 cents a gallon on the Missouri side to $3.64 compared with $3.60 a week earlier, according to AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report. On the Kansas side, gas prices edged up to $3.73 a gallon compared with $3.71 a week earlier.
Currently, the average price per gallon statewide in Missouri and Kansas is...
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The Ewing Marion Kauffman School has found a permanent location at the 13-acre, four-building campus that formerly was the headquarters for the Church of the Nazarene.
The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation announced Monday that the space at 63rd Street and The Paseo would allow the charter school to instruct more than 1,000 middle and high school students by 2018. Classes won’t start at the new site until the 2013-2014 school year.
The Kauffman Foundation bought the site for $2.7 million.
The school sought an urban location that would provide a campus-like...
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Digital Ally Inc. has closed on a new $1.5 million credit facility just a little more than a week before a June 12 deadline to avoid default.
Company executives signed loan documents for the unsecured credit facility on May 31 with an unnamed third-party lender, Digital Ally (Nasdaq: DGLY) announced Friday.
The Overland Park-based company has been searching for a new line of credit because a roughly $1.7 million line of credit with Enterprise Bank is set to expire this month with no expectations for...
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 Kansas Speedway soon will have a neighbor — the second location of a camp for chronically ill children.
Victory Junction announced plans to build a Midwest location on 65 acres just east of the Kansas Speedway in Wyandotte County. Thousands of children who face serious health challenges will visit the free camp each year. The state-of-the-art facility will be equipped to handle more than 24 severe health issues.
“We believe we have found the perfect property for our camp in Kansas City,” Pattie Petty, CEO and co-founder of Victory Junction, said in a...
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 Comic book fanatics, Hallmark Cards Inc. is drawing up special plans just for you.
The Kansas City-based greeting card giant is heading to Comic-Con International — July 20-24 in San Diego — for the fourth year. There, the 125,000 comic aficionados in attendance can check out Comic-Con-exclusive Hallmark Keepsake Ornaments, as well as get a preview of 2012 products and talk with creators of popular Hallmark characters, the company announced Monday.
“The convention gives us a great opportunity to meet and interact with some of our most passionate fans and reward them with exclusive opportunities and sneak peeks,” Beth Dorr, associate merchandise manager for Keepsake Ornaments, said in a...
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 Sprint Nextel Corp.’s newest spinoffs of its popular HTC EVO smartphone will hit shelves on June 24, the company announced Monday.
The Overland Park-based wireless carrier — No. 3 in the U.S. industry with 51 million subscribers — is releasing the HTC EVO 3D, which it says is the first 4G 3-D device to not require glasses, and the HTC EVO View 4G, which it says is the market’s first 4G tablet. Sprint announced the devices in March.
The 3-D phone, which can capture and view in 3-D, will cost...
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Another week, another three Big 5 Meetings.
This week, Jim Heeter and I met with a group of philanthropic leaders chaired by Laura McKnight (the Greater KC Community Foundation), a group of life sciences leaders chaired by Dr. Patrick James (chair of the Life Sciences Institute) and what seemed to be a ton of listeners to Steve Kraske’s “Up to Date” radio show on KCUR.
Ideas flowed free from all three meetings, which included two representatives from the Teen Giving Institute on...
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With the Missouri and Kansas rivers rising, flood control crews Friday began preparing to endure weeks of near-flood conditions.
“It’s serious stuff that we’re dealing with here,” said Terry Leeds, acting director of Kansas City’s Water Services Department.
Flash flood waters from a Manhattan, Kan., downpour on Thursday were expected to reach Kansas City on Saturday, briefly pushing the Kansas River to the brink of flood stage near its confluence with the swollen Missouri River, according to federal...
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 Sporting Kansas City announced Friday that Providence Medical Center has agreed to become a founding partner of Livestrong Sporting Park for an undisclosed amount.
As part of that partnership, a section of the south end of the new Major League Soccer stadium in Kansas City, Kan., will be called the Providence Sporting Pass Zone. A Sporting Pass is a special mini-ticket package for children ages 4-17 that guarantees tickets to a minimum of three games of their choice for $59.99.
Providence Medical Center first became a partner of the team in 2008, sponsoring its juniors...
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Bank Midwest continues to lure experienced Kansas City-area bankers away from competitors as it builds its new executive team, announcing Friday that it had hired Bill Ferguson away from Commerce Bank.
Ferguson will be executive vice president of consumer banking for Bank Midwest and Hillcrest Bank. Ferguson previously was executive vice president and retail market manager at Commerce Bank, which is owned by Kansas City-based Commerce Bancshares Inc. (Nasdaq: CBSH).
Bank Midwest and Hillcrest Bank were acquired in the fourth quarter by NBH Holdings...
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 The Kansas City area is slated for an additional $459 million worth of highway projects, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback announced Friday.
He concluded a four-day tour of the state at Kansas Speedway, where he announced the first two phases — valued at $263 million — of the Johnson County Gateway project at interstates 435 and 35 and Kansas Highway 10.
The projects announced Friday, including nine in Northeast Kansas, represent the last of $1.8 billion worth of Kansas highway projects that Brownback announced on his...
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 Members of the Pipefitters Local 533 union went on strike Wednesday at Mechanical Contractors Association projects, which include work on Hollywood Casino at Kansas Speedway, The University of Kansas Hospital and Western Missouri Medical Center in Warrensburg.
Pipefitters Local 533 has not gone on strike since 1967.
Scott Grandon, organizer for the union, said that its agreement with the Mechanical Contractors Association expired at midnight Wednesday and that members haven’t been working on the sites...
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National Football League owners and players representatives met with a federal mediator on Wednesday and Thursday, before a pivotal appeals court battle scheduled for Friday.
The NFL lockout entered its 80th day on Friday, representing the longest work stoppage in NFL history.
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments Friday in St. Louis related to NFL owners’ wish to get a permanent injunction against the lockout granted April 25 by U.S. District Court Judge Susan Nelson. A previous appeals court ruling allowed the lockout to continue until the court reaches a final...
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 Online discount coupon company Groupon plans to go public with an initial stock offering that could raise as much as $750 million.
The company filed its prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, listing Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs & Co. and Credit Suisse as underwriters.
In its filing, Groupon revealed revenue numbers showing how rapidly the company has grown. It has gone from $3.3 million in revenue in the second quarter of 2009 to $644.7 million in revenue in the first quarter of...
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 In this week’s edition, the Kansas City Business Journal ranks the top business and professional associations in the Kansas City area, based on membership.
Organizations for Realtors, lawyers, businesspeople, electrical engineers and administrative professionals top the list, but convention-related businesses, physicians, architects, builders, human resource professionals and restaurant operators also have large local associations.
Here’s No. 5:
International Association of Administrative Professionals
2011 Rank: 5
2010 Rank: 5
The International Association of Administrative Professionals reported 2,043 Kansas City-area...
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 The U.S. unemployment rate edged up in May to 9.1 percent as job creation slowed dramatically, according to new federal data.
The unemployment rate, seasonally adjusted, had been at 9 percent in April. Nonfarm payroll employment added 54,000 jobs in May, down significantly from an average of 220,000 jobs added during each of the prior three months, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.
There were employment gains in several sectors, including professional and business services, health care and...
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Zimmer Real Estate Services LC has pledged to donate $10,000 toward the University of Kansas Cancer Center’s effort to achieve National Cancer Institute designation.
The Kansas City-based realty company said it kicked off its fundraising effort on April 18 and plans to wrap up its “Kicking Cancer in Kansas City” campaign in mid-July.
Zimmer has had close real estate ties with the university, representing Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) in the sale of its former Shawnee Mission Parkway headquarters to KU for the new Cancer Center and Medical Pavilion, and providing property and facilities management and maintenance services at KU’s Dialysis Center and MedWest urgent-care...
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 For all the years I can remember, when most leaders talked about the Kansas economy and basic industries, the infamous “three-legged stool” rolled easily off their tongues. The Kansas economy was driven by manufacturing, oil and gas, and agriculture.
Piece of cake.
Then 30 years ago, enter that weird animal called an “export office service,” and the service-based industry became the fourth leg of the stool. Kind of awkward, but manageable.
To this day, many in Kansas can’t wrap their heads around the service-based...
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 Grain exporter The DeLong Co. Inc. has bought an 8-acre site at Logistics Park Kansas City for an undisclosed price.
The Clinton, Wis., company will build the logistics park’s first export facility to coincide with the 2013 opening of BNSF Railway Co.’s new $250 million Kansas City Intermodal Facility.
“The DeLong Co. is pleased to partner with local farmers in bringing their agricultural products to global markets,” Bo DeLong, vice president of grain for The DeLong Co., said in a...
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United Seating & Mobility plans to buy Advacare Mobility & Seating’s Olathe-based mobility business for an undisclosed sum.
United Seating, a St. Louis-based mobility equipment supplier, has 500 employees; Advacare has approximately 20, said Melissa Georgeoff, a spokeswoman for United Seating.
In addition to the Kansas City area, Advacare has Kansas locations in Topeka and Wichita. All Advacare employees will stay with the company, Georgeoff said. President and founder Jerry Stevens will serve as director, responsible for acquisition...
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 LightSquared is in talks to pay Overland Park-based Sprint Nextel Corp. as much as $20 billion in a 15-year deal to share 4G network construction costs, Bloomberg News reported Thursday, citing sources familiar with the talks.
LightSquared, based in Reston, Va., initially would pay as much as $2 billion annually, with payments varying later based on users on its network, Bloomberg reported.
LightSquared, controlled by billionaire Philip Falcone, is building a nationwide wholesale 4G network to offer capacity to business...
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The NASCAR Sprint Cup races at Kansas Speedway this weekend are expected to bring in more than 80,000 people and generate an economic benefit of about $170 million for the Kansas City area.
“It’s basically the equivalent of setting up a small city, within our city, for four days,” said Cindy Cash, president of the Kansas City Kansas Area Chamber of Commerce. “When I say small city, I’m not just talking about population, but food needs basically being the equivalent of a new grocery store popping up, along with trash removal, sanitation and other needs that have to be...
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 Sara Lee Corp.’s new plant in Wyandotte County is set for a grand opening on Friday — and it’s bringing 255 new jobs with it.
The facility at 4612 Speaker Road in Kansas City, Kan., is a 200,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art meat-slicing plant, according to a release.
Sara Lee (NYSE: SLE) invested about $130 million in the plant — formerly a ConAgra Foods Inc. plant — which included buying the plant, property renovations and the cost of high-end machinery and meat-slicing equipment.
The corporation was granted a 10-year, 75 percent property tax abatement on $31 million of the...
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Two now-former employees of Lenexa-based Lee Research Institute have been indicted for falsifying study data in a clinical trial.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Kansas said Thursday that Dr. Wayne Spencer, 73, of Topeka, Kan., and Lisa Sharp, 48, of Olathe were charged with conspiracy, mail fraud and falsifying information to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The indictment was opened Wednesday.
In a released statement, institute officials said they terminated Spencer and Sharp after learning of their alleged actions in June...
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 Danny O’Neill is flying high about his Kansas City coffee factory’s roughly $5 million expansion project.
And that’s not just because The Roasterie Inc.’s factory will have a new, larger entrance, an expanded cafe and event space across the street. The renovated space at 1204 W. 27th St. will have a full DC-3 airplane mounted out front, in line with the company’s logo. (Last year, The Roasterie did a rebranding that included adding a large DC-3 airplane mural off Interstate 35 near Downtown proclaiming the new tag line: “Live Life on the Rim!”)
“We just want to make a real statement,” said O’Neill, the company’s...
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 The EF5 tornado that devastated much of Joplin, Mo., and took the lives of 138 people also swallowed up the city’s two Pizza Hut locations and killed two of the restaurants’ employees.
Both of the destroyed restaurants were owned and operated by Overland Park-based NPC International Inc., the largest Pizza Hut franchisee.
NPC immediately began looking for ways to help the Joplin area after the May 22 disaster, said Linda Sheedy, senior vice president of marketing for NPC. The company served free pizza to relief workers, victims and businesses for several days after the tornado...
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 Missouri tax revenues slipped in May, but they’re still up year to date compared with last year.
Missouri coffers have brought in $6.45 billion so far this year, up 2.7 percent from the same period last year.
The Show-Me State’s fiscal year starts July 1.
Although most months in 2011 have posted increases from the same month a year ago, May saw a 3.9 percent decrease in tax collections.
The state collected $589.7 million in May, compared with $613.8 million a year prior.
Individual income taxes, the state’s largest revenue stream, declined...
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 Clearwire Corp. is moving sections of its customer care operations to TeleTech Holdings Inc. to cut costs, a company spokesman said Thursday.
This is the second time in roughly two weeks that Clearwire (Nasdaq: CLWR), based in Kirkland, Wash., has transferred parts of its operation to another company.
Clearwire is majority owned by Overland Park-based Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) and provides Sprint’s 4G service. It’s been trying to continue the expensive buildout of its 4G network.
On Thursday, Clearwire told members of its customer care teams that TeleTech (Nasdaq: TTEC) would take over management of day-to-day customer service for Clearwire...
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 Great Wolf Resorts Inc. is substantially upside down on its Kansas City, Kan., water park investment and was unable to modify the loan backing the property, according to the company’s most recent quarterly report.
The document, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, said Great Wolf’s KCK and Traverse City, Mich., parks are worth a combined $42 million. Debt on the combined properties is just less than $67 million.
Great Wolf does not have immediate plans to surrender its KCK property, but returning the property to the lender is among options listed in the company’s first-quarter SEC...
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RED Development LLC has bumped up its relationship with a longtime investor.
RED said Wednesday that it formed a new real estate holding company, RED Consolidated Holdings LLC, with an unnamed institutional investor advised by CDK Realty Advisors. The new venture owns 22 properties totaling more than 9 million square feet in 12 states.
RED, with headquarters in Kansas City and Phoenix, said the new venture consolidates projects owned by the partners with RED’s operating companies. The result, it said in a release, should be greater access to capital and new...
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General Motors vehicles produced at the company’s Fairfax Assembly Plant in Kansas City, Kan., posted less robust results in May, the company reported Wednesday.
Sales of the Chevrolet Malibu midsize sedan rose 3 percent in May. Sales of the Buick LaCrosse declined by more than 12 percent.
Overall, GM dealers posted 221,192 total sales last month, a decline, with fleet volume weighing down a 9 percent increase in retail sales.
The Fairfax plant employs...
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 IHOP, the pancake-maker, is suing IHOP, the evangelical prayer organization — again.
The International House of Pancakes is suing Kansas City-based International House of Prayer in U.S. District Court in Kansas City on claims of trademark infringement less than six months after it dropped a similar lawsuit in California.
That suit was dropped Dec. 21, when the restaurant chain’s lawyers said the parties had entered mediation discussions.
Weeks before, a federal judge had ordered the restaurant chain to issue a brief explaining why the case should not be...
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 Arvest Bank acquired a bank building from Cunningham Properties on Tuesday for an undisclosed amount.
The first floor of the 19,500-square-foot building at 7401 W. 135th St. in Overland Park already operates as an Arvest Bank with four drive-through lanes. Arvest uses the second floor for office space. The acquisition of the building allows Arvest to expand onto the third floor as well, creating a larger training center for associates in the Kansas City area.
Remodeling for the main bank branch level is targeted for completion by year’s...
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Jim Stowers Jr. has made the top 10 on Forbes Magazine’s list of the world’s most charitable givers.
That puts the founder of Kansas City-based American Century Investments and the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in exclusive company — just a few spots up, leading the list, are Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, George Soros and Carlos Slim Hebu.
As Forbes wrote: “Stowers is probably the least known of that bunch, but in percentage terms is the most generous. The mutual fund tycoon, who has not been a member of the Forbes 400 since 2000, has given away roughly 95 percent of his fortune to endow the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Kansas City, which performs genetic research targeted at advancing the understanding of cancer, diabetes, heart disease and other...
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 Steve Mauer has nabbed his first big verdict since starting his law firm after years with Bryan Cave — sort of.
Mauer, a founding partner of Zerger & Mauer along with former Bryan Cave lawyer Heather Zerger, won $8 million in punitive damages against the Missouri Petroleum Storage Tank Insurance Fund on behalf of the Cass County city of Harrisonville, Mo.
Mauer took Harrisonville’s case in 2005 when he still worked at Bryan Cave.
Even though Mauer left the massive law firm earlier this year, Bryan Cave associate John Polhemus worked with Mauer through the multimillion-dollar verdict on May...
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Two investment firms owned by Mariner Holdings have launched their first open-end mutual funds.
Kansas City-based Tortoise Capital Advisors introduced the Tortoise MLP & Pipeline Fund, and Kansas City-based Nuance Investments LLC unveiled the Nuance Concentrated Value Fund.
Open-end mutual funds have no restriction on the amount of shares they will issue. They buy back shares when investors wish to sell.
Tortoise Capital Advisors previously focused on master limited partnerships (MLPs), investing in energy infrastructure...
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 Craving a 3 o’clock vending machine snack? How about applesauce and soy milk instead of that soda and candy bar?
Some vending machines in the Kansas City area are heading that direction, straying from the orthodox to offer more healthy options.
Martha Blood, a new franchisee for Fresh Healthy Vending, is adding six vending machines in the area in Kansas and Missouri.
She said she was inspired to bring healthy vending machine options to the area after having a relative sick in the hospital. She would spend hours at the hospital without having a chance to get a meal, so she would get food from vending...
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The Kansas City affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure has awarded almost $917,000 in grants to local *** cancer-related programs.
The 22 grants are aimed at expanding awareness of *** cancer risk and treatment, as well as increasing accessibility to cancer screening.
Among the recipients is the Saint Luke’s Cancer Institute for its mobile mammography program, which screens eligible women for *** cancer at community events, and Cancer Action’s assistance program to cancer survivors, which provides help with prescriptions, transportation to doctor’s visits, wigs, *** prostheses and support...
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The University of Kansas Cancer Center has filled another hole in its quest for National Cancer Institute designation, hiring a veteran researcher to oversee early phase clinical trials of new cancer drugs.
Dr. Raymond Perez has been associate professor of medicine and of pharmacology and toxicology at Dartmouth Medical School in Hanover, N.H., where he has helped double the number of patients enrolling in early phase clinical trials at the NCI-designated Norris Cotton Cancer Center.
“Ray Perez brings a national reputation and a stellar record of leadership,”...
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 Ford Motor Co. saw sales of smaller vehicles take off in May, a month of high fuel prices that weighed on sales of popular trucks produced at the company’s Kansas City Assembly Plant in Claycomo, Mo.
Last month represented the biggest sales month for Ford’s small cars (29,423 cars) since two years earlier, driven by a 32 percent gain for the Fiesta and Focus models. Also, the Ford (NYSE: F) Explorer saw a 135 percent surge in sales to 13,318 — the highest in 47 months. The vehicle is on track to pass its 2010 sales mark this...
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 U.S. automakers will add about 34,000 new hourly and salaried workers during the next five years, according to a study by the Center for Automotive Research.
The report, which did not break out hourly employment, said Ford Motor Co. plans to add two shifts to its Louisville Assembly Plant in Kentucky and an additional 4,700 jobs through 2012.
In January, Ford said it planned to invest $400 million in its Kansas City Assembly Plant as part of a retooling for a new vehicle, as well as keep full-time employment at...
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American Century Investments said Wednesday that investment veteran Peter Cieszko will join the company, overseeing a business segment with more than $70 billion in assets under management.
The Kansas City-based investment company named Cieszko to the new position of senior vice president-North America. He will join the company later in the summer.
Cieszko has 25 years of experience in investment management. He previously served as president of Fidelity Investments Institutional Services Co., which an American Century release described as a $366 billion business unit that provides investment management services to financial...
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