Columbia Business Times - April 2015

April 2015

the need for speed

Fiber comes to como Page 44

p.y.s.k.

raja Bhattacharya Page 29

hacked Page 48

tom smith c o l u m b i a' s t e c h

Godfather + C o l u m b i a' s to p t e c h Page 35

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GFI Digital, Inc GFI was established in 1999 with a mission to support their customers and employees through commitment to service excellence.

Founded by Bruce Gibbs, second generation, with over 25 years of experience along with a management team with an average tenure of 18 years.

GFI’s growth from 5 employees to over 200 has allowed the company to span their offices to 8 locations within the Midwest.

In 2004 GFI elected to open a local office to service its growing customer base. Due to the success that GFI had experienced in the Columbia area, the company wanted to ensure it maintained a high level of customer satisfaction by having a local sales and service presence.

GFI has been recognized as one of the top 100 Best Office Products Servicing Dealers in the United States and the only Dealer with this distinction in their market.

Having successfully completed training in Elite practices, demonstrated the ability to achieve PROs Elite Service metrics and willingness to have their ongoing results audited to ensure consistent achievement of these metrics has awarded them the PRO’s Elite 100 Certification 3 years in a row. Whether locally or nationally, customer satisfaction is their top priority.

Part of the ongoing success at GFI is connected to their knowledge of the ever-changing industry. What was, and continues to be, a company that provides 26,000 placements of two of the top names in the business (Sharp and Ricoh) is now a Total Solutions Provider to maximize your workflow.

MANAGED PRINT SERVICES GFI can help your company discover the true Total Cost of Ownership of your printer fleet and develop a strategy for managing the associated costs. Their Printer Management Team will use a three step process to create the perfect Managed Print Program for your business. The process starts with your

GFI representative identifying each print device in your office then over a 30 day period will determine its average monthly volume. Once the assessment is complete, they will present you with a final report detailing the printers in your office and identifying their associated costs. Upon continued monitoring, GFI’s help desk will manage and maintain your printers and other IT information. Their professionals can respond to any issue within a matter of minutes.

DIGITALNET is designed to optimize the management of a company’s IT infrastructure and assets. It’s their solution to all of your IT needs, from basic help desk support to engineering a Cloud based environment. What makes DigitalNet unique is GFI’s approach, their people and their commitment to educating their customers and empowering them to make solid IT decisions based on each customer’s unique IT and technology goals and budget.

DIGITALDOC allows you to capture, manage and share all digital documents, effectively ending the risk of lost or misfiled documents. GFI partners with multiple software companies to ensure you get the most out of your digital scanning and auditing experience. Whether you are interested in scanning to the Cloud, creating customized workflow scan buttons on your MFD, scanning directly into just about any line of business systems, OCR converting, barcode scanning, or even mobile scanning and printing, GFI can customize a solutions package that works great with your equipment. They provide you with so many ways to improve your bottom-line with increased efficiency and reduced risk to compliance issues.

SOFTWARE CONNECTIVITY GFI can help you find a solution to

connect your current machine to any line of business system, or to monitor users through authentication, tracking or rules based printing/scanning.

GFI Representatives work closely with their customers to find out what is important to them. With the ability to customize any technology solution to a company’s specific needs and stand behind that solution, makes them an invaluable partner not only now but as your company continues to change.

GFI Digital 2415 Carter Lane Suite 102 Columbia, MO 65201 www.gfidigital.com (573) 874-5600

CHRIS MCCULLOUGH is the Columbia Sales Manager. He has 13 years of experience in sales as a technology solutions provider and has been with GFI since 2010. He is responsible for leading the Columbia branch since 2011.

AARON MANCUSO has been an Account Manager with GFI since September. His market stretches from Western Columbia to Odessa, MO. Before GFI, Aaron spent 11 years in Sales & Marketing with a Fortune 100 company.

ANDREA PAUL is originally from Jefferson City and received her undergraduate degree from William Woods University. After graduating, she worked at the Missouri State Auditor’s Office for 9 years, performing governmental financial, performance, and compliance audits. In 2008 she moved to the private sector and became an Account Manager with GFI Digital. She is a five time President’s

Club winner and received Account Manager of the Year recognition in 2011 and 2013.

ANDREW SPURLING has been with GFI since 2012 and covers northern Columbia up to Kirksville MO. He is a native mid-Missourian hailing from Centralia.

CHAD TUINSTRA has been with GFI Digital since 2004 and brings with him 29 years of experience in the industry. Chad started in the industry as a Mid-Missouri technician with Modern Business Systems. Since the start of his stint with GFI, he has been awarded technician of the year; not an easy award to obtain with over 600 technicians as candidates. Looking for new challenges, Chad became a Field Service Manager and then when the digital age came about, he assumed the new role of Professional Services Representative. Chad has been with GFI Digital for the past 10 years as the Mid-Missouri Branch Service Manager.

BOB CUNNINGHAM is GFI’s lead service technician in Columbia. He serves primarily mid to high volume Ricoh devices. During Bob’s 22 year career in the industry, he has been factory trained on almost every Ricoh made during that time.

MICAH HULEN heads up the Field IT for the Columbia area and relies on his over 30 years of experience in the industry to provide the best possible service.

DAVE WHEELER has been with GFI since 2005. Dave specializes in the Sharp mid to high volume products. He has shown the ability over the years to be able to tackle any challenge. With that, he is now factory trained and supporting Sharp’s highest volume color products.

RICHARD DENNIS supports all of the MPS printers in addition to the low to mid volume Ricoh and Sharp MFPs.

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120 E. Nifong (Peach Tree Plaza) | Columbia, MO 573.823.7600 | jazzercise.com

From the Editor

Editorial Erica Pefferman, Publisher Erica@BusinessTimesCompany.com Sarah Redohl, Editor SarahR@BusinessTimesCompany.com Katrina Tauchen, Copy Editor Katrina@BusinessTimesCompany.com

It’s about where you’re going ›› This letter was born online — on Twitter to be exact.

How fitting is that for our Tech Issue? At 9:45 a.m. March 10, I was eating lunch to procrastinate writing this letter when I turned to yet another procrastination tactic, social media, to solicit some ideas.

I received a dozen great ideas! The tweet that informed this letter came from Collin Bunch with the Small Business Development Center: “How place, whether office or city, matters a lot.”

The stories I write often lead me to ask the question, “What made you decide to start your business in Columbia?” The most common answers are: 1. Columbia is in the middle of the country, so it’s great for distribution; 2. Cost of living and cost of doing business are much lower; 3. There is easy access to a highly educated workforce; 4. This is my hometown (duh!); and 5. This is just a great place to live and do business.

Photo by Anthony Jinson For Tom Smith and Bruce Barkelew, the creators of ProComm software (an early precursor to the Internet) and founders of Datastorm, it was Columbia’s cost of living. It allowed them to turn their side project on the West Coast into a full-fledged business in Columbia.

“We showed it didn’t matter where you were located as long as you could attract talented people and connect to your customers,” Smith told me for our story on page 35. The company built a pool of talented staff, many who have gone on to start their own companies or become employees at other local companies.

However, there are still growing pains ahead for Columbia’s tech industry. Namely, we need more programmers. The CBT did a story on this in July 2013, and we almost wrote about it again this month because it’s been such a huge issue. However, we left it to Steve Powell to explain what’s broken, in his own words. “[It’s] a growth-limiting problem,” he says. I’ll take you back to what Powell said in 2013, to add some context. “Look at the insurance industry,” Powell said in the July 2013 issue of CBT. “People come to Columbia just to work in that industry and move around within it... We don’t have that churn.”

When I was at REDI’s Ignition Conference, I had the chance to speak to Heidi Fuhrman of Adventur.es and Startup Weekend about entrepreneurship in Columbia. In that conversation, I think I used the words, “Fake it ’til you make it.” Which led me to think, have we made it? In my humble opinion, I think we have. At Columbia College’s Trep Takeover event, I met Todd Schonhardt. He and David Frahm are on a mission to bring some of Columbia’s entrepreneurial spirit to Jefferson City. Other cities are trying to emulate us! Isn’t that a sign?

In fact, Columbia startups have been accepted to prestigious incubators all over the nation. There is a long history of Columbia startups being pulled away from mid-Missouri by venture capital and sweet incubator deals on Missouri’s coasts — St. Louis and Kansas City — and the East and West coasts of the United States.

One, Equipment Share, has made it known that once its time at incubator Y Combinator is up, it plans to return to Columbia.

It’s not about where you come from; it’s about where you’re going.

And there are bright things ahead for Columbia.

As always, we love feedback. Please don’t hesitate to email me at SarahR@BusinessTimesCompany.com, or tweet at me @SarahRedohl.

APRIL 2015

Best,

Sarah Redohl, Editor

Tom Smith, along with business partner Bruce Barkelew, founded Datastorm, one of Columbia's first large tech companies, in the 1980s. Many "Datastormers," as he calls them, have gone on to start their own companies or continue to work for local tech companies today. In this respect, Smith, along with a handful of other local early adopters, is a Godfather of Tech. Photo by Anthony Jinson.

THE NEED FOR SPEED

FIBER COMES TO COMO PAGE 44

P.Y.S.K.

RAJA BHATTACHARYA PAGE 29

HACKED PAGE 48

TOM SMITH C O L U M B I A' S T E C H

GODFATHER + C O L U M B I A' S TO P T E C H PAGE 35

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columbiabusinesstimes.com /// 13

14 \\\ APRIL 2015

About The Last Times Big announcement!

The CBT is doing something very special for our July issue this year, and we need your help! We’re starting CBT’s Top of the Town to honor Columbia’s top B2B products and services. Top place to take a client to lunch? Top local lawyer? Top bank for small business? Top place for happy hour?

We’re collecting nominations on our website, columbiabusinesstimes.com, from March 25 to April 7, and voting on the finalists will be open from April 10 to 30.

Online extras The CBT staff had so much fun at the photo shoot for “Top In Tech” that we’ve immortalized it in a photo gallery on our website, columbiabusinesstimes.com.

Behind the scenes

What's happening online Lift Division @Lift_Division @ColumbiaBiz is in the office today. Lift Division spread coming soon!

Around the office Harold's Doughnuts @haroldoughnuts At last night's mag launch party, the release of the C.B.T. Kabob. A finalist for the @ColumbiaBiz doughnut creation!

Harold's Doughnuts @haroldoughnuts We're thrilled & humbled to be on this month's cover @ColumbiaBiz! Thx for allowing us to love our craft, #COMO CBC Columbia (MO) @cbc_como So proud of our friends @haroldoughnuts making the cover @ColumbiaBiz & sharing their craft! We couldn't agree more!

COMO Fuse @comofuse @ColumbiaBiz congrats on the new office space!! Thanks for the doughnuts and drinks :) Sam Fleury @sam_fleury Congrats to Deb Valvo from @ColumbiaBiz the winner of the @ColumbiaColg gift bag from the @COMOChamber #bizshowcase Jennifer Bondurant @Jennybondurant Tweet, tweet, and RT. Thanks @MOREbyMOREnet and @ColumbiaBiz for @WestminsterMO mention.

Write to CBT editor Sarah Redohl at Editor@BusinessTimesCompany.com

March has been a month of partying hard for the CBT! Thank you to our loyal readers who came to the CBT Chamber Showcase Mixer March 3, celebrated our newly remodeled digs with Harold’s Doughnuts March 4 and to all who attended our Reader Appreciation Party March 12 at Machens Nissan. columbiabusinesstimes.com /// 15

Discover the BLUE in YOU

L

“

incoln University is the place where I discovered the world of the mind.

I decided I wanted to live in that world. It has made all the difference in my life.�

Gary Kremer

Executive Director The State Historical Society of Missouri B.A. in History from LU, 1970, M.A. in History from LU, 1972 Ph. D. in History from The American University in Washington, D. C., 1978 LU History Professor 1972-1987

www.LincolnU.edu 16 \\\ APRIL 2015

April 2015

Vol. 21, Issue 10 columbiabusinesstimes.com

35

Top in Tech

They’re the lifelong techies, the computer geniuses and the city’s leaders in the next big thing. Meet seven of the CBT’s Top in Tech.

44

48

Departments

13 From the Editor 15 Letters to the Editor 19 Movers and Shakers 20 Briefly in the News 23 A Closer Look 24 Business Update 29 P.Y.S.K. 33 Opinion 56 Nonprofit Spotlight 58 Celebrations 61 Marketing 63 Technology 65 Organizational Health 67 Did You Know?

68 Economic Index 69 Deeds of Trust 70 Business Licenses 71 By the Numbers 72 7 Questions 74 Flashback

52

Light the Fiber

Hacked

9th & Elm

Fiber broadband networks could be on the horizon for Columbia residents, bringing Internet speeds 10 to 100 times faster than most people have in their homes.

A security issue for every person with a computer and business that’s online, cybercrime is continually evolving. So how can midMissouri businesses get ahead of the game?

Elly’s Couture owners Elly and Clay Bethune’s curated website offers handmade fashions from some of the best independent designers.

18 \\\ APRIL 2015

Movers and Shakers

➜ Are you or your employees

making waves in the Columbia business community? Send us your news to Editor@BusinessTimesCompany.com

›› Professionals grow, serve and achieve

singh

spears

becker

farrow

atherton

milarsky

rich

›› Piyusha Singh

›› Marathon Building Environments

›› Beth Taylor Dessem

Singh was named Columbia College’s first vice president of online education. In the newly created position, Singh will oversee online course development, staff oversight and management systems for Columbia College’s extensive online campus. Singh was previously associate dean of the School of Liberal Arts at Excelsior College.

Marathon Building Environments announced the promotions of Mike Becker and Anne Farrow to director of operations and commercial furniture sales team member, respectively. Becker started at Marathon Building Environments in 2002, and Farrow is joining the company this spring.

The University of Missouri Truman School of Public Affairs honored Dessem’s efforts in the community with the fourth annual Mel Carnahan Public Service Award. Dessem is the executive director of the Heart of Missouri Court Appointed Special Advocates, an organization that serves abused and neglected children.

›› Brad Spears

Promoted to assistant vice president at First State Community Bank, Schulz has worked at First State for seven years, most recently as branch manager.

The First State Board of Directors approves promotions every January. Seventeen employee promotions were approved at the 2015 meeting.

MidwayUSA promoted Spears to logistics manager, inbound and outbound. He began his career at Midway in 2010 and has worked as a logistics supervisor in the years since. Spears served eight years in the U.S. Navy before getting his degree in political science from Rutgers University-Camden in 2008. In the new position, Spears will oversee the performance of the Midway logistics team.

›› Boone County National Bank BCNB announced seven new promotions: Adam Bozek, assistant branch manager at the Rock Bridge branch; Lindsey Peth, mortgage underwriter; Kiana Mason and Katelyn Shively, financial associates; and Rebekah Whitaker and Leslie Goehl, teller II.

›› State Farm Insurance The Missouri Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve, a Department of Defense office, recognized State Farm Insurance for its support of employees in the Missouri National Guard. The MO ESGR honored claim team manager Mary Sullivan with the Patriot Award for State Farm’s support of claim specialist Staff Sgt. Scott Burks during his deployment to Kuwait and Afghanistan.

›› Lindsay Schulz

›› Mid-Missouri Restaurant Association The Columbia-based restaurant group selected Rick Robertson and Charlie Kurre, owners of Booches, as the 2014 Restaurateurs of the Year.

The group also named Terra Crane, convention services manager for the Columbia Convention and Visitors Bureau, as the Allied Director of the Year. Crane was also named one of the 2015 MMRA officers. The others officers are: John LaRocca, University Club, president; Jeff Guinn, The Broadway by Doubletree, vice president; and Richard Walls, The Heidelberg, treasurer.

›› Clay Atherton Atherton was promoted to facilities management chief at Harry S. Truman Memorial Veterans’ Hospital. He has served as supervisory general engineer at the hospital since 2008 and will now supervise various engineering and maintenance activities at the hospital.

›› Scott Shelton The Boone County Commission named Shelton as the new director of 911 communications on Feb. 13.

The job will return Shelton to his hometown of Columbia after a 36-year career in law enforcement, most recently as police chief at East Carolina University. Before his term at ECU, Shelton was police chief at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

›› Jeremy Milarsky Milarsky began working as executive director of the Missouri Symphony Society in February. He will be responsible for the day-to-day operations of the group and serve as the principal fundraiser.

In recent years, Milarsky held management positions in the health care industry; in 2014 he was name the Missouri Health Advocate of the Year by the Missouri Health Advocacy Alliance.

›› Timothy Rich The Columbia resident was appointed president and chief operating officer of Texas-based I-Tech Development Corp. Rich resigned from his position as executive director and CPO of Heart of Missouri United Way, which he held for almost six years.

During his tenure, he implemented the “Community Impact” model, a transformational change of the organization’s business and community practices. CBT columbiabusinesstimes.com /// 19

Briefly in the News

›› A rundown of this month’s top headlines

taking notes

award winning Local creative agency Hub & Spoke received an American Package Design Award from Graphic Design USA for its efforts in creating the Rock Bridge Brewing Co. Saison beer can design.

Graphic Design USA received more than 2,000 entries for the award. In addition to the American Package Design Award, Hub & Spoke received four AVA Digital Awards — two platinum and two gold — for its website, Visually Columbia Web design, a video made for Westminster College and Web design for Xxcel Integrated Logistics.

MU Health Care is now offering digital access to medical notes made during a patient’s visit. The notes will be available on the online patient portal, University of Missouri Healthe, retroactive for most visits since Dec. 1, 2014.

“In today’s patient-centered environment, we want them to have access to their health information,” says Thomas Selva, chief medical information officer. “Our goal is for patients to ultimately have better outcomes and lead healthier lives.”

honor flight

Socket, a local telephone and Internet provider, contributed to the Central Missouri Honor Flight, sending 10 veterans to Washington, D.C. to visit memorials dedicated in their honor.

all the right stuff

Bur oak

oats inc.

Columbia craft brewery Bur Oak has debuted a new brew, the Big Tree IPA, a product inspired

by Boone County’s famous 350-year-old bur oak tree that gave the brewery its name.

The limited initial release of the Big Tree will be available on draft only in local restaurants and bars. Bur Oak President Craig Stichter says that the beer could be made permanently available if the initial test run goes well.

The state Neighborhood Assistance Program granted $15,000 in tax credits to OATS Inc., a nonprofit transportation service active in 87 Missouri counties. OATS will use the tax credits to spur donations to the organization, promising eligible donors 50 percent returns on their donation.

brown willibrand pc Bread & Butter Concepts (BBC), a Kansas City-based restaurant group, has officially acquired Ingredient, located at 304 S. Ninth St. Ingredient closed its doors on Jan. 18 and reopened on Jan. 20 with a new menu, including BBC’s famous chicken salad sandwich, Brussels sprouts Caesar salad and drunken meatballs.

20 \\\ APRIL 2015

Karen Hajicek

R. Caleb Colbert

The law firm formerly known as Brown, Willibrand, Simon, Powell & Lewis announced a name change on Feb. 3. The firm also announced two new shareholders, Karen Hajicek and R. Caleb Colbert. Both are graduates of the MU School of Law.

What’s happening

Getting Canned Logboat Brewing Co. is expanding into cans! It hopes to have the cans in the market by the end of March. The company will start by canning two of its distinctive beers: Mamoot Mild Ale and Snapper IPA. Owner Tyson Hunt says he anticipates canning Lookout Pale Ale and Shiphead Ginger Wheat some time in early summer.

“Now there will be another avenue for packed beer to go out of the brewery and into restaurants,” Hunt says. “It gives a lot more options for people to enjoy our beer who don’t have the time or the means to go sit in a restaurant.”

ignition The fifth annual Ignition Entrepreneurial Summit took place in Columbia on Feb. 27. The summit included presentations from local business leaders, speed networking, a mock pitch presentation and a resource mart. Ignition works to promote young and emerging entrepreneurs and the overall entrepreneurial spirit of Columbia.

online safety at cpd The Columbia Police Department has designated its lobby as an “online exchange zone,” giving Columbians a secure place to finalize the deals they broker online. The department hopes opening the lobby as a potential site for exchanges initiated on sites such as Craigslist and Facebook will deter any violence as people continue to negotiate sales and purchases through the Internet. The department lobby, located on the corner of Seventh and Walnut streets, would serve as a safe meeting place for the buyer and seller. Columbia joins several other police departments across the country in creating the safe zones: police in suburban Philadelphia; Oklahoma City; and Portsmouth, New Hampshire, made similar designations in the past five months.

Faster All Around U.S. Cellular recently announced that during 2014, the company invested a total of $38 million to improve its network, stores and community support throughout Missouri. According to a press release, $37.1 million was put toward enhancing the network across Missouri by combining 4G LTE enhancements and upgrades to the existing high-speed network.

Dorsey Ragland, director of sales for U.S. Cellular in Missouri, says the enhanced service had already been introduced to Columbia and Jefferson City but brought faster speed to surrounding communities, including Hartsburg, Rucker, Harrisburg, Perche, Rocheport, Woodlandville, Armstrong, Fayette, Franklin, New Franklin and Estill.

Donut City Dunkin' Donuts announced a franchise agreement for the development of two Dunkin’ Donuts and one Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin-Robbins combination restaurant in Columbia and Jefferson City. The first location is scheduled to open this summer at 3100 Providence Road in Columbia, and the remaining two restaurants are planned to open in 2017. The Columbia and Jefferson City restaurants will be the first Dunkin’ Donuts chains in mid-Missouri.

“We have a passion and loyalty for the Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin-Robbins brands and look forward to opening our restaurants in the years to come,” says franchisee Anup Thakkar.

sports in schools Columbia Independent School will begin construction on a $2.5 million athletics and arts facility this spring after raising $1.3 million through its “Building Excellence” donation campaign. The new facility will house a multipurpose stage, athletic field and full-size basketball court.

“The Athletics and Arts Center is the next step in our endeavor to make the CIS campus Columbia’s premier place to learn,” says Bridgid Kinney, the school’s director of development. “This space will offer countless opportunities for our students.” CBT columbiabusinesstimes.com /// 21

22 \\\ APRIL 2015

A Closer Look

New Businesses in

›› A quick look at emerging companies

Columbia

1. Big Tree Beard Co.

3. Smoothie King

A proper gentleman must maintain a well-kept beard. This is the concept behind Columbia online startup Big Tree Beard Co., a “maker of fine beard oils” promising “handcrafted radness for your beard.” Customers can choose sweet mint, citrus-lavender or backwoods scented oils for $18 a bottle or all three for $45.

All it takes is six to eight drops of oil vigorously rubbed into your face for a soft, healthy beard.

The company is named after Boone County’s “Big Tree,” the 350-year-old, 90-foot-tall bur oak south of Columbia, near McBaine, Missouri. Columbia residents with big beards can now look to Big Tree for their facial hair maintenance needs.

Contact: Big Tree Beard Co., 573-424-7226

The international health-food franchise opened a new location at 805 E. Nifong Blvd., the space formerly occupied by Taqueria El Rodeo. Firsttime franchisee Jackie Floyd opened the location in January, with plans to open four more stores in the next five years: three in Columbia, one in Jefferson City. The opening of Smoothie King comes just two months after the closure of Blenders smoothie shop and five months after the opening of Jamba Juice, both located downtown.

Smoothie King has more than 700 units worldwide, according to the company’s website.

In 2011, the business was purchased by SK USA Inc., a South Korean company led by successful Smoothie King franchisee Wan Kim. In February 2014, Smoothie King bought the naming rights to the arena of the New Orleans Pelicans NBA team, dubbing it Smoothie King Center.

Contact: Smoothie King, 573-228-6333

5. HighPointe Financial Group

2. Wehoit LLC The business-consulting firm operated by Ella and Jerry Wehoit aims to help develop minority business initiatives. The company’s website says it assists businesses with “grand strategies that increase minority participation, generate revenue and overall enhance community development.” Wehoit begins with an analysis of existing organizational problems for businesses and then develops plans for improvement. The Wehoits utilize the REDI Downtown Incubator at 500 E. Walnut St., which provides a workplace and entrepreneurial support for startup businesses.

The company is a state-certified woman- and minority-owned business.

Contact: Wehoit LLC, 573-442-5890

4. Corrections Auditing Group CAG carries out audits of prisons and jails to curb the prevalence of sexual assault in the prison system. The company’s offices are located at 1100 Kennesaw Ridge Road in north Columbia.

Owner Ed Robinson spent 21 years working in the Missouri Department of Corrections before retiring in 2012 as deputy inspector general. A CAG inspection ensures facilities comply with standards outlined in the 2012 Prison Rape Elimination Act and create a safe rehabilitation environment for inmates and staff.

Contact: Ed Robinson, 636-290-2201

3

The financial planning company, a member of MassMutual Financial Group, opened an office at 110 N. 10th St. and offers a number of business strategies designed to provide long-term financial security and planning for businesses and individuals. HighPointe has offices in Overland Park, Kansas, and the Kansas City area, but the Columbia office is the first site in midMissouri. The company’s website emphasizes HighPointe’s commitment to clients and flexibility over time as financial needs evolve.

Contact: HighPointe Financial Group, 573-449-8188

6. Jack in the Box Fast-food junkies have another new Columbia location to hit with Jack in the Box, which opened in January at 1401 Grindstone Parkway.

The burger chain announced plans for the location back in October, which included a small addition to the existing building Taco Bueno occupied until 2011. Jack in the Box was the first drive-thru-focused restaurant chain, debuting in San Diego in 1951. The chain is also credited with creating Drive-Thru Day, which is celebrated on July 24. Jack in the Box has restaurants in 21 states and Guam, but before the opening of the Columbia location, the nearest Jack in the Box was in Warrenton, Missouri. Jack in the Box Inc. also owns the Mexican food franchise Qdoba Mexican Grill.

Contact: Missouri Jack LLC, 636-697-7315 CBT

6

5 4

1 2

➜ Are you an entrepreneur? Are you sprouting a new business? Tell us about it at Editor@BusinessTimesCompany.com columbiabusinesstimes.com /// 23

Jamie Stephens and Rusty Brett Photo by Anthony Jinson

24 \\\ APRIL 2015

Business Update

›› Transformed, trending and up-to-the-minute

heavy lifting

Culture of Change

With versatility and adaptability, Lift Division is thriving in the ever-changing By sarah berger technological landscape.

The vibrant, glossy offices at Lift Division reflect the type of cool, adaptive and modern atmosphere the company emanates. The people at Lift Division are masters of change; their entire careers revolve around the constantly shifting digital landscape. The company itself has also been evolving since its establishment in 2010 and has undergone new management, new offices and offers new products and services.

Five years ago, Jamie Stephens, Josh Burrell and Travis Smith created the company Lift Division, which had a main focus of Web development and search marketing. In 2011 and 2012, there was an increasing emphasis at Lift Division on SEO and search marketing, and cofounder Stephens, who had more expertise in Web and product development, left the company to pursue freelance opportunities with larger clients.

In early 2013, entrepreneur Rusty Brett purchased Lift Division. Brett’s own startup ServiceNoodle.com had been one of Lift Division’s first clients. By merging the ServiceNoodle.com and Lift Division teams, Brett created a group of people with large differentiation of expertise, and Lift Division became the parent digital agency entity.

“I was always kind of trying to woo Jamie [Stephens] back over to Lift because our expertise in Web development was sites under $20,000,” says Brett, Lift Division CEO. “We had incredible SEO, search and content marketing experience, but we needed that person that could help us create and execute comprehensive digital strategies for much larger clients.”

Stephens returned to Lift Division in February of 2015 as the chief of digital strategy, and as a result the company was able to begin executing larger projects.

“I saw the direction that Rusty and the team were going, and I knew I wanted to get back full

Lift Division is located at 308 S. Ninth St., Suite 115 M.

time with Lift to help bring value to clients both locally and nationally,” Stephens says.

‘It’s our approach’ Currently, Lift Division facilitates business growth, audience engagement and customer retention through inbound marketing techniques, including: SEO, content marketing, Web design, app development, PPC, social marketing, PR reputation management, email marketing and video marketing.

“It’s not necessarily our products, but it’s our approach,” Stephens says. “Coming in and working with our clients in a design-centric way and a customer-centric way, our goal is to help them understand and refine what their vision is and then develop engagement strategies.”

Lift Division strongly believes in showing clients that their services provide actual value to their companies, which typically means growth in sales and other key performance indicators.

“All of our strategies are measurable and actionable,” Stephens says. “It’s super important for us to be able to show our customers that we’re doing something for them. It’s not just a glossy website but that their website is actually working for them.”

As Lift Division hires more people with different skills, the products and services it offers expand as well. The company prides itself on being able to handle a lot of its marketing in house and being able to serve as a comprehensive solution for clients.

“There’s a lot of products we offer right now, and we want to focus on doing all of those even better,” Stephens says. “That’s a big part of it: finding new ways to deliver the same product with new tools and new systems in place to deliver results better for our customers. We’re not a cookie cutter agency; we want to make sure that we’re delivering the right strategies and the right tools for each one of our customers.” columbiabusinesstimes.com /// 25

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“We’re not a cookie cutter agency; we want to make sure that we’re delivering the right strategies and the right tools for each one of our customers.” — Jamie Stephens, chief of digital strategy, Lift Division Education and change A challenge for the company is being able to keep up with the continually changing technology. As technology changes, so do the rules of the game, and sometimes it can be hard to keep up.

“The industry is in constant change, especially when you talk about how search results are displayed,” Brett says. “Everyone always goes back to Google, and Google is constantly changing.

For example, starting April 21 Google is going to start penalizing sites that aren’t mobile responsive. That’s one of the constant challenges in the digital marketing space: to keep up with the times and help our clients adjust to the newest technology accordingly.”

According to Brett and Stephens, Lift Division puts a large emphasis on educating its clients on how it can keep their businesses up to speed when it comes to technology and how to make sense of the cluttered, chaotic Internet world.

“There are so many opportunities to try and spread your message between all the social media outlets; there’s so much chatter and so much noise,” Brett says. “You really need to pick one or two [social media sites] and focus on those really well as opposed to getting lost in all the opportunities.”

Since the company was established, Lift Division’s customer base has reached beyond Columbia. Lift Division has clients in Vancouver, New York, Atlanta and Denver. It has worked with major brands such as the U.S. Army and Gotham Culture. The company’s customer base largely consists of small to mid-size businesses, with one or two larger projects going on at the same time. Although Lift Division has been working on numerous national projects, the company wants to continue to help local businesses grow by educating them.

“Education is a big piece of what we want to do,” Stephens says.

“There are a lot of things businesses can do themselves to help lift their brand and lift their engagement with customers, and we want that information as accessible as possible.”

Lift Division has been through many changes since 2010, and that’s what the company thrives on: a culture of change. The company is thriving in an industry filled with complexities and uncertainties, and it feeds off the opportunity to help businesses adapt, just like it has.

“As a company we try and develop a culture of change and being nimble,” Stephens says. “What we’re doing today to help businesses grow could be completely different in two years, but if we can build a culture of change, and we can have people that are able to be nimble and able to adapt to change, we’re always going to be able to deliver winning strategies and winning solutions to our customers.” CBT

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Meet John Gilbreth, owner of Pizza Tree. John recently obtained an SBA loan from The Bank of Missouri to relocate his pizza restaurant in downtown Columbia.

An SBA loan from The Bank of Missouri is one of the best financing options for small and growing businesses. An SBA loan can help you finance an entire business, equipment and fixtures, business real estate and much more.

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Karin Bell Sr. VP, SBA Manager

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P.Y.S.K. Person You Should Know

Years lived in Columbia/mid-Missouri: Less than six months

Raja Bhattacharya

Original hometown: Kathmandu, Nepal

Director, Steve and Barbara Fishman Center for Entrepreneurship, Columbia College

Education: MBA, Western Kentucky University Gordon Ford College of Business; Fellowship in Entrepreneurship, University of Kentucky Community involvement: Because I recently moved to Columbia, I am studying to see where I can make a substantial contribution. I am sure you will see me very active in the Columbia startup scene through organizations such as REDI, Missouri Innovation Center and the Chamber of Commerce. In addition, I plan to work with high school students in growing their understanding in entrepreneurship.

Age:

43

Professional background: I was involved with the Western Kentucky University entrepreneurship program for 10 years. In 2005 I left academia to run a startup called Kumari Rugs, which I ran and grew for seven years. I have been involved with four startups in my career with two failures. I learned a lot from my failures.

Photo by Sarah Redohl

A favorite recent project: The Governor’s School for Entrepreneurship in Lexington, Kentucky, where we brought 60 high school students from rural Kentucky and created a learning laboratory where they tested and validated their ideas in teams. This is a three-week-long summer residence program.

›› What people should know about this profession: The field of entrepreneurship is not for everyone. Starting and running your own business will keep you awake at nights. Although the stress level is high in this field, rewards can be higher. The sense of accomplishment that you will get from running your own business can be very intoxicating.

For students, the only way you will learn entrepreneurship is by doing it. There is no substitute.

A Columbia businessperson I admire and why: Let me give you two names. Although I moved to Columbia recently, I have been very impressed by what David Keller from The Bank of Missouri has been able to achieve in his professional career. His community involvement is tremendous, and I can see he does everything with great passion. Matt Clervi from Fresh Ideas is another businessman I admire. The creativity I saw within his organization is just spectacular.

His organization has treated food like art. Plus, Matt is a Columbia College graduate. I am looking forward to meeting other great leaders in this city in the future. columbiabusinesstimes.com /// 29

Why I’m passionate about my job: I get to work with students who are dreaming about starting their venture one day. I get to work with young creative minds who are the backbone of any vibrant society. They are full of energy, which can be very intoxicating. As a mentor to these young minds, I also understand that most of them will fail at the beginning, but the learning they will go through is priceless. Plus, once in a while you get a chance to associate yourself with a great success.

If I weren’t doing this for a living, I would: I would not substitute what I am doing for anything else. Working with entrepreneurs is an absolute blast.

What I do for fun: I am an avid sports fan, and I enjoy playing almost anything, with soccer and tennis topping the list. Traveling with my family is a close second. Also, because my partner is an Italian, cooking is a big thing in our house.

Family: Simona Flaiban is my partner, and we have a 14-year-old named Claudia Grosoli. She is a swimmer, fluent in Italian and goes to Rock Bridge High School. I am also close to my sister, Dr. Baishali Bhattacharya, who is a physician in Phoenix. Two most important people in my life are my mother, Sharada Bhattacharya, and my aunt Archana Bhattacharya. My sister and I are products of their upbringing.

Favorite place in Columbia: My family and I are still getting familiar with the area. We have found out that Columbia has some incredibly interesting places. Ask me this question six months from now, and I will give you a list of our favorite places.

Accomplishment I’m most proud of: Coming to the United States as a 19-yearold kid from Nepal on a soccer scholarship and living my dreams.

Most people don’t know that I: Can water ski even though I don’t know how to swim (I need a life jacket though). CBT 30 \\\ APRIL 2015

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32 \\\ APRIL 2015

Roundtable › Al Germond

point-of-view

Forget the Competition Whether the City of Columbia decides to — or is allowed to — lease some of its optical fiber lines to third parties reminds me of incidents during the 20-year struggle to bring cable television to Columbia that followed a languorous pace until July 22, 1977, the day the system finally went into operation. Cable TV here was originally designed to supplement the paltry troika of local channels Al Germond is the by importing stations from Missouri’s two host of the Columbia major markets. The selection later increased Business Times exponentially as hundreds of options snared Sunday Morning from communications satellites became Roundtable at 8:15 available. This marked the first time since the a.m. Sundays on KFRU. telephone company was allowed to affix some He can be reached at of its lines to city-owned utility poles that an al@columbiabusiness outside entity — then Columbia Cablevision, times.com. now Mediacom — was allowed to sign a poleattachment agreement to string its cables on the Water and Light Department’s infrastructure of utility poles.

Microscopic strands of glass, a development pioneered by the Corning Glass Works some 50 years ago, can transmit the entire spectrum of visible light ranging from ultraviolet to infrared over considerable distances. This highway of virtually infinite communications vastness — compared to the FM broadcast band, for example — came along just in time to accommodate the vast, cybernetically induced thirst for more capacity and higher Internet speeds.

Costs for fiber and the associated hardware including lasers have plunged.

If you live in Columbia, fiber might already be in your neighborhood. CenturyLink, the successor to legacy telephone company GTE, has been weaving Columbia with webs of fiber for several years. Mediacom, the legacy cable TV outfit, has been close on its heels; now there are many areas of the city where an embarrassment of fiber riches prevails: a choice of high-speed service from two competing firms. Here, too, is the irony that both firms offer giga-bandwidth Internet service while crossing aisles to invade each other’s original turf by providing telephone and video options.

Now comes the city with its municipally owned fiber network, salivating at the prospect of securing another revenue stream as a boost in these financially challenged times. Columbia would like to lease its unused, or “dark,” fiber capacity to outside parties to directly compete with CenturyLink and Mediacom. Obviously, the city would like to feast on a number of huge accounts and get started with the University of Missouri and its medical complex. This reminds me of times more than 40 years ago when the cable issue was hopelessly stalemated, and it was suggested that the city build and operate the cable system, then called “CATV,” which stood for community antenna television.

Voters later overwhelmingly rejected another scheme in which the city would own and operate a technically flawed “translator” system that would offer a modest increase in the number of channels residents could receive over the air.

This editorial appeared in the Columbia Daily Tribune in 1972.

Whether the city decides to compete with CenturyLink and Mediacom is up to the City Council. Maybe a court somewhere will have the final say. State Sen. Kurt Schafer has weighed in with a bill that would forbid municipalities such as Columbia from leasing its dark fiber capacity to outsiders where it would compete with legacy providers. This issue more recently has moved into at least one federal courtroom, and in a larger and more threatening way, the Federal Communications Commission recently decided to regulate the Internet much as it has done since July 1, 1934, for the legacy telephone and telegraph industries, at the same time forbidding efforts to curtail municipal competition with legacy providers.

The FCC’s reckless meandering into this forest of maliciousness against the Internet may already be docketed before the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the appellate body that has jurisdiction over this quasi-judicial agency. Among the horrors to come may be efforts by the FCC to regulate Internet content much as is the case for conventional radio and TV broadcasters the agency has jurisdiction over through the licensing and renewal process.

As for Columbia, the city has no business competing with CenturyLink and Mediacom or any other provider of Internet service for that matter. Allow them to continue to operate unfettered while pocketing the pole-attachment fees they remit to you. Let’s not fall into the pattern, to paraphrase comedienne Lily Tomlin, of, “We are the City of Columbia, and we are omnipotent” — because you are not. CBT columbiabusinesstimes.com /// 33

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top in

tech

By Sarah Redohl | Photos by Anthony Jinson

It’s 1985. There is no Internet and no websites. There’s no social media outlet on which to post pictures of your lunch.

PCs are on the brink of popularity. University of Missouri computer science grads Tom Smith and Bruce Barkelew have just quit their jobs at an engineering firm on the West Coast.

They are returning to Columbia to turn their side project, a software program called ProComm, into a full-time endeavor.

“We were two guys holed up in our apartment cranking out code — then product — like crazy,” Smith says. The pair was building what could be considered an early equivalent to today’s Web browsers. “It’s what you used to connect to other computers around the world.”

Columbia provided them a cheaper place to live than the Bay Area while they turned ProComm, a product of Datastorm, into a success. Datastorm hit number 376 on the Inc. 500 list in 1992, and in 1993, the program hit the No. 1 spot on PC Magazine’s list of top retail software.

Head online for extended Q&As with Columbia’s Top in Tech and a behind-the-scenes look at this feature’s fun photo shoot!

In 1996, Smith and Barkelew sold Datastorm to Quarterdeck (later purchased by Symantec). Although Smith is “just a humble publican now” (his words), as part of one of the first tech companies in town, he and Barkelew helped pave the way for a new generation of techies, along with others such as Bill Fairman of Faircom, Ewin Barnett of Carfax, Brant and Brock Bukowsky of Veterans United and more (our words).

“We showed it didn’t matter where you were located as long as you could attract talented people and connect to your customers,” Smith says.

The biggest thing Datastorm did, Smith says, was build a large talented staff. “I still, after all these years, have employers come up to me and tell me what great employees the old Datastormers are. They’re in high demand, and it appears to be a very valuable line on their resumes, at least in Columbia.”

Datastormer or not, here are seven of the CBT’s Top in Tech. columbiabusinesstimes.com /// 35

top in tech | Columbia's geek squad

david nivens

CEO, Midwest Computech The biggest tech/ITrelated challenge facing Columbia’s business community: Increase Internet speeds and reliability. I wish I had the answer. I don’t know how many people realize how close Columbia was to getting Google Fiber here.

That would have been a significant game-changer for our business community and Columbia as a whole.

All you have to do is look at Kansas City to see how adding affordable (and that is the key word for most every small business and startup) super high-speed Internet has changed the landscape of that business community. Kansas City is now viewed as a destination for startups that are reliant on cheap fiber Internet connections, and with the startup and entrepreneurial climate that already exists in Columbia, it would be a boon to our community to have similar options here. If we could get those kinds of speeds and pricing here, that would have a significant impact on our ability to attract, create, retain and grow business.

Your claim to the tech hall of fame: There’s a tech hall of fame? How come Steve Powell never told me about this?

36 \\\ APRIL 2015

top in tech | Columbia's geek squad

stevePresident, powell Delta Systems Group

The biggest tech/ITrelated challenge facing Columbia’s business community: The inability to hire enough quality workers is a growth-limiting problem.

Computer science departments need to pivot into more applicable coursework and require internships before students can graduate. Interests in St. Louis and Kansas City are luring away companies with free office space and cash just for settling into their incubators for a year.

Our incubators need to be more than just four walls and Wi-Fi; engaged mentoring and money are needed.

One thing people would be shocked to know about your profession: We spend 31.2 percent of our time making animated GIF memes. Good programmers can go sevenplus hours without having to get up to pee. Just because someone “builds websites” doesn’t mean he or she knows why your printer is broken. We do know why Facebook is different on a computer versus a phone, but explaining it still won’t let you reply to a comment with an attached image from your phone. But the biggest shocker of all is that all usernames and passwords for everything on the Internet are in one big database; we just make you have different logins to different systems to be mean feel safe.

columbiabusinesstimes.com /// 37

top in tech | Columbia's geek squad

Jonathan Sessions Chief problem solver, Tech 2 The biggest tech/IT-related challenge facing Columbia’s business community: Many people think technology is a one-time thing. Set it up, ignore it, and it will last forever. Technology is a moving target. It needs to be continuously managed and maintained.

Otherwise it starts working against you.

The most exciting recent tech trend or product, in your opinion: Wearables. Right now they’re bulky, conspicuous and have major limitations in battery life, but I believe we’re on the cusp of a major transition. I believe we’ll start to shift away from wearables as accessories to ones that are completely integrated to clothing: Google Glass built into normal-looking glasses or contact lenses, pants that track movement, shirts that can monitor health, shoes that subtly give you directions to your destination.

Your claim to the tech hall of fame: I built and maintain the technology infrastructure for Newsy.com, the Columbia-based news organization recently purchased by E.W. Scripps for $35 million.

Apple or PC? Apple, Linux, Chrome OS, Commodore, Typewriter, Curta, slide rule, pencil and paper, fingers and toes, Windows — in that order.

Your favorite app right now: IF (formerly IFTTT). It automates my life and notifies me when the seasons change on Mars. (After reading that response, Steve Powell just said, “Get your a** to Mars” out loud.)

38 \\\ APRIL 2015

top in tech | Columbia's geek squad

Natalie Hardin

Director of business intelligence (aka data, analytics, reporting), Veterans United Home Loans Brief description of what your company does (for dummies, please): Veterans United Home Loans is dedicated to making the American dream of homeownership a reality for those who so bravely served. The technology team at VU provides the infrastructure, software, security and business intelligence services to support the awesome people within VU who make the dream of homeownership a reality.

The moment you knew you were a “techie”: It was love at first sight with my Commodore SX-64 given to me by my grandpa. The screen was so small. For those who don’t know what a Commodore SX-64 is, it’s a portable, briefcase/suitcase-size, “luggable” version of the popular Commodore 64 home computer and holds the distinction of being the first full-color portable computer. Being only 8 years old at the time, playing games with my little brother was my favorite thing to do on my Commodore.

One thing people would be shocked to know about your profession: Women know how to use technology — and are pretty good at it, too! The earlier we can introduce girls to technology (and all STEM fields), the more awareness and exposure we can create. Programming should be a required language in schools similar to that of a foreign language. Our middle and high school students need to know that being a girl in tech is cool.

Predictions for 2020: We’ll return to hiding money under our beds. Kidding!

Actually, I think it will be just the opposite in that we will be a cashless society. Our poor kids’ kids won’t even know what a piggybank is!

columbiabusinesstimes.com /// 39

top in tech | Columbia's geek squad

Jessie yankee Owner, EasyPC IT & Computer Repair

The moment you knew you were a “techie”: Sometime in high school, I became the person who everyone came to when they needed help with anything tech related. It just got worse through college, and even when I worked at the University of Missouri, my colleagues would ask me to help them instead of calling tech support.

The biggest tech/IT-related challenge facing Columbia’s business community: Internet speeds. Although some of the local ISPs are starting to roll out faster speeds, many of my clients are in areas where they can’t get the new service. I literally have clients setting up remote offices in Kansas City and St. Louis just to get better Internet at an affordable price.

The most exciting recent tech trend or product, in your opinion: 3-D printing.

It’s going to be huge! It already is huge in the medical and manufacturing sectors, and it will be really neat to see when it becomes mainstream and the average person has a 3-D printer.

Team Wozniak or Team Jobs? Team Gates Your favorite app right now: Heads up! Play it at the bar with friends; you’ll have a good time.

Predictions for 2020: Google Fiber in Columbia — at least I can hope anyway.

40 \\\ APRIL 2015

top in tech | Columbia's geek squad

bill turpin CEO, Missouri Innovation Center

Give us a brief description of what you do (for dummies): MIC helps entrepreneurs start new technology companies and operates the MU Life Science Business Incubator at Monsanto Place.

Your claim to the tech hall of fame: Our team at Netscape created JavaScript and RSS. The moment you knew you were a “techie”: I enjoyed taking things apart to see how they work when I was young, usually not complicated stuff: fans, toys, that sort of thing.

The biggest tech/ITrelated challenge facing Columbia’s business community: I think we need more people who have experience starting tech companies and are available to help new companies. We are starting a new venture mentoring service with MU to identify and recruit more tech mentors in Columbia.

Team Wozniak or Team Jobs? The Woz. I’m more on the tech side. I like to build stuff, and at all the companies I’ve been involved with, I’ve had some hand in building it, which is what Woz did, and Jobs was the marketing/biz guy. I appreciate those skills, but it’s not me.

columbiabusinesstimes.com /// 41

top in tech | Columbia's geek squad

George Pfenenger CEO, Socket Telecom LLC

The biggest tech/ITrelated challenge facing Columbia’s business community: Access to competitive high-bandwidth services currently hampered by the perpetuation of one even larger monopoly for last-mile access to the Internet, funded by millions of tax dollars in Missouri alone, with no requirement for open access. The solution? The recognition by government of how we got to where we are today (no, it is not a free market and never has been) and policies that would actually create a free market and benefit the consumers.

One thing people would be shocked to know about your profession: Telecommunications is one of the most incestuous businesses in existence. No one carrier can provide everything, and all carriers must work together to keep the system functioning.

Team Wozniak or Team Jobs? Team Gates, though I have a lot of respect for Jobs as a marketer, negotiator and businessperson more so than a tech innovator.

Your favorite app right now: Eon Sports SIDEKIQ Virtual Reality training software Predictions for 2020: Fiber everywhere! Well, maybe not everywhere, but we should be well on the way.

42 \\\ APRIL 2015

A Special Tribute to

Member SIPC

top in tech | Special Tribute

Debin Benish

It’s hard to talk about the history of Columbia’s technology industry without mentioning Debin Benish. Benish started Delta Systems Group in 1986, during “a time when women weren’t encouraged to venture out on their own,” let alone in the field of technology, according to the Women’s Network website.

“Debin and her team trained thousands of people from over 800 companies in the Columbia area — moving them from typewriters to computers, training them on Windows, Microsoft Office and other software,” says Steve Powell, current owner of Delta Systems.

“Debin had a way of absorbing information from a client about a problem and then proposing a way to solve it in a way that would be not only more efficient but also was designed to last for years to come,” Powell says, citing Benish’s work with the Mizzou Homecoming blood drive.

It was her idea to assign staggered appointment timeslots to eliminate wait time and smooth out the flow of donors, a system still used today.

“Debin was a tremendous community resource,” says Kimberly Trabue of PWArchitects Inc., who considered Benish both a personal and professional mentor.

“She didn’t make fun of me when I started at PWA in 1991 and my computer experience dated back to COBOL programming punch cards,” Trabue says. “She taught many of us in the community to embrace technology rather than to fight it. She took her passion for this amazing industry and bridged the gap between ‘techies’ and regular computer users.”

Benish was also actively involved in the Columbia Chamber of Commerce and Women’s Network, in addition to assisting countless charities and nonprofits.

“She knew her business would be stronger for the involvement, and she frequently gave of her time and talent as well as financially supporting those organizations,” says Anna Hargis, director of advertising for Shelter Insurance and friend of Benish.

When Benish passed away from her battle with cancer, Powell purchased Delta Systems in 2005.

Benish’s legacy of giving lives on in the Debin Benish Outstanding Businesswoman of the Year Award, made possible with the support of Powell and Benish’s husband, Dave Benish.. The award identifies women who exhibit leadership in support of small businesses, actively volunteer in the community and act as mentors to other businesswomen, in addition to owning or being employed by a Chamber-member business. “It seemed that Debin Benish was fearless, but I don’t think that was the case,” Trabue says. “She was just remarkably brave. She knew that it was unusual for a woman to venture out on her own, especially in a field that few women studied. But she was the kind of woman who knew herself, was confident about her abilities and smart enough to do rather than just wish.” CBT

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columbiabusinesstimes.com /// 43

44 \\\ APRIL 2015

the Is the multicolored spinning wheel a thing of the past?

Fiber broadband networks could be on the horizon for Columbia residents, bringing Internet speeds 10 to 100 times faster than most people have in their homes.

T

by torie ross | Illustration by tifani carter

Thousands of hair-thin strands of glass reflect light like a mirror, carrying data to your home, your office or your classroom at speeds you’ve never experienced before. What used to take five minutes to load now takes 10 seconds. The multicolored, never-ending spinning wheel becomes a thing of the past, and suddenly you don’t have to kick your kids off the Internet to get work done at home. It’s fiber, and it’s causing quite the stir in Columbia.

“At one gigabyte-per-second speeds, the fiber broadband networks can go between 10 and 100 times faster than what most people have in their homes,” says Greg Baker, a market development manager for CenturyLink.

Traditionally, data has been transmitted through copper cables; however, copper is limiting in the amount of speed a network can get as well as the distance the data can travel.

In March 2010, the City of Columbia unsuccessfully applied to be one of the trial communities for Google’s GigU program, which would provide Google Fiber to

select locations across the nation. Although Columbia’s efforts were denied, it became increasingly obvious that the interest in and need for faster, more reliable network speeds was present in the community.

Fiber for lease For more than 20 years, Columbia Water and Light has used fiber for its own needs, passing information about controlling the water and electrical systems. However, it has excess dark fiber, or fiber that is not connected to the Internet. Water and Light leases the dark strands to education institutions, government entities, health care facilities and Internet service providers, who are then responsible for “lighting” the fiber, or connecting it.

Currently, Columbia Water and Light leases excess dark fiber that isn’t being used to approximately 30 entities, including Columbia Public Schools, Boone Hospital, Socket Telecom and Bluebird Network. columbiabusinesstimes.com /// 45

Fast Cast With more fiber installation in Columbia come faster Internet speeds, leaving some people wondering: What exactly does that mean for the future of local broadcasting stations?

Marty Siddall, general manager of KOMU-TV, says he believes faster Internet speeds will have a positive effect on local stations such as KOMU, an NBC affiliate station.

“Right now a lot of people have Netflix and YouTube and other online video sources,” Siddall says. “If you have high speed, and you don’t have those [buffering] interruptions, you’re going to watch more on-demand viewing from whatever source. In some cases, that ability to have on-demand viewing increases engagement with the television station. People who binge and catch up with programs they think are good, they catch up, and then they go and watch them live or record them live from the broadcaster. All in all, it increases television viewership.”

Wider broadband could also open the door for a multimedia platform and mobile access for viewers on iPads, iPhones and on-demand videos available on stations’ websites.

“We’ve been very proactive with this from the get-go with our iPad and mobile apps and what we’ve done with our website,” Siddall says. “If the high-speed Internet makes it easier for our viewers or users to watch what we put out there, then great.

We all benefit from that.”

Siddall says local stations might eventually run into trouble if they aren’t able to adjust to the effects of more viewers having access to fast online streaming of TV and live events.

“If NBC has the rights to the Super Bowl, and NBC streams it live online, then in more cases than not, the networks and the affiliates work together, and we get a piece of that pie as well,” Siddall says.

“But if the NFL streams it on their own, and they do it in addition to the network arrangement that they have, they undercut the network. And if they undercut the network, we’re undercut. The different options that are brought about by streaming and high-speed stream capability are changing the landscape and changing the business models all the time now.

“Within a couple years, I expect that all stations will also offer a streaming channel available on desktop and mobile devices,” Siddall continues. “They will likely not be duplicates of the TV broadcasts but probably with some exclusive content.”

46 \\\ APRIL 2015

On Aug. 5, 2014, the city released the Columbia Broadband Planning Study, which looked at the potential economic incentives for the city to light the fiber and then sell it to various providers.

“At no point are we considering being an Internet service provider; we would just be using an asset that we already have to make sure it was being fully utilized,” says Connie Kacprowicz, communications and marketing supervisor for the Columbia Water and Light Department. Lighting the fiber would allow the city to gain additional revenue, provide another service and permit Internet service providers to buy the fiber from the city and offer it to residents at competitive prices without having to invest in laying fiber-optic cables themselves.

The study, issued by Denver-based consulting firm Magellan Advisors LLC, stated that 72 percent of businesses in Columbia had reported some sort of disruption to their business due to Internet speed and reliability problems and that 87 percent of businesses listed their current Internet services as insufficient for their business needs.

“This report went on to the City Council, and then the council agreed that we should go ahead and work on a potential business plan,” Kacprowicz says. Currently, the city is in the process of writing a request for proposals from contractors, who would provide a business plan for how the lit fiber would best be utilized.

Driving economic development The same day the Magellan Report was released, CenturyLink named Columbia as one of 16 cities that would be receiving 1GB speeds or higher through its own fiber broadband network. The fiber rollout, which Baker says will be complete by spring, will bring high-speed Internet access to residential homes and small businesses at a more affordable cost.

“If you’re a very large business corporation with hundreds of users in your building, we can, and always have been able to, provide much higher speeds to those folks,” Baker says. “However, the cost of that service was usually out of reach for the small-business owner and absolutely out of reach for the homeowner.”

While providers such as CenturyLink fight to attract customers with speed, Midwest Computech CEO David Nivens says 1GB speeds are still out of reach for many small businesses.

“All you have to do is look at Kansas City to see how adding affordable (and that is the key word for most every small business and startup) super high-speed Internet has changed the landscape of that business community,” Nivens says. “Kansas City is now viewed as a destination for startups that are reliant on cheap fiber Internet connections.”

Nivens says 1GB speeds are available for $100 per

“What we would like to see is the cities of Columbia and Jefferson City taking advantage of having these high speeds and use them as an economic development tool to attract the people who need it.” — Greg Baker, market development manager, CenturyLink month for residential customers and $500 per month for businesses. In Columbia, fiber with a service-level agreement starts at $750 per month for businesses through CenturyLink.

“If we could get those kinds of speeds and pricing here, that would have a significant impact on our ability to attract, create, retain and grow business,” he says.

The potential economic impact of Columbia residents, and especially small businesses, having access to fiber networks is immense. In Columbia, the Magellan report found that 98 percent of establishments in the city are small businesses.

“People won’t go somewhere specifically because of the fact that they have fiber, but they probably won’t go somewhere without it,” says Bill Turpin, president of the Missouri Innovation Center.

“The biggest benefit of fiber in Columbia is that we’ll stop losing tech companies and entrepreneurs to places like Silicon Valley,” he adds.

As Columbia celebrates its quality of life, Baker sees Internet speed as an essential component to that quality. “Being able to offer these speeds will bring in the tech-savvy people, the entrepreneurs,” Baker says. “I think that’s what a lot of economic developers want to bring in to the community.”

The fiber hype is quickly spreading to the rest of mid-Missouri. In 2012, Socket installed the first residential fiber Internet service in Calloway County.

This installation was part of a $23.7 million grant from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to deploy fiber in the county, where residents had been restricted to dial-up or satellite Internet.

Jefferson City was also one of the 16 cities chosen by CenturyLink to launch fiber.

“What we would like to see is the cities of Columbia and Jefferson City taking advantage of having these high speeds and use them as an economic development tool to attract the people who need it,” Baker says. In the months to come, it has yet to be decided who will build Columbia’s high-speed infrastructure and just how far the economic reach of fiber will spread across the city. CBT

Who has the top happy hour in town?

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Go online to nominate your favorites at www.columbiabusinesstimes.com Nominate from March 15 - April 7, 2015 | Vote on finalists from April 10 - April 30, 2015 columbiabusinesstimes.com /// 47

hacked A security issue for every person with a computer and every business that’s online, cybercrime is continually evolving, which makes it difficult to gauge and even harder to predict. So how can mid-Missouri businesses get ahead of the game? The short answer? You can’t.

By Matthew Patston

48 \\\ APRIL 2015

While Santa stuffed stockings last Christmas Eve, zombies invaded Columbia.

In hacker slang, a “zombie” is a compromised computer, one that can be remotely controlled to mindlessly attack. In this case, a network of infected computers were commanded to flood the City of Columbia’s website. They obeyed orders perfectly, making the site inaccessible for all of Christmas Day and the day after. Visitors were greeted with a message saying the website was taking too long to respond and that users should check their Internet connection. Of course, Internet connection wasn’t the problem. The city was under cyberattack, the first the city had ever faced.

It’s been attacked 17 times since.

All 17 have been Distributed Denial of Services attacks, a popular form of cybercrime that floods a website’s servers. If you imagine 10,000 people trying to fit through the front door of City Hall at the same time, you can begin to understand how a DDoS attack works. The website is inundated beyond capacity by requests from malwareinfected computers, blocking all legitimate traffic until the attack subsides. It’s uncomplicated and more or less impossible to stop. Because the attacker doesn’t gain access to the system, a DDoS isn’t a hack. It is, however, a cybercrime — and a serious one at that.

Cybercrime is now a security issue for every person with a computer and every business that’s online, but cybercrime against businesses in midMissouri can be difficult to gauge. In 2011, the Missouri Sherriff’s Association was attacked, along with 76 other law enforcement agencies, in protest to Anonymous members being arrested. This attack, and the December attack on the city, was high profile enough to notice, but that isn’t always the case.

“Columbia’s website is very visible, and that attack would be known quickly,” says David Nivens, CEO of Midwest Computech in Columbia. “A law firm or doctor’s office may choose to not make an attack public. A lot of people get hacked and never know it.”

The threats are continually evolving, and computer security experts have to be both proactive and reactive to stay on the cutting edge. This kind of crime is hard to stop, but local experts have some tips to take the safety of your company’s online presence to the next level.

The façade of safety Hacking becomes more widespread as cybercrime becomes larger scale and more sophisticated. In a scam unveiled in mid-February, cybercriminals stole more than $1 billion from European and U.S. banks through careful infiltration of employee computers. In January, hackers attacked Sony Pic-

Check out these five steps to securing your business, collected from Columbia tech professionals David Nivens and Brant Uptergrove of Midwest Computech and Travis Schumacher of Tranquility Internet Services: 1. Install a firewall. This is the first line of defense for your network. A firewall controls incoming and outgoing traffic, does monitoring for impermissible intrusions to the network and scans for data that resembles virus and malware programs. Some can even control the content that is accessible from the network (not allowing sites such as pornography, social media, etc.), help manage Internet traffic priorities and other security measures.

2. Encrypt your passwords.

No network is safe without mindfully chosen passwords.

Uptergrove says a password should be at least eight characters in length and should include numbers, uppercase and lowercase letters and symbols, and passwords should be changed every 30 to 60 days.

3. Be careful what you click on.

Suspicious emails and deceptive links are often the first step in a cyberattack. Send suspicious material to your IT professional to check if an email is safe to open.

4. Secure your wireless network. Don’t just buy an offthe-shelf router, plug it into your network and think it’s secure. Be sure to change the default router password and set up a wireless password/ key, at the bare minimum.

5. Keep your operating system antivirus software up to date. Staying current on these helps eliminate the loopholes that cybercriminals exploit.

columbiabusinesstimes.com /// 49

Dale Musser

Director of MU's information technology degree program, associate teaching professor in computer science

CBT: What are some of the study track options for people looking to go into IT? In the field of IT, you could either go with an IT degree or computer science degree; they’re both considered within the IT field. There are a number of two-year degree programs that community colleges offer in programming, networking and system administration. A fouryear degree tends to focus on a broader set of skills and looks more deeply at the theoretical underpinnings so you can kind of evolve your thinking with time to embrace new abilities and new technologies. We’re training for what I feel like is the longer term. There’s definitely room for people who go through training programs and two-year degree programs; just know that those salaries won’t be as high, and those people have to look at what they’re going to do throughout their career because onetime training isn’t enough in this field.

CBT: What are your employment options for IT grads staying in Columbia?

The first thing you should recognize is that IT is now part of every organization and every enterprise. In Columbia, there are a number of more well-known technology companies; for example, CARFAX has been a significant employer as well as Veterans United Home Loans. The insurance companies that are in the local area definitely hire in IT, and all of the banks are typical employers. There are also a lot of smaller companies that have a technology focus, such as Newsy over at the journalism school.

CBT: What are the various fields within IT and their associated pay?

The most principal employment has been software engineering: people developing software applications. The second would be systems administration kinds of work. Then there’s the consulting and support fields area, and then the rest of these jobs are a sort of mixture: a bit of developing Web applications, managing servers and helping to support the technology in an organization. Salaries are highly dependent on geographic location. The average salary in mid-Missouri is kind of in the 50s ($50,000), the cities in Missouri are in the 60s ($60,000), and when we go to the big cities (Bay Area, Silicone Valley), we’re seeing salaries much more significant than that.

50 \\\ APRIL 2015

to attack. Nivens’ company hopes to make tures to protest The Interview, a film depictthose weaknesses as small as possible. ing the assassination of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un; in turn, North Korea’s Midwest Computech hosts a Web-based Internet went out a few days later. Other cloud system, using multiple layers to protect hacking stories abound. customer information. Nivens is quick to distinguish it from the “consumer-level” clouds Computer hacking emerged in popular such as Dropbox and Apple’s iCloud, which culture in the mid-’80s, propagated by sucwas breached last September. Access to Midcessful hacking movies such as WarGames, in west Computech’s secure cloud is encrypted, which Matthew Broderick plays an unwitting and having all of the information in one place hacker who nearly sets off World War III. provides fewer points of entry for potential Magazines, notably the still active 2600, and attackers. The cloud also allows work to be online forums began giving hackers a place secured from different devices. Having mobile to call home — and to swap stories, techaccess is important for a modern business, but niques and secrets. it also opens up more possibilities for infiltraNivens says the new information threats have tion; more devices on a network mean more caused massive changes in the 21st century. devices that could be compromised.

“Fifteen years ago, security was pretty static,” Nivens says. “You usually just put up “There’s some façade that if it’s on your a firewall and then said that was it. Now the network, then you’re safe,” Nivens says. bad guys are always one step ahead of every“Life isn’t lived on a desktop anymore. The number of devices that can connect to your one else, coming up with new ways to pendata is exponential.” etrate your network or make you give up information. It’s really a reactive industry.”

Nivens sees three possible motivations for Picking up the pieces hackers: profit, pleasure and protest. A forThe DDoS attack on the city website profit hack would be like the one that victimattracted attention from local media, to the apparent delight of the ized banks in February; a attacker, who fielded a few pleasure hack would be like At HackMizzou, teams questions from a Columbia HackMizzou, a 24-hour proof students compete to Daily Tribune reporter on gramming competition held creatively manipulate Twitter. The attacker was on the University of Misa computer to serve less happy with local news souri campus. a purpose. One of the station KOMU 8. After The attack on Colum2013 winners created the station posted a Web bia’s city website was a proan automatic dating story, quoting the city’s test: The attacker, through site that pulls data erroneous statement that a YouTube video posted on from social media. The event’s tagline is “Build. the attacker was affiliated the website Counter CurDiscover. Innovate.” with Anonymous, KOMU’s rent News, said he wanted website went down. It was to punish the city for a 2011 more zombies.

SWAT raid in which two dogs were shot, one fatally. The YouTube Matt Garrett, director of audience develvideo has since been deleted. opment at KOMU 8, was flummoxed.

“Quite frankly, we were dumbfounded DDoS attacks are popular among the as to why we were being attacked,” he says. “hacktivists.” In 2011, the hacking collec“We were reporting, factually, something tive Anonymous petitioned the U.S. governthat the City of Columbia told us.” ment to legalize DDoS as a legitimate form of protest, saying it was the same as occupyThis elicited a grin from the man seated ing physical space. A DDoS attack is easy, once next to Garrett, KOMU 8 network adminisyou have access to a sizable botnet, and you trator Jason Kennedy. “We’re still paying for can even download software that teaches you that one,” he says. how to do it for free.

Three hours after KOMU was able to get the site back up, the attacker crashed it Still, complicated attacks involve more again. The site’s hosting provider refused to layered infiltration. Attackers will often allow the site back up again until they had gain access to a company’s system through a mitigation system in place, the only real phishing emails (also known as spam), defense against a DDoS attack. observe their target and look for weaknesses

“Fifteen years ago, security was pretty static. You usually just put up a firewall and then said that was it. Now the bad guys are always one step ahead of everyone else, coming up with new ways to penetrate your network or make you give up information. It’s really a reactive industry.”

— David Nivens, CEO, Midwest Computech KOMU now uses CloudFlare, a mitigation service that masks a site’s IP address, which makes it more difficult to target. The CloudFlare package with this capability costs $200 a month. This can be frustrating to spend, especially for defense against such a basic attack.

“These attacks aren’t a challenge,” Kennedy says. “This is the same software that I use to stress test our servers. It’s rudimentary. It’s easy.”

Garrett says the DDoS attacks were more than an inconvenience; they were financially damaging. A nonfunctional website is bad for any business, particularly one that relies on Web traffic and Internet ad revenue.

Although they were sleepless holidays at KOMU 8, both Kennedy and Garrett agree there wasn’t much more to be done. They didn’t communicate with the attacker at all, and they didn’t alter their original story to meet the attacker’s requests. To do so, they say, would have only provided an incentive to other potential cybercriminals.

These were the first attacks that Kennedy dealt with in 22 years at KOMU 8.

For him, they reaffirmed his suspicions about living in the online age.

“If you’re online, you’re not safe,” he says.

“People think I’m paranoid, but it’s true.”

Garrett, now smiling, adds, “That’s mostly because he goes around wearing a hat made of tin foil.”

The risk of the cyber age If anybody should be at the cutting edge of cybersecurity, it’s John Shier, senior security expert at Sophos, an international computer security company. Shier has an ear for

explaining the complex industry in downto-earth terms: He refers to cybercriminals as “crooks” and takes time to explain terms such as spear-phishing and snowshoe spam.

He blogs on Naked Security, Sophos’ cybernews site for the average consumer. Recent topics include a hitchhiking robot and a how-to guide for spotting phishy emails.

Shier knows what a difficult game of chess he’s playing and how well crafted cyberattacks can be. “To do security right is really hard,” he says. “You need to have all of your ducks in a row.”

Shier says phishing emails are the biggest security threat businesses have to deal with. Employees should know how to spot a bad link or a suspicious email and report the potential attack as soon as possible.

Malevolent hackers often cast a wide net in hopes of entangling just enough people to gain access and begin analyzing a target. Even when a company is targeted prior to an attack, it’s usually the employees who unwittingly grant an attacker access to the system. After that, the crooks just take what’s available, meaning every business has different security concerns.

“When you break into a jewelry store, you’re not looking to steal one specific Rolex,” Shier says. “You just want to grab as much as you can and get out.”

Sophos tries its hardest to stay at the criminals’ pace. Shier says their emerging threats team is made of top IT professionals who examine weaknesses and continually bolster Sophos products. Shier says it’s important for businesses to stay up to date on their software in an effort to be, at the very least, a moving target that’s difficult to hit.

Still, he knows the realities of the industry. “At the end of the day, they’re going to get in, so it’s about how much the crooks can take,” Shier says.

After KOMU 8 was attacked, Kennedy and Garrett say they moved quickly to pick up the pieces and soberly brace for the next attack. Cybercrime is continually evolving, and the threats to businesses are always changing.

“There is no such thing as ‘ahead of the game,’” Kennedy says. “You can read periodicals, you can stay up to date and keep your stuff patched, but they’re always going to be one step ahead. They’re the ones taking it apart, finding things they can exploit, and you won’t even know until it happens.” CBT columbiabusinesstimes.com /// 51

Elly and Clay Bethune

52 \\\ APRIL 2015

9th & elm

Elly’s Couture owners Elly and Clay Bethune’s curated website offers handmade fashions from some of the best independent designers.

E

By Molly Wright | Photo by Anthony JInson

Elly Bethune, née Swetz, and Clay Bethune were dating when they opened Elly’s Couture in The District in 2006. Showcasing handmade goods by independent designers, their brick and mortar has become a favorite shopping experience for mid-Missouri residents. Today, this entrepreneurial twosome, who were married in 2010, brings designers and customers together internationally through their ecommerce site, 9th & Elm (9thelm.com).

Raised in Columbia, Elly was attending San Francisco State University when she first heard about Clay.

“He had hired my sister as a loan officer when he owned Gateway Mortgage Group,” she says. “She had told me several times: ‘There’s a guy you have to meet. I just think you would really hit it off.’”

A wedding in Columbia brought them together, and they started courting over the phone once Elly returned to the Bay Area. Not surprising, when Elly graduated in 2006, she moved back to Columbia. It was while she was looking for a way to use her degree in magazine journalism with an emphasis on fashion that Clay, a serial entrepreneur, suggested she open her own store.

“At the time, it had never crossed my mind,” Elly says.

Almost immediately they began to search for a location. “I absolutely wanted to be downtown,” Elly says.

“There is such a sense of community. I also thought it would be a much better fit for what I had envisioned.”

When they discovered Poppy, a well-established Columbia business, was moving, they signed the lease within 48 hours and opened Elly’s Couture six weeks later.

The first year they concentrated on building vendors, often traveling to Los Angeles to meet with individual designers. Initially, they focused on carrying a lot of famous designers such as Betsey Johnson and BCBG. At the same time, they honed their team approach to the business based on their individual skill sets.

“He had the business background, and I knew what kind of merchandise I wanted to carry,” Elly says. “I also knew how to run the daily operations of a store.

And I love talking to people.”

Over time, the Bethunes realized they needed to restructure their business plan to include different brands with more price points. “That’s how we got into carrying independent designers, which made us more unique,” Elly says. Eventually, they also expanded online with ellyscouture.com. columbiabusinesstimes.com /// 53

Curated style With the success of Elly’s Couture, Clay began looking at other business interests. At the time online shopping sites such as Etsy were gaining in popularity. But because these websites allowed anyone to post items to sell, they operated like enormous clearinghouses, requiring consumers to often wade through hundreds of thousands of goods and products to find a particular item. Clay thought there must be a better way.

In 2013, the Bethunes launched 9th & Elm, a curated website that offers handmade fashions from some of the best independent designers — but with a twist. Rather than allowing anyone to sell on their site, the Bethunes handpick and partner with designers. Then they showcase the designers’ items and take a percentage of the sales.

Potential customers who subscribe to the site benefit by receiving daily emails with exclusive deals.

With 9th & Elm, the Bethunes can take chances with merchandise they wouldn’t normally carry at their brick-and-mortar store.

“You can be a little riskier because you are not in-housing the product, so you can see if it’s going to work for your clientele,” Clay says. Additionally, the selling process of 9th & Elm requires less effort than the Broadway business because about 80 percent of the products the couple showcases on the website are drop-shipped directly by the designers themselves.

“A lot of them are one of a kind, made to order, so when the order is placed to the designer, the designer makes it and ships it directly to the customer,” Clay says. On average, three to five new designers are added every day to the site, and each designer may have 10, 20 or more products to upload.

Although they were a little overwhelmed their first 30 days, Clay says the public response to 9th & Elm continues to be encouraging. “We had sold

“I learned very quickly that owning your own business and running a business are two different things. I am a hard worker, but working smart is just as important, if not more important, than working hard.”

— Elly Swetz, co-owner, Elly’s Couture and 9th&Elm 54 \\\ APRIL 2015

The Bethunes hand-select designers to partner with and showcase on their website, 9thelm.com.

$800 in product our first day and had 10,000 users using our site in the first 30 days,” he says. “Our second month we had 80,000 hits to our site.”

This was all accomplished with a lean startup business model and only one other full-time employee when they launched.

“Anything you are doing online has great potential since online marketing is continuing to grow,” Clay says. “Internet, smartphones and social media are native to today’s generation. Online shopping is just a natural progression for them, so in the future, probably 90 percent of their clothing purchases will eventually be made online.”

But Clay also believes part of 9th & Elm’s success stems from the fact that many of today’s consumers are looking for more transparency in the marketplace. “There’s a movement to going back to knowing the source; it started with food and has kind of trickled down into fashion,” he says.

Elly agrees and feels customers are as interested in the designer as they are the product. “I think today’s customer often wants to support independent designers,” she says. “Every independent designer has a story, and we truly get behind them and fall in love with them as much as we do their product.”

It won’t run itself Elly and Clay love their business/life relationship.

Still, they agree that juggling two businesses while raising their daughter, Chase, who celebrated her first birthday earlier this year, can be a bit challeng-

ing. They’ve learned to rely on each other’s skills and instincts, which they believe is important for any couple that’s contemplating going into business together. Overall, they encourage others to take the plunge but offer some sage advice.

“The startup world is incredibly difficult,” Clay says. “The first six months I think I was getting about three hours of sleep at night. The learning process happens so quickly in the tech world. It’s all ongoing training, and the only way to learn is to just do it.”

He also recommends potential business owners do their homework ahead of time. “Be well read,” he says. “You are probably not that serious about developing a business if you haven’t taken the time to read about it.”

Elly believes working with someone who has similar goals helps, but personally understanding the nature of business is essential.

“I learned very quickly that owning your own business and running a business are two different things,” she says. “I am a hard worker, but working smart is just as important, if not more important, than working hard. If you can marry them together, you will be able to make a successful business flourish over the years.

“The more you put into your business, whether it’s time or money, your business will pay you back tenfold,” she continues. “Don’t expect a business to run itself. No one will love your business as much as you do at the end of the day, so put the time in, and ultimately, your business will grow.” CBT

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Nonprofit Spotlight

Support Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Missouri by attending or sponsoring the Big Derby Party May 2. Visit www.bigderbyparty.com for more information.

›› Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Missouri

Bigs and Littles

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Missouri uses mentorship to make a positive difference in kids’ lives.

By Sarah Berger | Photos by sarah redohl One hour, once a week: That’s all it takes to make a positive difference in a child’s life. Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Missouri, which provides mentoring services for kids, has the results to prove it.

For the past two years, none of the kids enrolled for one year in the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Missouri organization have dropped out of school, none have had new referrals to the juvenile justice system, none have become teen parents, and there was around a 20 percent increase in kids saying they had plans to continue on to college. What’s the organization’s secret to success?

It’s as simple as friendship.

“Of all the resources it takes to lift up underserved children, there is none more powerful than time from caring mentors,” says Lana Poole, president of the board of directors for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Missouri.

“Big Brothers Big Sisters is more than a good idea; it is a proven approach. Local and national Scott Cosby “Volunteers can help change the trajectory of youth lives, which can make Columbia a better place to live.”

56 \\\ APRIL 2015

Chris Ashton “I’ve been blessed to get to be a part of my Little’s life and watch him grow into a fantastic young man.”

studies validate that children who receive mentoring demonstrate significant gains in academic, social and behavioral outcomes.”

Originally established in 1968 as Big Brothers Big Sisters of Boone County, the organization is an affiliate of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. The organization offers services in Boone, Audrain and Randolph counties and is its own 501(c)(3) registered nonprofit.

Big Brothers Big Sisters recruits volunteers, “Bigs,” to work with at-risk youth in communities and schools as mentors through 1-to-1 matches. Once volunteers apply to become Bigs, they go through an extensive interview and background check process to match them up with “Littles” who shares common interests. Children enrolled go through an extensive interview process as well, and information is gathered from parents or teachers to determine areas of improvement they would like to see for each child.

Gina Gervino “The staff continues to amaze me with how much they accomplish with so little resources.

Imagine what they could do with more funds.”

Bryant Chambly “It’s more than an after-school program. Bigs are invested personally, and the impact is astounding.”

“Matching a child who likes baseball, hiking and going to Mizzou football games with an adult who likes those same activities is more likely to be successful than matching that child to an adult who prefers doing indoor activities such as board games, baking and ballroom dancing,” says Heather Dimitt, executive director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Missouri. “Bigs and Littles are guided by match support specialists who assist the mentors in building supportive positive relationships with the youth so the youth may become healthy and responsible adults.”

Programs and commitment Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Missouri has roughly 450 kids enrolled per year, with the majority of the kids coming from Boone County, specifically Columbia. This is mainly due to Columbia’s significantly larger population in comparison to Audrain and Randolph counties, which account for roughly nearly 15 percent of children enrolled.

Mel Zelenak “I wish that more Columbians knew the pure number of lives that BBBS touches and impacts in mid-Missouri.”

Ryan Verkamp “The staff is so sincere about the children involved and will do anything to create success for this program.”

➜ 4250 E. Broadway #1067 Columbia, MO 65201 573-874-3677 • bigsofcentralmo.org

Children eligible for the programs start as early as age 6 can be enrolled until 15 or 16 years old with eligibility to continue participating until 18.

“When there’s two parents in a family, you have two people to meet all the emotional needs of all the children,” Dimitt says. “When there’s only one parent, you have that one parent trying to meet all the emotional needs and many do not have the benefit of an extended support system to help them in meeting those needs. A lot of the parents that enroll a child in our program simply want their children to have the benefit of the positive support that another adult can provide.”

The organization has two main programs: a school-based mentoring program and a community-based mentoring program. For volunteers who may not want to commit to a full calendar year or feel uneasy being responsible for a child out in the community, the schoolbased program is a good starting point. All meet-ups between matches in the schoolbased program occur on school grounds during school hours.

“A lot of our school-based matches eventually transition to community-based and end up lasting for years, which is the ideal,” Dimitt says.

Lana Poole “The mentoring that children receive changes the course of their lives. BBBS is a game-changer.”

Brandon Guffey “The future is bright with the youth of the Columbia community.

My wife and I hope to positively influence the place we call home.”

All volunteers are required to commit one hour per week for a minimum of one year to be a Big Brother or Big Sister. Forty percent of the organization’s volunteers are college students; the rest are members of the community who have a desire to help children in need.

“Almost everybody who has achieved some level of success in their life or feels confident in where they are at in life has had someone come in and help them set goals, give direction and help them stay on the right track,” Dimitt says.

“I think at some point we realize that, and we want to give that to another child, and that’s a major motivation of our volunteers.”

‘You don’t have to be perfect’ The organization receives most of its funding through fundraising events it holds throughout the year and private donations. Other funding comes from contracts with the City of Columbia and other state and agency contracts that provide services for the organization, state grants and foundations, Heart of Missouri United Way, the United Way of Audrain County and the United Way of Randolph County. According to Dimitt, money is primarily used for programrelated expenses, such as liability insurance, case managers and events for the matches.

Elaine Hassemer “I believe in the mission of the organization, and I have seen the results with children.”

Kurt Wallace “My proudest moment was watching my Little Brother, Keondre, grow into a very nice young man.”

The future is exciting for Big Brothers Big Sisters as it looks to add a site-based mentoring program through a partnership with the Columbia Housing Authority’s Moving Ahead program and Family Counseling Center. Families on the Housing Choice Voucher Program will receive additional services from the Columbia Housing Authority and as a part of that will be asked if they have any kids who are eligible for the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. The Family Counseling Center will also provide mental health support to the families.

“We were seeing a lot more families that needed wraparound services and a lot more help than we were actually designed to support,” Dimitt says. “So we were looking toward reaching out to partners that can help us provide those all-around services.”

Dimitt believes there are three to four times more kids in Columbia still in need of mentors and encourages people who think they might not make good mentors to give it a second thought.

“When you’re a mentor, you don’t have to be perfect,” Dimitt says. “Some of the best mentors are people who may have made their own mistakes because they can help steer a kid away from making similar bad choices.” CBT Not pictured: Rockne Corbin, Tony Mayfield, Greg Walker, Ben Tilley, Heather Demitt, Loreli Wilson and Tim Gerding.

Tony Richards “BBBS has a wonderful tradition and history of helping kids in our region and community.”

Todd Norton “The relationship I developed with my Little Brother was a lot of fun, and we both got a lot out of it.”

columbiabusinesstimes.com /// 57

Chad Haney and Anna Swacker Photo by Anthony Jinson

58 \\\ APRIL 2015

hard work

Celebrations ›› Tin Can Technologies

The IT Crowd Tin Can Technologies specializes in custom websites and software applications.

By Taylor Wanbaugh Local company Tin Can Technologies has been around for less than a year, but it’s quickly becoming a go-to custom software development company, with customers based everywhere from Columbia to Las Vegas. Columbia residents Chad Haney and Anna Swacker founded the business in May of 2014 and specialize in creating websites and custom software applications for companies.

“Our projects range and vary in size,” Swacker says. “From small website tweaks to entire backoffice systems, we do it all. Our projects cost-wise range from a few hundred dollars to six figures.”

Haney and Swacker already had a long history of software programming before Tin Can Technologies began. Swacker graduated from the University of Missouri College of Engineering in 2012 with a degree in computer science. Haney has been developing software for more than 10 years and worked as director of technology for MedSocket, a health care IT startup based out of Columbia. Making the decision to quit their jobs and focus full time on creating their own software solutions company was nerve wracking for both but worth it in the end.

“It was a lot more fun building things from the ground up than maintaining something that was already built,” Haney says.

The fun part Tin Can Technologies focuses on custom software development, building everything from websites to office software. The company has found a niche in health care software, which entails developing HIPAA-compliant applications that run the gamut from patient management software to scheduling software and EHR integration. The back-office applications include accounting software, employee management software and project management software.

“It’s fun to pick a project, and it’s fun to get started on it…” Swacker says. “Planning, mapping it out, trying to figure out where each piece of the puzzle fits is something we both really enjoy.”

Haney and Swacker say they’ve tried to stay active in the local startup gatherings. They took third place at Startup Weekend last year with The Wandering Turtle, their idea for a travel application. Haney was awarded Hardest Worker of the weekend.

“The team had a great presentation and sold the idea and platform excellently,” says Heidi Fuhrmann, organizer of Startup Weekend. “The idea appealed to a millennial audience who want to travel and experience unique places that have been vetted by people who travel similarly.”

They made an effort to build strategic partnerships as well. Tin Can Technologies is a development partner with Firehost, which is one of the health care industry’s leading secure cloud hosting companies.

“It helps grow us, and it helps them grow, too,” Swacker says. “It helps our clients out for sure.”

Developing the business Building a company from scratch is no cakewalk, especially for two software developers with little experience in the business side of things.

“We’re a business, but we’re software developers,” Haney says. “Figuring out all the other stuff is a challenge.”

They stay competitive by keeping prices reasonable and thinking about new, creative ways to develop software and websites for companies.

“A lot of the time, they go out trying to find a product that is prebuilt and does what they want it to do, and they can’t find that,” Haney says.

“Then they discover our company. We can be pretty competitive.”

They’ve done more then just stay afloat though. Since starting the company last May, Tin Can Technologies has gained customers in Columbia, St. Louis, Texas, Las Vegas, California and Arizona.

“We like the Columbia market, but we’ve had really good luck in being competitive, especially on rates, with companies in bigger cities like Las Vegas,” Swacker says. “We’re cheaper here in the Midwest than they are out there.”

Right now, the company is just comprised of Haney, Swacker and two other developers. Looking toward the future, they say they’d like to stay headquartered in Columbia but move out of their home office base and into a small office in town.

“We’re going to continue to focus on the same niches we are in now, which is health care and back-office applications, and try to be the go-to custom solutions company in those sectors…”

Haney says. “Five years from now, we hope to be in an office somewhere here with three to five employees cranking out code still.” CBT

Timeline 2014 › In May, Tin Can Technologies registers with the state as a business.

› In July, Tin Can Technologies gets its first client.

› In September, Both Chad Haney and Anna Swacker start working full time for Tin Can Technologies.

› In October, The Wandering Turtle takes third place at Startup Weekend Columbia.

› In December, Haney and Swacker hire a third developer out of Washington state.

2015 › In February, Haney and Swacker hire a fourth local developer. columbiabusinesstimes.com /// 59

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Marketing

›› Monica Pitts talks marketing trends and tips.

chief creative director at mayecreate design

Looking Out for the Little Guy Search engine optimization, or SEO, is just a big black hole for most business owners. We run around coveting that No. 1 spot like we’re all back in high school competing to be valedictorian — because being valedictorian means you’re the best among your peers, right?

But being listed No. 1 just means you’re first in line; it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re the best. Some sites rank well for a short period of time because people find loopholes in the system and exploit them. Others follow the rules and reap the benefits long term.

In 2014, Headmaster Google put the smack down on cheaters and boosted quality local websites.

This year’s Panda updates and the release of Google Pigeon — oddly, Google’s algorithm updates tend to be nicknamed after animals — mean the most for local businesses. Panda, first introduced in February 2011, favors sites producing quality content.

Rolled out in July 2014, Pigeon is considered Google’s local algorithm.

It strongly ties search results to location. For example, if you’re in Columbia, Missouri, and search for pizza, you’ll find listings for pizza places in Columbia without having to include the city in your search phrase.

What this should mean to you If you regularly write good content, and your site isn’t a pile of junk, Google might place you at the top of your class. But Ellis Benus, local business owner and SEO guru, explains it’s more complicated than that.

“Google says they care about two things: quality content and links to the site,” Benus says. “In truth, Google only cares about the number of links that point to the site. There are unoptimized single-page websites that rank first in every search engine for no reason other than millions of backlinks.”

Basically, Google cares about how many people have linked to your website. The search engine is like a highway, and links are like exit ramps. The more exit ramps you have going to your website, the more likely the search engine is to find your content.

Max Prokell, owner of Venta Marketing and local SEO expert, supports both Google and Benus’ statements.

“Web pages with quality content, correct keyword placement and a solid link portfolio will rank well,” Prokell says. “If you have a well-built, crawlable website with links pointing to it, your Web pages will be indexed and eligible for the search engine results pages.”

I tend to agree with Prokell; long-term success takes a mixture of both content and links. My clients who keep their sites flowing with quality content, such as blogs, definitely get more traffic to their sites and also tend to rank higher than their peers for the same search terms.

NAP is one thing both local and national experts agree on, and they’re not talking about shuteye. Like all good marketing materials, your website should always include your company’s name, address and phone number.

Illustration by Tifani Carter

“In regard to local SEO, NAP consistency across all local directories and choosing the correct categories are very important,” Prokell says.

Rewarding best practices Search Engine Land asked national SEO experts to review the impact Google’s changes had on their clients’ sites. Most said the updates were all over the place. Their clients’ listing placements were moving daily; some had disappeared altogether.

On the contrary, Prokell says the updates have benefitted his clients.

“As a whole, we have found that our clients continue to rank higher, which can be attributed to the fact that Google constantly updates their algorithm to reward best practices and penalize poor practices,” Prokell says. He also says they’ve found specific areas where it’s easier to improve a client’s ranking with the algorithm updates.

“We have found that local ranking improvements in Google’s Map Pack can happen much faster,” he says. “With the release for Google My Business, formerly Google Places, changes to your local Google page happen in real time. Also, Google has finally devoted a team to their local pages, which means you can actually talk to a real Googler for local support.”

Even with all the 2014 updates, SEO is still likely a big black hole to most.

Fortunately, Google is working to reward us local folks with improved listings and giving a leg up to websites producing quality content. CBT columbiabusinesstimes.com /// 61

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Technology

›› Brant Uptergrove reviews the latest trends in tech.

Account Manager at Midwest Computech

To Outsource or Not to Outsource Dealing with technology issues is just part of growing a business, but technology can quickly become a big pain, even for small businesses. One of the biggest growth service industries is the outsourcing of information technology. But is outsourcing the right way to go? Let’s discuss the pros and cons.

Expertise Outsourcing pro: A dedicated in-house person will understandably be limited by his or her personal training and abilities. Outsourcing with an IT company gives you access to a team of individuals with wide-ranging skill sets devoted to troubleshooting and resolving network problems and glitches.

Outsourcing con: An internal IT staff member has firsthand knowledge of the internal direction of the company and its decisions. He or she may better understand how implemented technology will affect the end users and customers.

Availability Outsourcing pro: An in-house IT technician will take time off for sick days and vacation, leaving you with little or no support during his or her absence.

Outsourcing con: Having full-time, dedicated IT personnel means you can direct their hours and on-call availability, and outsourcing for off business hours can be expensive.

Continuity

Illustration by Tifani Carter

Outsourcing pro: As in-house IT staff changes, new employees will bring their technology ideas with them. An outsourced IT company can provide you with a long-term tech plan that lays out your goals and solutions so you know what expenditures to expect.

Outsourcing con: Goal planning and direction may be more easily achieved internally. As an employer, you may find it easier to sit down with an internal staff member to plan your technology implementations.

Outsourcing con: An outsourcing company will recommend the products and solution it supports, and it’ll be limited by the types of technologies it supports as a part of its business model.

Cost Outsourcing pro: When IT is outsourced, your business simply has lower human resource-related costs. Outsourcing places the tax and benefit burden on the outsourcing company. Plus, you’re only paying for the services you need.

Outsourcing con: If an employee handles your technology, you have the right to define his or her job description and daily tasks. As the employer of the IT technician, you can task him or her with extra duties, lowering the employment costs of having separate people perform those tasks.

Solutions and future innovation Outsourcing pro: An outsourcing company should devote time and effort to staying on top of technology innovation to advise you on new technology that will increase your productivity and efficiency. Plus, the buying power of an outsourcing company will make hardware and other products more affordable than if you purchased them on your own.

Security and confidentiality Outsourcing pro: Should an in-house person make a mistake and lose data (or, heaven forbid, steal it), you may have little recourse. Outsourcing mitigates that risk and places that liability squarely onto the outsourcing partner if it’s insured and protected in the case of theft or catastrophic events.

Outsourcing con: Outsourcing gives a third party access to your confidential information. You have no guarantee an internal employee wouldn’t breach your trust; just make sure an outsourcing partner performs background checks and has its employees sign confidentiality agreements.

When deciding if outsourcing your IT is right for you, make sure to examine all costs associated with both options. Also, think about the size and complexity of your network, the risk and liability of data loss or security breach and your future growth needs. You may need to hire another IT staff member but cannot afford to do so yet. This is a great time to look at outsourcing with a company to work with current in-house IT staff.

Regardless of how you manage your technology, some well-thought-out effort behind long-range planning and preventive maintenance will go a long way toward alleviating technology woes. CBT columbiabusinesstimes.com /// 63

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Organizational Health

›› Pieter Van Waarde helps guide organizations into good health.

senior pastor woodcrest chapel President sidewalk llc

Appreciate the Flipside Most businesspeople are familiar with the Pareto principle, which states that 80 percent of the outputs come from 20 percent of the inputs.

In organizational life this means that 80 percent of your sales are generated by 20 percent of your customers, and 80 percent of your problems are created by 20 percent of the staff.

However, I’d like to reflect on this principle from a more personal point of view. What if 80 percent of what you love about a person is driven by the 20 percent you hate?

It sounds unsettling, I know. But consider the character and personality qualities of a good friend, a favorite boss or your most productive employee. Don’t you find you love everything about them except this one point of irritation? If they could just lose “that one thing,” then everything else would be great.

Yet, take a moment to think about that thing. What makes it irritating?

What would happen if you could change it?

When you hire a new employee, from the start you’ve found value in his or her unique skill sets: his or her innate relational insight, high ethical standards or superior communication skills. But everything we love about a person has a flipside. Amidst the accolades over relational insight, we begin to discover a preoccupation with how people “feel” about things. While appreciating the high ethics, we begin to see a stickler for policies and procedures. In the valuing of communication capacity, we find a person who “never shuts up.” Over time, that flipside becomes the thing we hate.

To illustrate that point, a couple of friends have graciously given me permission to be vulnerable with their lives.

I have the good fortune of working on the board for the Heart of Missouri United Way. Tim Rich was formerly the executive director. He is a visionary leader, one who isn’t afraid to try new things. He likes thinking outside the box, and we all love this about him.

When the new “Community Impact Initiative” was launched several years ago, we knew Rich was exactly the guy for the job. But in its implementation, what were the criticisms?

• We’re moving too fast!

• There’s not enough credence given to previous ways of doing things!

• There’s not enough attention to the details!

The very skills and sensitivities that made Rich good for launching the new initiative also had a flipside that left him open to criticism in the implementation. The 80 percent we love has a flipside (and we invariably don’t like that other 20 percent).

But here’s the thing: If we could change the 20 percent we hate, wouldn’t that put the 80 percent we love at risk, too?

I have another good friend who’s a noted attorney in town. He’s helped us on numerous projects around Woodcrest, some of which required his capacities as a great legal mind. Dan Simon is smart, experienced, thor-

Illustration by Tifani Carter

Here’s the thing: If we could change the 20 percent we hate, wouldn’t that put the 80 percent we love at risk, too? ough and well-versed in many facets of property and zoning law. When I have a question or concern, he answers it (addressing every conceivable angle of the concern).

Have you ever received an email from Simon? I think the official term is being “Simonized.”

I could ask him to cut to the bottom line. I could ask him to keep his analysis to less than three pages. And I’m sure if I pestered him often enough, he would be gracious and accommodate my request. But what would I lose? The reason I keep coming back to him is because he knows his stuff.

If I want to benefit from the 80 percent I love, I probably need to be ready to put up with something I don’t particularly like.

And that is the real key.

Great workplace relationships require grace and disciplined focus. If you want to enjoy the benefits of what you love, then keep the 80 percent the primary point of focus, and grow in your grace capacity for the 20 percent that’s not so fun. CBT columbiabusinesstimes.com /// 65

66 \\\ APRIL 2015

fast facts

Did You Know?

›› Fun facts CBT staff discovered while reporting this issue

Did you know

Steve Powell at Delta Systems spends 31.2 percent of his time making animated GIF memes? Or that good programmers can go seven-plus hours without having to get up to use the bathroom? And just because someone “builds websites” doesn’t mean he or she knows why your printer is broken.

We’re pretty sure he’s joking (mostly), but head to page 37 to learn more.

On Feb. 23, MU Journalism School master’s student Zahra Rasool launched Gistory, which aims to contextualize news by adding the best attributes from various platforms, including Wikipedia and Google Maps.

Information security analysts are the

16th fastest-growing occupation in the United States, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

98% Ninety-eight percent of businesses in Columbia are considered small businesses, according to the Columbia Broadband Planning Study, which was done by Magellan Advisors.

Remember when Columbia was competing for Google Fiber? During an MU basketball game, Columbians started a flash mob as part of a campaign to win the Google Fiber competition.

Missouri has been in the top 10 fastest-growing states for tech jobs for three years in a row, according to IT jobs website Dice.com. It was the fastest-growing state in 2012 and 2013, but it slipped down to 10th in 2014.

When MU purchased Manor House Apartments, it didn’t displace the residents already living there. Read more on page 74.

Chad Haney and Anna Swacker, founders of Tin Can Technologies (page 58), took third place at the latest Startup Weekend in Columbia with The Wandering Turtle, their idea for a travel application.

On Feb. 20, the day CBT writer Molly Wright interviewed Elly and Clay Bethune, 9th&Elm went international.

Jessie Yankee’s favorite app right now is Heads Up!, based on the game Ellen DeGeneres plays on her show. “Play it at the bar with friends; you’ll have a good time,” she says.

Read more about Yankee on page 40. columbiabusinesstimes.com /// 67

Economic Index ›› It’s all about the numbers Housing:

Construction:

Single-family homes sales, January 2015: 82

Residential building permits, January 2015: 68

Single-family active listings on market, January 2015: 656

Value of residential building permits, January 2015: $9,981,805

Single-family homes average sold price, January 2015: $194,385

Detached single-family homes, January 2015: 23

Single-family home median sold price, January 2015: $157,500 Single-family homes average days on market, January 2015: 56

Where content

meets creativity.

3

PUBLICATIONS

Single-family pending listings on market, January 2015: 143

Columbia Business Times Columbia Home Jefferson City

Labor:

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E-NEWSLETTERS

January 2015 – Boone County *Not available January 2015 – Columbia City Labor force: 65,560 Employment: 63,113 Unemployment: 2,447 Rate: 3.7 percent January 2015 – Columbia, Missouri (Metropolitan Statistical Area) Labor force: 97,349 Employment: 93,451 Unemployment: 3,898 Rate: 4 percent January 2015 – Missouri Labor force: 3,073,461 Employment: 2,884,985 Unemployment: 188,476 Rate: 6.1 percent

Value of detached single-family homes, January 2015: $4,964,326 Commercial building permits, January 2015: 16 Value of commercial building permits, January 2015: $3,745,637 Commercial additions/ alterations, January 2015: 13 Value of commercial additions/ alterations, January 2015: $1,553,957

Utilities: Water January 2015: 47,404 January 2014: 47,050 Change #: 354 Change %: 0.8 percent Number of customers receiving service on Feb. 1, 2015: 47,388 Electric January 2015: 48,000 January 2014: 47,565 Change #: 435 Change %: 0.9 percent Number of customers receiving service on Feb. 1, 2015: 47,829 CBT

Deeds of Trust

›› Worth more than $418,000 $28,200,000 LSH 2900 Old 63 South LP CBRE Capital Markets Inc. LT 1 Bassett Farm Plat 1 $20,000,000 Forum Shopping Center LLC Great Southern Bank LT 1 PT University Apartments $13,000,000 The Broadway Shops LLC The Privatebank and Trust Co. LT 1 The Broadway Shops $7,000,000 Lifestyle Development Inc. Landmark Bank LT 1 Arbor Ridge $4,575,000 The Residences at Old Hawthorne LLC Boone County National Bank LT 1 The Residences at Old Hawthorne $3,000,000 Eckstein, Ray The Ray and Kay Eckstein Charitable Trust LT 274 Columbia

527

Deeds of trust were issued between Jan. 27 and March 2

$880,000 The Mayer Building LLC Landmark Bank LT 6B Keene Estates Plat 4 Lot 6

$474,000 Wilson, Robert and Joan Trust Landmark Bank STR 7-49-13 /W/NW AC 20

$871,000 Aleto, Nicole and Thomas Boone County National Bank LT 402 Thornbook Plat 12

$467,000 Lagarce, Spencer K. and McGarry, Ellen C. First State Bank of St. Charles STR 19-46-11 /SW/NW SUR BK/PG: 406/382 AC 4.84

$754,909 Winscott Construction & Excavating Inc. Hawthorn Bank STR 22-46-12//NE AC 25 $750,000 Rapp, William Edwin Estate Boone County National Bank STR 19-48-13 //SW SUR BK/ PG: 4358/48 AC 36 FF TRACT 4 $586,000 Brookshire Properties LLC Boone County National Bank LT 148 Southridge Plat 1

$456,000 8th Street Properties LLC Landmark Bank LT 88 PT Columbia $448,000 Kent, Derek and Kelli L. The Callaway Bank LT 513 Thornbrook Plat 15 $444,110 Yaeger, Nancy L. and Karlin The Bank of Missouri LT 2 Niederhelman Acres

$549,877 Reid, Robert Wayne and Elizabeth Taylor Stifel Bank & Trust LT 20 Hunters Ridge Sub

$435,000 Tronicom Properties LLC Enterprise Bank & Trust LT 9 E C More Sub

$1,619,293 Coventry Pointe Condominiums Phase The Bank of Missouri LT 3A Tom & Jeff’s Most Excellent Adventure Place

$493,000 J-Bar Construction Inc. Landmark Bank STR 18-47-12 //SE SUR BK/PG: 1157/986 AC 5.24 FF TRACT 9

$432,500 Ridgely, Debra S. and David N. Macon-Atlanta State Bank LT 126B Villas at Old Hawthorne Plat 1

$480,250 Drass, Robert III and Joy Providence Bank LT 458 Thornbrook Plat 13

$1,000,000 Building Eight Properties LLC Coil, William Randall and Cydney LT 1505 Broadway Farms Plat 15A Lots 3-5

$475,000 Tompkins, Felicia and Shaun Boone County National Bank STR 27-48-14 SUR BK/PG: 4391/42 AC 10.03 FF New Madrid Claim No. 64

$420,000 Bourgeois, Martha S. Declaration of Trust Boone County National Bank STR 7-48-14 W/W/W SUR BK/ PG: 905/88 AC 16.09

$1,870,000 Rhodes Development Company LLC Boone County National Bank LT 5-A Red Oak South Plat 1-A

$418,000 VIM Properties LLC Phelps County Bank LT 134 Southridge Plat 1 CBT columbiabusinesstimes.com /// 69

New Business Licenses ›› Columbia residents and their upstarts

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To become a member of the LU365 Small Business Circle visit uwheartmo.org/live-united-365 70 \\\ APRIL 2015

Cotswold LLC 701 Vandiver Drive, Suite 203 Staffing social services

Ducharme Estates 2811 Butterfield Court Lawn care Eagle Elite Cheerleading 3605 S. Providence Road, Suite 7 Competitive cheerleading Family Therapy and More 2011 Chapel Plaza Court, Suite 101 Services to individuals and families Foot Massage 503 E. Nifong Blvd., Suite 120 Foot massage Guilford Creative 2433 N. Lakeland Drive Graphic design Hands of Healing Touch 1000 Building 5 W. Nifong Blvd., Suite 120 Massage/sports performance therapy Healthstat Inc. 2101 Pennsylvania Drive Onsite health clinic Hollis Enterprises 1617 Skylane Drive Janitorial

Davis Home Services 209 Holy Ridge Lane Home remodeling

Kindermusik with Gretchen 1600 W. Broadway Children’s music classes

Direct Enterprises LLC 2501 Bernadette Drive Insurance agency and income tax preparation

Maccina Inc. 701 Vandiver Drive, Suite 203 Private leasing of motor vehicles

Merry Berry 2825 N. Lake of the Woods Road Wholesale confections to retail stores Metro PCS 18 E. Business Loop 70, Suite B Wireless services Mikels Realty 1812 I-70 Drive SW, Suite 200 Real estate office Pee Wee Fitness & Manners 4006 Chatsworth Drive Kids’ fitness Ross & Associates LLC 4602 Bolten Court Communications and marketing consulting services The Delivery Guy 1005 Cherry St., Suite 211 Delivery service Think Clean Cleaning Services 301 Tiger Lane, Apt. 212 House cleaning U.S. Cellular 1301 Grindstone Parkway, Suite 103 Wireless retail Whiskey Wild Saloon 2508 Paris Road, Suite B Bar Wingin Out 916 E. Broadway, Unit 101 Chicken wing restaurant CBT

By the Numbers ›› Boone County statistics

The City and Its Tech Stats

Missouri is one of the top 10 fastest-growing states for tech jobs, but how is CoMo adjusting to the industry? The CBT broke down the numbers on Columbia’s computer and IT world and examined national trends, neighboring counties and hometown quirks.

Source: gocolumbiamo.com

1

Columbia vs. National Averages Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics *Excludes network and computer systems administrators

montgomery callaway

cooper: pettis

osage

ade

cole

benton miller

maries

camden

st. clair

Machines replaced by city IT last year

262

Machines upgraded from Windows XP to Windows 7 last year by city IT

1. Computer user support specialists per 1,000 Job description: Answer questions or resolve computer problems for clients in person, via telephone or electronically.*

2. Computer programmers per 1,000 Job description: Create, modify and test the code, forms and script that allow computer applications to run. Work from specifications drawn up by software developers or other individuals.

Columbia metro area: 5.6 | Jefferson City metro: 9.2 | Central Missouri non-metro area: 1

gas

morgan

con

moniteau henry

383

audrain:

howard boone

johnson

91

Columbia metro area: 5.9 | Jefferson City metro: 6.5 | Central Missouri non-metro area: 2.8

randolph: 25.7%

saline

33

The number of IT The number of The percentage of city employees positions that were added IT employees to rate IT as good/excellent in the to the city in the past year at the city 2014 employee survey

hickory

crawford

phelps pulaski laclede

dent

Columbia’s Computer-related Jobs Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

Computer user support specialists: 530 total, $38,600

3. Network and computers system administrators per 1,000 Job description: Install, configure and support an organization’s local area network, wide area network and Internet systems or a segment of a network system. Excludes information security analysts.

Columbia metro area: 3.3 | Jefferson City metro: 2.2 | Central Missouri non-metro area: 1

Columbia vs. National Averages = 10 people

Computer programmers: 500 total, $62,680

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

Computer/math employment per 1,000 jobs: Columbia: 24.72 U.S.: 27.87

Annual mean wage:

Columbia: $59,670 U.S.: $82,010

Largest computer occupation: Network and computers systems administrators: 300 total, $61,120

Computer systems analysts: 240 total, $78,290

Software developers, applications: 100 total, $64,640

Database administrators: 80 total, $68,240

Columbia: User support U.S.: Software developers, specialists, $38,600 annual applications: $96,260 annual wage, 5.9 per 1,000 jobs wage, 4.8 per 1,000 jobs

Tech Trends, by the numbers iGenie Repair: Estimates that they fix approximately 10,220 broken phone, tablet or laptop screens per year Source: iGenie Repair

Software developers, systems software: 70 total, $90,680

Computer occupations, all other: 70 total, $70,530

Columbia Public Schools: Staff/students combined have: 12,070 iPads and 11,460 desktops and laptop computers Source: Columbia Public Schools *Excludes desktops in school computer labs

Web developers: 50 total, $59,770

Actuaries: 50 total, $88,960

Daniel Boone Regional Library: Lists 19,972 ebooks available for borrowing on compatible devices Source: Daniel Boone Regional Library website

columbiabusinesstimes.com /// 71

7 Questions

➜ 615 Locust St., W108B Columbia, MO 65211 573-882-3503

›› Get to know your professionals

Protecting Against the Invisible Beth Chancellor, chief information security officer, UM System

2. How would you describe your job? My daily activities are filled with meetings and staying in touch with security staff to understand what’s happening on campus and throughout the world. If a new threat comes out, and they do on a regular basis, we put on our “responder” hat and work to understand and mitigate the threat. I also spend as much time as possible reading and engaging in online webinars to keep up with the fast pace of IT and information security fields.

on the web 72 \\\ APRIL 2015

3. CISOs are usually responsible for information-related compliance. If this is an aspect of your job, how do you do so when working with thousands of students and staff on your network who may or may not be aware of the policies? The foundation of our “information” security program is our data classification system that categorizes different types of data and sets security requirements for each category. University employees depend on their local IT staff to help them with IT issues including information security. Therefore, we spend most of our time educating IT staff and allowing those individuals to assist the users they support.

Photo by Sarah Redohl

1. You’re the CISO for the entire UM System. How do you ensure information assets and technologies are adequately protected across the various campuses?

The field of information technology is not short on standards. The same applies to information security. We use standards and best practices to establish university-wide information security policies and procedures. Each of the university’s four campuses has an information security officer and security analysts who contribute to policy and program development. They also select and deploy a number of security technologies designed to manage security risks. IT staff working in a number of technology areas are responsible for the security of the systems and applications they manage.

4. What would you say are some of the most significant emerging risks in information security at this time? I think it’s hard to say what the most significant emerging risk is because significant is in the eye of the beholder. Certainly, corporate hacking has become and will continue to be a problem. Hackers tend to go where the money is. Intellectual property theft is becoming more of a concern and can and almost certainly will impact higher education, especially research institutions.

5. What sorts of attacks are most common? What are the most common risks? The number of security risks that we deal with continually grows and morphs.

We prevent thousands of attempts to gain access to our networks each day. However, the most common successful attacks are phishing attacks. Our security, network and email teams spend a great deal of time working to prevent phishing attempts from getting into our email systems.

6. What would you say are the top trends in your industry right now? The proliferation of mobile devices and how they can be potentially exploited is of high concern in the industry. It’s important to note that it’s the combination of behavior and technology that creates security issues, and there is a lot that we do to educate our users regarding how to protect themselves and MU. 7. On a scale of one to 10, how big of an issue is hacking to the UM System and MU in particular? Hacking from the sense of someone outside gaining access to our systems or our networks is a big concern and something our security and technical staff guard against each and every day. It’s sort of the reverse of running a prison. Prisons try to keep people in, and information security tries to keep the bad guys out. CBT

Head online to columbiabusinesstimes.com for extended answers from Beth Chancellor. ➜➜ Fxxxx

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Flashback ›› Then and now

➜ The Columbia business landscape is always evolving, but it’s important to remember our historical roots.

By torie ross PHOTO BY BEN MELDRUM

The eight-story Manor House apartment complex, located at 306 Hitt St., is one of three university-owned apartment buildings specifically designated for older students. To live in Manor House, students must be over 21 years of age, be a graduate or professional student, be married or have children. However, priority at Manor House is given to single graduate students.

The University of Missouri purchased the complex, which was originally a public apartment building, in 1996. Garth and Jane Russell

donated the building to a charitable remainder trust, with Boone County National Bank acting as the trustee. The university then purchased Manor House Apartments from the trust.

Jane Russell, who passed away in 2014, lived in Columbia and worked at MU for almost 30 years. Her husband, Dr. Garth Russell, is a founding partner of Columbia Orthopaedic Group.

Currently, the complex includes 38 studios, eight one-bedroom apartments and 32 two-bedroom apartments. Although renovations to the

Manor House Apartments were included in the 2012 MU master plan, and it was speculated that the complex might close in May 2015, no permanent renovation timeline has been announced.

The 2012 master plan suggested the apartment complex would require new windows and elevators and upgraded ventilation, plumbing, electrical and sprinkler systems. However, a report from the structural engineering firm Trabue, Hansen and Hinshaw Inc. only listed loose window framings as something on the Manor House in immediate need of repair. CBT

➜ We love Columbia business history. If you have any interesting photos and stories, please send them to Editor@BusinessTimesCompany.com 74 \\\ APRIL 2015

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My accountant, Tracy, is always honest with me and Kristie at the front desk is so welcoming. Over the past five years, my relationship with Accounting Plus has evolved from a partnership to a friendship. Some of their staff even came to my wedding reception. As a small business owner, I value that Accounting Plus continually looks out for my best interest as if it were their own.

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STUART BERNARD, owner

Outside Edge Landscape Design

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