THE MAKING OF A GENIUS CLUSTER Written by Jordan Palmer / Photo by Joe Martinez
There is just something about St. Louis. Many never leave and many who do either find their way back or continue to hold their hometown close to their heart. It could be friends and family, the high school they went to, the sports teams, or just the memories, but something about this town continues to pull us all in. Nostalgia aside, St. Louis has a new momentum, and some would say it comes from those St. Louisans who refuse to give up on their hometown and see a vision for the city that makes sense for real, relevant reasons, and not just hometown pride. St. Louisan Jim McKelvey is part of that new momentum. “It’s my home town but I did not appreciate it until I left,” said McKelvey. “I’ve lived in Washington, D.C., London, San Francisco, Florida, and even Tokyo. In all cases I found it tough to build anything in those cities. In those places it was too hard and too expensive. I then realized I wanted to be part of St. Louis because it is an industrial city, I like the people, and it’s my home.” From his home away from home inside the Third Degree Glass Factory, McKelvey has put his thoughts and resources to looking at St. Louis in a new way. “As I sit here on Delmar looking north, looking at structures that need help, I can’t but think of the great potential of the entire area,” said McKelvey. “I’m disappointed St. Louis has lost ground and its vibrancy. I want to bring it back.” And McKelvey is a man of his word but it took plenty of reallife experiences to get him there. 66 slmag.net
Beginning back in 1989, McKelvey and a team of engineers from Washington University founded Mira, a digital document viewing system, in St. Louis. By 1996, he had teamed with friend and future co-founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, to release one of the first-ever commercial systems for online submission management. McKelvey, an avid glass blower, launched Third Degree Glass Factory in 2002 with partner Doug Auer. The studio brought back to life an old car dealership building from the 1930s on Delmar. This redevelopment would spark McKelvey’s interest in the area as well as his desire to expand opportunities in St. Louis. In 2009, after losing a substantial glass sale because Third Degree did not accept American Express credit cards, McKelvey envisioned a better way to connect businesses, consumers, phones, and credit cards. A phone call with his old friend Dorsey led the two to launch Square®, which has become a leader in financial services technology. “Square started here in St. Louis. Two St. Louis boys,” said McKelvey proudly. San Francisco made sense for the company’s headquarters with Silicon Valley so close and its abundance of available programmers. But McKelvey soon realized two things: the cost of living in cities like San Francisco or New York could make a city like St. Louis more attractive to entrepreneurs but St. Louis lacked a pool of technical talent to compete.
