High school will transform northeast

Transcription

Volume 16
Issue 26
July 24, 2010

1
$ 50
photo by Will Guldin
www.columbiabusinesstimes.com
Ken and Kathy Davis
12
24
35
Business Proile
Idea Works founder Ed Brent
uses computer technology to
study language, analyzes attitudes and opinions from themes
found in online conversations.
Workforce Training
Columbia Area Career Center
meets the needs of Boone
County employers by providing
training for high-demand ields.
Restaurant Review
Kampai Sushi Bar & Restaurant
offers standout cuisine,
attentive service and a pleasant
atmosphere.
High school will transform northeast
By Will Guldin
Kathy and Ken Davis put a "For Sale" sign on their rural
property at the intersection of St. Charles Road and Route Z
after hearing about the plan for building a new high school
nearby.
The 18 acres they bought 20 years ago was once part of
a bustling village known as Shaw, where the road linking
Centralia and Jefferson City met the Boone's Lick Trail.
Travelers were served by a livery stable and a blacksmith
shop on the Davis property and a general store across the
road, but Shaw gradually died out in the 1900s as cars
became the transportation of choice.
The couple still keeps a few horses in the stable, but their
faded red shed is now used for a vegetable stand that not
many people drive by these days.
The appraised value of their land is $27,300, or about
$1,475 an acre, not counting the buildings.
However, the high school construction on St. Charles
Road and related road and sewer improvements will make
the area northeast of Columbia a magnet for development.
Now, the Davis land is going for $20,000 an acre.
Property along Route Z from St. Charles to Interstate 70
could see the most dramatic value increases because of the new
high school, Boone County Assessor Tom Schauwecker said.
“When the school is open, when the sewer is in place
and the access is suitable for the trafic, it will take off,”
Schauwecker said.
Kathy Davis said she’s counting on the land sale to help
pay for her retirement. “Let it develop,” she said. “I’m ready
to sell.”
(continued on Page 17)
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July 24, 2010 Columbia Business Times | ColumbiaBusinessTimes.com
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26
4G Wireless
Unexpected companies
target Columbia’s
broadband market;
one plans to start local
WiMax network in a
matter of months.
Online Campus
Expands
Columbia College adds
to its online offerings
to accommodate
increasing enrollment.
ABC Laboratories .................................. 18, 19, 20, 22
AT&T .......................................................................... 9
Billiards ...................................................................... 3
Boone County Fairgrounds ..................................... 27
Boone County National Bank .................................. 22
Boone Electric Cooperative..................................... 22
Boone Hospital Center .............................................. 5
Boone Tavern and Restaurant ................................... 3
Bridging Gaps LLC .................................................... 4
Buchroeder’s ........................................................... 14
Campus Bar & Grill .................................................... 3
CenturyLink ............................................................... 9
Clearwire.................................................................... 9
Columbia Area Career Center ................. 1, 24, 25, 26
Columbia Area Jobs Foundation ............................. 22
Columbia College .............................................. 2, 4, 5
Columbia Wine and Food Festiva ............................. 5
Con-Way Freight ....................................................... 8
D Sport Silk Screening, Embroidery and Awards ...... 4
Dunn Brothers ........................................................ 30
Estes Express Lines ................................................. 8
Fabick CAT ........................................... 17, 18, 19, 20
First Community Bank .............................................. 3
Frontier Wireless ....................................................... 9
Full Stream ............................................................... 9
GE Financial ............................................................. 5
Gilpin-Sells LLC................................................. 18, 19
Grossman Promotional Products .............................. 4
Hemingway’s Wine & Bistro ...................................... 4
Hy-Vee ....................................................................... 5
Idea Works................................................................. 1
Job Point ................................................................... 4
Kampai Sushi Bar & Restaurant .......................... 1, 35
KFRU Radio............................................................. 10
Lake of the Woods Golf Course .................. 17, 18, 19
Landmark Bank ......................................................... 4
Loveall RVs .................................................. 17, 19, 20
Mediacom.................................................................. 9
MetLife....................................................................... 5
Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving Cures ..................... 4
Missouri Municipal League........................................ 4
National Multiple Sclerosis Society ......................... 31
Parkade Center ....................................................... 27
Patricia’s Foods Grocery Stores ................................ 5
R. Anthony Development ........................................ 21
Regional Economic Development Inc. ........ 22, 25, 26
Room 38 .................................................................... 3
Shelter Life Insurance Company ............................... 4
Sprint ......................................................................... 9
St. Charles Road Development ................... 17, 18, 19
State Farm Insurance ........................................ 17, 22
TimeLine Recruiting................................................... 5
Tin Can Tavern........................................................... 3
US Allian .................................................................... 5
Verizon Wireless ........................................................ 9
Visionworks Marketing & Communications ............ 29
Wabash Station ................................................. 10, 15
Westminster College ................................................. 4
Women's Network ..................................................... 5
Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield .............................. 32
Boone County National Bank .................................. 36
City of Columbia Water & Light ............................... 13
Columbia College .................................................... 22
Columbia Integrated Technologies .......................... 21
Columbia Regional Airport ...................................... 14
Delta Systems ........................................................... 9
GFI Digital ................................................................ 15
GolfTEC ................................................................... 14
Hawthorn Bank.......................................................... 3
Johnston Paint & Decorating................................... 24
Landmark Bank ......................................................... 2
Midwest Computech ............................................... 16
Moberly Area Community College .......................... 26
Naught Naught ........................................................ 29
Pen Pointe Paperie .................................................. 14
Roots Nouveau ........................................................ 32
Rost Landscaping ..................................................... 6
Sandler Training ....................................................... 33
Shelter Insurance; Mike Messer & Mike Hatchett ... 12
SOCKET .................................................................. 25
The Frame Shop ...................................................... 23
The French Laundry ................................................ 30
The Insurance Group ................................................. 4
University Concert Series ........................................ 34
Van Matre, Harrison, Hollis, Pitzer & Taylor, P.C ........ 8
Vault ......................................................................... 29
Wells Fargo Financial............................................... 28
West Bend ............................................................... 27
Whiskey Wild ........................................................... 31
Wilkerson & Reynolds Wealth Management ............. 7
William Woods University ........................................ 20
3
26
City Council Work Session
5:30 p.m. at City Hall, Conference
Room 1A
Topics include CIP, inalize Parks Sales
Tax, budget review process and potential
work session dates (August) and
possible land preservation/acquisition
criteria.
28
Womens Network Business
Leaders Forum
12 – 1 p.m. at the Thomas G. Walton
Building, 300 S. Providence Road
Co-chaired by Angela Holloway and
Tana Benner, meetings feature speakers
or programs of interest to committee
members. All network members are
welcome at the monthly meetings.
2
City/County Joint Meeting
2:30 – 3:30 p.m. at First Community Bank
Room 2A, 300 Diego Drive
Discussion will focus on joint city and
county budget issues and the Chapter
100 Bond/IBM.
City Council Meeting
7 p.m. at the City Council Building,
701 E. Broadway
Council agenda will be available at
gocolumbiamo.com on Friday, July 30.
3
REDI Annual Investors Meeting
4 – 7 p.m. at the new high school
location on St. Charles Road
To RSVP contact Michelle at 442-8303 or
[email protected].
7
Emerging Professionals in
Columbia Putt-Putt Pub Crawl
Noon – 7 p.m. at Boone Tavern and
Restaurant, 811 E. Walnut St.
Organized by the Columbia Chamber of
Commerce, this social event will feature
putt-putt holes located at a number of bars in
Columbia including the Campus Bar & Grill,
Billiards on Broadway and the Tin Can Tavern
and concluding at Room 38. Registration is
$6 per person or $20 for a foursome. To register or for more information, contact Emily
Poore at 817-9115 or [email protected].
(573) 499-1830 | (573) 499-1831 fax
[email protected]
Advertising information:
[email protected]
Chris Harrison | General Manager | Ext.1010
David Reed | Group Editor | Ext.1013
Alisha Moreland | Art Director
Kristin Branscom | Graphic Designer
Betsy Bell | Creative Marketing Director
Jennifer Kettler | Photo Editor | 573-529-1789
Cindy Sheridan | Operations Manager
Annie Jarrett | Marketing Representative
Joe Schmitter | Marketing Representative
Ashley Meyer | Creative Services
Writers in this issue: Marie Braeburn, Andrew Denny,
Jeremy Essig, Will Guldin, Tim Kridel, Mila Mimica, Keija
Parssinen, David Reed, David R. Wetzel Columnists
in this issue: Cathy Atkins, Chris Belcher, Al Germond,
Wendy Noren, Lili Vianello
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CBT BUSINESS CALENDAR — JULy 24 – AUGUST 7
4
Hirings
Steve Guthrie has been named senior vice president
Guthrie
Ross
Brown
Montgomery
Galloway
Tollerton
Hansen
and chief inancial oficer of Landmark Bank. Guthrie will
oversee the bank’s inancing, treasury and accounting operations. Previously, Guthrie worked for Capmark Finance in
Philadelphia as senior vice president of internal audit and
risk and controls. A Columbia native, Guthrie is a licensed
CPA and received his bachelor’s degree in accounting from
the University of Missouri and his MBA from Washington
University in St. Louis.
The Missouri Municipal League hired Dan Ross as its
executive director. From March 2009 until June 2010, Ross
owned Bridging Gaps LLC, a consulting service offering
program consolidation, organizational analysis and management training services. From 2005 to 2008, Ross was the state
of Missouri’s chief information oficer. Ross replaces Gary
Markenson, who retired in January after leading the organization for 39 years.
Hemingway’s Wine & Bistro hired Rocky Galloway
as the new executive chef. Galloway and his wife owned
Trattoria Strada Nova, a Ninth Street restaurant that closed in
2007. Van Allen, who co-owns Hemingway’s along with Dru
Vaughn, said Galloway will slowly integrate his menu items
from Trattoria with Hemingway’s menu.
Columbia College announced that Mary Brown has been
hired as the coordinator for development, alumni and public
relations. Brown, originally from the Kansas City area, previously was business manager for Waddell & Reed in Columbia.
Promotions
Margaret Heitgerd Tollerton has been promoted to
state outreach director of the Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving
Cures. Tollerton joined the coalition in 2008 as the Columbiabased regional organizer and will coordinate outreach and
volunteer activities across 30 counties in central Missouri.
Columbia College announced the promotion of three
employees: Justin Gray, from Internet marketing specialist
to manager of digital marketing; Jennifer Jolls, from associate director of marketing to director of marketing strategy;
and Jane Vanderham, from marketing analyst to director
of business intelligence.
Columbia College promoted Melissa Montgomery
to director of development for major and planned gifts.
Montgomery previously held the position of major gifts
oficer. Montgomery, originally from Rolla, joined Columbia
College in 2004 as a student intern and earned an MBA from
Columbia College in 2006.
Bob Hansen has been named executive director of
Westminster College’s Emerson Center for Leadership and
Service. Hansen’s new position comes after he spent a year as
interim vice president and dean of students. Hansen came to
Westminster in 1986 to work as a counselor and instructor in
the psychology department after 13 years in student development at the University of Missouri.
Appointments
Columbia Metro Rotary Club installed the following
oficers for 2010/2011: Cindy Whaley, president; Jim
Sharrock,
vice president/president-elect;
Marcia
Machens, secretary; and Shawn Barnes, treasurer.
Columbia Rotary South also installed new oficers, honored David Nivens as Rotarian of the Year and announced
that member Raymond Plue will be governor of Rotary
District 6080. The new oficers are Dan Kliethermes, president; Bob Smith, president-elect; Michelle Baumstark,
secretary; and Ron Knudsen, treasurer.
Columbia Rotary’s new oficers for 2010/2011 are Keith
McLaughlin, president; Louie Van Drie, vice president;
Colleen Galambos, treasurer; Steve Scott, secretary;
and Brenda Woods, president-elect.
The new oficers of the Rotary Club of Columbia Northwest
are Greg Wolff, president; Kat Cunningham, presidentelect; Rob Weagley, secretary; and Tom Boren, treasurer.
Awards
Ward Group recognized Shelter Life Insurance
Company as a top-performing life insurer for the fourth
consecutive year. Shelter Life was recognized for achieving
outstanding inancial results in the areas of safety, consistency
and performance during a ive-year period from 2005 to 2009.
Company Moves
Larry Grossman of Grossmann Promotional Products
and Richard Ditter of D Sport Silk Screening, Embroidery
and Awards announced they will form a partnership.
Grossmann will move his promotional products business and
showroom from the Forum Shopping Center into the D Sport
building on Walnut Street where the companies will combine
operations.
Job Point’s marketing director, Brenda Overkamp,
announced that Job Point’s Resource Center has moved to the
organization’s building at 400 Wilkes Blvd. The headquarters
remains at 2116 Nelwood Drive. v
We want to hear from you. Please e-mail your submissions to [email protected]
AGE: YEARS LIVED IN COLUMBIA: MS: 36 and 17 TW: 39 and six
ORIGINAL HOMETOWN: MS: Shawnee Mission, Kan. (followed by Warrenton, suburban Atlanta and Pittsburgh, Kan.) TW: Knoxville, Ill.
JOB DESCRIPTION: MS: I’m responsible for designing, coordinating and managing the tactical implementation and visibility associated with BHC’s strategic plan. I serve as a conduit for
communication between BHC and physicians, community organizations and businesses in our 25-county market area. TW: My responsibility is to oversee the day-to-day operations
of all six of our stores in Missouri. That means that I wear many hats. My partners and I are constantly evaluating performance, inancials and the future growth of our company.
EDUCATION: MS: Bachelor’s degree in business administration from Columbia College TW: Attended Carl Sanburg College and Western Illinois University
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT: MS: Most of my community involvement has surrounded our children. I’m a member of Smithton PTA (soon to be West Jr.), and
various athletic clubs. I’m also on the government affairs committee of the Columbia Chamber of Commerce, on the membership committee for the
Women’s Network and a member of Junior Leadership Columbia. TW: Columbia Chamber of Commerce, Sunrise Southwest
Rotary Club board of directors, Columbia Wine and Food Festival sponsor
PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND: MS: I’ve always been in a role involving business development marketing and sales. I’ve
been a personal inancial planner at MetLife, a sales team leader at GE Financial, a regional vice president at US Allianz
and executive director of business development at TimeLine Recruiting. Those jobs created a strong foundation for my
role with Boone Hospital Center. TW: I worked my way up at Hy-Vee for 13 years then went to the Dole Fresh Fruit
Company as a national account manager based in Minneapolis. While working for Dole, I was offered an opportunity
to partner with my brother-in-law to expand Patricia’s Foods, so I moved to Columbia to start my new challenge.
A COLUMBIA BUSINESS PERSON I ADMIRE AND WHY: MS: Todd White. I love and admire his dedication and commitment
to our family, Columbia and Patricia’s Foods. TW: Dan Scotten. Dan sponsored me for the Sunrise Southwest
Rotary Club, and he is one of the most active, respected men in the community. Dan is a true gentleman who
sincerely cares about Columbia.
WHY I’M PASSIONATE ABOUT MY JOB: MS: We improve the health in the communities we serve. It truly is an
excellent place to work and receive health care. TW: I love the opportunity to help create and develop a
relatively small young company. It’s the American Dream. I have been blessed to work with very talented,
energetic and loyal employees.
IF I WEREN’T DOING THIS FOR A LIVING, I WOULD… MS: Be a rock star. TW: Be selling bananas or apples.
BIGGEST CAREER OBSTACLE I’VE OVERCOME AND HOW: MS: Striking a balance between the responsibilities of a
business professional and a parent. Really, I gave myself permission to succeed at both. My experience has
been if your priority is happiness, you will ind success with both your personal and professional life. TW: The
perception of nepotism. When people irst hear that Patricia is my sister, they sometimes think that she and
my brother-in-law, Jerry, are just trying to help keep me from living in my parents’ basement. With my 13 years
working at Hy-Vee in all departments and my knowledge of the wholesale side, I believe I have brought some
new perspectives to our company.
A FAVORITE RECENT PROJECT: MS: Promotion of the Primary Stroke Center at BHC. We have been educating referring
physicians, communities and employers on stroke signs and symptoms, access and protocols. This is so important
to me personally because my grandmother suffered from a stroke and dealt with major disabilities for her last four
years of life. TW: Patricia’s sponsorship of the Wine and Food Festival. It’s a great opportunity to showcase what we
can do. Being one of the smaller grocery stores in town, I don’t think people realize the breadth of our capabilities.
Also, being a foodie, how can you not love trying all the samples during the festival?
WHAT PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THIS PROFESSION: MS: Teamwork, teamwork, teamwork! TW: Contrary to what some
people believe, the grocery business in not a glamorous career. Also, I never realized how stressful being an independent
businessman can be, but it’s very rewarding.
FAMILY: We have three children: Sam Smith, who is 13; Sophia White, who is 1½; and Scarlett, who is 63 (in dog years).
photo by Art Smith
WHAT WE DO FOR FUN: We love to ind and try new restaurants.
FAVORITE PLACE IN COLUMBIA: MS: Cosmo Park watching Sam play football and chasing around Sophia, his biggest fan. TW:
Anywhere in Columbia as long as I am with Melissa, the kids, family, friends and food.
ACCOMPLISHMENT I’M MOST PROUD OF: MS: The partnership that exists between Todd and me. I have inally met my match in more
ways than one. TW: Sophia. I never thought I would have children.
MOST PEOPLE DON’T KNOW THAT I: MS: Have a tambourine, will travel. TW: Like to dance when the rhythm is right. v
Melissa
Smith
Business Development Consultant, Boone Hospital Center
Todd
White
Part Owner and Operations Director, Patricia’s Foods Grocery Stores
5
COuPLE YOu SHOULD KNOW
6
ECONOMIC INDEx | COLuMBIA'S ECONOMIC INDICATORS
Housing
oversupply?
It's history
Realtor Sean Moore’s
monthly housing market
chart shows that at the end
of June, the months of inventory — 5.1 — reached their
lowest level in more than
three years. The number of
homes sold in June broke
the 300 mark, which also
had not happened since July
2007.
Those are good developments because the local
market had been hindered
by an oversupply of homes
for sale.
Moore said the primary
reason for all of the closings
was the expiration date for
the Home Buyer Tax Credit:
June 30. “With the credit
expiring, pending sales in
June dropped off, and I am
expecting to see the months
of inventory increase over
the next several months,
making this month the best
of the year,” Moore said. v
July 2007 - June 2010
1,552 Active
Listings
351 New
Listings
303 Sold
5.12 Months
of inventory
Fiscal Year-to-Date 2010:
$11,328,601
Fiscal Year-to-Date 2009:
$11,233,020
Change (#): $95,581
Change (%): 0.9%
LABOR
Columbia Labor Force
May 2010: 92,878
May 2009: 93,884
Change (#): -1,006
Change (%): -1.1%
Missouri Labor Force
May 2010: 2,999,764
May 2009: 3,057,726
Change (#): -57,962
Change (%): -1.9%
Columbia Unemployment
May 2010: 5,329
May 2009: 5,659
Change (#): -330
Change (%): -5.8%
Missouri Unemployment
May 2010: 261,554
May 2009: 279,598
Change (#): -18,044
Change (%): -6.5%
Columbia Unemployment
Rate
May 2010: 5.7%
May 2009: 6.0%
Change (#): -0.3%
Missouri Unemployment
Rate
May 2010: 8.7%
May 2009: 9.1%
Change (#): -0.4%
CONSTRUCTION
Building Permits –
Residential
June 2010: 148
June 2009: 92
Change (#): 56
Change (%): 60.9%
Value of Building Permits –
Residential
June 2010: $8,564,586
June 2009: $7,337,952
Change (#): $1,226,634
Change (%): 16.7%
Detached Single-Family
Homes
June 2010: 24
June 2009: 38
Change (#): -14
Change (%): -36.8%
Value of Building Permits
– Detached Single-Family
Homes
June 2010: $5,253,616
June 2009: $5,654,000
Change (#): -$400.384
Change (%): -7.1%
Commercial
June 2010: 20
June 2009: 25
Change (#): -5
Change (%): -20.0%
Value of Building Permits –
Commercial
June 2010: $12,937,567
June 2009: $3,435,414
Change (#): $9,502,153
Change (%): 276.6%
Commercial Additions/
Alterations
June 2010: 17
June 2009: 19
Change (#): -2
Change (%): -10.5%
Value of Building Permits
– Commercial Additions/
Alterations
June 2010: $11,257,567
June 2009: $2,443,414
Change (#): $8,814,153
Change (%): 360.7%
HOUSING
Boone County detached
single-family homes
Units Sold
June 2010: 303
June 2009: 279
Change (#): 24
Change (%): 8.6%
Volume of Sales
June 2010: $51.47 million
June 2009: $40.39 million
Change (#): $11.35 million
Change (%): 22%
Median Price
June 2010: $148,000
June 2009: $143,500
Change (#): $4,500
Change (%): 3.14%
Months of Inventory
June 2010: 5.1
June 2009: 5.5
Change (#): -0.4
Change (%): -7.3%
Foreclosures in Boone
County
June 2010: 30
June 2009: 36
Change (#): -6
Change (%): -16.7%
COLUMBIA REGIONAL
AIRPORT
Passengers on Arriving
Planes
June 2010: 3,335
June 2009: 2,229
Change (#): 1,106
Change (%): 49.6%
Passengers on Departing
Planes
June 2010: 3,342
June 2009: 2,166
Change (#): 1,176
Change (%): 54.3%
UTILITIES
Water Customers
June 2010: 44,834
June 2009: 44,447
Change (#): 386
Change (%): 0.9%
Electric Customers
June 2010: 45,246
June 2009: 44,937
Change (#): 308
Change (%): 0.7%
Sewer Customers –
Residential
June 2010: 40,370
June 2009: 40,034
Change (#): 336
Change (%): 0.8%
Sewer Customers –
Commercial
June 2010: 3,608
June 2009: 3,573
Change (#): 35
Change (%): 1.0%
March 2009: $1,613,688
Change (#): $140,662
Contributors include: Lori
Fleming, Karen Johnson,
Sean Moore, Linda Rootes,
Sarah Talbert and Carol Van
Gorp
Compiled by David Walle
RECEIPTS
1% Sales Tax Receipts
April 2010: $1,560,509
April 2009: $1,543,624
Change (#): $16,885
Change (%): 1.1%
7
ECONOMIC INDEx | SuMMARY
8
ECONOMIC INDEx | COLuMBIA'S TRuCKING INDICATORS
Truck trafic upswing signals economic upturn
By Andrew Denney
Go ahead and complain about all those big rigs roaring down Interstate 70, but the increase in
truck trafic this summer might indicate that the economy is on the road to recovery.
Basically, more goods are being made, shipped and sold.
The US Federal Reserve reported on July 15 that industrial production was up 6.6 percent in the
second quarter. In addition, consumer spending and consumer conidence are higher than last year.
Cass Information Systems, a St. Louis-based irm that issues a monthly shipping index, said
shipments increased 18.5 percent during the irst six months of the year compared with the irst
half of 2009. The freight companies surveyed by Cass had an overall increase in expenditures of 28
percent through June.
“It’s refreshing (that) we’re recovering some of what we lost because of the economy,” said John
Pickering, chief operating oficer for Cass.
Locally, Con-Way Freight’s shipments out of the Columbia terminal were up 25 percent in June
compared with the same month in 2009, spokesman Gary Frantz said. The terminal has hired six
more drivers this year, he said.
There’s also been an uptick in inbound and outbound orders at the Estes Express Lines terminal
in Columbia, Kim Hopkins, corporate project manager, wrote in an e-mail. The increase prompted
the company to pick up two new drivers.
“This is a welcome change from the challenging times our industry has seen during the past two
years,” Hopkins said.
The American Trucking Association — of which ive Missouri trucking companies are members — computes an index of the tonnage moved by trucks every month. According to seasonally
adjusted data released at the end of June, truckers in the US were hauling 7.2 percent more freight
in May than they were the year before.
Ed Leamer, a UCLA economics professor who developed the Pulse of Commerce Index, said
watching the activity of big rigs can reveal what’s happening with some of the most volatile factors
of the US economy, such as the sales of durable goods and employment in the retail sector.
“It’s the right thing to focus on,” Leamer said.
Kevin Kliesen, a business economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, said trucking is
one way to track economic activity, especially right before and right after a recession.
But in a service-dominated economy, the movement of goods only makes up about 30 percent
of the whole picture and thus shouldn’t be considered the deinitive sign of economic recovery, he
said.
“You wouldn’t want to bet the ranch on it,” Kliesen said. v
When you think of companies that could
bring next-generation wireless broadband
services to Columbia, household names such
as AT&T, Sprint and Verizon Wireless come
to mind. But at least four other companies are
candidates, including the landline telephone
service provider and a local start-up that plans
to launch a service this fall.
Next-generation wireless networks use
Long-Term Evolution (LTE) or Worldwide
Interoperability for Microwave Access
(WiMAX)
technologies,
depending
on
the operator. Often marketed as “Fourth
Generation” or “4G,” both types are at least
twice as fast as today's 3G cellular technologies and some DSL services, with peak download speeds of around 5 megabits per second
in their initial versions.
AT&T, Sprint and Verizon Wireless haven't
announced their 4G plans for Columbia; it
could be another year before they launch
based on how they rolled out 3G in major
cities before upgrading smaller markets such
as Columbia. That creates a window of opportunity for Full Stream, the local company
that intends to start a WiMAX network in
Columbia in a matter of months.
Full Stream ahead
Full Stream won’t sell broadband wireless
service directly to consumers and businesses.
Instead, it will own and operate a network
that provides wholesale service to resellers.
Tranquility Internet Services (www.tranquility.net) “will be one of the irst,” said Neal
Miller, one of Full Stream’s founders and a
veteran of several local IT and telecom projects. Richard Cravens, a former Datastorm
Technologies product manager, became Full
Stream’s operations manager in June.
Full Stream had planned to launch a service
in early 2007, but Miller said several factors
— including him being in a major accident —
delayed the rollout. The company also had to
obtain the necessary Federal Communications
Commission spectrum licenses and lease
towers for its antennas. It recently launched a
preliminary website at www.fullstreamwireless.com.
“Our community needs this kind of infrastructure in order to go to the next level,”
Miller said. “We’re ordering the equipment.”
CenturyLink’s $11 million investment
Full Stream isn’t the only company that’s
already made a signiicant inancial bet on
Columbia’s broadband wireless market.
CenturyLink, Clearwire and Frontier Wireless
are three other companies that have FCC
licenses to offer 4G service here.
In 2002, CenturyLink exited the wireless
business by selling its cellular networks to
Alltel, but six years later CenturyLink paid
nearly $149 million for 69 licenses, including
more than $11.2 million for Columbia.
Since then, the company has said little
about its wireless plans here or anywhere else,
except that it's leaning toward using LTE and
that it sees the technology as a viable alternative to DSL in rural areas. By launching LTE in
small markets, CenturyLink also would be in
a position to collect fees from other LTE operators — such as AT&T and Verizon Wireless —
when their customers roam on CenturyLink’s
network.
Similar to other LTE operators, CenturyLink’s
rollout depends partly on the availability of
LTE phones, modems and other user devices.
The irst ones should be available by the end of
this year, followed by a wider selection in 2011.
“It would be 2010 before there would be any
signiicant dollars” spent on building an LTE
network, said CenturyLink CEO Glen Post in a
February 2009 call with investors.
In the same 2008 FCC auction where
CenturyLink got its licenses, Frontier Wireless
paid nearly $2 million for a Columbia license
plus another $700 million across the country,
more than any other company except AT&T
and Verizon Wireless.
Frontier is owned by EchoStar, the company
behind the Dish satellite TV service. Frontier
has said little about what it plans to do with its
spectrum, but its ownership has fueled speculation that it's considering offering a mobile TV
service rather than broadband Internet access.
AT&T, Sprint and Verizon
Wireless haven't announced
their 4G plans for Columbia; it
could be another year before
they launch based on how
they rolled out 3G in major
cities before upgrading smaller
markets such as Columbia. That
creates a window of opportunity
for Full Stream, the local
company that intends to start a
WiMAX network in Columbia in
a matter of months.
Is Clearwire coming?
Clearwire is the third newcomer with a spectrum license for Columbia. Based in suburban
Seattle, Clearwire is owned by Sprint and several cable companies, though Mediacom isn't
among them.
Based on what's happened recently in
markets such as Kansas City and St. Louis,
Clearwire's license eventually could produce
two separate WiMAX services for Columbia:
one under Sprint's brand and another under
Clearwire's Clear brand. Sprint's ability
to launch WiMAX here depends on when
Clearwire builds the network, and neither company has announced those plans.
But it's more a question of when rather
than if. Clearwire said its network will cover
39 percent of the US population by the end of
this year. That will require building networks in
cities the size of Columbia. Earlier this month,
it turned on networks in college towns such as
Eugene, Ore., and Syracuse, N.Y.
Clearwire’s St. Louis network ends at
Foristell, about 88 miles from Columbia. It
could take another 10 towers to extend that network here. When it does, Clearwire probably
won’t be alone, considering how many other
companies are eying this market. v
By Tim Kridel
9
Unexpected companies target local
broadband wireless market
From the Roundtable
The drawn-out demise of Columbia’s passenger train service
Al Germond
Al Germond is the
host of the "Sunday
Morning Roundtable"
every Sunday at 8:15
a.m. on KFRu.
[email protected]
The last time I took a train to Columbia’s
Wabash Station was in April 1969.
I was one of the last incoming passengers on
Norfolk and Western Train No. 37, due to arrive
at Wabash Station from Centralia at 5.20 p.m.
The only other people inside the old day coach
were a conductor and one other passenger who
was gingerly holding what looked like a cello.
We rocked and rolled for nearly an hour over
that last 21.7 miles of prairie down the Columbia
Branch on a gloomy Monday afternoon. What
followed for me was grabbing a Twin Chopped
Cow at Ernie's Steak House before heading to
my 6 to 10 p.m. shift at KFRU Radio.
Columbia’s Wabash Station opened in
1910, the year Mark Twain died and Halley's
Comet reappeared after an absence of 86 years.
Columbia has the somewhat dubious distinction
of being one of the nation's largest metropolitan
areas without any main line rail service, but
the city had the good sense to preserve the old
downtown depot and turn it into a bus station.
The Wabash Station celebrated its 100th anniversary on June 16.
Now there's excitement about plans for a
dinner train to run on weekends to Centralia
and back. The Columbia Star, with two locomotives and four Southern Paciic dining cars, is
expected to start taking passengers on round
trips in August. But they’ll be loading and
unloading at the COLT Transload facility on
Brown Station Road in north Columbia rather
than at Wabash Station, where railroad tracks
were torn away long ago.
My inal trip to Wabash began at 4:20 p.m.
the previous day. I boarded a Penn-Central
photo by Al Germond
10 July 24, 2010 Columbia Business Times | ColumbiaBusinessTimes.com
VOICES
The train schedule at Centralia Station in 1969
train in Newark, N.J., that was hauled by my
favorite article of railroad motive power, the
classic Raymond Lowey-designed GG-1 electric engine. No. 4938 still bore traces of PRR
Tuscan red varnish. Memories ring out of the
stationmaster calling out his gazetteer of destinations: “TrenTON, Naaahth PhilaDELphia,
Haaarisburg,
AlTOOnah,
PITTSburgh,
CohLUMbus, IndiaNAPolis, Terre HUT and
Saint Loooisss.”
After ditching the electric GG-1 engine at
Enola outside of Harrisburg, the train continued
on to St. Louis and arrived at about 1 o'clock at
Union Station, which was already somewhat
down at the heels. Reviewing snapshots of that
once grand train station contrasts with images
of capacity crowds on its platforms only a few
years before.
After a short wait, it was on to Centralia.
Train No. 209 left at 2 p.m. on Track Four, with
stops at the old Delmar Station (now part of
the St. Louis Metrolink system), St. Charles,
Montgomery City, Wellsville and Mexico.
Centralia — the inal stop for me on the
main line — was once this area's big deal in railroading. A station as magniicent as Columbia's
own used to grace the north side of the tracks,
and there was an impressive amount of activity
there as main line passengers transitioned to the
Columbia Branch and vice versa. Alas, the old
station is gone, as are many others across the
County View
Patience, please, as voter processing system goes paperless
Wendy Noren
Boone County Clerk
clerk@
boonecountymo.org
www.showmeboone.
com/clerk/
When you go to the polls for the Aug. 3
primary election, you might get the chance to
experience our latest foray into taking technology to the polling places.
We’ve started implementing our new
“EPollbook” voter processing system that will
allow our poll workers to handle the check-in
process electronically rather than through the
paper precinct books that were previously
used.
This project is the result of several years of
research, cost beneit analysis and months of
design, usability testing and training. Electronic
poll books have been successfully implemented
in other areas of the country, where they have
speeded voter processing, improved accuracy
and reduced costs. For several years I have been
putting aside money from annual state funding
to cover our implementation costs.
Our biggest cost for any election is stafing
our polling places and training a huge temporary workforce on an increasingly complex array
of rules. Well-designed software will allow us
to process more voters with fewer workers. In
addition, training costs can be slashed because
we will no longer have to train hundreds of
workers on all the special situations that arise
to ensure each voter is processed correctly. The
software can walk them through the steps they
need to perform and let them know such things
as which ID is valid or invalid, how to process
name changes, address changes, missing information and a series of other small problems
that crop up at any election.
The project is not without its challenges,
and we will certainly need several elections to
fully implement all components of the system.
For security reasons, none of these systems
will be connected to the outside world or the
Internet, and each system will be loaded from
scratch on election morning.
Most IT departments would shudder at the
thought of deploying separate PC networks
with printers, scanners, servers and clients at
more than 50 locations in less than an hour — at
4:30 in the morning.
Training for the new voter processing system.
The project is further complicated by the
demographics of the temporary workforce
available on Election Day to set up such a complicated system. More than half of the people
who staff the polling places are senior citizens.
Many of them have little or no experience with
computers, and those who do might have
special needs interacting with computers. As
people age, simple tasks such as scrolling on a
page, negotiating a mouse or locating a cursor
on a screen can become trickier propositions.
To overcome these obstacles, we decided
to design the system in-house rather than
purchase predesigned software. Early in the
process we started a series of usability design
testing with groups of poll workers so we could
adjust the software to overcome problems
workers encountered. By closely watching our
workers through the design phase, we appear
to have overcome the aging issues so many of
our workers face.
The daunting prospect of setting up the
PC networks in each poll with myriad wires,
ports, plugs and outlets was also the subject of
usability testing. The development of a complex color-coding scheme for each plug and
port and detailed checklists that are tested and
adjusted has allowed the workers to negotiate
it so far.
All of the processes voters are used to doing
at the polling place — getting their identiication and address veriied and signing a poll
book — will still be in place. With practice and
your help, our poll workers will be able to process your check-in faster and more accurately.
So how can you help? Bring the sample
ballot and polling place notiication to the
polling place when you come to vote. (It’s the
white slip that comes in the mail before the election.) The barcode on the notiication will allow
workers to scan your record and speed you
through the check-in. Also, please be patient.
We hope during the next several election cycles
to implement this at all our polls. Until then, we
will continue to run dual systems as our dedicated workers navigate their way to the next
phase of polling place technology. v
Superintendent’s View
New names in leadership at Columbia Public Schools
Chris Belcher
Chris Belcher is superintendent of Columbia
Public Schools.
cbelcher@columbia.
k12.mo.us
Selby
Ferguson
Giessman
Gaines
Maus
Conrad
Raynor
Adams
Stiepleman
Maintaining quality leadership is a challenge to all
businesses. Employees with years of service and experience retire or take on new opportunities and need to be
replaced in a seamless manner. Effective organizations
work to manage transitions as such shifts occur.
Columbia Public Schools is pleased with our new set
of leaders for the 2010-11 school year. I hope you can ind
time to congratulate and introduce yourself to the following individuals:
Jean Selby, principal, Smithton Middle School
Selby takes the reins at Smithton Middle School after
serving as the acting principal at Oakland Junior High
School for the past year. She has eight years of experience
illing the roles of assistant principal and administrative
assistant, also at Oakland Junior High School.
Sally Phillips, principal, New Haven Elementary
School
Phillips takes on the role of principal at New Haven
Elementary School after illing the role of acting principal at Rock Bridge Elementary School for the past year.
In addition to being a ifth-grade teacher at Shepard
Boulevard Elementary School from 1987-2001, Phillips
also has seven years of experience as an assistant principal in Columbia Public Schools.
Linda Rawlings, director, Columbia Area Career
Center
Rawlings will ill the role of director of the Columbia
Area Career Center after previously serving as the assistant director. Rawlings has a degree in journalism from
the University of Missouri as well as a master’s degree
in practical arts and vocational technical education. She
joined the Career Center in 1995 as a teacher.
Dana Ferguson, coordinator, mathematics
Ferguson has more than 20 years of experience
teaching and coaching mathematics, and 17 of those years
have been with Columbia Public Schools. Ferguson holds
both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in education from
the University of Missouri. She has earned numerous
awards and recognitions for her ability to serve as a
role model for educators in the school district, including
the Columbia Fund for Academic Excellence’s Middle
School/Junior High School Educator of the Year in 2004.
Jacob Giessman and Terry Gaines, co-directors,
gifted education
Giessman and Gaines will serve as co-directors of the
Gifted Education Program next school year. Gaines has
been teaching in the district’s gifted program for the past
10 years. Prior to joining Columbia Public Schools, she
taught gifted education on the East Coast. Gaines holds
a master’s degree from Harvard University. Giessman
is a product of Columbia’s gifted program and is a Rock
Bridge High School graduate. He earned his undergraduate degree from Harvard University. He has been
a teacher and for the past four years has served as the
head of a private school for gifted and talented students
in Massachusetts.
Angie Gerzen, principal, Midway Heights
Elementary School
Gerzen joins Midway Heights Elementary School
as principal after illing the role of assistant principal
at West Boulevard Elementary School for the past two
years. Gerzen has seven years experience as an assistant
principal in Columbia Public Schools. She began with the
district in 1993 and has also been an instructional aide,
paraprofessional and classroom teacher. Gerzen recently
completed her educational specialist degree in administration and holds a master’s degree in education.
Mark Maus, principal, Rock Bridge High School
Maus has nearly 10 years of experience in education
and has illed a variety of roles, including serving as a
teacher, an achievement coordinator and most recently
assistant principal at Oak Park High School in the North
Kansas City School District. He holds a master’s in educational leadership and is currently working to complete
his educational specialist degree in education administration before completing his doctorate in education.
Tracey Conrad, principal, Hickman High School
Conrad takes the reins at Hickman High School after
serving as an assistant principal at the school. She has 25
years of experience in education and has illed a variety
of roles including serving as a teacher, assistant principal
and principal. Conrad holds a doctorate in education
from the University of Missouri.
Patti Raynor, principal, Two Mile Prairie Elementary
School
After illing the role of assistant principal at Paxton
Keeley Elementary School, Raynor joins Two Mile Prairie
Elementary School as principal. She has also been an assistant principal and teacher in the Eldon School District.
She has 20 years of experience in education. Raynor holds
a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Lincoln
University and a master’s degree in elementary administration from William Woods University.
Michael Szydlowski, coordinator, K-12 science
Szydlowski joins Columbia Public Schools from the
Rockwood School District in Eureka, Mo., where he had
been the K-12 science coordinator since 2005. Since 2007,
he has also been the director of the Greater St. Louis
Science Fair. Szydlowski holds a bachelor’s degree in
secondary science from the University of Missouri and
a master’s degree in secondary administration from
Lindenwood University. Szydlowski has six years experience in instructional leadership in science and seven
years experience as a teacher.
Susan Emory, principal, West Boulevard Elementary
School
Emory joins Columbia Public Schools as principal of
West Boulevard Elementary School from the Raytown
School District where she was principal of Southwood
Elementary School. She holds a bachelor’s and master’s
degree in education from Central Methodist University
and an educational specialist degree in educational leadership and policy analysis from the University of Missouri.
She has illed many roles in her career including that of a
teacher, assistant principal and district administrator.
Craig Adams, coordinator, practical arts
Adams will take on the role of practical arts coordinator in addition to teaching ninth-grade physics and
engineering. Adams has taught technology education
in Columbia Public Schools for 23 years. Most recently
he also served as an instructional technology specialist
for the district. He holds both a bachelor’s and master’s
degree in education from the University of Missouri.
Peter Stiepleman, assistant superintendent for
elementary education
Stiepleman, who served as the principal at West
Boulevard Elementary School for the past two years, is the
new assistant superintendent for elementary education.
Prior to being principal at West Boulevard, Stiepleman
served as assistant principal for two years. He has nearly
10 years of experience working with English-LanguageLearner students and prior to coming to Columbia Public
Schools spent six years working as a teacher and administrator in the Oakland Uniied School District in Oakland,
Calif. Most recently, Stiepleman and West Boulevard
Elementary School were honored with the University of
Missouri’s Martin Luther King Jr. Award for efforts made
in closing the achievement gap among students.
Great people make a great organization. v
VOICES
photoS by jennifer kettler
BUSINESS PROFILE | IDEA WORKS
Ed Brent, president of Idea Works, started the company in 1981 to commercialize computer software for text analytics. "We look for
patterns in text on the Web and then try to analyze and interpret it in ways that help our clients," Brent said.
Making sense of online chatter
By David Reed
Wrapping your head around what Idea
Works founder Ed Brent does is a bit like trying
to understand how a slight turn of the radio dial
transforms static into a Mozart symphony.
Brent, a professor in sociology and computer
science at MU, has spent three decades reining
the coding processes that enable computers to
analyze language. He spent the irst part of his
academic career focused on sociology but then
became interested in how computers could help
with his research.
Idea Works is the company he formed in
1981 to bring his technology to the marketplace,
including a computer program that can grade
hundreds of student essays in minutes and provide feedback.
The company’s growth in the past ive years,
from a few employees to 10, correlates to the
explosion of online conversations on websites,
blogs and social networks such as Facebook and
Twitter.
The latest technology from Idea Works is a
product called Veyor that makes some sense of
the millions of social media posts that lood into
the online community every day. The computer
program is taught to discover topics, themes
and concepts found in text and analyze them for
attitudes and opinions.
In a research paper for Social Science
Computer Review, Brent used a musical composition analogy to explain how his tools help
researchers analyze a vast database of coded
data, typically segments of text: “The patterns
of data that result have a clear structure, a
‘rhythm’ if you will, that provides the under-
lying ‘beat’ within which the ‘melody’ of codes
is experienced.”
For a more practical explanation, the latest
application of the Veyor technology measured
and analyzed public sentiment related to several US Senate primary races in May. Insight,
a public opinion research company based in
Columbia, customized Veyor to analyze political races with a product it calls Globalpoint.
The metrics used by Insight, a subsidiary of
Pure, were based solely on the analysis of text
data from news and social media posts and
included no public opinion polling data.
In the Senate primary race between Kentucky
Democrats Jack Conway and Daniel Mongiardo,
programmers using Globalpoint collected data
the week before the election. A candidate’s name
was one of the triggers that brought an article or
website posting into the data collection system.
Candidates received positive or negative
points based on what was being said about key
issues in the race and were categorized under
headings such as “government,” “economy,”
“personal” and subsets such as “free market”
and “tax issues.”
The computer system “read the documents
much like a human would,” Wade Foster of Idea
Works said.
Conway had been far behind in the race. But
after analyzing the data, they came up with a
report on sentiment trends, candidate mentions
and campaign issues that predicted Conway
would win by 2 percent.
Insight President Michael Urban said
Globalpoint’s prediction was closer to the inal
margin — Conway won by 1 percentage point
— than public opinion polls based on telephone
calls to registered voters.
Brian Cooksey works remotely via Skype and Web cam with another Idea Works
programmer working in Kansas City.
Chief of Operations Colin Monaghan discusses Web page design with Brent.
Pure President Brent Beshore said phone polling is becoming less accurate because more
voters are using wireless phone services, and online data analysis is becoming more valuable
as conversations over the Internet grow in volume.
“That conversation is growing louder and louder,” Beshore said. The sample size is now
large enough to be considered representative of the entire population, he said.
Foster, Idea Works’ head of business development, said: “Politicians and media outlets and
special interest groups are interested in what people have to say, especially during elections.
Online discussion in the last few years has exploded, and we try to get a sense of what is being
talked about.”
Foster said the performance of the technology during the Senate races “was a very interesting result, a validation.”
There are many other social media monitoring tools in the marketplace, such as Radian6,
Scout Labs and Sysomos, but Foster said Veyor is better for customized applications such as
Globalpoint.
Urban said, “We believe there is a big market demand for smarter and better intelligence
in the political market, based on all the qualitative and text-based data that you ind on social
media networks, news sites, blogs and chat rooms that continue to grow in number.”
Idea Works formed its partnership with Insight last summer, and Foster said the joint projects are “where most of our development resources are going now.”
Idea Works had been focusing on educational and corporate applications of its technology,
and Insight suggested they collaborate and expand into the political sphere.
“We’re looking forward to partnering with them on multiple products that come out of the
baseline technology,” Beshore said.
Coincidentally, the ofices of Pure and Insight on West Broadway are only half a mile or so
away from Idea Works, which is run out of a large two-story house near the Broadway-Stadium
Boulevard intersection.
Other products developed by Idea Works include the essay-grading software, tools for
developing research proposals and qualitative data software for coding.
When not telecommuting from Kansas City or St. Louis, the programmers primarily work
in a room formerly used as a den, surrounded by tall bookshelves, and meetings are sometimes held in the living room where workers sit on couches and watch a large monitor during
teleconferences.
Brent said they’ve outgrown the house, and though they like the laid-back atmosphere it
engenders, they’re looking for a new building with more ofice and parking space. v
BUSINESS PROFILE | IDEA WORKS
Buchroeder’s has been selling jewelry on
Broadway downtown since 1896, and the
owner of Columbia’s oldest retail store knows
when it’s time to focus on the bread-andbutter clientele.
Buchroeder’s completed its second renovation of the past two years on May 1. Owner
Mills Menser said the expansion was necessary even though the company had its most
proitable year ever in 2009 and is experiencing an even greater increase this year.
The renovation allowed Buchroeder’s to
feature 12 cases of bridal jewelry, a product
Menser described as “almost recession proof.”
He attributed the store’s increase in sales to
an increased focus on bridal jewelry and said
the new space would allow Buchroeder's to
provide customers a wider selection. v
S
A
L
R
E
O
F
photoS by jennifer kettler
Buchroeder’s renovation expands bridal jewelry selection
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The drawn-out demise of Columbia’s passenger train service ... continued from Page 10
photo by Al Germond
land, and there is little left to remind us of the once great times for the choo-choo in
From a surveyor's perspective, a plausible obstacle would have been the
America.
expense of building a trestle across the Loutre River valley near Mineola, 40 miles
The decline had been going on for years. In 1969, the Penn-Central was stum- east of Columbia. Centralia got the line, which satisied a need that the route serve
bling because of the previous year's long planned but ill-fated consolidation of the Boone County, because construction was frankly simpler and less expensive.
New York Central System and the Pennsylvania Road. The enterprise tottered into
Other accounts detail various political and funding considerations as to why
bankruptcy in June 1970. The following year, the National Railroad Passenger Corp., Columbia never got main line rail service. They included fear that the line would
or AMTRAK, rescued what was left of the remaining railroads'
become an escape route for area slaves.
dwindling passenger service.
Denied the main line, Columbia ended up with a rather
Taxed to their virtual operating limit during World War II, the
busy and proitable branch line just the same. The November
railroads gamely tried to compete during peacetime with airlines
1939 issue of “The Oficial Guide of the Railroads” — 1,588
and government-inanced highways, including the web of new
pages in all — shows a total of ive outbound Wabash trains
interstates, but they moved increasingly into the red. Railroading
and four inbound to Columbia each day that connected with
had its own speciic Chapter 77 within the federal bankruptcy
the main line in Centralia. From there, the Wabash ran trains
statutes, and one prominent area operation, the Missouri Paciic,
to St. Louis, Kansas City, Omaha and Des Moines. Not so
operated under receivership for decades beginning in the Great
ironically, the Wabash was already bankrupt and operating
Depression.
under the protection of two receivers.
Postal subsidies began disappearing in the 1950s. Operating
The service arrangement from Columbia's other branch
burdens included property taxes and featherbedding, a practice
line railroad — the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Lines, which was
in which unions proved intractable on a variety of make-work
not bankrupt at the time — was considerably more modest.
issues. Railroads had been paring passenger service for decades,
A quartet of trains traveled 8.8 miles down to the main line at
and the exasperation continued after Norfolk and Western
McBaine, all of them arriving and departing at rather inhosbought the Wabash in 1964. Various public service commissions
pitable times in the middle of the night.
regulating the railroads ignored requests to help end these deicit
Undeniable is Missouri's nationally signiicant trans-state
operations, and ultimately they had to stop hauling people
freight lines largely under the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe
around.
lag.
There's a side note of family history in laying out the North
One possible light at the end of railroading's tunnel is a
Missouri Railroad during the 1850s. My great-grandfather Henry The end of the Columbia branch line at
system of high-speed passenger trains, but the staggering cost
S. Germond of Brooklyn, N.Y., was part of the engineering survey Wabash in 1969
renders them out of consideration for a long time to come.
party that was working east of Centralia when Mr. Wentz of the
History records a trans-state railroad line that never came to
railroad company — after whom Wentzville was named — advised him of a rela- fruition because it was poorly timed with respect to various economic cycles. As
tive's death and he hurriedly left the area.
more is uncovered, it will be detailed in this space. Regardless, it is important
A clutch of my grandfather’s letters and a surviving survey drawing underscores that Columbia sit at the table to discuss future high-speed rail prospects. There
why railroads seek out the most level terrain possible and a possible reason why the might be signiicant precedents that help ensure its participation in this important
line avoided Columbia.
function.v
VOICES
renderinGS courteSy of columbiA public SchoolS
High school will transform northeast ... continued from Page 1
Main entry
Auditorium
Gym
The city, county and school district held a ground- Development at the rate of $11,250 per acre, school
breaking ceremony at the high school site on July 15, spokeswoman Michelle Baumstark wrote in an e-mail.
and construction is scheduled to be inished in time for
The school needed the extra space, she said, to meet
the school year beginning in August 2013.
new state and the county requirements, including storm
The land around the school’s site on St. Charles Road, water retention, and to provide adequate space for athbetween the Lake of the Woods golf course and Route Z, letic ields.
looks similar to the land along South Providence Road
Directly across St. Charles Road from the school
before Rock Bridge High School was built in 1973.
property is the Golf View subdivision. The collection of
“I can’t help but think 40 years ago today we weren’t duplexes gets its name from its neighbor to the west, the
in a similar situation with Rock Bridge High School,” Lake of the Woods golf course.
Superintendant Chris Belcher said during the ceremony.
The only other residential development near the
“Out in the middle of a bean ield, being criticized for school site is Copper Creek, a subdivision with singlebeing in the middle of nowhere to build an almost family homes on the site’s eastern border.
300,000-square-foot high school.”
ABC Laboratories, which is undergoing a $4.2 milTo get an idea about how a high school affects devel- lion expansion, is located on an outer road between
opment, look at South
Interstate 70 and the
Providence now: State
school site, and the
Farm is across the road
Fabick CAT construc“I can’t help but think 40 years ago
from the high school;
tion equipment comthe Corporate Lake
pany and the Loveall
today we weren’t in a similar situation
commercial developRVs lot are nearby.
ment and the Peachtree
In
three
years,
with Rock Bridge High School.”
shopping area are on
approximately
1,700
the lanks; and residenstudents, along with
tial neighborhoods are
200 teachers and other
behind the school as far as the eye can see.
school employees, will start driving past those subdiviDozens of school oficials, several politicians and a sions and commercial sites.
few developers were among the more than 70 guests
Although voters passed a school bond issue in
attending the ceremony at the site of the new school, April that will be used to pay for the $75 million school
an 80-acre overgrown pasture with a few tree stands. construction, the city and county began preparing for
Workers recently demolished the farm buildings and the school’s impact on development after the site was
are now leveling the land.
chosen in 2007.
A cornield in the distance is part of the acreage
A city-county commission came up with the
owned by a partnership that includes Tom and Scott Northeast Columbia Area Plan after a series of public
Atkins, Bob Pugh, Rob Wolverton and the Lemone hearings and strategy sessions. (The boundaries of the
family. Their company, St. Charles Road Development, targeted area are Lake of the Woods Road to the west,
sold the 80-acre site to the school district in 2007. They Mexico Gravel Road to the north, Route Z to the east
bought that tract along with 156 acres of farmland to the and I-70 to the south.) The commission decided the area,
north and west of the site in 2004.
which covers ive square miles and 3,100 acres, needed
The school district is in the process of purchasing better roads and improved electric and sewer service.
an additional 4.2 acres from the St. Charles Road
Illustrations of what the new high school will look like when completed in 2013.
1
3
Land owned by
St. Charles Road
Development LLC.
Michael and
Patrick McClung
New high school site illustration
17
Copper Creek subdivisi
Road for school
bus trafic
Lake of the Woods
Golf Course
18
St. Charles Road
2
16
Golf View
Subdivision
Sewer line extension
7
4
Mona and
Dr. Zaki ajans
19
6
Daniel Mings
Clark Lane extension
12
aBC Labs
13
Fabick Cat
Ross and
Elizabeth
Mechlin
A rural landscape…
for the time being
11
Work crews began the construction of Columbia’s new high school this month on an 84-acre
site on St. Charles Road.
HeRe iS THe LAY OF THe LAND:
•
The Northeast Columbia Area outlined by city and county planners is bordered by
Mexico Gravel Road to the north, Route Z to the east, Interstate 70 to the south and, to
the west, the Lake of the Woods golf course, a 145-acre green space owned by the city.
Kathy and
Ken Davis
•
Grindstone Creek runs from the northeast corner through the eastern edge of the
school property and down to I-70. Hominy Creek runs in the same direction through
the northwest quadrant of the area.
•
Most of the land is rural, with commercial areas along Route Z and the outer road
parallel with I-70.
THe PROPeRTY OWNeRS:
1.
In 2007, a company called St. Charles Road Development sold 80 acres of its land
in the area to the school district for about $900,000. The company is in the process
of selling another 4 acres to the school district. St. Charles Road Development still
owns the lots directly to the north and west of the school site, which total 156 acres
and were bought in 2004.
ion
10
2.
Directly across St. Charles Road from the school site is the Golf View subdivision. It
consists mostly of duplex housing with appraised home values ranging from $90,000
to more than $200,000.
3.
Directly to the east of the school site is the Copper Creek subdivision. Brothers
Michael and Patrick McClung own this subdivision and about 65 acres on its northern border. These large, single-family homes have an average appraised value of
$242,000, according to the Boone County assessor.
4.
The land north of ABC Labs and below the Golf View subdivision is owned by Mona
and Dr. Zaki Ajans, a local psychiatrist. They bought the 229 acres after the Lebanese
civil war broke in case his two brothers living there needed a refuge.
Grone family
5-10. Land east of the Ajans’ property and south of Copper Creek is owned by: Ruth Ann
Stoecker Trustee (5), Daniel Mings (6), Ross and Elizabeth Mechlin (7), Gilpin-Sells
LLC (8), Linda and Stephen Daily (9) and the Grone family (10) .
11.
15
9
Industrial
park
Linda and
Stephen
Daily
The land on the northwest corner of the Route Z-St. Charles Intersection is owned
Kathy and Ken Davis. An historic blacksmith shop is on their 18-acre property, which
was at the center of a small village at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
12-14. ABC Laboratories, located at the dead end of an outer road along I-70 (12), down
from Fabick CAT (13) and Loveall RV Rentals (14) at the Route Z exit, is undergoing a
$4.2 million renovation and expansion. ABC Labs’ pharmaceutical division previously
moved its operations to Discovery Ridge.
15.
On the eastern side of Route Z between the interstate exit and St. Charles Road is
160 acres set aside for a future industrial park. The land has already been rezoned
and is for sale.
iNFRASTRUCTURe iMPROVeMeNTS:
16. The blue dotted line on the lower half of the map is the proposed route for an extension of the city sewer line, which is expected to be inished in the next year and a half.
When this project is done, the city, not Boone County Regional Sewer District, will
treat the sewage.
17.
The yellow line extending from St. Charles road to the western side of the school site
is the route of a new road that will allow buses to come and go separately from cars
and trucks using the southern entrance. The road could extend further north in the
future as the land develops in the direction shown by the dotted red line.
18.
The long-term plans call for St. Charles Road to be upgraded to a major collector in
the next 20 years at the price of about $20 million, but this project has no timeline.
19.
Those plans also call for Clark Lane to be extended across the southern part of the
area above ABC Labs, as shown by the red dotted line that extends to Route Z. There
is no cost estimate, but this kind of road generally costs $1,000 per linear foot if the
land for it is already owned.
8
Gilpin-Sells LLC
5
Ruth ann Stoecker
trustee
LeGeND
aERIaL MaP
PROVIDED BY
Loveall’s RV
Rentals
14
Lot line
Parcel line
Road ROW
Subdivision line
Political corporate line
Roads to be completed
by developer if outside
the city
Road to school site
New sewer line
20 July24,2010Columbia Business Times|ColumbiaBusinessTimes.com
Landscape to
change with
new school
Columbia Public Schools broke ground on
the new high school on July 15. To manage
development around the school, the city and
county created the Columbia Northeast Area
Plan, which looks at ive square miles around
the site and recommends future land use.
Mexico Gravel Road, Route Z, Interstate
70 and Lake of the Woods Road outline the
NECAP’s study area.
The school site is an old farm, and most of
the land around it is agricultural. This area
will get sewer access in the next year, and
residential development is expected around
the school, with open space planed just north
of the school.
A ridge running northwest of the school
will constrain this expansion, though, and
that corner of the NECAP area should stay
rural, along with the area’s northeast corner.
Most commercial development in the area
is around I-70. ABC Labs, Fabick CAT and
Loveall RVs are all along the interstate. This
commercial development would intensify in
the future, according to the NECAP.
The biggest changes could come along the Route Z corridor, from its
intersection with St. Charles Road to the interstate exit. Along this path on
the west side of Route Z is a planned commercial development that runs
the length of the corridor.
On the east side of the road, about a half-mile off the interstate, there
are plans and zoning in place for a new industrial park, which went on the
market in April. In time, this park could look similar to Lemone Industrial
Boulevard in Columbia. v
PHOTO BY WILL GULDIN
Columbia Public Schools hosted a groundbreaking ceremony for the new school project on July 15. From left: Mayor Bob
McDavid, Chamber of Commerce Ambassador Nancy Fay, Columbia Board of Education member Jonathan Sessions, Columbia
Public Schools Superintendant Chris Belcher and Columbia Board of Education President Jan Mees.
Is the infrastructure adequate?
to the area should take demand off St. Charles
Road.
“As the road system northeast of I-70 ills
with those collector streets, you can divert some
trafic from St. Charles Road,” he said.
The Columbia City Council approved the
NECAP plan in December, and Northern Boone
County Commissioner Skip Elkin said the
County Commission will vote on the plan in the
fall.
RENDERING COURTESY OF COLUMBIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS
The electric system has been improved to
handle the school’s power load, and the city
expects to inish a sewer trunk line extension
to the school property along the north fork of
Grindstone Creek by this time next year.
Road improvements won’t come as fast.
The NECAP called St. Charles Road “particularly unsafe,” and the Route Z overpass at I-70 is
in “poor condition for accommodating the current trafic pattern.” The plan and a trafic study
determined that many intersections couldn’t The housing market rules
During the city’s public hearings, residents
handle additional school trafic eficiently if
in
the
study area said they know development
they are not improved. However, an upgrade
of St. Charles Road from Route Z to Lake of the is inevitable but want to maintain some of the
Woods is on hold, with no funding allocated rural character. Because developers follow the
and no projected start date. The city’s long-term desires of the market — people who want to live
road construction plan calls for the $20 million or set up shop in the area — it will be up to City
upgrade to be inished before 2030. Nothing is Council members and county commissioners to
decide how much of the country atmosphere is
in the works to improve the Route Z overpass.
City Planning and Development Director Tim preserved.
“The challenge of being a good and responTeddy said the St. Charles Road upgrade could
become a bigger priority once the high school sible developer,” Rob Wolverton said, “is to
balance what the
and other develmarket is asking
opment
comes
for with what the
along.
government enti“Where a need
ties and the rest of
doesn’t
exist,
the surrounding
public authorities
n e i g h b o rh o o d s
around here don’t
are asking for.”
make improveWo l v e r t o n ,
ments,” he said,
president
of
“but … a demonR.
Anthony
strated need will
Development,
demand
some
said
builders
response.”
have
to
do
what
Yonke
said
the
buyers
want.
something
has
It’s this demand
to be done about Commons in the proposed high school.
that will deterintersections that
mine
what
he
and
his
partners
put on their rethe trafic study identiied, such as Route Z and
maining
land
around
the
school.
St. Charles Road.
Even before the high school site was picked,
If the school were a private development,
Yonke said, the owners would have to pay for all the land, valued around $520 an acre because of
these needed improvements, do the work and its agriculture classiication, was an attractive
investment because of nearby amenities such as
open only after the upgrades were complete.
Upgrading a road isn’t the only way to make the golf course, Wolverton said.
it safer, Teddy said. Adding the planned roads
CPS new school ... continuedfromPage17
“The Route Z Corridor, with good infrastruc“We felt like it was an area where the cost of
the land versus the quality of the land and the ture access and the promise of sewer, will be
surroundings meant our best value was in that feasible for development in the commercial and
industrial sense,” Schauwecker said.
part of town,” he said.
In 2007, their company sold the 80-acre site to
Columbia Public Schools for about $900,000, or The land between school and I-70
The other planned commercial area is south
$11,250 an acre. (In 2006, all 236 acres were used
as collateral for a $3 million loan from Boone of St. Charles Road and just north of an eastward
extension of Clark Lane. This area, according to
County National Bank.)
Another attractive feature, Wolverton said, is the plan, should be a mix of residential and comCopper Creek. The development’s large, single- mercial development.
Most of this land, 229 acres between ABC
family homes appraise for an average of about
$242,000. The Golf View development, owned Labs and St. Charles Road, belongs to the Ajans
by Knor Holdings, generally has lower ap- family. Dr. Zaki Ajans and his wife, Mona, came
praised values than Copper Creek, with houses to the United States in 1966 after being born
ranging from $90,000 to more than $200,000, ac- and raised in the Middle East. Dr. Ajans completed his medical residency at the University of
cording to the Boone County assessor.
Mike McClung and his brother own Copper Missouri and is still a practicing psychiatrist.
Ajans' father suggested he buy the land afCreek and about 65.5 acres north of the subdivision. This land remains undeveloped because of ter civil war erupted in Lebanon in 1975. His
the downturn in the housing market, McClung father believed the property could provide a refsaid. The appraisal for the two parcels averages uge for Ajans' two brothers if they had to lee
to the United
about $425 an
States and start
acre.
over. As the situ(A Missouri
ation in Lebanon
constitutional
stabilized,
the
amendment in
land became an
1982 created a
investment.
favorable prop"If there is
erty tax status
any credit for an
for
farmland,
investment acuSchauwecker
men, it should be
said. By law, soil
given to my faquality
deterther, not me," Dr.
mines
agriculAjans said.
tural land value,
Once it was
not fair market
The Golf View subdivision is only a few yards away from the new school
clear his brothers
considerations.
site. These duplexes, which have assessed values ranging from $90,000 to
weren't followHe said this ex$200,000, are one of two subdivisions in the area, along with Copper Creek.
ing him, Ajans
plains why the
county’s appraised value for a property and its said he wanted to sell the land. This almost hapfair market value can vary widely. As a result of pened in 2008, when he agreed to sell it for $4.6
the law, he said Missouri has one of the lowest million to a local developer who was unable to
come up with inancing for the purchase.
tax rates on agricultural land in the nation.)
He is still trying to sell the property through
Realtor John John.
Commercial development
"Whoever is going to develop it, I'd like it to
Although the area around the school is rural
and residential, there’s a pocket of commercial be compatible with the school system and the
development around the Route Z access to the area," he said. "The selling price isn't so important to me as the developer or planner we sell
interstate highway.
The Columbia Area Jobs Foundation and it to."
“One of the problems you’ve got in the entire
Regional Economic Development Inc. are developing an industrial park on Route Z a half-mile northeast area is that it’s woefully inadequate in
north of the exit. The foundation already owns infrastructure,” Boone County Senior Planner
20 acres, which went on the market in April, Thad Yonke said.
In the next 20 years, many infrastructure imand has agreements in place to buy 140 more if
a potential industrial employer needs additional provements are planned, but the two most imspace. The foundation, a quasi-governmental portant for development are sewer and good
body, bought this land using a $200,000 loan road access, Schauwecker said.
“The path of progress is going to follow city
from Boone Electric Cooperative in spring 2009.
REDI Executive Vice President Bernie sewers,” he said.
The Boone County Regional Sewer District
Andrews said Columbia lost some business opportunities in the past because there was a lack doesn’t have the capacity to deal with intense
commercial and residential development, he
of available land with good infrastructure.
“We need an inventory of industrial sites in said.
Two sewer extension projects with an esour economic development arsenal,” he said.
Over time, he expects the industrial park to timated cost of $2.6 million are in the early
attract anything from a regional ofice, such as phases, said Steve Hunt, the city’s manager of
the State Farm Insurance building across from environmental services. The next phase of the
Rock Bridge High School, to a warehouse distri- North Grindstone project will extend city sewer
into the area around the new school in about a
bution center.
Across the street from the industrial park, year. The subsequent phase will extend from the
the NECAP calls for intense commercial devel- school to the industrial park and is expected to
opment that could run up to the edge of Davis’ be inished six months later.
Once these projects are done, Yonke said the
property.
responsibility of treating the sewage would shift
PHOTO BY WILL GULDIN
CPS new school ... continuedfromPage21
What about green space?
The NECAP tries to balance the anticipated growth with what current residents want,
Columbia Planning and Zoning Commission
member Jeff Barrow said.
Limiting the number of duplexes built in the
area is one example. Barrow said both residents
and the authors of the NECAP wanted to limit
their construction because duplexes attract renters, especially college students, who don’t have
a strong connection to a neighborhood. There’s a
tendency for a brand new development to suffer
and fall into disrepair in a few years, he said.
Wolverton said developers have to look at
big-picture plans such as the NECAP and what
they suggest, but developers also have to consider market demands when they decide what
to build on a particular lot.
At this point, some residential and light commercial buildings are planned for the land his
group owns, but it’s too early to say whether the
houses will be high-end or entry-level, he said.
He expects to start developing the land in three
to ive years.
“When we believe the market’s ready for it,
we’ll research and determine what the market’s
asking for and try to plug that gap,” he said.
Like Wolverton, McClung said he wants to
see what happens with the market before he decides what to build on his undeveloped acreage
behind Copper Creek.
Although the NECAP suggests limiting certain kinds of development, government oficials don’t have to follow the recommendations,
Barrow said.
“It doesn’t make them do anything,” Barrow
said. “But if you use the plan as a guideline to
vote for something or against it, that’s really
what it’s for.”
Many of these suggestions aim to preserve
the area’s rural character, which is something
many residents want, Elkin said.
“Overwhelmingly, when you get outside the
corporate boundaries of the city of Columbia,
people like the more rural atmosphere,” he said.
“So that was a pretty resounding theme that we
heard throughout our public comment.”
To do this, the plan calls for open spaces, bike
trails and parks, along with incentives for denser
development that doesn’t sprawl.
Ajans said she supports development and
knows it’s coming. But, she also wants the land
to serve the community on several different levels. She said there has to be a balance between
development and green areas.
“I have no problem if you cut down trees for
development,” she said, “but we need to plan
and replace the things we cut down.”
Without any sureire ways to protect rural
land, it’s unlikely that much of the area’s rural
atmosphere will remain in 10 to 20 years, Barrow
said. Conservation easements are one option.
The city can already create these but rarely does.
To create this easement, the city could buy a
property’s usage rights and then restrict the development that’s allowed there.
Another option, called transfer of development rights, would let people in a low-density
area sell their rights to develop their own land.
Whoever bought these rights could then use
them to add more density to a development
that’s already in a high-density area.
Barrow said this is done in other communities around the nation, but it would take action
by the state legislature to setup such a system in
Missouri.
Without these and other measures, Barrow
said it will be “extremely dificult” to keep the
area rural.
“By little nicks and cuts, small little scratches,
that land will be converted to the type of people
who are going to maximize their proit by developing it to the max,” he said. “It’s not that
anyone’s doing it on purpose; it’s just how the
system is setup.”
For now though, the “For Sale” sign rests
against the gate in front of Davis’ century-old
blacksmith shop. She doesn’t expect any offers
before the school is inished in three years, but
she’s conident they will come.
“About everybody is resigned to the fact that
development is going to happen,” she said. “So
it might as well be planned.” v
ConSTruCTIon BIddIng ProCeSS ConTInueS
DLRGroupisthemaincontractorforthehighschoolbuildingproject.Othercompanies
alreadyinvolved,accordingtoColumbiaPublicSchoolsspokeswomanMichelle
Baumstark,include:
•J.E.DunnConstruction
•SimonOswaldAssociations,anarchitecturalirminColumbia
•EngineeringSurveysandServicesofColumbia
•PhillipsGrading
TheSchoolBoardplanstomeetonAug.3tovoteon48bidprojects,inwhichthereare
234individualbids.
The$75millionprojectisalreadyoverbudgetbyabout$7.8million,accordingto
newspaperreports.Partofthiscostisrelatedtothe$2.9millionroadprojectrunning
alongsidetheschool’swesternboundary.
to the city, though Boone County’s sewer district
could retain some duties.
In exchange for city sewer access, landowners
must agree to annex into the city. The city will
only annex property that borders the existing
city limit. If owners of property not contiguous
with the city border want access to city sewer,
they must sign a pre-annexation agreement.
The high school, since its not contiguous with
the city limit, will sign a pre-annexation agreement, City Manager Bill Watkins said.
St. Charles Road Development plans to annex
into the city as soon as possible, Wolverton said.
PHOTOS BY JENNIFER KETTLER
SPeCIAL SeCTIon | continuing education
Carrie Golightly, left, demonstrates draping with her student Ashontai Spruell. Golightly prepares about 20 students a year for
a career in surgical technology through the Columbia Area Career Center's surgical technology program.
Career Center adapts to
workforce needs, opportunities
courses that will meet the needs of Boone county
employers.
At age 22, Carrie Golightly reached a
The Career Center is next to Rock Bridge
crossroads.
High School off South Providence Road. The
After graduating from high school, Golightly small front of the building disguises a broad
bounced between a number of jobs, including range of resources offered within. There is a
bank teller and loan oficer. As her ive-year re- fully functioning replica of a hospital operating
union approached, she wanted to prove some- room, complete with bright overhead lights and
thing to her young child at home and decided dummies that can mimic bodily functions such
to enroll in the Columbia Area Career Center’s as a pulse and vomiting. Another classroom feasurgical technologist program.
tures a replica of a patient room, equipped with
Following 11 months of intensive training, the same instruments a health care professional
Golightly found a position as a surgical tech- would ind in a hospital.
nologist, a career she would
Golightly said the center’s
stay with for six years. In
resources are a great replicaFebruary, she returned to the
tion of a real-world surgical
Surgical technology
Career Center — this time as
environment. Students are
an instructor.
is one of many
also required to practice at lo“It seemed like a cool opcal hospitals as part of their
continuing
portunity,” Golightly said of
training.
her new position, in which she
You “don’t really know
education programs
teaches students in the Career
it until you do it,” Golightly
provided by the
Center’s surgical and medical
said. “That’s when you know
classrooms.
if you can cut the mustard.”
Career Center. The
Surgical technology is one
Behind the main building is
of many continuing educaa structure that is used for the
disciplines range
tion programs provided by the
education of future carpenters,
from carpentry to
Career Center. The disciplines
electricians and heating and
range from carpentry to busiair conditioning technicians.
business computer
ness computer training and
“There’s no lack of emmedical coding.
training and medical
ployment in this area,” Karl
The Career Center tries to
Christopher, placement direccoding.
continually adapt to meet the
tor of the trade and industry
needs of local businesses and
area, said of the air conditionopportunities they provide,
ing technicians. Christopher
according to Director Linda
said that morning he had seen three different
Rawlings.
technicians traveling to appointments while on
Last March, the Boone County Commission his way to work.
announced that the Central Missouri Workforce
The trade and industry sector of the Career
Investment Board provided a grant to study the Center provides apprenticeship programs for
gaps in labor supply and demand in the area. students in electrical, plumbing and heating
Rawlings said once the results of the study are and air conditioning. The separate programs in
known, the Career Center will work to provide each area last four years, and, upon graduation,
students are certiied to work in their chosen
ByJeremy essig
Golightly quizzes Spruell on surgical instruments.
ield, said Daniel Darnell, an instructor in the trade and industry
department.
Much like the medical area, students in the trade and industry
programs are taught with real-world examples. Air conditioning students build their own air conditioner before graduation,
Christopher said, and carpentry, electrical and plumbing students
combine to build an actual house in Columbia. In total, the program has built about 15 houses, Christopher said, though in previous years the project did not include plumbing students.
The Career Center also works with local businesses to train
current employees. Christopher said local businesses can use the
center’s resources to hold training seminars for employees or
bring a group of employees in to be trained by one of the center’s
instructors.
Working with local businesses is one of the main functions
of the Career Center’s Professional and Community Education
Department, said Jim Sharrock, the department’s director.
A director of the University of Missouri’s undergraduate business program and recent hire at the Career Center, Sharrock said
each area within the department has an advisory board made up
of local business representatives and former students.
Sharrock said he consults with each advisory board when considering courses offered by the Career Center, and he’s always
looking for local business people who would make good board
members.
For example, after talking with representatives of local industries, center administrators decided to keep offering to train people in Microsoft Ofice 2003. Although Microsoft introduced a new
version of the popular software in 2007, Rawlings said the center
still offered more classes in the previous version of Ofice because
many local businesses did not upgrade to the new software.
Bernie Andrews, executive vice president of Regional
Economic Development Inc., said the focus on the skills local employers are searching for will become paramount following the
results of the Workforce Investment Board survey, expected by the
end of October.
SPeCIAL SeCTIon
Columbia College's online
campus accommodates
increasing enrollment
ByMila Mimica
Gary Massey uses a irsthand story about a long-distance trucker taking one of his virtual classes
to illustrate the convenience of Columbia College’s online campus.
“He’d said he’d wanted to go to college for a long time,” said Massey, associate dean for adult
higher education and the online campus. “All of the truck stops now have Wi-Fi, so he can take his
laptop on his truck and upload work at truck stops and take exams.”
Columbia College began offering online courses 10 years ago. There were 185 students, 10 courses, a few faculty members and no undergraduate degrees.
“It became wildly popular, and we added more courses as we created our irst degree, then added
more courses, more degrees,” Massey said. “Today we have, with only some exceptions, all undergraduate degrees online, and now we have over 40 staff members, graduate and undergraduate
degrees; 300 adjunct faculty scattered around the world; and a third of our full-time faculty also
teach online.”
On average, there are more than 16,000 enrollments in each session.
Because of the growth in online students, Columbia College acquired a building, the former home
of Columbia Photo, located a half-block south of the main campus on North Eighth Street. The building houses a computer lab, but it’s not for students; it’s used by online instructors.
“There are no classes held in the lab because they’re all online,” Massey said. The online campus
uses the space to train the instructors four times a year on a rotating basis. The two-day training sessions usually consist of about 30 newly hired faculty members.
“We train roughly 120 new instructors per year,” said Michele Smolik, director of instructional
technology for the online campus. “While the training covers administrative policies and best practices for teaching online, the majority of the training is devoted to lab time in which instructors learn
to use our learning management system, Desire2Learn.”
D2L is an online-based tool that houses all class content, including traditional classwork such as
the syllabus and quizzes as well as nontraditional content such as videos, audio and photo slideshows created by instructional technicians at the college. There also are instant messaging tools for
the students to communicate with one other.
The typical age range for online classes is slightly younger than students enrolled in Columbia
College’s “in-seat” programs, which is 33 to 35, Massey said. “Online it’s two or three years younger.”
The average cost for an online class, $225 per credit hour, is $35 higher than on-campus classes.
“The online program overall costs the college more to deliver,” Massey said. “The extra cost is
due to software. … It’s still much cheaper than traditional four-year universities.”
The vast majority of students take online classes to work toward a degree, according to Institutional
Research Director Misty Haskamp. “For all Columbia College students who took any online course
work in 2009, 98 percent were degree-seeking,” she said.
There is a 25-student cap on each online class to keep online discussions luid and manageable,
and every section of each class uses the same textbook.
“We try to keep it on the same scale,” said instructional technologist Fresa Jacobs. v
Career Center... continuedfromPage25
Following the grant announcement in March, a subcommittee of a citizen’s task force examining local workforce training set out to ind a consulting irm to prepare the survey. Andrews
said the group members chose Florida-based MGT because they were impressed by similar
studies MGT did for Cape Girardeau and other cities and states.
Since joining the project, MGT has reviewed local economic and educational trends and
interviewed local education oficials and business leaders, Andrews said.
The next step, according to MGT planning documents, is to develop a Web-based instrument to survey local employers. The consultant wants to determine what local education programs might be needed and the number of employees needed to ill positions this training
would be geared toward.
High-school students will also be interviewed as part of the survey, a process that Rawlings
said she and the Career Center will be involved with. (Along with its adult education program,
the Career Center offers a wide range of classes to high-school students in disciplines ranging
from graphic design to automobile maintenance and culinary arts.)
Once the surveys are completed and local needs are identiied, MGT will provide the Boone
County Commission with a report identifying employment needs in the area and the skills
necessary to ill these needs.
Rawlings said the center plans to work with REDI to prepare training appropriate for the
employment opportunities identiied by the survey. It will be a continuation of the role the
Career Center has played as a conduit between employers and those, such as Golightly, looking to advance their careers, Rawlings said. “We’re here to serve.” v
UM expands online courses
To expand access to college courses and degree programs for students across its four campuses, the University of Missouri System has
funded $482,000 in grants to faculty to develop
124 new online courses.
“Faculty members on our campuses realize that today’s college students learn in various ways and through various channels,” said
Steve Graham, senior associate vice president
for academic affairs. “Online learning provides
students with additional accessibility to college
courses while providing faculty an opportunity
to teach in ways that leverage current technology. It’s a win-win for everyone.”
The mix of undergraduate and graduate
courses as well as certiicate programs include
courses in nursing, agro-forestry, health ethics,
dental hygiene, respiratory therapy, inancial
engineering, bioethics and criminology, among
others.
The new courses will be ready for students
within a year to 18 months.
Funding will be used for technical support
to develop the courses as well as for supplies,
equipment and software. Depending on the
nature of the proposal, some faculty members
could receive stipends for their time in developing the courses.
“We currently have online courses in several
areas system-wide, but these new courses expand the breadth of topics we offer,” Graham
said. “This helps broaden the appeal for stu-
dents, particularly those who balance work,
school and family demands.”
In addition to the grants, the Academic
Affairs Ofice has also funded at least one new
instructional designer on each campus to help
faculty develop quality online courses. A twoday faculty workshop was held in July to build
a network of support utilizing faculty members
experienced in teaching online and instructional
designers.
The workshop discussed myths about online
teaching as well as strategies to help faculty optimize technology in online courses. A similar
workshop is planned for August.
“The demand for online courses continues
to grow at an exponential rate for both traditional and nontraditional students,” said Ronald
Phillips, associate professor of architectural
studies. “Not only will this infusion of system
resources allow the campuses to expand their
online offerings, but many of the multimedia
capabilities used in online learning can be applied to the traditional classroom, enriching that
learning environment as well.”
ELearning is a University of Missouri System
strategic priority. Drawing on the university’s
mission as a land-grant institution, eLearning
will help expand educational opportunities for
students by making courses accessible whenever
and wherever students are able to learn. Some of
the technology used in eLearning strategies can
be applied to traditional classrooms as well. v
Bikers event
drawing thousands
The 33rd National Bikers Roundup being held at the
Boone County Fairgrounds Aug. 3 – 8 is expected to draw
between 35,000 and 50,000 people, according to a news release from the city.
The minimum direct economic impact for the event is
projected to be more than $6 million, with an expected expended impact of at least $11.4 million.
The Columbia Convention and Visitors Bureau allocated
$15,000 for the event from the Tourism Development Festival
and Events fund and will provide a shuttle service from the
Parkade Center to the fairgrounds for those traveling from St.
Louis and Kansas City for the Friday and Saturday concerts.
The admission cost, $20 for members and $25 for nonmembers, is a one-time fee covering the entire week.
The event will feature concerts, contests, concession
stands, bike shows and motorcycle demonstrations. Musical
acts include St. Louis hip-hop artists The St. Lunatics and
Chingy. The event will also host the world’s largest indoor
nightclub, according to the event’s website.
The National Bikers Roundup began in 1977 as a backyard meet-up in Kansas City among 48 friends. Currently,
the event travels from state to state and returns once every
10 years to its Kansas City roots. v
For more information: www.nbrkcmo.com
Five reasons for continuing ed
Bydavid r. Wetzel, Suite 101.com
Anyone deciding to pursue additional education to support his or her career will discover the
signiicance and beneits of that action.
Many people make decisions about jobs and careers after leaving high school or college, some
based on clear goals and others on need. However, there are many varied and often uncontrollable
reasons why these initial occupations do not last. This leads to ive reasons why continuing education must be considered as a positive investment for achieving success in a chosen occupation.
1. Job instability
Additional education helps employees remain current within a career ield because changing jobs
numerous times in one’s lifetime is inevitable.
The average person changes jobs 10.8 times from age 18 to 42, according to a Bureau of Labor
Statistics report in June 2008. This study also found that earnings were higher for college graduates
compared with those who had less education.
Other highlights of the study:
• Adults changed jobs the most before age 27.
• On average, men held 11 jobs and women held 10.6 jobs from age 18 to age 42.
• Of the adults who began new jobs between the ages of 18 and 22, 72 percent of those jobs ended
in less than a year, and 94 percent ended in less than ive years.
• For adults who began new jobs between the ages of 38 to 42, 31 percent ended in less than a
year, and 65 percent ended in less than 5 years.
Because of the number of jobs adults are expected to have by the time they turn 42, continuing
education is essential for everyone to remain employable in the job market.
2. Career investment
A job is the most valuable asset someone has in his or her life. This is why it is so important to
invest in additional education. Academic success leads to increased job retention and improves this
invaluable asset.
Many people will not hesitate to invest in the latest technology gadgets or other extravagant
items. However, they must also view continuing education as an investment in life and a support
for providing the money they need to maintain their lifestyles. Although it takes time and money
up front to complete courses and obtain a degree, the return on investment is well worth beneits
expected throughout a lifetime.
3. Improving job skills
Continuing education courses help to ensure that a person’s knowledge and skills are up-to-date
with the latest trends affecting his or her career ield. The action also makes a boss more likely to
view the employee as a valuable asset during downsizing or layoffs.
Earning a higher degree, certiication or completing continuing education units are worth the
time and inancial investment. By selecting the right continuing education degree related to a chosen
career, jobs skills and specializations are enhanced, which makes a person a versatile employee. It
also increases his or her value in the job market when the time comes to seek other employment or
a new career.
4. Finding a dream job
Another beneit of adult education is learning about career ields that might lead to a dream job.
The reality and requirements for these potential jobs are better understood through enrollment in
related courses.
When adults continue their education, they are more likely to discover a job that matches their
passions and talents. This is not only accomplished through course work, but it is also realized
through internships. These opportunities allow someone to test the waters before jumping into a
new career. This is a critical step many people do not use or use effectively when coming out of high
school or college.
5. Increasing career earning potential
Adults who earn a college degree tend to earn more during their lifetime than those who do not
seek additional education. Education pays off and is worth the investment in time and money.
Do not settle for any job, any career or a lower income. An investment in continuing education
can increase marketability through improved jobs skills and potentially a dream job. It also leads
to greater job stability and greater lifetime income, which is further incentive for taking a positive
career step through additional adult education. v
What’s in a word?
My husband, John, and I were enjoying a homecooked meal. We eat out quite a bit, so it’s always a
treat when we get to slow down and make a meal at
home.
We usually prepare it together, and after years of
practice, I can inally say we make a pretty good team.
Each of us has tasks we prefer to do and those we
shy away from. He’s in charge of anything that gets
grilled outside. I oversee activities on the stove. I get
all the ingredients out of the refrigerator and pantry.
He sets the table. He unloads the dishwasher, and I
put the dirty dishes and utensils in it. He also chops
most of the vegetables.
Which brings me to my story.
John and I were sitting at the dining room table
eating caprese salads, eggplant parmesan and crusty
Italian bread when he made an announcement: “I
tambourined some cucumbers today.” John likes his
pickled cucumbers. It’s a summer tradition for us. He
makes a mix of vinegar, sugar and water, and we add
cucumbers and eat from it all summer. “I tambourined
some cucumbers.”
Normally, I’d get ixated on the fact he had transformed a noun into a verb. It seems to happen so frequently these days. For instance, when did we transition from creating a PDF out of a ile to PDFing the
ile? When did we stop posting an extremely large
ile to an FTP site and begin FTPing it? We used to
write on blogs; now we just blog. We used to search
on Google; now we just google it. The wordsmith in
me lets me notice these evolutions in our language, at
least until they are so common I forget from what form
the original word or abbreviation emerged. But on this
occasion, that wasn’t what caught my attention.
“I tambourined some cucumbers,” he so proudly
proclaimed. Unfortunately, my reaction was to burst
out laughing. I knew what he was trying to say; he just
was saying it all wrong.
Speciic word selection and the
ongoing tracking and tweaking of the
ones you use are critical parts of the
equation for most of your Internet
marketing.
Several months ago I bought him a gift because, as I
said, he is the one in charge of slicing the vegetables in
our home. Well, really I bought him the gift because I
did not want to be the one in charge of slicing the vegetables in our home. I bought him a slicer. It’s pretty
snazzy. It can slice thick or thin or julienne. And it has
a very special name, a mandolin. I’m not exactly sure
when a mandolin stopped being the musical instrument my grandfather played and became a machine
to slice tomatoes and zucchini, but John was pretty
excited to get his new toy. Except, he can’t seem to remember its name.
For a few months, I heard proclamations of his successful “banjoing” of the veggies. The visual image
of cutting carrots and peppers with a banjo always
made me giggle. With this introduction of yet another
instrument to his veggie-slicing medley, I pictured a
more violent (and noisy) assault on our food. John has
always been the type who felt you should understand
his meaning by the context of the conversation more
than from the speciic words he chooses.
Picking the right word has always been important
to me, and it is increasingly crucial in marketing circles as well. Years ago, the perfect grouping of words
might have generated an emotion or recollection
causing a consumer to pick one product over another.
Today, not using the right word might allow a competitor’s website to slip in ahead of or instead of yours
in a search or online ad campaign. That’s why the development of word clouds and analytics has become
so important. Speciic word selection and the ongoing
tracking and tweaking of the ones you use are critical
parts of the equation for most of your Internet marketing. In some forums, you even have to pay more to use
certain words ahead of your competition.
That doesn’t bother John at all. If the word he ought
to use isn’t available, he’ll just pick another. Sooner or
later, you’ll hear the music and igure out what he’s
trying to say. v
Lili Vianello is president of Visionworks Marketing &
Communications, a Columbia-based, full-service advertising, marketing and public relations irm. Contributions to
this article were made by Visionworks staff members. Visit
them online at www.visionworks.com
getting the Word out » Lili Vianello
Women’s Policy alliance works to improve the status of women
ByKeija Parssinen
On a Wednesday morning, I met with Kristin
Metcalf-Wilson, Tracy Greever-Rice and Nellie
Symm-Gruender to discuss their non-proit organization the Women’s Policy Alliance over
coffee at Dunn Brothers.
Although they joked about how many hyphens they share among their multi-syllabic
surnames, it is clear that these women are serious about their cause. The Alliance’s mission is
“to improve the status of women in Missouri
tion and not talk about health care; you can’t talk
about the work force and economic equality and
not talk about health care. You can’t focus on
and ix one thing — it has to be a bigger picture.
If you don’t look at bigger picture, you’re not going to move the status of women forward.”
As they spoke about their far-reaching project, the women radiated energy, intelligence and
passion. They are friends bound by a common
goal. The Alliance plans to measure Missouri
women’s health and well-being, income and
earnings, education and civic participation, all
PHOTOS BY REBECCA RADEMAN
Raising the grade
LEFT: Kristin Metcalf-Wilson
TOP: Tracy Greever-Rice
ABOVE: Nellie Symm-Gruender
by providing policy makers, advocates and the
media with data and evidence-based analysis of
public policies that promote women’s opportunities for advancement and equity.”
In 2004, Missouri fared poorly in the Institute
for Women’s Policy Research state-by-state report on the status of American women. The news
came as a shock to Kristin, a faculty member at
the University of Missouri School of Nursing,
who also maintains a local practice.
“I remember thinking, ‘Wow, Missouri got a
C on the IWPR report,’” she said. “There were a
whole lot of people who did worse but a whole
lot who did better. Out of that report grew this
core group of women who have kept alive that
spirit of, ‘what are we going to do to make this
better; how are we going to move this forward?’”
The Alliance was organized under the leadership of Dr. Pat Sobrero. Kristin is one of the original board members and coordinator of the status project, which works toward solutions to the
problems highlighted in the IWPR report while
continuing to gauge women’s progress across
the state. She secured funding from a number
of sources, including the Missouri Women’s
Council and the Women’s Labor Bureau.
“Some states have done status updates stemming from the IWPR report, but they’ve taken
on speciic domains,” Kristin said. “We took it
all head-on because you can’t talk about educa-
by October 2010. That’s when they plan to share
the results of their study with anyone who will
listen, but particularly with state politicians who
have the power to make a difference in women’s
lives. Quite simply, the project’s scope astounds.
Kristin explained that from November 2009
to March 2010, they engaged focus groups in
six cities throughout Missouri: Cape Girardeau,
Columbia, Kansas City, Kirksville, St. Louis and
Springield. Local men and women from an array of professions, all of whom shared a vested
interest in improving the status of women in
their area, comprised the focus groups. They
were doctors and nurses, social service providers, nonproit executives and politicians,
and they met once to determine community
strengths and weaknesses in areas directly affecting women’s lives such as education, health
care, childcare and jobs.
“We chose those places because we truly recognize how diverse women’s living situations
are,” Nellie said. “All of the women across the
board have really different issues, though some
commonalities emerged out of it.”
Now that the focus groups have served their
function, the data gathering can begin. Enter
Tracy Greever-Rice, a statistics guru whose recent run for a City Council seat ended in a narrow loss but whose commitment to the community remains unchanged. Tracy is the associate
MS Society opens local ofice
The National Multiple Sclerosis Society has opened an ofice in South Columbia’s Corporate
Lake commercial center.
The St. Louis-based Gateway Area Chapter of the MS Society said in a news release that the
ofice at 4816 Santana Circle, which opened this month, will assist almost 1,000 people living
with the disease in central Missouri.
Services will include inancial assistance to help with medical costs and allow people with
MS to stay in their homes. The center will also provide educational programming to help
people stay active and connect socially in a therapeutic setting.
Support for Bike MS, the Gateway Area Chapter’s largest fundraising event, will also
be provided by the ofice. This year’s event will be held Sept. 11-12 at the Boone County
Fairgrounds. v
For more information: gatewaymssociety.org
director of community and socioeconomic ini- of them lack the transportation to get there. Once
tiatives at the University of Missouri’s Ofice of armed with that knowledge, community leaders
Social and Economic Analysis. She’s a sociolo- can work together to institute viable solutions.
This fall, toting their fact-packed report, the
gist by training and earned her master’s degree
in community development; now, she’s a self- women will travel to Jefferson City and presdescribed “data broker,” someone who serves ent their indings to state politicians. Already,
as a broker between data and how a community they have caught the attention of heavy-hitting
might use it. When considering what kind of policymakers such as Regional Director of US
data to pursue for the Alliance, Tracy had pa- Department of Health and Human Services Judy
Baker and US Sen. Claire McCaskill. In St. Louis,
rameters in mind.
“We work from two basic principles in try- several state representatives attended the focus
ing to decide what kind of data to use,” she group meeting.
“We do have support,” Kristin said. “It’s exsaid. “Data must be reliable, valid, accurate and
available in timely way. … It has to be collected citing when you hear back from them [politiand analyzable in a comparable fashion across cians], and they say, ‘Please let me know when
every geography that we’re using. There might this comes out.’ They would rather have more
be really wonderful data available in St. Louis information than less.”
But the Alliance will also report at the local
or Kansas City on women’s reproductive issues,
but if we can’t get in Skylar County, we can’t use level by returning to the original focus groups to
discuss the data. They understand that, in order
it.”
Although inding consistent, wide-ranging to get things accomplished on the ground, they
data sources is challenging, once done, the sta- will need the continued support of the commutistics have the power to change communities nity leaders who helped shape the report.
Nellie summed up the group’s vision of sucfor the better.
“You can tell an awful lot about a community cess: “Success for me overall would be really
having people from all over
by how well its most vulnerathe state engaged and investble members are doing,” Tracy
ed in this and having people
said. “Reports like this one are
Greever-Rice
who make policy call someimportant because they lift
predicts that the
one at the Alliance and say, ‘I
up strengths and weaknesses.
just read your report.’ We are
Everyone has a right to his or
report might raise
just putting the information in
her own opinion but not to
as many questions
front of their eyes.”
facts. Facts are facts.”
When we inished talkThe Alliance’s report is
as it answers, but
ing, the women hugged and
what’s known as an Indicators
made plans to meet again. I’m
Report, which is meant to proensuring that the
amazed by Columbia’s intervide snapshots of how a popuimportant questions
connectivity. In the course of
lation is doing. Statistics meaour discussion, I discovered
suring the number of children
are asked at all is
that Tracy is my neighbor
receiving free and reduced
and that Nellie once was, too,
lunch are an incredibly accuone of the project’s
800 miles distant in Lakeway,
rate indicator of family poverprimary objectives.
Texas, where her son and my
ty, and the Alliance would like
brother played sports for the
to develop a similar method or
same high-school team. It’s
form of “data shorthand” to
just further proof that women’s lives are inextrigauge women’s issues.
Tracy predicts that the report might raise as cably connected, and by doing our part to help
many questions as it answers, but ensuring that build up one another, we are strengthening comthe important questions are asked at all is one munities, states, nations. v
of the project’s primary objectives. The women
To become a member of the Women’s
give as an example the fact that, contrary to their Policy Alliance or to make a donation, visit
initial assumptions, most women in Missouri www.womenspolicyalliance.org.
have access to a good clinic; unfortunately, many
Smart Thinking » cathy atkins
How to keep your employees happy
(it’s not about the cash)
Managers recognize that a primary part of their job is to keep their employees productive. But
what about keeping them happy?
When jobs are scarce, people will put up with a lot to keep their jobs. But as the economy recovers and opportunities begin to emerge, those who are not happy will be ready to make a move. If
you have productive people whom you want to keep producing, then keeping them happy is part
of your job.
It’s been said that people don’t quit their jobs; they quit their bosses. According to HR consultant
Right Management, a survey of 1,308 people who left their jobs found that they did so because of
the following reasons (numbers total more than 100 percent because some respondents gave more
than one reason):
• Downsizing or restructuring (54 percent);
• Sought new challenges or opportunities (30 percent);
• Ineffective leadership (25 percent);
• Poor relationship with manager (22 percent);
• To improve work/life balance (21 percent);
• Contributions to the company were not valued (21 percent);
• Better compensation and beneits (18 percent).
Of all voluntary job departures, nearly half are the result of poor management. This is conirmed by research from
Of all voluntary job
CareerBuilder that reveals that nearly one in three workers is unhappy with his or her boss — a relationship that leaves he or she
departures, nearly
feeling unvalued, frustrated and disillusioned.
Granted market conditions right now are such that most of
half are the result of
the unemployment is involuntary. Research tells us that stress,
poor management.
anxiety and pessimism at work is at an all-time high. Anxiety
can lead to a decline in productivity and concentration at a time
This is conirmed
when businesses need it the most.
by research from
You might be keeping employees now, in part, because they’re
afraid to leave in adverse economic conditions, but that won’t
CareerBuilder that
always be the case. Protect yourself so when conditions improve,
you have a motivated staff ready and excited about growing
reveals that nearly
the business. When business begins to improve and other more
one in three workers lucrative positions become available, you might be left understaffed. Finding simple and cost-effective ways to care for your
is unhappy with his
employees is like preventive medicine for your business — a corporate vitamin if you will.
or her boss — a
A good place to start is by being sensitive to your employees’
relationship that
need for feedback. Let them know how they’re doing and what
they can improve upon. Offer feedback to let them know that
leaves he or she
their contributions are not being ignored. Schedule regular performance evaluations, and base your information on more than
feeling unvalued,
just the numbers. Granted, increasing sales is a clear sign of sucfrustrated and
cess, but so is making sure they’re growing personally, doing the
right things and not developing an out-of-balance lifestyle. Often
disillusioned.
they’re struggling, and you need to let them know that you appreciate their effort.
It is possible to take a highly trained and motivated staff and
demotivate them to the point of no return. Remember never to take excellent performance for granted. Don’t overlook the recognition that is due to someone who is a top performer. A handshake often
means as much to them as the money. Make your executive team as visible as possible. Start a regular practice of MBWA, Management By Walking Around. Get out of your ofice, and interact with
your team, catch them doing things right, learn about them personally, and make sure they know
that you notice. Spend time asking questions and then hearing the responses. Address their concerns
as openly and honestly as possible. If it’s possible and appropriate to do so, ind a way to make the
changes that will keep them motivated.
Keeping employees happy also doesn’t require large outlays of cash. Lavish retreats and large
bonuses might, at times, be appropriate, but it’s not about what you spend. For example, corporate
outings are more important now than ever, though a downsized approach is possible. Giving employees an outlet for having fun or blowing off steam might do more for your bottom line than anything. You can also keep it simple. Never underestimate how far a box of bagels or a bag of cookies
can go. Perhaps it’s just that you know their favorite soft drink or snack item and can give it to them
when they’re having an off day. Find ways to let your employees know they’re appreciated even
though you might be watching every dime.
Remember, a little effort and attention can keep valued employees happy. From a bottom-line
perspective, happy employees continue producing. And as a manager, that keeps you happy, too. v
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PHOTOS BY JENNIFER KETTLER
Kampai Sushi Bar and Restaurant
Every year when I go skiing, I look forward to a visit to one of my favorite sushi bars, right
smack in the middle of a Colorado resort town.
Invariably, after another impressive dinner of inventive rolls (and perfect tempura and strangely
delicious mochi ice cream), I start to mutter about why it’s possible to get such great sushi in the
middle of Colorado but not in the middle of Missouri.
I haven’t been impressed by the sushi in Columbia. I worry when I bite into a piece of salmon and
my hair immediately wants to stand on end in shock at the wave of wasabi. There it is hidden under
the ish, trying to disguise — what? A piece of ish that perhaps isn’t quite fresh enough?
But I keep hoping, and that’s how I ended up with a couple of friends wandering down an alley
on Ninth Street half a block south of Broadway to try Kampai, the newest of Columbia’s sushi bars.
You will hear it before you see it: blasting dance music meant to entice the younger and hipper
onto the terrace that overlooks the alley. But for dinner or a quiet lunch, you might want to stick to
the handsomely appointed dining room below.
Lined with brown and beige banquettes, the dining room is coolly lit by the loor-to-ceiling windows that face the alley. An inverted “curtain” of bamboo creates a delicate barrier between the alley
and the dining room. A gorgeous Japanese tapestry covers one wall and helps buffer some of the
noise in the room.
It wasn’t quite enough of a buffer on a recent visit when the music in the dining room was too
loud, but we noticed as the evening wore on that the volume came down signiicantly as if someone
had complained and been accommodated.
It would not be a surprise because Kampai’s service is attentive and professional. Our waitress,
for example, suggested a smart adjustment to one of our orders. She was on hand whenever we
needed her — but not too much — and responded perfectly when we asked her not to rush out our
last dish. We only wished she hadn’t been so quick on the draw with our check so we could feel
comfortable about lingering and talking in that pleasant space.
As for the food, we ordered two appetizers: the octopus salad ($5) and the vegetable tempura
($6.25). The octopus dish is a scrumptious blend of sweet-crunchy octopus meat, sesame seeds and
oil, ginger and scallions. It was even better than the seaweed salad, which we’d tried and loved on
a previous visit.
The tempura was the low point of our meal. When cooked expertly, tempura is impossibly light
and crunchy on the outside while the vegetable is tender but irm on the inside. Kampai’s tempura is
a little heavy, and the choice of vegetables wasn’t diverse enough to create that sensation of satisfying contrasts at the irst bite. There were too many bland starches in the mix.
We moved on to the CoMo roll ($6.25), the “house special” combination of tuna, avocado, pickle
radish and colorful smelt egg. We loved it. The salmon we ordered from the a la carte menu ($2.50/
each) was beautifully cut and fresh tasting.
4 of 5 stars
Kampai Sushi Bar & Restaurant
907 Alley A | (573) 442-2239
kampaialley.com
LEFT: From left, Sam Tuankrua, Tony Sudsai and Art Wuttisak show off the Kampai
roll at Kampai Sushi Bar & Restaurant located in Alley A.
TOP: The Kampai roll is made of shrimp tempura, avocado and topped with spicy tuna.
ABOVE: Kampai opened June 1 in Alley A.
(On an earlier visit, we tried the salmon, tuna, caterpillar, dynamite and rainbow rolls and liked all of them — especially the
caterpillar.)
Finally, we tried a plate of yaki soba with chicken ($8.95) to get
a sense of Kampai’s noodle offerings. This was the dish we struggled to share like grownups and declared instantly habit-forming.
It’s the combination of tangy sauce, crunchy bean sprouts and
fried noodles with perfectly grilled chicken. The dish is also on
Kampai’s lunch menu, so we’ll go back for it.
Sadly, after several Japanese beers (in very cold glasses on a
very hot day) and all of the above, we didn’t have room for fried
or mochi ice cream.
The total for a pretty great dinner for two in Alley A was less
than $60, including a good tip. But if you’re like me, you don’t
care a lot about the price when you want sushi. It just has to be
fresh, beautifully prepared and presented in an atmosphere that
complements its delicacy. With a few minor adjustments, Kampai
will be very close to the mark. v
restaurant review » By Marie Braeburn

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