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The Long Con

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The feeling of nausea, of shame, and ultimately of sadness still lingers.

I thought we were better than this. 60 million people signed up for what Trump, Inc. was selling. A completely unqualified candidate, whose primary policy is one of exclusion; who has a well-documented history of bankruptcy and sexual harassment; the man who could not get a job in one of his own casinos is now at the top of the most powerful country in the world. And a plurality of voters put him there.

But for all of the rhetoric, the vulgarity and the nastiness, where we find ourselves is pretty straight forward: we now have a Republican administration in our President, Senate, and House. The new guy at the top may be a loose cannon, but at the end of the day, he is going to promote the interests of his peers, whose primary purpose is making money. And in a game that he is well-versed, there will be winners and there will be losers.

The winners will be the most familiar: the white establishment with money, who of course will end up with more money – and when you have the legislature behind you, the laws can stick for years after you are gone. Does anyone think there will be any move to “drain the swamp” when it was never really defined what that really meant?

The list of losers will not only be the poor, the elderly, and the marginalized; it will basically be everyone who doesn’t look like him, or agree with him. He is the 1% – and in Trump’s America, there are people on the inside and people on the outside.

The Republican Congress has wanted for some time to privatize Medicare – an easy item to sell on the heels of a reformed Affordable Care Act.

He will likely appoint a more conservative judge to the Supreme Court, but in the end, I don’t think he really cares about social issues until it affects him. If, in fact, Roe v Wade were repealed, the legality of abortions would shift back to the states to decide; those in the most conservative states, in the poorest of areas, will not have access to healthcare and doctors; a repeal would most severely impact those least able to deal with the situation they have found themselves in. “No one respects women more than me,” said Donald Trump – does anyone believe that, having removed access to a procedure that has been legal for 40 years, that he would provide complementary support/services for those women who are the greatest in need ?

But at the end of the day, those who will lose the most will be those who put him in the White House: the struggling steel workers; the coal miners; the most honest, hard working and decent people, who believed what he was selling. What they did not realize is that there is no seat at Trump’s table for the workers: they are out back so those inside can keep what they have without getting dirt under their nails. It is a familiar story, of the rubes being taken by the huckster from the big city. And they fell for it: hook line and sinker. It is easy enough to argue that folks simply did not like the alternative (Hillary & Co) or perhaps what they currently have isn’t working very well for them – but at some point, they are choosing FOR something – and that is where they got swindled.

I did not sign up for Trump’s America. It turns my stomach to reflect that he was ushered in on a platform that is a repudiation of the ideals that this country was founded on: of tolerance; of equality; that if you work hard, you can make a better place for yourself. I expect the country will survive a Trump Presidency – but we will not be better off for it.

11.10.2016 jeb

 

Joe Edwards – Blueberry Hill, The Delmar Loop

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Joe Edwards

An Excerpt from the Book:

“Money is not the most important thing in the world,

but quality of life is.”

In 1972, Joe Edwards opened a two-room pub in a semi-abandoned stretch of Delmar Blvd. in University City.  Within a short time, Blueberry Hill was known as a great place to get a burger, play darts and listen to good music.  His hard work and belief in the community allowed him to improve the area with buildings and projects too numerous to name: The Tivoli Movie Theater, The Pageant, The Moonrise Hotel, The Loop Trolley, Pin-up Bowl, Delmar Hall and so on. His focus and leadership shows how one person can make a significant impact.

At its inception, The Delmar Loop was a successful example of an early streetcar suburb; the first structures were built early in the 20th century. The area peaked sometime in the 1930s, when it was a high-fashion shopping district. After World War II, prosperity in America arrived in the form of automobiles and shopping malls – but there was a dark side: white flight from our nation’s neighborhoods occurred and devastated the area. By the late 1960s, similar to other main streets across the United States, The Delmar Loop was in sharp decline.

When I opened Blueberry Hill in 1972, many of The Delmar Loop storefronts were effectively vacant. There was the occasional insurance office or real estate agent, but most of the windows had their venetian blinds drawn and the stores were merely for storage. Many of the buildings had leaks in their roofs and were in disrepair,   with numerous of the upper-floor apartments unoccupied. Perhaps the only bright spot was that rents were cheap.

I did not have a grand plan when I opened: I borrowed $10,000 from a few friends – even back then, that was not a lot of money, and there was not much room for error. Within a week, I realized if I did not work to improve the neighborhood, Blueberry Hill was not going to make it. So I went to the mayor, the chief of police, and the remaining merchants to form a loose-knit business association. In 1980, several of us formed an SBD Special Business District, which allowed us to self-tax and keep those dollars in the area.

At the legislative level, University City enacted three ordinances that had a significant impact:  First, landlords were required to get occupancy permits every time a unit turned over (they were one of the first cities in the United States to require this). This forced owners to maintain their buildings and bring them up to code.

Secondly, zoning was rewritten such that a first-floor storefront could only be retail, such as a gallery, a boutique or a restaurant. Existing business occupancies were grandfathered in, or they could move to the second floor – but a new office use for a first-floor space was not permitted. Over time, this greatly improved the activity on the street as spaces turned over.

Finally, the sidewalks were widened: as much as this improved the walkability for pedestrians, it also greatly reduced traffic speed due to the narrowed street. These ordinances showed how a change in the codes could have a positive impact. They were a reflection of the open-minded people who decided to stay, band together, and develop a voice of tolerance and diversity that The Delmar Loop is known for today.

For the entire profile, click here

Dr. William Danforth – Danforth Plant Science Center, CORTEX

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danforth

An Excerpt from the Book:

“Besides being grounded in good science, the secret to our success

has been to bring extremely talented people into the room –

and then listen”

Bill Danforth is a retired physician, professor of medicine, and academic administrator. He was chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis from 1971 until 1995, leading a team that enriched Washington University’s presence nationally. In 1998, he co-founded the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center to “improve the human condition through plant science”.  

I am forever mindful of the great explorers and scientists who have come before us: we benefit from their discoveries and achievements. The reality is that we don’t honor such people for being scientists: we honor them because of what they have contributed to new understandings.  And so I have always stressed the importance of high quality science – and capable scientists.

In 1951, after graduating from Harvard Medical School, I came back to St. Louis as an intern at Barnes.   At the time, the country was in the midst of a polio epidemic. I took care of a polio patient who was very close to my age, and so I felt a personal connection to him. He developed paralysis of his respiratory muscles and lost the ability to get enough air into his lungs. At the time, the best we could do was to put him into an iron lung.  It was frightening but less so than not being able to breathe.  Regrettably, the disease kept advancing; he died in the iron lung.

At about the same time, John Enders in Boston was developing methods for growing poliovirus in chick embryos – his work showed that it was possible to grow these viruses outside of the human body.  The Salk and Sabin vaccines were developed from his research.  That is what science can do.

There is a common belief that scientific discovery happens through individuals in white lab coats.  This notion is a thing of the past: today the biologic sciences are a team sport.  Scientists work together combining their talents and their technologies to solve complex problems.  It is best done in an institution that can support the individuals doing the work, and provide structure where it is needed.

In my early days as Chancellor in the 1970’s, we recruited Roy Vagelos as our new head of biochemistry. Some people may know him through a subsequent role as the CEO of the pharmaceutical giant Merck.  I became familiar with his research from reviewing his papers.   He wasn’t just a good scientist but an exceptional one, and I was delighted to have him run one of our departments.

Roy looked at the way we were educating graduate students aiming for a career in the life sciences, and he was concerned that the programs were too compartmentalized and narrow.  He came up with the idea of a common educational program integrated across disciplines and later joined the scientists in their laboratory, then a radical approach.  The appropriate departments joined into the Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences.  Graduate students were recruited into the Division rather than into separate departments.  Thus, Washington University changed fundamentally.   I give all of the credit to Roy.

For the entire profile, click here

Tom Schlafly – St. Louis Brewery

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An Excerpt from the Book:

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“We never set out to save the world:

but a couple of zip codes are better because we have been here”

Tom received both his undergraduate and law degrees from Georgetown University. He is a partner at the St. Louis law firm Thompson Coburn, LLP, and serves on multiple corporate and civic boards. He grew up in St. Louis and continues to look for ways to make his hometown a better place. His book, A New Religion in Mecca, tells the story of the first 15 years of Schlafly Beer.  

When I started The Saint Louis Brewery in 1989, the commercial craft beer market in Missouri was in its infancy. This was also true nationally where Anheuser Busch, Miller, and Coors dictated the available products (and still do to this day): the majority of what was offered were light lagers, which are easy to drink and popular. Most people are surprised to learn that there are more varieties of beer than there are of wine. I became interested in those other varieties that were not widely commercially available.

The original idea for the brewery was sparked by a trip to Oxford England in 1983: I took a continuing legal education course comparing English Law and American Law. What I tell people is that I learned more about English beer than I did about English law.

I thought it was a shame no one was brewing the traditional European lagers and ales in St. Louis. Dan Kopman, the son of my former law partner, worked for Young’s Brewery in London.  He opened my eyes to the microbrew industry and convinced me that it was worth trying in St. Louis.

Many told me I would surely fail in the long shadow cast by “The Brewery” on Pestalozzi, but I figured that in the next ten years, someone was going to be doing something like this – and I would be kicking myself if I did not at least try. In 1989, Dan and I became partners and incorporated The Saint Louis Brewery; for a while, it was just a piece of paper in a file drawer in my office. In one sense, how things unfolded seemed totally improbable, and in another sense, it was somewhat inevitable.

We could have simply distributed beer to the local supermarkets and taverns – which is what Boulevard Brewing ended up doing out of Kansas City.  But we thought it was important to have our own brewpub so we could try new varieties and see what was popular. This was also a way to get people familiar with the product – then they would be more likely to select one of ours when they reached into the cooler.

It was illegal in Missouri to have a brewery with a retail liquor license on premise. This was an arcane bit of legislation dating back to the repeal of Prohibition, when most states adopted a 3-tier system of brewers, wholesalers, and retailers: Missouri did not want the breweries controlling the taverns.  There was specific language in the statutes that allowed a brewery to have an interest in an “entertainment facility,” but I was told that the way the law was written, Busch Stadium and Soccer Park in Fenton were the only permissible venues.

For the entire profile, click here

Cliff Holekamp – Cultivation Capital, Foot Healers

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An Excerpt from the Book: 

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“There is a common misperception that entrepreneurs 

are gamblers, or like to take risks.  

I very much dislike risk.”

Cliff Holekamp is the founder of Foot Healers, a retail-based podiatric center, which he sold in 2007. He has served on numerous boards, including Arch Grants, City Academy, LockerDome, and TopOPPS to name a few. He is a founding General Partner at Cultivation Capital. In addition, he serves as the Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship and is the founding Director of the Entrepreneurship Platform for the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis.

In one of my first jobs, I found out that opportunity was literally at the corner of the front desk in the office – and the experts were walking right past it.

Growing up, I would try out a new job experience every summer. When I was seventeen, I answered a classified ad in the LA Times (when there still was such a thing) to sell “educational products.”  I soon found out that this meant World Book Encyclopedias. Some might have turned their nose up at this,, but I thought this was a perfect way to learn about sales and leadership.  I embraced it.

After presentations to students at schools, World Book would send slips of paper home, requesting that parents return these slips if they were interested in educational products for their home. These became our qualified leads.

After a few days, I noticed there was a stack of these slips on the front desk that no one wanted. I soon found out why: the addresses were in some of the roughest parts of South Central Los Angeles – Compton, Inglewood, Watts.  It was the height of the LA Gang Wars.  Perhaps I was too young to know any better, or that I should have been more cautious of my personal safety; regardless, my ambition and curiosity outweighed any reluctance, and I took the leads no one wanted.  I made a few phone calls, set the appointments, and kept an open mind.

One of World Book’s primary messages is that parents need to take personal responsibility for their children’s education.  It turned out that this was a perfect pitch for moms in South Central LA: for $25/month, a mother could make an investment in her children. I grew up with the World Book: I was able to speak earnestly and authentically about the “look-it-up habit” and how much it did for me personally.  In a matter of weeks, I was able to close two out of three sales, and had the highest close rate of any World Book Encyclopedia salesperson in Southern California.

More than just closing sales, World Book gave me the opportunity to genuinely connect with people who were different than me.  I spent literally hundreds of hours sitting at South Central LA kitchen tables, primarily with single African American moms, and spoke with them about something very important and intimate: their children’s educational path.  I developed an ability to get beneath the surface, to listen closely and bond with them; this ability to learn about people who are different than I was benefited me for the rest of my life.

For the entire profile, click here

Maxine Clark – Build-A-Bear Workshop

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An Excerpt from the Book:

maxine

“Entrepreneurs want to make the world a better place than how they found it”

Maxine Clark is one of the true innovators in the retail business.  In 1997, after working in the corporate retail world for a quarter century, she founded Build-A-Bear Workshop, a themed retail store that integrated entertainment with the customer experience.  There are more than 400 stores worldwide, with revenues over $350 million annually.  She served as Chief Executive Bear until 2013; she continues to serve on numerous boards and community-based initiatives.

It all started with a 10-year old girl named Katie. I do not have kids of my own, but I had a special relationship with the daughter of a good friend, Katie Burkhardt.  One day we were shopping for Beanie Babies, which she was collecting at the time, and were slightly frustrated that we could not find any new animals to add to her collection.  At one point, she picked one of them up and casually remarked that it would be easy to make one ourselves.

Her off-the-cuff comment was my inspiration to merge retail and entertainment into a memorable experience that was fun and creative.  It grew into a place where Guests could personalize a soft and cuddly bear for someone they loved. And most of all, coming to our stores made people happy. Build-A-Bear Workshop became not only a platform for innovation, but also a powerful way to give back to the community.
Prior to Build-A-Bear Workshop, I had a great deal of success working in the corporate retail world, having risen to the top position at Payless Shoe Source – but the magic that I saw in Katie’s eyes was nowhere to be found. So much of the business was focused on price, which came at the loss of customer experience.  I was growing increasingly bored with the familiar solutions that left no room for an emotional connection to the consumer.

If you’ve been to one of our stores, you know that selecting the heart and making wishes is an important part of the experience.  The idea of the heart came from an artist friend, Sarah Russell.  Another bit of insight came from an employee, Jeff Marx, who was the first one to bring a bit of theater to the “heart ceremony.” Oftentimes, I found the biggest opportunities came from staff and friends – but you have to listen closely or those ideas will be lost.  If the individuals do not listen, the companies run by those individuals will miss opportunities.
Several factories produced customized bears, but they were doing so in isolation.   I approached one of them about partnering on a new venture so that I did not have to start the manufacturing process from scratch. They did not believe it would be successful on a national basis and declined.  They lacked both the observation and imagination to know what they really had.  I saw the sparkle in the kids’ eyes as they waited in line to get their bear: I knew there was a much broader market than they realized.

For the entire profile, click here