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October 31, 2011 Washington Post’s Boswell: “St. Louis Cardinals’ World Series Title Is Best Long-Shot Comeback In Baseball History”: The Washington Post’s Thomas Boswell penned what is one of the best baseball columns I have ever read, to go along with perhaps the best World Series in modern baseball history.
In his Friday, October 28th column, Boswell writes, “Afterward, when explanations are expected, one St. Louis Cardinals player or manager or official after another stood on a platform at second base and tried to tell the tens of thousands of standing, cheering, red-clad fans what they had done, how they had done it and what it meant. In Game 7 of one of the best World Series in 50 years, the Cardinals beat the Texas Rangers, 6-2, to complete what was absolutely the best long-shot comeback from the baseball boneyard in the sport’s history. If anyone could have stood, soaked in champagne, and glibly explained such a thing, it would actually have diminished an accomplishment that only stands taller — a bit like the huge Gateway Arch beyond the center field fence — because it is tinged with sports magic, the mystery of team chemistry and the alchemy of late-season baseball luck.
For decades, and perhaps even generations in this baseball-as-secular-religion city, what the Birds did in the last 65 days of this season will be retold with amazement and, perhaps someday, almost with a hint of skepticism: Great-Grandpa might be embellishing a few details because, while some of this stuff could be true, surely all of it couldn’t. Yet it was. It is. We saw it. And we get all winter to digest what even now seems like a sequence of escapes, heroics and last-strike-of-the-season rescues from the edge of a 10,000-foot cliff that make you tingle, chuckle or want to cheer all over again just reciting them. When these Cards start to peck, they don’t leave anything on the bone. Boswell concludes: But he [La Russa] and his Cards, and every baseball fan, maybe including a few in Texas with especially broad minds, can all join in the last laugh, the last grin and the final glow of a two-month St. Louis drive from irrelevance to a title the like of which has never been seen since the World Series began in 1903. It was worth the wait.” Please click here to read the entire column.
In light of Tony’s announcement this morning, hats off to him and the team on a great Cinderella season, and congratulations to him on a fitting conclusion to a great baseball career! Happy Flight! October 26, 2011 12th Annual Salute To Excellence In Business Awards Luncheon Will Honor Region’s Top 25 African-American Businesses: The St. Louis American Foundation, the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis and the RCGA will partner once again to present the Annual Salute to Excellence in Business Awards Luncheon. The 2011 event is on Wednesday, November 9th, at the Ritz Carlton Hotel, beginning at 12 noon. This 12th annual program will salute the St. Louis region’s Top 25 African-American business leaders for 2011. In addition, the 2011 Corporate Diversity Award will be presented to Wells Fargo Advisors; the Corporate Executive of the Year Award will go to Larry Thomas, Partner at Edward Jones; the Non-Profit Executive of the Year honor will be presented to Valerie Patton, Executive Director of the St. Louis Business Diversity Initiative; and David Price, President, CEO & Founder of Birdet Price, LLC, will receive the 2011 Entrepreneur of the Year Award.
Since 1999, the American, the Urban League and the RCGA have joined in the Salute to Excellence in Business Awards Luncheon to spotlight the best and brightest of the St. Louis region’s African-American business community. KMOX NewsRadio 1120 anchor Carol Daniel will once again serve as emcee of the luncheon program. For reservations and more information about the luncheon, please contact Kevin Jones at the St. Louis American newspaper at (314) 533-8000. October 25, 2011 16th Annual Greater St. Louis Top 50 Awards Gala To Honor Nestlé Purina PetCare Co., AT&T Missouri, & The Region’s 2011 Top 50 On Monday Evening, November 14th: We hope you and your colleagues in your firm are able to join us as the RCGA and RubinBrown present the 2011 Ameren Corporate Citizenship Award to Nestlé Purina PetCare Co. President & CEO Pat McGinnis, and the 2011 Spirit of St. Louis Technology Award to AT&T Missouri President John Sondag, at the 16th annual Greater St. Louis Top 50 Awards Gala & Dinner on Monday evening, November 14th, at the Chase Park Plaza.
Presented each year since 1996, the Top 50 Awards program and dinner salutes outstanding businesses, entrepreneurs, and organizations in all sectors throughout the region. The entire group of Top 50 awardees will be announced in the November/December issue of St. Louis Commerce Magazine, on area newsstands on November 1st. Growth in the number of employees; revenue growth; acquisitions and expansion of facilities; green /sustainable efforts and their overall contributions to the St. Louis regional economy were among the criteria used to select the 50 St. Louis-based companies. In addition to Greater St. Louis Top 50 title sponsor, RubinBrown, corporate and media sponsors of the Top 50 Awards program are: Ameren; Edward Jones; M&I, a part of BMO Financial Group; Thompson Coburn LLP; KMOX NewsRadio 1120; the St. Louis Post-Dispatch; STLtoday.com; and St. Louis Commerce Magazine. For reservations and more information about attending the Greater St. Louis Top 50 Awards Gala & Dinner, please call Lori Meier at the RCGA today at (314) 444-1147, or e-mail her at lmeier@stlrcga.org. October 24, 2011 World Series Has St. Louis In The National And International Spotlight: The RCGA is taking the Cardinals’ playoff and World Series appearances as opportunities to root on the Cardinals and to showcase the many great assets and attributes of St. Louis to the nation and the visiting media.
Last Tuesday evening, the RCGA and our colleagues at Fleishman-Hillard had an opportunity to spend time with MLB Advanced Media Editor Mark Newman. He posted this national article -- City of St. Louis matches Cards with comeback -- on Wednesday. In addition to the thousands of stories and broadcasts on the Fall Classic, an estimated 15 million people are watching the games on TV. October 20, 2011 $30 Million Commitment To Advance St. Louis Bioscience: A new regional organization to champion St. Louis bioscience, BioSTL (evolved from the Coalition for Plant and Life Sciences, established back in 2001 by the Danforth Foundation and RCGA, and chaired by Dr. Bill Danforth, following the completion of the Battelle Plant & Life Sciences Strategy for the region), has announced a $30 million commitment from Washington University in St. Louis, BJC HealthCare, and the St. Louis Life Sciences Project to forward bioscience company creation and drive economic growth in St. Louis. These funds will increase the region’s capacity to support entrepreneurs and launch BioSTL itself, the next step in St. Louis’ 10-year-old collective effort to increase economic activity in the medical and plant biosciences.
The three funding organizations have each committed $2 million per year for five years, for a combined total of $30 million. A majority of these new funds will be dedicated to pre-seed and seed investments and associated support for newly-created enterprises. These early-stage investments will help transform innovations from local institutions and entrepreneurs into new companies and new jobs in the St. Louis region. “St. Louis is fortunate to have an extraordinary concentration of world-class scientists producing cutting-edge innovations in bioscience. This new commitment positions the region to capitalize on opportunities to create and attract enterprises and jobs in a significant high growth 21st century industry,” said Donn Rubin, president and CEO of BioSTL and past executive director of the Coalition for Plant and Life Sciences. BioSTL will work to develop and attract increased investment capital and experienced entrepreneurs to support the growth of emerging bioscience companies. It will dedicate resources to common needs that collectively benefit local organizations dedicated to advancing bioscience. Further, BioSTL is designed to ensure that the St. Louis bioscience community is speaking with a single, coherent voice to the public, policymakers and funders. "This generous initial funding is an important step for St. Louis, which has for years competed with other leading bioscience regions that consistently devote significant resources to commercializing innovation. These new multi-year commitments move our region closer to achieving its full potential," said BioSTL founding Chairman John McDonnell. The new organization builds on a decade of work by the Coalition for Plant and Life Sciences, which has been chaired since its inception by Dr. Bill Danforth, chancellor emeritus of Washington University. The Coalition has led local efforts to establish necessary elements of an entrepreneurial infrastructure for bioscience development, including: the BioGenerator to generate new companies (26 startup companies to date); CORTEX and BRDG Park to provide lab space; and local venture capital funds to finance company growth. BioSTL’s efforts will collectively benefit a variety of partner organizations, such as BioGenerator, CORTEX, the Center for Emerging Technologies, BRDG Park, and ITE incubator, as well as Helix Center. By devoting human and financial resources to shared needs, BioSTL will benefit the programs of partner organizations while relieving them of the need to devote their limited resources in pursuit of separate strategies. Examples include: training and recruiting entrepreneurs, increasing venture capital investment in the region, government relations, coordinated marketing and regional data collection. BioSTL will collaborate with the region’s public and private economic development entities, continuing the Coalition’s record of partnering with such players as St. Louis RCGA, St. Louis County Economic Council, St. Louis Development Corporation, and the Missouri Technology Corporation. October 19, 2011 World Series Shines National/International Spotlight On Region’s Civic & Economic Renaissance, RCGA Economist Projects $24.4 Million World Series Economic Impact: The Cardinals’ appearance in this year’s Fall Classic, their 18th World Series appearance, will not only bring baseball excitement and direct economic benefits to the St. Louis region, but the Series will shine the national and international spotlight on the ongoing civic and economic renaissance throughout the City of St. Louis and bi-state metropolitan St. Louis area, as well.
Utilizing the IMPLAN econometric model and data provided by the Cardinals and Major League Baseball, the RCGA’s Chief Economist Ruth Sergenian estimates that the total economic impact for four World Series home games would be $24.4 million. Coupled with the economic impact of the already-completed two rounds of the MLB Playoffs, Sergenian calculates that the overall economic benefit of the Playoffs including the World Series would be $52 million. These estimates, however, do not measure the “civic capital” generated for the region vis-à-vis the additional exposure and visibility the area receives from national and international media attention as a result of the Cardinals being in the World Series. This is a good time for this type of national and international exposure for St. Louis, as our City and region continue to achieve impressive levels of urban revitalization and investment. For example, St. Louisans can point with pride to their decade-long center city revitalization effort, with over $5 billion dollars having been invested in the region’s center city since 2000 alone, with $615+ million currently under construction. We are making these points to the visiting media. Like the underrated “Wild Card Cards of 2011”, as the 18th largest major metro, St. Louis outshines its U.S. competitors ranking in the top tier in a number of business and quality of life measures, including the following:
“World Series By the Numbers” Each home World Series game represents $6.1 million in economic impact: $3.1 million of this total will be direct spending in and around Busch Stadium, and $3.0 million of it will be in indirect spending, as the model estimates the dollars that circulate throughout the region. The Cardinals note that they employ over 3,000 in-stadium employees for each game. This additional World Seriesimpact comes on top of the $313.6 million impact of the Cardinals regular season and the $5.5 million per game average economic impact from the previous rounds of playoffs at Busch Stadium. October 18, 2011 RCGA Breakfast With The Gazelles This Wednesday, October 19th Features U.S. Bancorp Community Development Corp. Chairman & CEO Zach Boyers: It’s not too late to register for RCGA Breakfast with the Gazelles featuring U.S. Bancorp Community Development Corp. Chairman & CEO Zachary Boyers, this Wednesday, October 19th, beginning at 7:15 a.m., in the Regional Collaboration Center at the RCGA offices, One Metropolitan Square (211 N. Broadway), Suite 1300.
U.S. Bancorp Community Development Corp., incorporated in 2002 and headquartered here in St. Louis, finances affordable housing, urban revitalization, and community development projects nationwide. The company operates as a subsidiary of U.S. Bank National Association. Zach’s topic is “Downtown Revitalization in St. Louis: Lessons Learned, What has Worked and Getting to the Next Level.” For more information about this and other upcoming RCGA Breakfast with the Gazelles programs, please contact RCGA Vice President for Membership Services Colin Stahlhut today at (314) 444-1145, or e-mail him at cstahlhut@stlrcga.org. October 17, 2011 SciFest ’11 Kicks Off Tomorrow At Saint Louis Science Center: From the chemistry of coffee and the physics of race cars, to the future of genetic diagnosis and a journey through the universe, the SciFest ‘11 International Science Festival is an event where everyone can engage in science --- a 5-day festival featuring more than 60 individual sessions. It is a unique opportunity to meet scientists face-to-face in small group discussions. SciFest ’11 will be held at the Saint Louis Science Center beginning tomorrow, October 18th, through this Sunday, October 23rd.
RCGA and St. Louis Commerce Magazine; premier sponsor The Boeing Co., and founding sponsor Monsanto, are pleased to once again sponsor SciFest. Please click here to read the St. Louis Commerce article on SciFest ’11. Tickets to SciFest ‘11 may be purchased at scifeststl.org. October 12, 2011 RCGA Breakfast With The Gazelles Wednesday, October 19th Features U.S. Bancorp Community Development Corp. Chairman & CEO Zach Boyers: Plan to join us for the next RCGA Breakfast with the Gazelles featuring U.S. Bancorp Community Development Corp. Chairman & CEO Zachary Boyers, on Wednesday, October 19th, beginning at 7:15 a.m., in the Regional Collaboration Center at the RCGA offices, One Metropolitan Square (211 N. Broadway), Suite 1300.
U.S. Bancorp Community Development Corp., incorporated in 2002 and headquartered here in St. Louis, finances affordable housing, urban revitalization, and community development projects nationwide. The company operates as a subsidiary of U.S. Bank National Association. Zach’s topic is “Downtown Revitalization in St. Louis: Lessons Learned, What has Worked and Getting to the Next Level.” For more information about this and other upcoming RCGA Breakfast with the Gazelles programs, please contact RCGA Vice President for Membership Services Colin Stahlhut today at (314) 444-1145, or e-mail him at cstahlhut@stlrcga.org. October 11, 2011 RCGA Leadership Trips Connect To St. Louis Region’s Successes And Challenges Over The Years: The Rolling Stones – that iconic British rock band – recorded a hit song back in 1974 titled "Time Waits for No One." Reflecting on that title, it’s sometimes hard to imagine that the inaugural RCGA Leadership Exchange happened 15 years ago --- 1996, to be exact, to Cleveland, OH. Seems like only yesterday, but many more leadership trips followed that inaugural exchange – to Seattle the following year; then to Baltimore; Denver; Toronto; Boston; San Diego; then we stayed home and “visited” St. Louis; Atlanta; Minneapolis-Saint Paul; Chicago; Indianapolis; and last week to Pittsburgh. This program builds on our efforts to strengthen the spirit of regionalism and collaboration in Greater St. Louis, as well as discovering and implementing “best practices” back here in St. Louis.
In addition to better connecting leaders throughout the region, the key topics on each of those leadership exchanges helped to produce civic advances here in St. Louis. We examined a wide range of subjects, a brief sampling of which are: center city revitalization; urban education reform and race relations; plant and medical sciences advances; workforce development; the role of arts and culture; new infrastructure improvements; aviation assets; entrepreneurial development; tech transfer, regional economic development practices, and many more.
Efforts to grow the St. Louis region’s high tech industry clusters in plant and medical sciences, information technologies, advanced manufacturing, and the ongoing successful efforts to revitalize the region’s center city, each trace their roots back, in part, to ideas and discussions generated through the Leadership Exchange program.
Last week’s Leadership Trip to Pittsburgh, led by RCGA Chairman Tom Voss, Chairman, President & CEO of Ameren, and Civic Progress President Ward Klein, CEO of Energizer Holdings, continued this tradition. In the 3-day Pittsburgh Exchange, our delegation heard about a remarkable economic and community turn around by a community of similar size to St. Louis. Among the issues that were explored in Pittsburgh were: Pittsburgh’s efforts to work with and combine the services of several of its 130 municipalities; Efforts to Establish Direct Flights to Paris; How the Arts Have Revitalized Downtown Pittsburgh; and How Pittsburgh Has Undertaken “Civic Engineering” In Uniting the Region’s Business Leadership.
St. Louis, too, has been the subject of Leadership Trips by other regions. In past years, delegations from Richmond, New Orleans, Birmingham, Charlotte, Nashville and Jacksonville have chosen to take their annual best practices leadership trips to St. Louis. Bottom line: since the inaugural trip to Cleveland back in 1996, St. Louis area leaders have found the Leadership Exchange to be an invaluable tool for improving our own city and region. With regard to the experience of these community Leadership Exchanges since 1996, St. Louis native T.S. Elliott once said: “We shall not cease from exploration For many St. Louis leaders, these Leadership Exchanges have helped us know St. Louis and its civic context for the first time. October 6, 2011 National League Division Series Projected To Generate Nearly $5.2 Million Per Game For St. Louis Region: With the Cardinals in the first round of the National League playoffs, post-season play are bringing both national attention and measurable economic benefits to the St. Louis region.
RCGA Chief Economist Ruth Sergenian notes that the total economic impact of the Cardinals playoffs depends upon the number of games played here in St. Louis. If all possible games are played through the World Series, the impact would approach the impact of the All Star's week in 2009 at over $56 million. Any added economic benefits to the region from the playoffs are above and beyond the $313.6 million impact of the 2011 Cardinals regular season. Sergenian calculates that the economic impact of the Cardinals appearing in the Divisional Playoffs would approach $5.2 million per game. This estimate is based on the assumption that the games would draw 46,200 attendees per game. Historically, out of town visitors constitute some 40% of Cardinals attendance. The playoffs bring increasing attendance from the out of town visitors, as well as the media, and the MLB. Direct visitor spending is expected to reach $1.5 million per game for the division series. In addition to direct spending by visitors, operations at Busch Stadium will boost total new direct expenditures to $2.6 million per game. There are approximately 3,000 day-of-game employees at Busch Stadium. The total direct expenditures will direct and indirect expenditures throughout the local economy to generate nearly another $2.6 million in indirect and induced expenditures, to reach the total impact of almost $5.2 million. The RCGA utilizes an economic analysis model called IMPLAN (full name is Impact Analysis for Planning) to develop these estimates, with assumptions on the mix of in-town and out-of-town attendees and related inputs provided by and reviewed by the Cardinals. Sergenian has worked with the Cardinals and the MLB over the years in getting these data inputs and other pertinent data necessary to complete this economic impact analysis. Go Cards! October 5 Delegation Of St. Louis Regional Business And Civic Leaders Compare Notes With Pittsburgh Counterparts: In what has become an annual tradition in the St. Louis area, a delegation of regional CEOs and civic leaders joined forces with their counterparts (this year in Pittsburgh) for a "best practices" examination of that region this past Sunday, Monday and Tuesday for the 13th Annual RCGA Annual Leadership Trip. As members of the St. Louis delegation can attest --- led this year by RCGA Board Chairman Tom Voss, Chairman, President & CEO of Ameren; and Energizer Holdings CEO Ward Klein, President of Civic Progress --- the Leadership Exchange to Pittsburgh provided a unique and in-depth opportunity for our diverse regional leadership to focus on a number of issues important to our metropolitan area, strengthen existing relationships, and forge several new ones. In a jam-packed 3-day agenda, the St. Louis delegates met with 28 of their Pittsburgh counterparts. To open the session, the delegation heard from a panel comprised of Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce President Barbara McNees; Pittsburgh Quarterly Publisher Doug Heuck; and WordWrite Communications President Paul Furiga. Our outstanding keynote speaker at the “Welcome to Pittsburgh Dinner” on Sunday evening was PNC Financial Services Group Chairman & CEO Jim Rohr.
Among the speakers from our host region were: Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl; former Allegheny Conference on Community Development CEO Rick Stafford, now distinguished service professor of Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University; Manchester Bidwell Corp. President & CEO Bill Strickland; and a host of others.
Through these annual Leadership Exchanges to Cleveland, Seattle, Baltimore, Denver, Toronto, Boston, San Diego, St. Louis, Atlanta, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Chicago and Indianapolis, we have advanced issues over the years in St. Louis as diverse as center city revitalization; the proactive pursuit of the St. Louis BioBelt Plant and Life Sciences strategy; the development of the CORTEX (the Center of Research, Technology and Entrepreneurial Exchange); the Downtown Now Plan; and various St. Louis venture capital initiatives (including the VECTIS Fund and many “best practices” examples of bi-state economic development) - to name just a few. Among other issues that were explored in Pittsburgh were:
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