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Kwame Building Group Earns
Diversity Development Award
he Associated General Contractors
of St. Louis has named Kwame Building Group Inc. as the Diversity
Development Award winner in the AGC’s Construction Keystone Awards
program.
Kwame, a certified Minority-owned
Business Enterprise, was honored for furthering workforce diversity
in the regional construction industry through their continuing
education and mentoring programs and their cooperative relationships
with disadvantaged businesses. The company employs minorities and
women at all levels and maintains diversity through active
recruiting and employee advancement programs.
A program and construction
management firm, Kwame provides estimating, value engineering and
project management services as an independent advocate for owners
and developers. Clients include major airports nationwide,
educational facilities, light-rail systems and hospitals. Locally,
Kwame’s projects include the Lambert–St. Louis International W1W
Expansion, University of Missouri–St. Louis Performing Arts
Building, Argyle Parking Garage and Pagedale City
Hall.
Premier Industrial &
Commercial-Telecom Electrical Contractors Join Forces
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Al
Schroer
Executive VP
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David
L Payne
President
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Patrick
Murphy
Executive VP
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Payne Electric, Inc., an industrial
electrical contractor, has acquired Crest Electric, a commercial
and telecommunications electrical contractor, to form PayneCrest
Electric, Inc. The merger became effective on Dec. 1, 2000,
creating a company with $68 million in projected annual sales.
Though the two family-owned companies are similar in size and
share similar histories, they shared virtually none of the same
customers, notes David L. Payne, president of PayneCrest Electric,
Inc. Other key PayneCrest officers are executive vice presidents
Al Schroer and Patrick Murphy.
“We anticipate it will be business
as usual while we work to create a cohesive operation from our two
excellent organizations,” Payne says. “Our project managers
will continue to run their respective projects for clients to
enhance continuity.”
As one company, PayneCrest expects
about 48 percent of its work to be in the industrial category, 22
percent in commercial, 18 percent as design/build electrical, six
percent in communications and six percent in service.
The acquisition created an expanded
fleet of 30 service trucks and vans to ensure fast response for
emergency service and maintenance calls. A full-time safety
manager and manpower coordinator enhances project staffing while
maintaining the companies’ safety records.
The two privately-held contracting
companies have carved specialized niches since they were each formed
in the early 1950s. Prior to the merger, both firms
employed 28 office staff members plus an average work force of 150
electricians in the field. Payne’s 2000 sales were projected
at about $33 million and Crest’s were on target for $35
million.
Andersen Consulting Starts
Year with New Name: Accenture
Andersen Consulting, the global
management consulting organization, entered the New Year as
Accenture. On January 1, 2001, the global management and technology
consulting organization changed its name to Accenture.
“We are a very different
organization today than we were when we formed Andersen Consulting
back in 1989, so adopting a new name and brand identity is a logical
next step in our growth strategy,” says Joe W. Forehand, managing
partner and CEO of Andersen Consulting. “Accenture expresses what we
have become as an organization as well as what we hope to be—a
network of businesses that transcends the boundaries of
traditional consulting and brings innovations that dramatically
improve the way the world works and lives.”
Accenture is a coined word that
connotes putting an accent or emphasis on the future, just as the
firm focuses on helping its clients create their future. Accenture,
a name submitted by Kim Petersen, a business consultant working for
Andersen Consulting in Norway, is a youthful and dynamic expression
of the firm’s new marketplace positioning as a bridge-builder
between the traditional and new economies.
Accenture was selected after an
intensive three-month research and analysis process involving
thousands of candidate names. In choosing the name, every effort was
made to tap into the creativity of the people who know the firm
best—its 70,000 professionals in 48 countries. Under a firm-wide
program, called BrandStorming, employees from 42 countries submitted
2,677 names for consideration.
Husch & Eppenberger and
Ziercher & Hocker Unanimously Agree to Merger
The law firms of Husch & Eppenberger,
LLC and Ziercher & Hocker, P.C. have reached a final merger
agreement. The Members of Husch located in six offices in
three states unanimously voted in favor of the merger. On
September 1, the shareholders of Ziercher & Hocker, P.C. unanimously
approved the merger, which went into effect January 1, 2001.
The combined firm will number more than 220 lawyers.
The firm will retain Ziercher &
Hocker’s Clayton offices in The Bemiston Tower, which will be fully
integrated with Husch’s operations. Husch’s other offices
include downtown St. Louis, Kansas City, Jefferson City and
Springfield, Mo.; Peoria, Ill.; and Wichita, Kan.
Following the merger, Husch will be
the only major law firm with offices in both St. Louis City and
County. The merger is part of Husch’s commitment to
establishing a strong regional presence in order to better serve its
clients and to respond to their needs.
Established in 1922, Husch &
Eppenberger, LLC is a 200 lawyer, full-service law firm engaged in a
broad-based business transactions and dispute resolution
practice. Its primary practice areas are general business
litigation, land use and development, tax and estate planning, and
corporate and financial transactions.
Ziercher & Hocker, P.C. was
founded in 1935 as a real estate-oriented law firm. Today, the
firm’s practice areas also include business, banking, and corporate
law; creditor-debtor rights and bankruptcy law; employment law;
family and domestic relations law; hospital and health care law;
school law; and tax and estate planning.
Regal Riverfront Hotel
Receives Top Recognition from Government Meeting
Planners
The Society of Government Meeting
Professionals has named the Regal Riverfront Hotel as one of the
“Best Hotel Experiences” for its meeting facilities and guest
services.
The designation is based on a
survey of 200 government-meeting planners who were asked to identify
their best hotel experiences. The Regal was one of only nine in the
country to earn the “Best Hotel Experience”
classification.
The Regal Riverfront Hotel, a
member of Millennium Hotels and Resorts (MHR), has 780 rooms in
downtown St. Louis. The meeting facilities include 63,000 square
feet of flexible space, a business center and the largest ballroom
in St. Louis. Millennium Hotels and Resorts was established in 2000
and is the North American arm of London-based Millennium &
Copthorne Hotels plc, which has 120 hotels in 13 countries. MHR
operates 13 U.S. hotels and plans to rename the Regal Riverfront the
Millennium Hotel St. Louis during the first quarter of
2001.
Kupper Parker Completes
Acquisition of Greenstone/
Roberts
Advertising
Kupper Parker Communications (KPC),
a St. Louis marketing communications agency recently completed the
reverse acquisition of New York-based Greenstone/Roberts Advertising
Inc.
Bruce D. Kupper is president and chief executive officer of
KPC. Ronald M. Greenstone and Gary C. Roberts will be CEO and
president respectively, of the New York operations, and both will
serve on the board of directors of KPC.
This acquisition is part of KPC’s
growth strategy to reach into new markets. The company’s geographic
focus remains on U.S. cities with solid economies or industry
concentrations and countries with stable economies, similar cultures
and healthy projected increases in marketing communications
expenditures.
KPC now has offices in eight U.S.
cities. Through these offices and affiliation in the United Kingdom,
Germany and Italy, KPC offers a full range of advertising, public
relations, Internet, promotion, direct marketing and
media.
Influence Launches
Foundation to Empower Teachers
Influence, LLC, a St. Louis-based
e-business solutions provider announced the launch of its first
company-wide community initiative, the Influence Foundation (IF).
The Foundation’s mission is to train teachers how to educate and
inspire children about the opportunities available to them through
the use of technology.
IF plans to provide teachers with
the technological training and resources to improve education for
students in urban-area schools. As part of the pilot program, IF
will provide first-grade teachers at two St. Louis area urban
schools, Clark Accelerated Academy and New City School, with
training to help them become experts in the use of technology and
the Internet as tools for learning.
The teachers will then be better
prepared to use technology in classrooms, enabling students to reach
the level of comfort needed to use technological tools to enhance
learning. These schools were selected because they are in the city
of St. Louis and Influence believes that education is critical to
the resurgence of America’s urban areas.
According to a survey by the
National Center for Education Statistics, of the 99 percent of U.S.
public school teachers with access to the Internet at school, only
39 percent use it “a lot” to create instructional materials, 34
percent use it for administrative duties and less than 10 percent
use it for research or lesson plans.
Craig Kaminer, Influence founder
and CEO, developed IF to address the regional need for more
computer-literate and information-savvy individuals. According to
Kaminer, many large companies have donated computers, software and
connectivity for schools, but no one has taken time to help train
teachers to effectively use these tools
The People Project Brings
Public Art to the Region
Nearly
400 design proposals were submitted by
artists from all over the bi-state region and beyond
for the Poeple Project, which will launch in April 2001.
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In
September, St. Louis Regional Arts Commission and FOCUS St. Louis
unveiled the first seven figures of The People Project at Leon
R. Strauss Park in Grand Center. The People Project is a fun public
art initiative for St. Louis. The plan calls for many wooden armatures
(mannequin-like structures with posable arms and legs) as works
of art displayed in public areas throughout the 12-country region
in 2001.
Co-chairs
of The People Project and Grand Center Inc. board members Carolyn
Losos and James Buford, are encouraging individuals, organizations
and corporations to become sponsors of one or more of the artists
by adopting a “person” for $5,000.
The
Regional Arts Commission says each figure will be unique and offer
creative opportunities for area artists. Many artists, citizens,
students, community groups and teams submitted proposals for “decorating”
the armatures. In October, the figures will be auctioned to raise
money to continue promoting and supporting arts in the region.
Saint
Louis University and Tenet Healthcare Corp. Plan Cancer Center
The St.
Louis Cancer Center will intergrate inpatient
and outpatient services at Saint Louis University.
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Saint
Louis University and Tenet Healthcare Corporation have plans to
create a facility offering services that link clinical research,
education, prevention and treatment called the Saint Louis Cancer
Center. University and Tenet officials said that a thorough market
analysis indicated certain segments of the St. Louis area are
underserved in cancer care and would benefit from this new facility.
The main site for the
center will be the former Bethesda General Hospital at 3655 Vista
Avenue, adjacent to Tenet’s Saint Louis University Hospital. Tenet
purchased the Bethesda General Hospital in October 2000 and will
renovate the building then lease part of it to Saint Louis University.
In a recent issue of
U.S. News and World Report, Saint Louis University Hospital ranked
in the top 50 among the best in the nation for cancer expertise.
To build on the program’s already strong national reputation,
Tenet and Saint Louis University will capitalize on the Bethesda
property’s proximity and connection to the hospital so that existing
inpatient cancer services can be integrated with expanded outpatient
services in the new cancer center.
Saint Louis
University Hospital is part of Tenet Healthcare Saint Louis. The
356-bed teaching hospital is affiliated with Saint Louis University
School of Medicine and is ranked by U.S. News & World Report
as one of America’s best hospitals in 12 of 17 specialties.
Primary
WebWorks is Now Vertecon
Charles
Windsor, president and CEO of Vertecon |
Primary
WebWorks, St. Louis’ first eBusiness services company, has changed
its name to Vertecon. Originally the Web development arm of Primary
Network (now Mpower Communications), one of Missouri’s largest
Internet services providers, Primary WebWorks was established
as a separate company in March 1999.
“Vertecon
is Latin-based-it means to change or transform,” says Charles
Windsor, president and CEO of Vertecon. “That’s exactly what we’re
doing-we’re transforming our company to meet the needs of clients
who are serious about transforming their businesses for the New
Economy.”
The company
provides eBusiness strategy and planning services, Web site development,
e-stores, Intranets and Extranets and technology integration.
Their newest services offerings include development of portals
and Net exchanges, supply chain Web enablement, dot-com incubation,
Web Site Usability Testing and re-engineering, and Customer Relationship
Management (CRM) applications. With the additional services, the
company changed its name to reflect new business initiatives.
In
addition to new services, Vertecon’s workforce has more than quadrupled
since the beginning of 2000. Plus, the company is projecting to
double its staff by the end of 2001. To accommodate this growth,
Vertecon has moved to new, larger headquarters at 622 Emerson
Road in Creve Coeur. Vertecon occupies 26,000 square feet on the
fourth floor.
Central
Institute for the Deaf Receives $2.6 Million in Grants
The
National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded two, five-year
grants totaling approximately $2.6 million to the Central Institute
for the Deaf (CID) to fund hearing loss studies.
One
study will address adults who experience hearing loss, building
on the previous research of Nancy Tye Murray, Ph.D., and Mitchell
Sommers, Ph.D., which indicated that as people get older they
can lose some ability to combine visual and auditory information.
Johanna
G. Nicholas, Ph.D., and Ann E. Geers, Ph.D., will collaborate
for the second study to investigate early intervention for deafness,
comparing young deaf children who received cochlear implants and
those who received an oral education. Their research is expected
to help parents and professionals make more educated decisions
about whether and how young to consider cochlear implant surgery.
CID
was founded in 1914 by Dr. Max Goldstein and is a not-for-profit
organization providing oral education for deaf children, research,
clinical and community services, and professional education. The
Institute has developed evaluations and curricula now used in
all 50 states and 34 countries throughout the world. U.S. News
& World Report recently ranked the CID graduate degree
program in Audiology among the nation’s Top 10.
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