MAKING HEADLINES Tech Gateway/RCGA Introduce IT Opportunities For Schools The Workforce Enhancement Committee of the RCGA Technology Gateway, the St. Louis Regional Science and Technology Alliance, has implemented a new program designed to inspire adolescents to picture a future as high-tech workers. As hailed in CIO Magazine, the IT Career Awareness program began last fall with IT professionals from biotech giant Monsanto and the business consultant Maritz Performance Improvement. IT professionals from these companies spent the previous summer working on lesson plans with teachers from two schools (as well as giving them a crash course in corporate IT). This semester, the number of school-company partnerships has increased to five. When the program moves from pilot to formal rollout next fall, 30 schools and companies are expected to participate. With only about three percent of current high school students indicating an interest in IT careers, these educators face a challenge. By bringing IT professionals and students together, the RCGA hopes to bridge IT awareness gaps and steer a few students toward prospective high-tech careers. All the RCGA asks is for companies to donate a couple of people for a couple of hours per week. “Even if kids don’t end up picking IT as a career, they’ll still be better educated consumers and be smarter about technology,” Becker adds. St. Louis…in the starting blocks for the next frontier Above Picture: Starchaser Industries’ Thunderbird is one of the X PRIZE entries. X PRIZE had received extensive national publicity. Historically, St Louis has garnered national media attention for conquering new frontiers. From the early pioneers who ventured West form the site of the city’s Arch, to Charles Lindbergh who ventured east across the Atlantic in the Spirit of St. Louis. And once again through the X Prize, St. Louis is regularly appearing in the news. The X PRIZE—the race to develop a suborbital rocket to travel to and from the edge of space with a $10 million reward-has received extensive national and international media coverage. Documentaries on PBS, the Discovery Channel, and The Learning Channel have featured the X PRIZE New Race to Space, as have the major television networks, including CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC. With over 200 million print impression in publications, form the New York Times, USA Today and the Los Angeles Times, to the London Daily Telegraph and Financial Times have reported on the prize’s progress. Feature stories have also been published in Popular Mechanics, Aviation, Parade and People Magazine. Radio Ink Ranks Lawrence Group-Designed Broadcast Facility One of World’s Best Above Picture: The Clear Channel-Salt Lake City project involves the renovation of a 41,000-square-foot building that was part warehouse manufacturing and part office space. The Lawrence Group combined eight radio stations, allowing effortless interaction among 300 employees. The building is home to 23 studios and a new sales arena that accommodates 72 account executives. Radio Ink magazine has ranked the Lawrence-Group designed Clear Channel broadcast facility in Salt lake City, Utah, as the third best radio facility in the world. The Lawrence Group provided architectural design and Lawrence Group Colors provided interior design for the 41,000-square-foot, 23-studio facility. The Lawrence Group is a recognized leader in the design of broadcast facilities and has designed more than 200 broadcast facilities nationwide, including St. Louis radio stations KYKY-FM, WALC-FM (now WXTM-FM), and KIX-FM. A unique feature of the Clear Channel-Salt Lake City project involves the transformation of a warehouse and manufacturing facility into a state-of-the-art broadcast facility and also the efficient consolidation of eight radio stations and 300 employees into one location. As one of the largest and fastest growing architectural and interior design firms in St. Louis, The Lawrence Group managed the Clear-Channel-Salt Lake City project from its St. Louis office. City Museum Puts Best Foot Forward in Wall Street Journal ity Museum’s latest special exhibit, “The Really Big Shoe Show,” reveals everything you ever wanted to know about footwear and more. In a recent Wall Street Journal article, a reporter takes a nostalgic and historical look at shoes, from purple pumps with rhinestone-bordered medallions to a horseshoe of an Anheuser-Busch Clydesdale and a size-37 shoe worn by the famous “Alton Giant.” According to the article, visitors read shoebox labels to learn: Up until 1750, when a Welshman opened the first modern shoe factory in Lynn, Mass., shoemakers made shoes to fit individual feet; the average person walks 15,000 steps a day; American women spend $15 billion annually for shoes; women buy an average of six pairs of shoes a year; and men buy three pairs. The exhibit also includes memorabilia from the 1940s and 50s, when as many as 18,500 people worked in 150 shoe-related factories in St. Louis. Of that proud contingent, only Brown Shoe Company, which serves as the corporate sponsor of the show, remains in town. “Amazing Shoes, A-Z” begins with Around the World (fur shoes from Finland and wooden shoes from China) and ends with Zippered Boots. The journey ends with “a puppet shoe that features sets of children sashaying across the stage in a staggering variety of giant shoes, boxing glove shoes, Mary Janes, fur shoes, leather shoes, ballet shoes, yellow vinyl boots and a pair of jewel-bedecked, chartreuse-velvet jester shoes that set off a foot-stomping, show-stopping tug of war between two preschoolers,” as described in the article. ENR Ranks Top Design Firms The Engineering News-Record (ENR), a trade publication of the engineering, design and construction industry, has ranked the top 500 U.S. design firms based on revenue for 1999. These include Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. headquartered in Pasadena, Calif. (4); HOK in St. Louis (29); Hanson Engineers, Inc. in Springfield, Ill. (211); Casco Corp. in St. Louis (264); Fru-Con Engineering, Inc. in Ballwin (308); Horner and Shifrin, Inc.in St. Louis (333); Crawford, Murphy, and Tilly, Inc. in Springfield, Ill (350); and Hampton-Tilley Associates in Chesterfield, MO., (407).

July 2000 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - COVER STORY 2000 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards PROFILE Joe Edwards Owner of Blueberry Hill, the Tivoli Theater and The Pageatn; founder of the St. Louis Walk of Fame - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - www.stlrcga.org - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - www.technologygateway.org Taking Technology Personal Stressless Commuting - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -