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The
Leadership Circle
Investing in the Region
The
RCGA’s Leadership Circle creates added membership value by providing
a unique and invigorating forum to connect executives of small,
medium and large companies with each other and to the broad base
of influential leaders in the St. Louis region.
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When Brent
St. John had an itch to help build a small start-up business in
1997, the former senior manager at Pillsbury stumbled across an
inventor who had the technology to potentially revolutionize the
lighting industry.
Brent
St. John,
CEO, Crosslink Polymer Research
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Although his
least favorite undergraduate classes at Washington University were
ironically civil engineering and chemistry, St. John relied more
on his MBA and business savvy to convince investors that his bright
ideas were worth the money.
Since then, stockholders have invested more than $5 million in Crosslink
Polymer Research, formerly known as Lumimove, which uses the same
invention that Edison perfected more than 100 years ago only now
transcends the traditional constraints in incandescent, fluorescent,
neon and electroluminescent film technologies.
“We have proven to investors that we can light things up,” says
CEO, St. John, whose company spends a half million dollars on the
research and development of a variety of conductive polymer products
and technologies that range from pizza parlor bar signs to the development
of sophisticated chemical and biological sensors. In fact, this
environment-friendly alternative uses organic materials to emit
light in a safe, practical manner that will impact everyday life.
“Right from the start, our attitude of breaking convention helped
us be successful. While many pure research and development companies
have good papers and press, they don’t always make that leap into
the marketplace. Instead of starting from the science end, our company
looks at the market need and then tries to develop it. We’re practical
Midwest folks trying to build a business and not worry about the
glitz,” St. John says.
Leadership Circle insights
What has been your most innovative business idea? Was it for your
business or someone else’s? Has it been implemented?
Robert
S. Holmes - Lasalle Bank N.A.
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“Despite a difficult
economic environment, LaSalle successfully arranged financing for
a complex, overseas acquisition for an existing privately-held client
of the bank. The acquisition has been fully implemented and has
been very successful for all parties involved.” —Robert S. Holmes,
senior vice president, LaSalle Bank N.A.
Joseph
Conran - Husch
& Eppenberger
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“Eliminate the
old-fashioned law firm bureaucratic structure that in our view inhibits
the efficient delivery of legal services and adds significant additional
costs that must be passed on to our clients. We have implemented
this idea by eliminating most committees and by sharply reducing
the number of lawyers involved in law firm management.” —Joseph
Conran, chairman of the management committee, Husch & Eppenberger
Michael
Shanahan - Engineering Support Services, Inc.
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“Most recently,
we established ESSIbuy.com—an E-commerce network to support our
products anywhere the military goes as, “They Don’t Leave Home Without
Us.” We have received orders for spare parts from Afghanistan and
responded in minutes to a request that one year ago would have taken
weeks!” —Michael Shanahan, chairman & CEO, Engineered Support
Services, Inc
For more information on Leadership Circle, please contact John Diefenbach,
associate vice president-membership sales, 314/444-1184 or jdief@stlrcga.org.
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