The St.
Louis region and its companies often make national news. This
column highlights some of the most recent headline grabbers.
St.
Louisans Aren’t Just Good Sports. Above: The Sporting
News recently selected St. Louis as “the best sports
city” for 2000. The fourth annual survey was based
on fan loyalty, quality of sports facilities, media
attention and community support. Past cities named
No. 1 include Denver, Detroit and New York.
This ranking follows a seven-page cover story in
Sports Illustrated that names St. Louis as the “Best
Baseball Town in America.” The feature story, which
ran in the July 3 edition, notes “No other city
boasts a more consistent, ceaselessly pleasant fan
base than St. Louis.”
Baseball America magazine also named St. Louis the
“Best Baseball City in America” last year. |
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Amdocs
Makes Business Week’s IT 100 List
Amdocs Ltd. ranked 12th on Business Week magazine’s annual Information
Technology (IT) 100 list of the world’s best performing IT companies.
Amdocs, which provides billing systems for telecom companies
and Internet service providers, was the only St. Louis-based
company to make the list.
The companies were ranked on shareholder return, return on equity,
revenue growth and total returns. Amdocs posted $854 million
in revenue and a $115.4 million profit for the 12 months measured
by Business Week, a 70 percent growth in revenue. Return on
equity was 29.4 percent, with a return to shareholders of 147.7
percent.
Local Movie Maker Offers Investment Strategies in Money
Eric Rhone, president and CEO of Black Swan Enterprises, Inc.,
and C&E Investment Group, both headquartered in St. Louis, was
featured on a recent cover of Money magazine for his talent
and financial investments that earned him the title “Millionaire
in the Making.” The business publication profiled Rhone’s investment
strategy, which has helped him reach millionaire status. Rhone
took his first business risk when he left his job as a site
administrator at Monsanto World Headquarters in 1993 to run
Laff-A-Minute Productions, which handled the careers of several
young comedians, including fellow St. Louisan Cedric “The Entertainer”
and Darius Bradford.
“It was not a popular decision. My parents wondered why I would
leave such a good job at Monsanto,” explains Rhone, who graduated
with a degree in business administration from Lindenwood College
in 1988. “Def Comedy Jam had just been created, and Chris Rock,
Martin Lawrence, hadn’t really blown up yet.”
Rhone’s job change proved to be profitable. As his clients’
careers began to skyrocket, Rhone dove into the fast-paced,
big-bucks world of movie making. (Black Swan will create and
produce its first film in 2001). Plus, Rhone’s investments and
the investment firm of C&E continue to grow.
“I’m interested in what I call ‘mailbox money.’ That’s money
that comes directly to you in the mailbox,” says Rhone in the
article.
With his current investment stake at $800,000, Rhone says two-thirds
of the portfolio is made up of well-known firms including Wal-Mart,
McDonald’s and Pfizer. He also has several high-tech stocks
including Medlmmune, which has climbed 742 percent since he
purchased it two years ago. Since 1996, Rhone’s portfolio has
increased 72 percent.
His advice to investors: “Don’t dive in head first. Take your
time. Avoid risk, and if you can’t afford to lose it, don’t
invest it. Some stocks offer low return, but they don’t leave
you exposed. You may lose, there is no guarantee,” he says.
Express Scripts' New HQ Conveys Ideals of Changing Health-Care
Industry
Above:
Christner Inc.'s design of Express Scripts'
new headquarters was recently featured in the
preview issue of Facilities Design & Management
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The new
147,000-square-foot corporate headquarters interiors for Express
Scripts, Inc., a fast-growing pharmacy benefits management firm,
was featured in the NeoCon Preview Issue of Facilities Design
& Management. Christner, Inc., an architectural, design and
planning firm with which Express Scripts has had a long-term
relationship, created the innovative corporate interiors displayed
in the six-page article.
Basically, Christner, Inc. worked with senior management to
reinvent the company and develop space standards to put all
staff members in the facility on a more equal footing. In other
words, de-emphasize hierarchy and promote communication. As
a result, 75 percent of the new headquarters building is open-plan
workstations.
An open three-story atrium staircase and central beverage and
informal seating areas encourage flow throughout the space and
set the tone for collaboration and teamwork. On the second floor,
a special task force area provides a large open floor space
equipped with highly flexible alternative office furnishings
so that staffers can set up temporary workspaces for special
projects.
"With today's technology, almost everything a person does in
an office can be done at home," says Dan Jay, AIA, principal
at Christner, Inc. "So the justification for maintaining a headquarters
facility is to enable people to interact in various ways: supervisory,
teaming, training, collaboratively." The article explains how
today's work environment is different than the workplace a decade
ago.
"In the '80s, companies didn't want people chatting at the water
cooler," Jay adds. "But today, companies want employees to interact,
so the building must serve that purpose at every opportunity.
When you hear people talking-that's how you know that a corporate
headquarters is doing what it needs to be doing."
UMSL and SLU Rank Among Top Nursing Graduate Schools
The Barnes College of Nursing at the University of Missouri–St.
Louis and Saint Louis University rank as two of the best nursing
graduate schools in the nation, according to U.S. News and World
Report’s “2001 America’s Best Graduate Schools” guide.
Barnes College of Nursing and Saint Louis University are the
two Missouri nursing schools to be named in the nursing master’s
degree category, ranking 59 out of 175 nursing graduate schools
in the country. The magazine’s rankings are based on surveys
sent to deans, faculty and administrators of the nation’s accredited
nursing schools with graduate programs. Respondents were asked
to rate each school according to its reputation for scholarship,
curriculum and the quality of faculty and graduate students.
Under health disciplines, Washington University ranked sixth
out of 27 in audiology; 12 out of 16 in health services administration;
third out of nine in occupational therapy; and first out of
16 in physical therapy.
