When Brown University alumna Adriana Bates started in her career, the economy was low, and convincing someone to buy a house was nearly impossible which led to disappointment and later turmoil. Now, she’s leading a transformational and vigorous mortgage company in Kansas City. “Consumers were just very reluctant to go through the process, so I very quickly had to learn how to make something that was considered a necessary evil,”…
It’s December, so J. Rieger & Co.’s “O! So good!” slogan playfully transforms to “Ho! Ho! Ho! So good!” The distillery’s popular holiday-edition whiskey is on shelves, along with T-shirts, mugs and gift sets for the Christmas season. And it’s time for the company to mark another year of progress in its journey as one of Kansas City’s small business success stories. In some ways, the story began in 2014,…
Tamara Day wears a lot of hats.  She knocks down walls. Designs and flips houses. Stars in a hit TV show. But sitting down in her latest venture, a home décor store and design studio in Prairie Village, Kan., Day says, “Really, I’m just a Kansas City mom with a small retail shop.” While her fans may consider that an understatement, Day thinks of the new store, Growing Days Home,…
The 500 Holstein cows at Shatto Milk Co. may outnumber the human residents in their hometown of Osborn, MO (pop. 423). But they still get an awful lot of love here. They have a herdsman dedicated to their care, along with a team that includes agriscientists and a nutritionist working to keep them happy and cool in the summer heat. They have farmers growing some of cows’ favorite foods just…