Show-Me MO Success

Connecting Entrepreneurial Communities

This episode looks back at the Connecting Entrepreneurial Conference that took place in Hermann, MO in 2022. This conference is designed for stakeholders, economic developers, businesses, local government, educators, and nonprofits seeking to learn how to create a network that increases a community’s potential for entrepreneurship. Tune in to know more!

Episode 17: Creatively Thinking

Tune in to this episode where MU Extension's Passport to Arts program comes together with The Creative at Klondike to provide a multifaceted creative space for arts, artists, and the community. The Creative at Klondike is a creative arts center, offering gallery space and curated exhibitions, artist studios, artist in residencies, studio workshops for photography, ceramics, and fiber arts, community art and nature programs, and much more!

Episode 16: Caring Hearts and Hands of Columbia

This is the story of a home created for providing peace and care with compassion to those who are at the end of their lives. Jackie Reed, co-founder of Caring Hearts and Hands of Columbia and graduate of MU Extension’s Neighborhood Leadership Academy, worked tirelessly to bring her vision to life.

Episode 15: From the Battlefield to the Boardroom

Springfield, MO resident Wes Hester’s journey to build his cybersecurity-focused Foxhole Technology as well as developing the technology education infrastructure in Missouri. Join us as we talk to 27-year Army veteran Wes Hester and how he leveraged his experience in technology-based military service to found and manage a cybersecurity company to protect critical data infrastructure for the Department of Defense and other frontline agencies as a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business. We also talk to Allan Waldo of the APEX Accelerator program (formerly PTAC) and Extension’s role in Wes’s journey. 

Episode 14: The Fattened Caf

The Fattened Caf In St. Louis not only serves finger licking Filipino barbeque but also shares the Filipino culture and provides a network of support. Tune in to see how their participation in Neighborhood Leadership Academy helped their business and the people around them. 

Episode 13: Hunger in the Heartland

Hunger in the Heartland is a study that focuses on identifying the depth and breadth of food insecurity in the state of Missouri. Join us with Bill and Joanne, who were a part of this unprecedented study, to learn what we should know as a community to help those in need of food assistance. Check out the full study here.

Episode 12: Beginning of Elected Office

Theresa Pearson was elected to the Normandy Schools Collaborative Joint Executive Governing Board in April for a three-year term. Tune in to see how Pearson continued her leadership journey with Neighborhood Leadership Fellows and became an elected school board member to not only improve the quality of education for her children but for all of her community. 

Episode 11: Reimagining Hair Extensions with Rebundle

Ciara Imani May went from an enterprising middle schooler in Kansas City to MU Trulaske College of Business graduate to CEO and founder of her company, Rebundle, makers of the first U.S. made plant-based hair extension.
Tune in to the latest episode of Show-Me MO Success to hear Ciara’s entrepreneur journey.
Podcast transcript available here

Episode 10: RC Landscape Services - KC,MO

When opportunity is dressed as hard work - the only way out is through. Nikki Gardner, Chief Marketing Officer and Business Development Lead for RC Landscape Services in Kansas City shares with host Mike Quinata how she and founder Chris Henry took rolled up their sleeves and put the work in to take their small lawn services company with a single client to half a million in revenue by navigating the gauntlet of government registration and certification to take advantage of available commercial government contracts with the assistance of APEX Accelerator, a program under MU Extension's Business and Communities program.

Episode 9: Veg curious? Try Gina’s Vegan A-Go-Go!

In 2014, Columbia, MO entrepreneur Gina Overshiner explored what it means to be vegan and committed fully. In 2020, she attended a vegan cooking academy in New York City and in 2021 she opened her part-time vegan mobile food service "Gina's Vegan-A-Go-Go" serving a plant based menu of tasty and familiar comfort foods. Along the way she got a little advice and some straight talk from MU Extension's Business and Communities program via its Missouri Small Business Development Center and made the decision to go full-time. This is her journey.