At 22 years old Jamie had already worked with victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse. At 24 she was working with the families of homicide victims, extreme child sexual abuse and special assault victims. By 25 she was in charge of 15 naval bases and roughly 12 personal on each base making sure their assault programs met standards and training them on protocol.

Mellow music was playing as I walked into Rise Coffee House and saw Jamie sitting at a table in front of their large windows facing Manchester. She had already ordered a coffee, so I quickly ordered a green tea and took a seat across from her. I asked about her career and she immediately began telling me her story.

Originally from St. Louis, Jamie began her career with the Prosecuting Attorney’s office in the victim’s unit. Early on her focus was victim advocacy, working with domestic violence, sexual abuse, and child abuse victims to help them navigate the legal system and find outside resources to cope with PTSD or other issues.

Not long after, Jamie’s husband, a navy pilot, was stationed in Jacksonville, Florida, so she accepted a position as the head of the victim services unit there. “I was focusing on the special assault division. I graduated from dealing with, and this sounds terrible, but lesser crimes, to dealing with more serious crimes. Families of victims of homicide, extreme child sexual abuse, the special assault cases…”

Her husband’s role moved them to San Diego not long after, where she worked with the U.S. Navy in charge of the southwest region of the country’s sexual assault program. This position challenged her in a different way. “That was a phenomenal, phenomenal leadership opportunity, travel opportunity. Not only was I dealing with higher echelons in the military, but also I’m a female so I’m dealing with mostly men. Some of the people at the bases I managed were much older than me, so it was really a challenge to establish credibility in myself.”

In California, a ground-breaking and controversial law was passed stating that if a woman is intoxicated her sexual consent is invalid. Jamie was working in the Navy’s sexual assault program when this law was passed, giving her the momentous task of educating Navy recruits and the general public. She organized a 5k to promote awareness, ran public service announcements on TV, and put together brochures explaining the law. “It was kind of at that point, that I realized, you know, I kind of really wanted to focus more on marketing. And I knew my passions were non-profits and wellness, so I was like how can I meld the two together?”

The cost of living in San Diego is “atrocious”. That was one factor that brought Jamie, her husband, and their two daughters back to St. Louis. The other was that juggling two jobs and family wasn’t easy especially while moving all over the country for the Navy. In December 2007 they moved back and Jamie quickly accepted a grant funded position through the Jefferson County Department of Health.

I grew up in Festus, so when she told me there were heavy amounts of chronic disease in Jefferson County, I can’t say I was surprised. She was hired to start a wellness program for the city of Festus in conjunction with the hospital and was shocked with what she learned. “Some of these kids had never had a celery before!” The lack of farmer’s markets, no place to walk, and a lot of fast food in the area were huge factors in the problem, so she implemented cooking demonstrations, walking groups, and a 5k called Get Fit Festus that is still an annual event.

The economy hit Jamie pretty hard. After her stint with Jeff County, one of the largest marketing firms in St. Louis hired her and was sponsoring her to attend Washington University’s MBA program. But the economy tanked and Jamie’s entire department was eliminated. Her plans for attending Wash U were put on hold indefinitely. After months of fruitlessly searching for a job, she thought, “You know what, I’m going to start my own thing. What do I have to lose?”

She began a marketing consultancy, focusing on non-profits and small businesses. “I always had this entrepreneurial streak in me, but I just didn’t know like, how to like channel that.” But running her own business wasn’t exactly easy either. “I quickly found the challenges of running your own business, in terms of, you know, the ups and downs. One month it could be totally kick-ass awesome, the next month its like ‘oh, my god’.”

Yeah. That wasn’t enough of a challenge for her. So… “I utimately decided, because I’m type A and I’m all or nothing, I decided, ok, running my own business isn’t enough, we’re going to go back to school too and screw it, I’ll just pay for it myself.” There’s no time like the present, I guess! Except that she was also pregnant. “That goes to my craziness, because I was actually pregnant with my daughter at the time. I don’t know how I did it. That whole period of time was a blur.” On top of all of this, her husband was deployed.

In the middle of her degree program Jamie had to do a 2 week international residency. She was off to Shanghai! Her class toured the largest Wal-Mart in the city. “Aubrey, it was crazy. It was a 3 level walmart and, ok, so… in the meat and fruit department OSHA would have had a field day. They had bins of ice with raw meat just in there. People go and hand pick their meat. Us Americans, we were shocked. Plus, I don’t understand the placement of like, here’s some tampons and here are like, cupcakes. I mean just WEIRD!”

Jamie is very into natural health and wellness, but when she was recruited to work for a local agency as an account executive for Monsanto, she reluctantly accepted. As a co-founder of a wellness organization, a contributing editor for Natural Mother magazine, and a sales rep for health wraps, working with Monsanto was a big stretch. It finally got to her. After being micro-managed and struggling to work with a company that goes against many of her beliefs, she left.

When we met, Jamie was looking for her next career move, but still keeping busy by selling wellness products. Something much more in line with her passion for healthy living. “I’ve been doing this for about 2 years and the company and the products are top-notch."

When I asked about St. Louis she said, "St. Louis is on the brink of a revolution. There are a bunch of innovative and creative people here that see what potential this city has. If people would take the time to get out of their comfort zone and meet people, they'd be in for a unique surprise. Everyone is rallying for STL to be better. Better for all of us and generations to come. What a kick ass time to live here!"

It was getting close to 8:30am, time for both of us to head out. We struggled to finish our conversation, as we kept stumbling onto topics that interested both of us. Finally, we said our goodbyes and left the cozy coffee house to pursue whatever else our day would bring.


UPDATE: Jamie has found a new job with HD Supply Waterworks as their Senior Communications Manager but is still looking for freelance writing opportunities. Learn more on her website.

Michelle used to sell toilet paper. Seriously. She was hired by Proctor and Gamble right after college and traveled to “glamorous places like Des Moines, Iowa” for 15 years, touting the benefits of their brand of TP.

A poetry reading was scheduled at Stone Spiral in Maplewood the evening that Michelle and I met, so our conversation about Michelle’s work was punctuated by the murmurs and exclamations of novice poets. The smell of our chamomile lavender tea hung around us as she told me about making the big decision to leave the toilet paper industry. “I just decided one day at the airport, crying, with two young kids at home, this is ridiculous.” She liked the company and she liked the people but, “selling toilet paper is not exactly my passion, so…”

One day not too long after she left, Michelle decided to try something that promised weight loss results or your money back. Sixteen weeks later she had lost 18 pounds, she wasn’t craving the junk food, her rosacea had substantially improved, and she just felt better. That was when she realized, “People need to know about this!” So she decided this was her next career move. Sharing her success by selling Isagenix products, which offer the opportunity for users to “live a healthy, clean, and lean lifestyle”, is her new passion.

Michelle may believe in taking care of your whole self and “providing the opportunity for optimum health”, but she sure hates exercise. Twenty minutes of resistance training per week is the most she’ll commit to. When she told me about her friends who do pilates and marathons she raised her eyebrows and her voice in mock consternation, “Are you crazy? I don’t get it!”

For her mental health and to stay at the edge of her game, Michelle participates in Toastmasters, an educational organization that helps members improve communication and speaking skills. The reason she is a “big believer” in the organization is because of all of the beautiful things she has learned about the members through their speeches. There have been stories about survival, illness, and overcoming incredible obstacles. One story in particular from a woman who had been a slave worker in China, really made her realize how lucky she has it here.

These stories are eye-opening, but two situations one with a taxi cab driver and the other with a massage therapist made her realize that everyone has a story and she should be open to them all. She was on a business trip and grabbed a taxi from the airport, it was dirty and the driver appeared as though he hadn’t showered in days, but she got in anyway. In the back window were numerous beanie babies, so she decided to ask. It turned out he used his free time to drive kids to the Shriner’s Hospital when they had to go for surgery and their parents didn’t have the money to take off work. On the way he would let them pick out a beanie baby to make them feel better and then let them keep it. “I’m sitting there like, ok, number one, I thought you were this schmucky, homeless idiot, and here he is the most beautiful giving person I’ve ever met.”

The next story was when she began chatting with a massage therapist from Eastern Europe. As she started telling me, she took on a Russian accent. The therapist’s country had formerly been under Communist rule and one day the therapist’s husband disappeared. She was devastated and didn’t know what had happened to him, but weeks later he was able to call her from Greece. He had risked his life and lived off of berries in the woods to try and escape to Austria where he could then send for her. They were both finally able to get to America and have lived here now for 24 years, her working as a massage therapist and he working in IT. “There are all sorts of stories like that, we live our life and never hear…” Michelle mused.

Excitement about what is happening here in St. Louis has Michelle looking forward to the next few years. “I do think there’s an awakening. I think people are coming alive, wanting to make changes, stirring things up and I think the older people are open to that and the younger people are sticking around and going for it. There’s this critical mass now. I think people are starting to buzz. It’s cool.”

As for her favorite thing about our city, “Number one, it’s simply a great place to raise a family, and it really hit home the other day when my daughter said ‘I’m coming back to St. Louis to raise my kids’. And so it still is a good place for family. Number two, there is so much generosity in this town. The giving. People that keep the money in corporations that are so giving in this city. It’s awesome for what it’s done for the city.”

After telling me she thought “what I was doing was awesome” (I had to fit that in here somewhere), we began slowly packing up to head home. I asked her if there was anything else she wanted me to include and she thought for a moment before saying:

• check out the Kickasslife.com
  
  
• come visit our bar in Soulard (her husband owns 1860’s saloon and makes his own vodka)
  

We cleaned up the remnants of our tea and walked towards the door as Michelle shared her final thoughts on St. Louis with me, “There really is a community on the edge of greatness here.”

Follow Michelle on Twitter @haveyourhealth for tidbits on healthy living.

St. Louis has a dark side, Zach told me in his deep baritone. “It’s unbelievable what a person can do to another person.”

At the Kirkwood Kaldi’s near his office, we sat across from each other in a booth with our drinks clasped tightly in our hands to keep warm. After a brief conversation about the weather, Zach told me he owns a PI  firm (that’s a private investigator) called Cornerstone Intelligence and he got his training as a special agent with the Department of Defense in the military.

Immediately following high school he enlisted because, “I wasn’t the best student in the world.” While serving, he earned his degree in criminal justice. For almost 10 years, he worked in places like Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and Panama gathering intelligence on national security crimes like espionage, treason, terrorism, sedition, and sabotage. The way he describes it, he would find people with specific pieces of “intel” that the military wanted and “entice” them to share it. I had to ask if entice was a euphemism and he laughed. He said the biggest motivator was typically money, but some people gave him information because they felt it was the right thing to do for their country.

Finding people with information, chatting with them, and then giving them a reason to share what they know was his favorite part of the job. So, don’t try and lie to him, he’ll have you figured out. I was dying to know the tricks to read someone but he disillusioned me by saying it’s only helpful to a point. The reality, he says, is that after awhile you just get a sense if someone is being honest or not.

In 1992 when Zach joined the military, he couldn’t do his work in the United States because of intelligence collection laws here. “They have a little bit more latitude than they used to, which is a good and bad thing, I think.”

Six months after joining he was in Somalia because of the internal fighting, aiding with Operation Restore Hope (securing trade routes to get internationally provided food to the people). The movie Black Hawk Down is based on these events.

Later he was in Panama. Before 2000 the United States owned property on both sides of the Panama Canal, but that year we gave it back to the Panamanians. Zach was there for the clearing of the military bases and he sighed as he told me it was an awesome thing to experience.

Once he was finished with the military, he moved out to San Francisco where he worked in radio sales and journalism for awhile. He wasn’t really qualified however. “The guy that hired me actually loved my resume. He was all into the whole spy thing and he thought my resume was so cool. I was totally unqualified for the job. I had NO business in that job at all.”

Thank goodness he ended up working at a PI firm in L.A. where he was much more qualified. Eventually he opened his own firm, met his wife, and his daughter was born. She was the impetus for coming back to St. Louis.

Because they were both originally from this area, they wanted to come back to be near family. Plus, what’s not to love about our city? “If you’ve ever lived in a big city, everybody loves St. Louis, because it’s small enough that it’s manageable. You can be anywhere in 20 minutes, traffic is not bad, there’s great sports fans.”

So he opened up his own office here called Cornerstone Intelligence. When we met he had been hired to investigate three homicide cases to augment law enforcement because the families weren’t happy with how things were going. One incident was in South City where an individual was sexually assaulted, killed, and then the house set on fire.

“I tell people, there are definitely two different worlds. There really are. There’s the, you know, you’re generally a good person, you surround yourself with good people, happy, feely, things are great. And that’s great, and if you can live that way and stay out of the other world, more power to you. But unfortunately my work takes me to… we call it the dark side, quite a bit. And I mean… there are people out there that will hurt people just for the joy of hurting people.”

The work Zach does is definitely not always that intense. “You know, people have this image of PI’s as like this Philip Marlowe, one man office, chasing shady spouses, kind of thing. You know, a lot of what we do is more corporate. We work for a lot of law firms, you know, we do everything from criminal defense work, to civil and criminal investigations.” He also works with child custody investigations, missing persons, insurance work, general liability claims, and political opposition research (is that where we get some of the dirt in those ads?).

I expected a dramatic answer when I asked which case sticks out the most in his mind, and it was, but because he was able to really help the woman who hired him. It was a fraud situation. A man asked a woman to invest $250,000 in his gold mine and she agreed. Years later she approached him for some of her return so she could invest it and that’s when the excuses started. When Zach approached the man… “he blew sunshine up my rear.” That’s ok. Cornerstone Intelligence had someone pose as an investor and found out the details. The case was handed to the IRS, the man pled guilty, and now he’s in prison. “Nothing exciting. But she got her money back!” Money, fraud, gold mines, IRS, prison. Just another day!

Then there are the crazies. Zach thought it was a prank the first time the paranoid guy from New Jersey called. “He’s the tin foil hat guy, right? He’s the guy that will tell you he’s being irradiated with some sort of microwave weapon device thing.”

We were down to the last dregs of our drinks and I was hovering at the edge of my seat listening to Zach’s stories. It was getting late, however, so I asked what his favorite thing is about St. Louis. “Yea, having a 6 year old, you can’t be in a better town. There’s so much to do here. I mean, it really, on the weekends, if you’ve got a kid, it’s like… it’s, what do you want to do? You’ve got your pick of half a dozen things.”



I've told you Zach's story. What's yours? Sign-up for coffee with me!

Sean is sort-of a foodie. Sort-of. He shrugged as he pointed out that it’s all relative, “I’m not going to have a Bravo show anytime soon.”

We met at the Webster Groves Starbucks, where I pulled up a chair to the table Sean chose. He and his wife had given up caffeine as part of a diet they’re on, so he stuck to de-caf while I savored a peppermint hot chocolate.

Typically, Sean thinks fad diets are kind of silly. “I tend to find some of the uh, fad diet stuff off-putting. You know? I mean, I used to crack up when people would come into restaurants and say ‘I’m on the Atkins Diet, what can I have?’ I’m like, ‘I didn’t read that. I… I have no idea.’” But this one he likes because, as he describes it, it’s kind of like cross-fit for your metabolism. It involves abstaining from certain types of foods for periods of about 30 days so your body doesn’t get used to something and get lazy.

The diet has also been good for them because they can get into the kitchen together and make fun, flavorful recipes. This has led them to eat together more often and not in front of a screen.

Food is obviously a big part of Sean’s life, and that makes sense given his background. Up until several years ago, Sean had worked primarily in restaurants. He did everything from bussing tables at a Hibachi restaurant (where he had to wear a kimono and learn to sing in Japanese), to bartending, to managing.

But for the past nine years, Sean has sold real estate for Circa Stl, a “small but mighty” company with 21 agents. He initially got into the field because of his cousin, who was really enjoying it. The first two years he was working nights at Vin de Set and getting his feet off the ground with the real estate business. It paid off though, because during all of it he met his wife.

They had met a few times before through friends of friends, but with Sean trying to learn the real estate business and working until 2am at his night job, his lifestyle just wasn’t conducive to a relationship. But, they kept in touch and finally ended up dating. Five years later, they’re married!

Real estate has really agreed with Sean, because he doesn’t like sales. That sounded counter-intuitive to me, but he explained. In restaurants it was always about upselling guests, but this is more about listening. Also, the only thing he really has to sell is himself, and I’m sure that’s easy for him, because he is an incredibly nice guy.

“Cupcakes.” That was his answer when I asked about his hobbies. After a couple of seconds he added a few more including reading, basketball, and golf. Yeah, he likes sports, but it’s quite a conundrum for him. He is fascinated by excellence and the dedication of the players, its just the money and politics that go on behind the scenes that he finds “gross”.

When I asked Sean his favorite thing about St. Louis, he asked if he could start with his least favorite thing. Using an example, he explained why he doesn’t like the separation of the city and county. “So if we’re on an airplane and you’re from Chesterfield and I’m from Southampton, we’re both St. Louisans. But in St. Louis, I live in the city and you…” he shrugged.

What he does like, however, “I enjoy that St. Louis has that kind of headquarters… never leaves, feel.” He says we are a very loyal group, staying in touch with other St. Louisans even if they move away. There’s a potential to the city that he loves, and also the history. “People don’t realize that St. Louis was a big deal.”

Keep your eyes out for Sean. He’s currently working on a brewing history of the city and a blog to help us be better St. Louis citizens both civically and charitably.


Tell me your story and get a coffee, sign-up!

“I don’t know if you know what a vinyl sleeping bag sounds like on top of a metal van…” Nick chuckled as he told me about his adventures traveling the United States in a ska band in his younger days. The band was thrilled to be sleeping under the stars on a public beach, but when they arrived the scorpions kind of changed their plans. Nick didn’t give up that easily, so he and a bandmate just slept on the roof of the van. Not such a great idea if you toss and turn in the night. “I woke up in the middle of the night to that slipping sound and the other guy had fallen off the van,” he had to pause to laugh uncontrollably. “He just got back up and went to sleep!”

I recognized him instantly from his Facebook photo when we met early one morning at Bread Co. He sipped his coffee and I prepared my black tea english style, as he explained why he thinks real estate is “pretty cool”. Back in his early 20’s, Nick’s friends were paying $600 in rent, while he was paying $600 total for his house and bills. “I was living the high life, you know, because super cheap bills, I had a house you know? And all that kind of stuff.”

He got his license that year and decided to help other people buy and sell real estate. It was fun. He was good at it. It gave him freedom. He quickly progressed from managing a real estate office, to working at Remax, to becoming the designated broker for Equity Missouri. Now he manages 50 or 60 agents for the company.

You’ve heard of Paul McKee, right? He is a controversial figure in St. Louis, even among those who are unfamiliar with the ins-and-outs of real estate. In October of last year $390 million in tax increment financing was approved for his redevelopment project on the north side of the city. McKee has spoken at events hosted by Nick’s SouthSide Investment Club, a group Nick began in 2007 to share information, referrals, and advice (the group now boasts over 2,000 members). Speaking passionately, Nick defended McKee’s work. “We’re a free country, man! You can buy property! Seriously! And if you choose to turn it into The Arch, or turn it into McDonald’s, or turn it into nothing, it’s your call! It’s a free country, you know!  If you’re that worried about it, buy from him. Fix it up. You put the $100,000 into that building!”

If you want real estate numbers, Nick is your guy. In quick succession he rattled off incredible detail about the state of the local housing market. Here’s what he shared:

• Interest rates are low
  
  
• Supply of homes is dwindling
  
  
• Foreclosures are down 40%
  
  
• Short sales down to 4%, compared to 9% elsewhere
  
  
• Supply of homes for sale is down 40% over the past 3 years
  
  
• The number of units sold has increased by 30%
  
  

When he told me that we’re currently at a 70-day supply in the St. Louis region, I nodded as I took a sip and said that seemed low. Nick scoffed playfully. “TSCH! YEAH!”

Alright, so what are the economic indicators to look for before you purchase real estate? “We’ve stabilized and recovered without the return of jobs. If those jobs come back, we could have another bubble. If you start seeing 300,000 jobs being added… go out and buy.”

I’m fascinated by people who can look at an industry and see where the holes are. After meeting too many people who had spent thousands on real estate classes but were floundering or even failing, Nick saw the potential for a new type of program/mentorship. He calls it Coaching Circle and the initial class, which included newbies, senior sellers, and people who had already paid thousands for a different course, was very successful.

It’s not all real estate for Nick. There’s also the Oompapa band he’s played trumpet in since he was 15. They play German festivals quite a bit. But don’t get too excited, there are no lederhosen involved, just red vests. I told him I couldn’t write about it. The lack of German attire killed it for me.

When I asked if real estate was something most people get into after college or instead of college, Nick wasn’t sure. “I chose to go the route of being in a rock and roll band and I toured the country for 3 or 4 years. That’s kind of where I got my education.” It’s apparently an excellent education. “Valuable life lessons and economics on how to live on 20 dollars a day, living in your parents basement.”

Valuable lessons perhaps, but be careful because it’s dangerous. “We also almost died between LA and San Francisco on the five.” While driving their van, with trailer in tow, they blew a tire in six lanes of intensely packed traffic. As if that weren’t bad enough, the driver accidentally hit the gas. When they finally stopped, the band smelled smoke, jumped out of the van, and high-tailed it to the curb, managing not to get hit by 60 mph traffic. Although everyone ended up safe, what they didn’t remember at first was the blind drummer who was fumbling across the highway. Nick ran back and helped him to safety.

Clearing his throat, he contemplated his favorite thing about St. Louis. “There’s a lot of things. I like the people, I like the food, um… I like um… I like the familiarity. You know, I don’t really know what my favorite thing is. But I don’t think I could live anywhere else.”


Sign-up for a coffee and I will buy you a chocolate chip cookie. For a limited time. I won’t say how limited.

“Submarines were an exciting place in the mid to late 80’s at the height of the Cold War. We were doing fun stuff. We had a mission and being on a submarine, being out there, doing important work, was actually a lot of fun, having a mission, a real purpose makes almost anything tolerable.” Bill studied theatre in college. But, that was before he joined the Navy.

We met on an unseasonably warm day at the Webster Groves Starbucks. Bill greeted me with a warm smile as we sat down to a Venti Blonde Roast and a Green Tea Frappucino. I attempted to deal with chunks of ice blocking the suction of my straw, while he pretended to ignore my antics and told me about his work at Maritz.

Bill studies and coaches companies in persuasive design, which is exactly what you think it is, helping people get what they want in the context of your business. If you have ever worked for a large company, you know that they are typically inward focused. What do we do? How do we make people buy (or sell) our stuff? How do we make employees do what we want them to do? That’s all wrong. All companies, Bill says, should be outwardly focused. “That pushing people to do things you want them to do, works in the short run. But eventually people find somebody who’s easier to work with. But when you start with what people want, it becomes a lot easier. It’s kind of the Steve Jobs philosophy. Create something great and you can charge a lot for it. Don’t make crap and then trick people into buying it.” Who knew? Persuasive design is actually an entire industry and Bill has been studying and preaching it since 1997.

The path to his current career was a varied one. It started when he was studying theatre at Fontbonne. “Theatre I think is one of the best backgrounds a person can have. Theatre is an absolutely fantastic, uh, discipline to experience. It really prepares you for what life is really like.” While it taught Bill a lot about presenting to an audience, he left and joined the Navy after only two years.

It took a little longer for him to leave the Navy. Seven years, to be exact. When he was required to do shore duty for two years as a mental health break, he couldn’t take it. Couple that with the fact that he was now married with 4 kids, it was time to look into doing something else. So, Bill worked in computer programming, started a publishing company and went back to college for a degree in Business Administration.

Between spending time with his family (5 adult kids) and shoveling snow UP the steepest driveway in the St. Louis area, Bill writes three blogs. One, called Simple Strategies is about “the science of getting better” and another is about Persuasive Design. He’s been published, too. Up to now his publications have mostly been political in nature including Zen Conservatism in 2008 and a book on social media marketing for political groups in 2011. He toyed with his Starbucks mug as he thought aloud about what he would like to write next. “I… I still want to finish one of the 964 works of fiction, I’ve started working on…” He laughed contagiously.

Everyone hates their own voice. Bill is particularly frustrated by his speech because he swears that he purposefully developed a stammer in college, but now he can’t get rid of it. He laughed while he explained. “I did it to myself! And it drives me up the wall! I honestly remember getting laughs with well-timed stammers. Then it just became part of me. I think what it was, I really liked Bob Newhart, Jimmy Stewart, a bunch of these people who were successful actors. Both of them had really pronounced stammers, but they used it especially for humor.”

Bill’s favorite thing about St. Louis? “So, I got a new car a few weeks ago and the first thing I did… I had to get a new Blues sticker!” I laughed, “who needs a license plate?” He sat at the edge of his seat as he animatedly told me the story about TJ Oshie (a Blues player, for those of you who are like me) scoring 4 out of 6 penalty shots during the Winter Olympics.

Finally, Bill keeps busy by actively staying involved in St. Louis politics. In fact, he was one of the co-founders of the St. Louis Tea Party. “It’s weird. It’s a weird existence and it’s a lot of work. It leaves me very little spare time.”


I'm not getting any younger! Time to sign-up for a free coffee!

Michael was not afraid to discuss politics and religion when we met. In fact, he even told me how his family reacted when he told them he was atheist. He admitted,“I am disease-level open book. Probably to a fault sometimes. But I think it’s paid off for the most part. I think, uh… everybody could deal with a dose of radical honesty. Um… you know to really kind of… I just feel like it’s the best thing for people. Pour it out, let everything else get sorted out.” Let the pouring and sorting begin.

I sank into the cushions of a large couch at Foam (on Cherokee) with some type of delicious lemon drink, while Michael sat across from me with a coffee. I asked what he did for a living and he told me he is one of the original founders of The Able Few, a digital shop that builds web apps and web software. They began in 2001 doing only interactive design and now boast a social media monitoring software that they custom built for a hollywood studio to track and predict a movie’s success. According to him, the company’s focus is “building weird things”.

Working at an advertising agency built the foundation for The Able Few but, “that world kind of jaded me and turned me into a different person”. During his time at the ad agency, he began desperately seeking meaning in his work… to no avail.  “It’s an interesting industry. I mean you know, especially advertising, the nicest people you’ll ever meet, the hardest-working people you’ll ever meet, the most creative and smartest people you’ll ever meet and they’re all working towards a goal that they hate. You try to convince yourself and sell to yourself that things you’re doing are actually meaningful and that they help make people’s lives better. At the end of the day you realize you’re nothing more than you know, moving the bottom line.”

St. Louis is on the cusp of a Renaissance and Michael is excited. The best part is the energy and the feeling that everything that’s happening is not where it can be, yet. He told me that everywhere you point, whether it’s physical location or a sector, something awesome is right around the corner. But the hard part for him is when people are indifferent about this growth and positive change. That led me to ask, is this same entrepreneurial spirit, civic pride, and growth happening in other cities? Despite friends in numerous cities across the U.S. and extensive travels, Michael said he has not seen this combination anywhere else.

The Washington Post issued a retraction about St. Louis because of Michael. A recent interactive map ranked cities on a scale of 1-6 for how “world class” they are. When he found it on Facebook, Michael already knew what he would see. His suspicions were confirmed when he zoomed in on St. Louis and saw that the city was divided into two municipalities and ranked very low. What was even more frustrating to him, was that cities like Tulsa ranked relatively high. So, like any of us would (not) do, he called the author and after a 30 minute discussion, was told the map would be re-done showing St. Louis as one municipality with a higher “world class” ranking. Chalk one up for Michael and STL! “I walked away that day really proud. I felt like I had championed something really great for St. Louis. It’s a small drop in the bucket, but you know, just like anything, it’s...it’s… every avalanche starts with one snowflake.”

After discussing politics, we dove right into religion. I’ll be blunt like he was. He’s atheist. Well… agnostic, really, and his family did not take that well when they found out via Facebook. Michael had always had a “healthy skepticism”, but one day he heard or read something that made him stop disregarding that doubt. “If God wanted me to believe in him, he is the only person or only thing that would know exactly what it would take for me to believe in him, yet he holds it away. He doesn’t want me to see it.” So, despite the wedge this has created between some of his friends and family, Michael feels like they are closer now to his true self, so it’s a “net gain”.

Because he considers himself a serial networker, he said he was very happy to find my blog on Facebook. “I got excited because I absolutely love people. I’m addicted to people. I have to get new people in my life constantly. It’s actually become a bit of a challenge to go places where I don’t see people I know.”

This fascination with people can be traced back to the black girl he dated in middle school. He was reprimanded and told that there were biblical reasons that you shouldn’t mix black and white. That didn’t fly with Michael. He told me that spawned a love of PEOPLE and everything they have to offer.

Two documentaries, Baraka and Sansara, should be required videos for everyone in their formative years, according to Michael. His children watched them at a young age, because these films plant the seeds about us being one human family and not drawing lines about who we are and how we’re supposed to act. “I’m kind of quite the humanist.”

Michael had long since finished his coffee when I asked what he likes best about our city. Considering his love of people, it’s fitting that this was his answer. “The people. St. Louisans are the best mix of cultured and blue collared… its just got a unique blend. It doesn’t feel midwestern, it doesn’t feel like Kansas City. You have people who really do care about things and who are passionate about things and they’re not pretentious. Here people are very approachable, you can talk to strangers. It’s big enough to have, you know, lots of things going on, but also small enough that you don‘t feel lost. You know?” Ok, so REALLY, the people are his second favorite thing. His favorite is actually Imo’s.


Sign-up for coffee! We don’t even have to talk about politics or religion!

Cody was the guy in the back of the college classroom who was working on his laptop and doing everything except pay attention. He became disillusioned with college right before graduation when a professor answered his question with, “It’s not my job to explain how to apply this. I’m here to teach you the material.”

We met at the Washington Post on a cold evening after work, where we ordered a coffee and a smoothie and began discussing how Cody ended up where he is now. It really began with his interest in marketing. When he enrolled at SIUE, however, he was told he had to complete a calculus requirement to get a business degree. Nope, not an option for Cody. Determined to avoid this at all costs, he received a psychology degree and minored in business administration, instead.

It was in one of these classes that he received the answer that set him on his current course, with Enstitute. “The more and more I got deeper into the application process [with Enstitute], the more I started to not care about grad school stuff. It was really sketchy at first because they were trying to get Enstitute off the ground. It was like it’s own startup, I guess. It ended up being great!” Enstitute is an alternative education program that places individuals in apprenticeships with entrepreneurs. When Cody joined it was just launching in Manhattan, but now the company is expanding from New York to St. Louis.

Initially Cody was placed with Holstee, a company that creates art that encourages mindful living. Their most famous piece to date is called the Holstee Manifesto. As a bitter New York winter approached, the founders of Holstee decided they wanted to work from a warmer locale, so they flew themselves and Cody to Oaxaca, Mexico where they worked for a month.

Once his apprenticeship was completed, 6 months later, Cody found himself placed with another company through Enstitute. This company, called PageFair, is based in Dublin, Ireland and measures how much it costs companies when visitors to their site block ads and then shares that information with site visitors. Cody was writing the blogs and later took over the company’s social media. Even after his return to St. Louis, the company retained him as their content creator.

“Yea, it's been quite the year and a half,” Cody mused. In fact, at one point he flew from Dublin to New York to Las Vegas within approximately 24 hours. When he arrived in Vegas for a conference, they began celebrating Cody’s birthday and for awhile he was so disoriented he had no idea what day it was (the alcohol probably didn’t help).

The reason Enstitute has chosen St. Louis for their second program is not a coincidence. It’s thanks in large part to Cody. Last summer, as he was leaving for New York, Cody googled St. Louis startups and didn’t come across much. When he came back from his adventures he was shocked at everything that had sprouted up. He pitched St. Louis to Enstitute and after a successful scouting trip, they agreed.

Currently Cody is back in his hometown of Bethalto, Illinois and working out of the T-Rex space downtown. He has his hands full as he continues to handle content for PageFair, the launch of Enstitute in St. Louis, and the planning of small networking events. The ultimate goal of all this, is to someday start his own company. Looking back, he realizes that even as a kid he’s been developing unique, entrepreneurial solutions to problems. In fact, he even wrote a clever blog about it called ‘Why Didn’t Anyone Tell Me I Wanted to Be an Entrepreneur?’. But it isn’t easy to come up with a really unique idea. "If I could just get that childlike inspiration, you know, again. Maybe I could... maybe I'm just not faced with the right problem. I don't know."

Cody’s favorite thing about Stl? "I love that it's not Manhattan." Although he loved the excitement and activity in New York, it was too chaotic. For now, he’s loving St. Louis, but it’s probably not the final stop. Ideally, he’ll end up in Boulder, Colorado.

We walked together as we left and headed back to our respective offices. I provided Cody a summary of what I’d learned about him. "Crazy 24 year old who's started several blogs, worked for a few startups, flown all over the country for work..." he finished the thought, "Trying to figure out what he wants to do when he grows up.” We laughed.

“Woooaaaahhh…” is Kate’s favorite expression. In this one word she can convey surprise and understanding. She even uses it to effectively punctuate her stories and sentences.

We met at the Gelateria Del Leone on South Grand, after she heard about my blog from Joanna (Coffee #51). Things were off to a good start when I managed to parallel park in an incredibly tight spot. Inside, Kate was already seated and working diligently over her sketch pad. Once we exchanged the usual pleasantries, Kate told me that she grew up in Maryland Heights, lived in a volunteer house in the inner-city (aka “shadytown USA”) and now lives near Tower Grove in the same building as her mom and brother.

After living in her apartment in Tower Grove for awhile, Kate’s landlord approached her. He was moving out and wanted her to be the landlady in exchange for a pretty nice discount. Why not? While it can occasionally be hectic, for the most part she enjoys it because, “There’s definitely a lot of stories and people are crazy!”

Her brother moved into the same building when he came home from a volunteer trip in El Salvador and not long after, her mom joined them. “It sounds like some sort of Wes Anderson movie and I don’t know which character I am. Which kind of gives me stress.” It doesn’t help that she says her family is a weird magnet. If anything strange is happening within 50 feet, it’s bound to find them.

For example, there’s the friendly neighbor who gets his newspaper without wearing any underwear… just a shirt that’s a bit long. Shortly after witnessing this for the first time, Kate came home to a stranger named Benny in the backyard. He told her with a wink, “Oh, don’t worry, I’m friends with No Underwear’s mom.” Later that week, No Underwear’s mom told Kate in a very strong Jersey accent, “Benny would like yah numbah.” Kate answered, “What do you mean? Like, for a book club?” She laughed as she told me the story and her inner monologue as this was happening. “I am soooo taken right now.”

Kate loves drawing naked people, which she says “everyone’s all curious about.” It began when she took a figure drawing class at Webster University, but she really became interested after volunteering in India for a year. In Indian culture, showing arms or legs is considered very provocative (however showing the midriff is not). After experiencing this for a year and returning to America, it was eye opening for her that everything here is about sex. “When you come back you’re like…. WHEW! She just did that to him to sell some floss?!” Now, for her, figure drawing is a way to present the human body in a way that isn’t meant to be erotic or make you feel any certain way.

Drawing began at a young age for Kate, when she grabbed the crayons from her brother and began coloring inside the lines. When I asked if it was a hobby, she flinched. “Drawing’s kind of a strange thing in that… I mean, it’s definitely, it rides like such a strange line between... if you tell people you’re a painter, they’re like ‘Oh, you’re an artist. You’re a painter.’ Nowadays when you tell people that you draw, they’re like ‘You mean like cartoons or animation?’”

While figure drawing is her favorite, Kate also loves to do commissioned work. I confessed that I wasn’t sure how to go about approaching someone to do a commission for me, but that I would love to. She nodded and said she experiences that fairly often. In fact, she has considered creating a handbook for people on how to ask. Apparently it’s sometimes hard for her to do this type of work however, because it typically ends up being so personalized and special that it feels more like it should be a gift.

When she was in 5th grade, Kate’s mom would bring her to volunteer at a soup kitchen. It changed her life and got her very involved in social justice. One day a few years ago she attended the church next door and heard a gospel choir practicing. So, despite the fact that she can only “fool someone into thinking she’s not tone deaf” she asked when they held auditions. The answer was, “Aw baby girl, we don’t do auditions. You just come and you sing.” And so she has. During rehearsal, when Kate misses a few notes, they are very kind about how they let her know. “Baby girl, you are singing some good notes. But they are not the same good notes we are singing.”

The interest in singing also came about during her time living in India. In the spring of her senior year, Kate signed up through a small French volunteer organization to travel to El Salvador. One month before she was scheduled to leave, the organization contacted her and said they had made a mistake, the volunteer home in El Salvador was full. But there was always India! “I won the volunteer jackpot,” she said as she began reminiscing about the mango farm she lived on for a year. This farm was a refuge for people who didn’t fit anywhere else in society. People with down syndrome, schizophrenia, AIDS and even 11 kids whose families couldn’t afford to take care of them, lived here.

Kate occasionally helped with the mangoes, but for the most part she helped a girl who was a year older than her. The girl had been diagnosed with polio at the age of 4, was orphaned at 6, and then bounced around different orphanages from then on. Kate’s job was to make sure she felt at home AND she led the singing of the morning hymns pretty consistently, too!

It was growing dark outside when I finally asked Kate her favorite thing about St. Louis. It was a hard question for her to answer. Not because she doesn’t enjoy living here, but because there are certain things that it’s difficult for her to look past. “Everyone in the suburbs is like terrified of the city. You know what I mean? Like, ah the city! So growing up I was like, I’m never gonna live in St. Louis when I get older. Like gosh, like even if I live in Detroit, I have to get out of St. Louis. And what I love is like living in the city is like… it’s so different from what I thought it was growing up. And I don’t like that it’s those two separate worlds, like St. Louis really is two separate cities, to be honest. The suburbs is a totally different thing. My favorite thing is like, living here and discovering what the city is. I feel like St. Louis has such a weird, people talk to you kind of thing, you know what I mean?” I think we all know what Kate means.


Be the next. Sign-up to meet for coffee!

Jim and I don’t really enjoy coffee. We began our meeting with a smoothie (in this weather! brr) and a hot chocolate. The giant windows facing Washington Avenue kept the Post slightly brisk as we began discussing our mutual distaste for coffee and our desire to eat sugar and carbs all the time. “It’s too bad that the things that really taste great aren’t always the things that are best for us. You know, if we were built so that we only liked the things that tasted good, it would be great! You know? I’d be eating cream puffs and donuts all day.”

After we bonded over our love of food that is bad for us, Jim told me that he’s lived a long time, relatively speaking, and done a lot of things. He has had five or six different careers including blacksmithing and working for a telecommunications startup that was acquired in four years for about 3 billion dollars. Pretty dramatic.

Startups are in Jim’s blood. He was involved with a couple other small companies as CEO and investor and helped with an incubator around 2004. Finally, in 2008 Jim got involved with iTen (which stands for Information Technology Entrepreneur Network), a non-profit that coaches fledgling companies to help them get their first investment. Jim is incredibly passionate about his work and what is happening here in St. Louis. “There’s a lot of great stuff going on and it’s starting to change the culture of St. Louis. And really that’s the long-term goal, to change St. Louis from a stodgy big corporate town, to a town that is really attractive to young people. Not just young in terms of physical age, but in terms of spirit and inspiration.” He says the goal is also to get people involved who want to change the world instead of getting a job that’s safe.

iTen’s mission is to work with startup companies and help them advance as quickly as possible. This is done by building an ecosystem around startups including investors, lawyers, accountants, etc. who want to get involved in some way. iTen is a non-profit, so the startups who utilize Jim’s experience and connections, don’t pay anything.

Jim and I agreed that America is turning a corner where it is becoming cool to be a nerd, and that’s probably necessary. Many of these young companies need people who are good at engineering and math. Even so, Jim says we still need a long-term solution for the deficit of talented mathematical minds. That, he says, is where America fails. “Even corporations are all about ‘how did we perform this quarter’ and they sacrifice the long-term to get that big bonus.”

Getting more specific, Jim explained that there are three specific areas that St. Louisans need to improve before the city can see real change and growth:

• more open discussion of race relations
  
  
• more interest in the performance and welfare of our public schools
  
  
• a less provincial mentality
  
  

The first time Jim lived in St. Louis was during high school and he remembers that many times when he would pick a girl up for a date, her father wouldn’t allow him to go anywhere past Skinker. This, he believes, is because issues with race relations aren’t addressed here. In DC and Atlanta (cities that he says have a similar racial balance as here) people are open and discuss racial problems. But, he says, when St. Louis discusses extending the Metrolink to the county we encounter the “we don’t know what kind of element that’s going to bring” barrier. Jim scoffed. “You know what they mean.”

The next challenge, he told me, was to overcome the quality of our public schools. Jim is full of useful statistics, so he explained that after Boston, we have the second highest number of parochial schools. While this is a big plus in many ways, most families move to the county when they begin having kids and don’t care about the quality of the public schools. This is a problem because we won’t have families moving into the city until this is resolved.

What makes a city cool? According to one study, the percentage of non-poor who use public transit is a key factor. Another indicator is the percentage of people who have been outside of the United States. Jim told me that St. Louis has a very provincial mentality and ranked very low in both of these areas… but he thinks that’s changing.

You would never guess from Jim’s passion for all things St. Louis that he wasn’t raised here. Born in Boston, he moved from Tennessee to Ohio to Missouri and then back to Massachusetts for college. He thought he wanted to be an astronomer and ended up with a degree in psychology and literature instead. Once he finished, he wasn't immediately concerned with a job. Priority numero uno? Travel.

“I wanted to travel, I wanted to see the world. All kinds of stuff that had nothing to do with, you know, making money." So, he and two of his college buds saved up money, flew to Europe and rented a car in Germany. After driving around for a few months, they split up in Dharamsala, India and Jim continued on to Japan alone where he soon ran out of money. To me, that’s a big deal. To Jim, it was just an obstacle to surmount. He met a guy who ran a shipping company and ended up getting a job on a freighter that was headed to the U.S. When he got home he had $300 in his pocket, which he explained was a bigger deal then than it is now.

The story doesn’t end there. When he got back he hitchhiked to St. Louis and two guys picked him up. They told him they had to pick up something at a friends house and drove him to a deserted part of San Francisco. Then the passenger turned around and stuck a gun in Jim’s stomach. They took the $300 he had earned working on the freighter and threatened to kill him if they found any more money in his bag. Jim forgot about the traveler’s check at the bottom of his bag, but he is still alive today because they didn’t find it.

“So anyway, that’s the worst thing that ever happened to me in a year of traveling around the world. I even lost my passport in a cab in Bangkok and somehow remembered the number of the cab and the next day they brought my passport back. That’s the thing. I mean, Americans tend to think that, you know, the world is all scary out there. You know, we’re here down safe in America and all that bad stuff’s happening out there. People are wonderful everywhere.” An amazingly positive perspective from the guy who was held at gunpoint.

Jim has been to former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iran (before the ayatollah), Nepal, Luxembourg, England, India, and all over the U.S., but Japan was his favorite. I told Jim how much I enjoy traveling solo and he agreed. “Yeah, ‘cause you’re on your edge. You’re putting yourself at the mercy of a culture you don’t understand. Everybody’s got limits, but you know, the wider you can be I think the better off you are and the more understanding you can be and more open-hearted you can be. Once you’ve been outside the country and looked back with a different perspective... things look very different.”


Sign yourself up for some free coffee and meet yourself an Aubrey!