If St. Louis is the Gateway, then Kansas City natives like to think of their town as the destination.
      The home of Hallmark Cards has a long history of greeting people, then giving them a reason to stay. First-time visitors to the vast Kansas City metro area are often surprised by the depth of the city's culture and its talent base -- no matter which side of the Missouri-Kansas state line they tread. Over the past 20 years, the suburbs that hug both sides of the state line have developed skylines and industrial bases all their own. Cass County to the south and Platte County to the north have both seen increases in population of over 26 percent in the past decade.
      In 2001, the $200-million, 500,000-sq.-ft. (46,450-sq.-m.) Stowers Institute for Medical Research opened its doors in Kansas City, putting its endowment to work in order to drive world-class research projects and the development of companies that spin off from them. The Institute is merely the latest in a bevy of life sciences initiatives that fill the Kansas City industrial and commercial scene (see Site Selection, March 2002).
      "The forward momentum of the new Institute has been established, and recruiting will snowball as more world-class researchers are attracted to the nucleus of talent already assembled here," said Stowers Institute President and CEO Bill Neaves in April 2001, noting that "persuading them that Kansas City is a great place to live has been easy to do."
      Perhaps the champion of diversified economy is the Stowers Institute's founder James Stowers Jr., who launched his mutual fund company American Century Investments in K. C. in 1958 with seed capital of $107,000 and a notion about how to blend human insights and technology to manage and analyze investment portfolios of every shape and size. That same principle is at work at the Stowers Institute, where the genetics research is focused on systems, not individual genes. American Century was listed 23rd on Fortune's list of "100 Best Companies to Work for in America."
      Another of the three Missouri firms to make that coveted list also has a muscular presence in Kansas City. Even in a recession, Milwaukee-based Harley-Davidson Motor Co. grew its workforce in 2001 by 10 percent nationwide, and Kansas City is just the latest beneficiary of that instantly recognized growl of prosperity. In late September, Jim McCaslin, president of Harley Davidson, announced the creation of 300 new jobs as the company moved Dyna Glide and V-Rod motorcycle production, as well as powertrain work, to its Kansas City plant from York, Pa. The move was expected to be complete by the end of the second quarter of 2002, and the cost has been ameliorated by proposed BUILD Missouri bonds worth $2 million, sales and inventory tax exemptions and available training funds.
      "Manufacturing industry employment has been declining in Missouri for more than two decades," said Gov. Holden. "However, this industry's overall contribution to the economy has continued to increase."
      Analysis by state economists indicates that the area's human skills potential is completely visible, yet relatively unmined. A look at different industry sectors within the life sciences found that only the drug industry has a strong presence, while sectors like industrial chemicals, medical instruments and agricultural chemicals, as well as the transportation industry, have a good skills match with the current workforce, but have yet to really exploit it.