Andy Clay had an eerie feeling coming into this spring. This past winter, federal officials began telling farmers to expect high water on the Missouri River, which runs adjacent to the rich bottomland that Clay and his family have been farming for seven generations — before Missouri was even a state. Sure enough, by May the water was quickly rising
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When a farmer plants a cover crop in between the year’s two cash crops, it protects and enriches the soil, but that off-season crop typically doesn’t yield a profitable harvest itself. That’s where a plant such as CoverCress comes in. For six years, a team of scientists has been developing the new species based on the native pennycress plant. Not
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Visiting HTE Technologies on April 2 was a little like stepping into a scene from “The Jetsons.” Automated carts delivered drinks to attendees. A pallet-carrying robot moved back and forth between destinations, avoiding people and finding alternate routes if blocked by a crowd. Another device piggybacked a robotic arm on top of an autonomous cart — the system safely moved
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Legislation passed in 2018 promised to modernize Missouri’s electrical grid. Today, that’s becoming a reality as our state is undergoing its biggest across-the-board power system upgrade. The work is massive in scale and amounts to more than a billion dollars in investment each year for Missouri. Yet, for most consumers, the changes happening so far are largely invisible — even
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Weight, blood pressure, wellness questions — a visit to the doctor’s office today generates a lot of data. Although this provides crucial insight into a patient’s well-being, it’s only a snapshot. Relying on this episodic information alone can leave caregivers blind to daily changes or concerning trends that develop between visits. Blake Marggraff wants to fill in those blanks. The
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Along with research released in the Missouri Chamber Foundation’s Technology 2030 report earlier this year, Economic Leadership LLC conducted a spinoff study focused on Missouri’s financial tech industry (fintech). As explored in Technology 2030, the technology sector offers great economic opportunity for Missouri, a state that remains a low-cost location compared to coastal cities. Technology work in the financial sector
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By Jacob Luecke & Shawna Scott It would probably surprise most Missourians to discover their state is in the top 10 for bitcoin usability, but that’s exactly what a recent RewardExpert report has found. Once dismissed as a short-lived fad, cryptocurrency is rising in popularity. Ten percent of U.S. adults have cryptocurrency assets, the study revealed, and with five Bitcoin
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Today’s workforce spans five generations — which can be a recipe for conflict when each generation comes to work with different worldviews, values and communication styles. But it’s also an opportunity to foster collaboration and leverage each generation’s strengths. “Sometimes we’re just tripping over each other or walking on eggshells because we don’t understand each other and we put wrong
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As a famous destination for country music and family entertainment, Branson thrives on tourism and hospitality. It’s a huge industry — one that long ago outgrew the capacity of the local workforce. Employers in the area have compensated by looking outside the country for seasonal workers via the federal H-2B visa program. This approach was working well until 2017, when
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Even with Missouri releasing an average of 19,000 inmates each year, the state’s prison population grew at an alarming rate between 2012 and 2017. A primary cause of the overcrowding was people found guilty of repeat nonviolent offenses or supervision violations, according to the Council of State Governments. But Shelle Jacobs, re-entry coordinator for the Missouri Department of Corrections, said
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