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By TONY BROWN Staff writer Maryville Daily Forum Many Maryville officials turned out Friday for opening ceremonies welcoming the city’s newest corporate citizen, Maryville Carbon Solutions. The first manufacturing facility opened by Boulder, Colorado-based startup Bolder Industries, Maryville Carbon, is housed in the former Carbolytic Materials Company plant, which closed in 2012 after a troubled three-year run that included an oil spill, two fires, and eventual bankruptcy. Like its predecessor, Maryville Carbon intends to transform scrap automotive tires into a trademarked version of carbon black, a coloring and reinforcing agent used to manufacture an almost endless list of rubber and plastic products from gaskets and wetsuits to conveyor belts to O-rings. In addition to its primary product, “Bolder Black,” the factory, now operating on a shakedown or “commission” basis with a skeleton crew, plans to produce syngas — a type of fuel gas — and lubricant-grade oil through a process known as pyrolysis. It will also recover and sell the steel used in tire belting. The oil will be marketed as well, but plans call for construction of a small syngas plant on site that will produce enough electricity to power the entire facility. The company is also proposing transferal of any excess wattage to Northwest Missouri State University or the City of Maryville. Pyrolysis is accomplished by subjecting ground-up tire material to temperatures of around 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit in an oxygen-starved environment, what amounts to a huge oven designed to siphon off the oil and gas and leave behind a dark-colored solid that is reduced to ultra-fine powder before being mixed with water and formed into tiny pellets for shipment to customers. During a tour of the plant — refitted over the past two years at a cost of around $10 million — Bolder Industries founder and CEO Tony Wibbeler began by leading a group of local residents through the factory’s shredding area where a huge grinder renders tires into palm-sized chunks. Other machinery recovers steel belting and shreds the rubber into ever-smaller pieces until it is ready for the pyrolysis oven, which makes up factory’s technological heart. “That’s where the magic happens,” Wibbeler said. While the process is similar to the one employed by Carbolytic Materials, Wibbeler insists that a number of refinements have made production cleaner and safer, and that the possibility of fires and spills is low. For example, one of the CMC fires was caused by the use of powerful heaters to keep exterior pipes filled with a mixture of water and oil from freezing on a bitterly cold night. Wibbeler said that won’t happen using a new system that places most production and storage operations inside the plant and separates oil and water earlier in the process. In addition, he said, Maryville Carbon plans to offer monthly tours of the facility to members of Maryville’s largely volunteer fire department and has installed an advanced-technology fire-suppression system. The idea of the tours is to familiarize a changing roster of firefighters with the factory and its contents so they will be prepared should an emergency arise. While combining heat, rubber, gas, and oil is an unavoidably messy undertaking, Wibbeler and his management team believe Bolder Black will pay off environmentally as well as financially. Ken Dunn, Bolder Industries’ sustainability director, said Friday that “We are very proud of what we have here” in terms of producing a substance from scrap tires, which for years have created solid-waste problems on a global sale. Dunn said 300 million tires are scrapped each year, and that an increasing number of landfills are refusing to take them. The result, he said, is that about 50 percent of all waste tires are incinerated, a practice that has come under increasing scrutiny by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. At full production, Dunn said, Maryville Carbon will initially be able to process up to 1 million scrap tires a year, enough to produce 7 million pounds of Bolder Black, 1.2 million gallons of oil, and 1,600 tons of recovered steel. Compared to producing a similar amount of “virgin” carbon black from petroleum, Dunn said, the Maryville Carbon operation will reduce carbon dioxide equivalent emissions by 480,000 tons a year, save 161 million gallons of water, and produce 84 million kilowatt hours of electricity annually, enough to power nearly 8,000 single-family homes. From a customer’s point of view, Dunn said major manufacturers — including General Motors and Ford — are increasingly interested in carbon black recovered from tires and other kinds of scrap rubber because it improves their environmental “scorecard” with regard to various regulatory requirements. Another upside for buyers, he said, is that while the cost of conventional carbon black is tied to the price of oil, Bolder Black is produced from “feedstock” — that is old tires — that is essentially free. That means, Dunn said, that Bolder Industries should be able to offer customers a fixed price over the term of multi-year contracts regardless of how oil prices fluctuate. As for the local impact, Bolder Industries Vice President Nate Murphy said he has about 20 job openings to fill almost immediately, including a plant manager position. At full production, Murphy said, the factory will likely have a payroll of between 35 and 40 workers clocking in over three shifts. If the customer demand is there, Murphy said that for technical reasons the plant is most efficient operating 24 hours a day, since once the pyrolytic oven is hot it needs to stay hot. During Friday’s event, local government and economic development officials praised Maryville Carbon for taking a community-centered approach in re-opening the shuttered plant. Josh McKim, executive director of Nodaway County Economic Development, noted that the company cleared up tax debt left by the previous owners, even though it had no obligation to do so. “There is social good in the business plan they’ve got,” McKim said. “It’s more than just a profit center. Lots of companies give lip service to that, but they have put their money where  Continue Reading »

By TONY BROWN Staff writer Maryville Daily Forum It’s a tough economy, right? Jobs are hard to come by, right? U.S. manufacturing is mostly outsourced overseas, and there just aren’t any good factory jobs anymore, right? Wrong, says Josh McKim, executive director of Nodaway County Economic Development. In Maryville at any rate, McKim claims, factory jobs are going begging, and local plants are putting off adding new shifts and opening new lines because they can’t find enough trained workers. The key word in that sentence being “trained.” Factory workers these days do a lot more than perform simple, repetitive tasks as various widgets move down the assembly line. More often, they control computer programs that tell very smart machines what to do and how to do it in an environment that calls for considerable technological know-how. And while, according to McKim, Nodaway County workers are among the best in the nation when it comes to productivity, there are currently not enough of them to staff local factories whose managers say they are poised for growth. In order to address the shortage of trained workers, NCED, the Maryville R-II School District, Northwest Technical School, and North Central Missouri College in Trenton have been working together on a program that could eventually provide specialized training to people seeking to enter the local workforce The conversation began when plant managers here let it be known that existing vocational programs at Northwest Technical School aren’t really preparing students for careers in manufacturing. NTS currently offers training for both traditional high school students and adults in the areas of agriculture, automotive technology, business and technology, childcare, collision repair, culinary arts, health science and technology, and welding/machine shop. Well and good, the factory folks say, but not really what they need. McKim said the situation prompted a “very blunt conversation” with R-II school officials, the gist of which was that local manufacturing operations require “a skill base that just isn’t there right now in our workforce.” In an effort to plug the gap, NCED and the members of Maryville’s industrial community turned to North Central Missouri College, which, with funding from a grant written by Kim Mildward of the Maryville-based Missouri Career Center, has developed a four-course training module that emphasizes essential manufacturing skills. The module, which consists of college-level courses in maintenance, quality control, safety, and general production, takes about 18 months to complete, and the first class of 25 students began attending once-weekly three-hour class sessions in January. It may seem a little odd, but all of the students enrolled in the pilot program are workers who already have jobs at local plants. McKim said the course is being rolled out this way so that the participating factories can better gauge the impact of the training on efficiency, productivity, and improved worker performance. Donell Robidoux Anderson, senior supervisor of human resources for Kawasaki Motors in Maryville, said her company has 17 workers participating in the program, and is hoping the results in terms of improved skills will merit tailoring the training for jobseekers with little or no manufacturing experience. “That’s why we are doing it,” she said. “We have a number of different employees in different job roles going through the program, and we’ll be assessing it to see if it helps them with their current positions. If this matches with what our needs are, then we can determine if the program can help get us out of the skills gap we have in this community.” Anderson added she is hopeful that North Central Missouri College, which has considerable experience providing industrial training in its core service area about 100 miles east of Maryville, is the right vendor to offer a more broad-based course. Jason Helton, NCMC’s director of corporate and business relations, said his institution is eager to take up the challenge, and that Maryville is fortunate to have leaders who recognize the importance of providing the kind of core-skills training required by today’s production workers and front-line factory supervisors. “The feedback I’ve gotten from the instructor at this point is that he’s very excited about the class,” Helton said. “Employers need a pipeline of qualified workers, and we would love to be able to provide that.” So far, McKim said, there has been a “tremendous response” with regard to the initial course from plant managers and workers alike. He added that the program already has a waiting list of 30 employees seeking to join the next cohort. Current students participating in the program, he said, are doing so in order to acquire skills and knowledge that will make them eligible for promotion. But he added that if the course proves successful it will eventually be opened to jobseekers at large, including both recent high school graduates and older workers in need of a credential to help them get their foot in the door. “Eventually we’re going to try and provide this to the general public,” McKim said. “But right now we just want to find out if this is the answer that we’re looking for.” Though only a handful of class sessions have taken place, McKim said initial feedback from students has been positive. “The people I have talked to have seen value in it,” he said. “It’s like any other class, people will say this part is worth it and this part isn’t, but overall there has been a positive response. We’re going to continue to monitor it and see what their thoughts are going forward.” But offering training specifically targeted at manufacturing is only part of the solution, McKim said, since such programs don’t enlarge the employee pool in a part of the state where unemployment is typically below 5 percent. “You talk to any of the manufacturers, and they love the people they have,” McKim said. “They think they are fantastic. If you look at production levels in northwest Missouri, we outpace the federal and state averages. We are tremendously efficient. “That being said, the problem is not  Continue Reading »

By TONY BROWN Staff writer Maryville Daily Forum As the April 1 opening date nears for the new Boulders Inn & Suites Maryville hotel at Mozingo Lake Recreation Park, newly hired General Manager Sharlet Dumke is busy preparing for the lakeside lodge’s first season as electricians, painters, carpenters, and other workers put the finishing touches on interior construction, finishing, and furnishing. Dumke is no stranger to Maryville, nor is she a hospitality industry novice. After completing a degree in food and beverage management at Northwest Missouri State University in 1999, the Iowa native immediately went to work for Aramark Corp., which served then — and still serves — as the campus’ food-service vendor. After breaking into the business as the catering director for another Aramark client, Michigan State University in Lansing, Dumke returned to Maryville in the early 2000s, filling a similar position at Northwest. But when Denison, Iowa-based Boulders Inn & Suites, which is developing the Maryville lodge in conjunction with a group of local investors, started looking for someone to assume responsibility for hotel operations here, Dumke decided the time had come for a change. On the job since January, she has spent the past month and a half hiring staff and working with a growing list of clients who have been queueing up to reserve rooms for a variety of special events and gatherings. So far, inquiries and advance bookings have come in from customers seeking lodging for weddings, school and family reunions, anniversaries, golf tournaments, football games, homecomings, and corporate retreats. Dumke said the “resort” nature of the hotel’s business model is one of the things that attracted her to the job as opposed to managing a typical business-class hotel located on a retail strip or along the side of a highway. “We’re a little off the main drag,” she said. “So it’s more event based — more than people just looking for a place to stay.” As the catering director at Northwest, Dumke is used to helping organize large functions and creating an atmosphere in which people can relax and enjoy each other’s company. “That was one of the big draws for me,” she said. “I still get to be a part of everybody’s special occasion.” The other reason Dumke decided to go after the Boulder’s job has to do with her affection for her adopted hometown, which she has no intention of leaving. “We’re going to stay in Maryville,” she said, “and I like the opportunity here (at the Boulders lodge) and the connections I will continue to have with both the university and the town.” She added that since many of the golf tournaments, reunions, and other events expected to center around the hotel will have at least some connection with Northwest, a lot of her future customers will be people she has worked with before. Another plus, Dumke said, is the chance to create synergy with a neighboring conference center and golf course clubhouse being built by the City of Maryville that is expected to open early next year. Among other amenities, the conference center is to include a large banquet hall and a privately operated restaurant, operations that Dumke said dovetail with her food service experience. “I’m excited about the conference center,” she said, noting that she is looking forward to working with center staff to provide guests with a multi-faceted experience that combines lodging, food, golf, and opportunities for social and business gatherings along with access to fishing, boating, horseback riding, hunting, and other outdoor activities. Dumke said she first became aware of Mozingo’s possibilities as a recreation, vacation, and event site through her husband, Howard Dumke, who teaches third grade at Eugene Field Elementary School and works security at the lake during the summer. Talking about Mozingo with Howard, she said, made her more aware of the park’s existing role as well as its potential. As the hotel’s general manager, Dumke said she will often be responsible for providing the initial round of information to those seeking to find out exactly what the lake and surrounding 3,000-acre park have to offer. “It’s the whole experience,” she said. “But people tend to book their rooms first and then start planning other activities. So I’m the starting point, and I’ll be able to help guide them to all those other places.” As for the hotel itself, the facility will offer 40 units with king- or queen-sized beds. The room mix includes four suites as well as two handicap-compliant rooms on the ground floor. At maximum occupancy, the lodge will be able to accommodate about 146 guests. Other features embrace a large breakfast area equipped with café tables and a sofa and easy chairs arranged in front of a large, stone-faced fireplace. Besides a complimentary hot breakfast, the hotel will offer patrons a pantry market selling snacks and convenience items, a small fitness center with aerobic machines and free weights, Simmons pillow top mattresses, in-room 43-inch flat-screen televisions, wifi access, and a business center. So far, Dumke has hired 10 part-time staff to fill housekeeping, front-desk, and other roles. Final staffing numbers, she said, will depend on occupancy rates. The lodge will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. On other fronts, Boulders Inn & Suites Project Manager Nate Houston said efforts are moving forward to market the hotel and erect various kinds of signage, including a couple of billboards and a “monument” sign somewhere near the main park entrance at Highway 136 and Liberty Road. Houston said the lodge will be the 13th hotel opened by Boulders Inn & Suites and the first outside of Iowa. He said a grand-opening is planned for sometime in late April.   www.maryvilledailyforum.com

By TONY BROWN Staff writer, Maryville Daily Forum Missouri’s top prison official was in town Thursday to congratulate staff members at the Maryville Treatment Center on the occasion of the penal institution’s 20th anniversary. George Lombardi, director of the Missouri Department of Corrections, called MTC and the 239 people who work there a “critical part of our operation” and praised employees for doing “an incredible job for the last 20 years.” Located on Highway 136 near Maryville’s east city limits, MTC is a Department of Corrections minimum-security prison for male inmates located on the grounds of the former Mount Alverno motherhouse of the Sisters of St. Francis, a former Roman Catholic congregation of nuns. The facility houses 561 offenders enrolled in either six-month or one-year substance abuse and behavior modification programs designed to prepare them for life outside prison walls following their release. MTC Warden Gaye Colborn, who was named the prison’s lead administrator earlier this year, said MTC is unique among Missouri correctional facilities in that it offers inmates access to both Gateway and Department of Rehabilitative Service programs as they near parole or the end of the their sentences. Colborn said both initiatives provide inmates with opportunities in such areas as cognitive development, overcoming substance abuse, and anger management. The facility is also known for its participation in one of Lombardi’s signature projects, Puppies for Parole, in which inmates train and socialize dogs taken from animal shelters, including the New Nodaway Humane Society, in preparation for the animals’ adoption by permanent owners. Speaking in the prison gymnasium to MTC staff and invited guests, Lombardi said MTC’s participation in Puppies Parole, and other efforts designed to impart the values of caring and compassion to criminal offenders, was a hallmark of its success. He added that successfully preparing offenders for their release had slowed the “treadmill” leading to re-incarceration and forestalled the need to build more correctional institutions. Even so, Lomardi said, MDC’s total inmate population has increased from 22,000 in 1996 to 33,000 today. Every time a former prisoner successfully makes the transition from a life of crime to becoming a productive citizen, Lombardi said, families are reunited, future offenses are prevented, and lives are transformed or even saved. “Every encounter you have with an offender is meaningful,” Lombardi said. “If you want them to be caring and compassionate, you have to be caring and compassionate.” Corrections professionals working to bring offenders “over from the dark side,” Lombardi said, are “a critical part of our operation, and you’ve done an incredible job of that for the last 20 years.” Also speaking Thursday was state Rep. Allen Andrews, R-Grant City, who is a member of the House Corrections Committee. Like Lombardi, Andrews thanked MTC workers for “helping those incarcerated here return to a normal life. … You have made this place what it is today.” The MTC anniversary event also included recognition of 14 current staffers who have worked at the prison since it opened in 1996. They include Amy Chor, Brenda Jennings, Scott Parshall, Kristy Schmitz , Kevin Shirrell, Rhonda Steward, Debra White, John Dunlap, Kelly Parshall, Jessie Privett, Tom Seipel, Sheila Sowards, Ralph Wallace, and Judy Wonderly. http://www.maryvilledailyforum.com/

By TONY BROWN Staff writer, Maryville Daily Forum  Dec 8, 2016   A government/private sector partnership formed to improve traffic flow on South Main Street in the vicinity of the Kawasaki Motors factory has led to the start of construction of a paving project along 285th Street that will include a new southbound ramp onto Highway 71. The ramp will begin with a “T” intersection on 285th Street just south of the factory. In addition, the now-gravel road will be paved with concrete as it curves west and links to a private street leading to the Kawasaki loading docks completed by the corporation last summer. From Kawasaki’s point of view, the idea is to give 18-wheelers and other freight vehicles a way to access the plant’s shipping and receiving area without having to drive through the factory’s main parking lot and employee entranceway. In addition, southbound traffic leaving the plant will no longer have to exit from the parking lot onto South Main north of the stoplight intersection at the Highway 71 bypass. Currently a Polk Township road beginning where existing pavement ends just south of the main Kawasaki entrance, 285th Street and the adjoining ramp will become the responsibility of the city once construction is complete in mid-2017. An ordinance transferring ownership of the street to the city, along with responsibility for snow removal and maintenance, is scheduled to go before the City Council at its next meeting on Monday, Dec. 12. Passage is expected. The measure also transfers ownership of South Main between Route V and the Highway 71 bypass interchange to municipal control. City Manager Greg McDanel said the affected portion of Main Street is the last remaining segment still under the authority of the Missouri Department of Transportation. But while the city will take over maintenance of the 1,900-foot-long two-way street and the 1,100-foot one-way ramp, all construction costs — about $2.1 million — are being paid by Kawasaki. According to Josh McKim, executive director of Nodaway County Economic Development, it is extremely unusual for a private company to provide such a high level of funding for public infrastructure. Almost always, he said, corporations insist that such improvements be paid for by a governmental entity. “The great thing about this is that Kawasaki is paying for it, and we get to use it,” McKim said. Kawasaki Motors Vice President and Plant Manager Steve Bratt said his company decided to provide the needed cash because sufficient public funds weren’t available. He further explained that the plant is committed to providing safer, more efficient ingress and egress for haulers and employees. “This is a one-time shot,” said Bratt, adding that all entities involved, including Kawasaki, the city, Polk Township, Nodaway County, and the Missouri Department of Transportation, were “thinking for the future” in supporting a project that will benefit the entire community. According to McDanel, those benefits include furtherance of long-range plans to transform the South Main retail corridor into a landscaped boulevard that will include improved turning lanes, aligned parking lot entrances and exits, additional east-west cross streets, and more pedestrian access. While most of that may be a long way off, McDanel said reducing traffic volume at the South Main/Highway 71 bypass intersection south of Kawasaki and just north of the proposed ramp is an important step toward relieving congestion on the city’s busiest thoroughfare. Bratt estimated that about 30 percent of the outbound truck traffic exiting the Kawasaki campus departs southbound, and that about 20 percent of the factory’s 800 or so employees leave work going the same way. Both McDanel and Bratt said that since 285th Street continues west and eventually links with Icon Road, which is paved, the opportunity exists for improving 285th to Icon at some point, effectively creating a north-south bypass on the west side of town. Crews from Loch Sand & Construction of Maryville have already begun earthwork required for the proposed merge ramp. Another local firm, White Cloud Engineering & Constriction, has been hired as general contractor for both the ramp and improved street. White Cloud’s Brock Pfost said Wednesday the project will also embrace storm drainage infrastructure and about $150,000 worth of utility relocations, including a gas line, telephone cables, fiber optic line, and a 6-inch water main owned by the Nodaway County Public Water Supply District.   www.maryvilledailyforum.com

By TONY BROWN Staff writer Maryville Daily Forum Oct 5, 2016 Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon was in Maryville Tuesday to tout a couple of state-backed local initiatives he praised as measures that will create new opportunities for early childhood education on the one hand and workforce training and readiness on the other. During ceremonies at SSM Health St. Francis Hospital, Nixon announced $1.5 million in approved state grant funding and tax credits that will be used to construct a new, larger daycare and early childhood education center on the hospital grounds. The governor also congratulated local business leaders and government officials on Nodaway County’s recently granted status as a Certified Work Ready Community, which means that a portion of the local workforce has successfully completed ACT (American College Testing Inc.) WorkKeys assessments required to obtain a National Career Readiness Certificate. St. Francis Hospital Foundation Development Director Megan Jennings said construction of the new $3.2 million daycare building is to begin next spring, and that the center will likely begin serving youngsters, including infants, early in 2018. About $1 million of the state aid is in the form of Community Development Block Grant funds set aside under Nixon’s Smart Start initiative, which is designed to expand access to early childhood education across Missouri. Smart Start is currently in its third, and possibly last, year, since Nixon is nearing the end of his second and final term in office. In addition to the CDBG funds, Nixon also announced that St. Francis has received approval for the sale of up to $250,000 in Neighborhood Assistance Program tax credits, which Jennings said will generate an anticipated $500,000 in funding for the new childhood center. Locally, NAP tax credits have been used in recent years to fund a couple of other projects: the West Fourth Street pedestrian corridor and the Lettuce Dream greenhouse complex, which is to provide vocational training for the developmentally and cognitively disabled. Under state regulations, CDBG money must be spent on construction, but NAP proceeds are flexible and can be used to cover a number of preschool development costs — anything from furniture to staffing. In applying for the grant and tax credits, St. Francis worked closely with the Northwest Missouri Regional Council of Governments and the City of Maryville. Since community development grants can only be issued to governments, the city acted as a “pass through” fiscal agent — the actual grant recipient — and will turn the money over to the hospital, which bears all responsibility for using the funds appropriately. The St. Francis facility will embrace a new 15,800-square-foot daycare, early learning, and Early Head Start operation that will double the capacity of the existing SSM Health Preschool & Child Care Center at 2112 S. Main St. from 67 to 136 children. Twenty-four of those youngsters, ages 0-3, will be served by the Early Head Start program, which is to be administered by Community Services Inc., a local social services agency. In addition, early childhood education majors at Northwest Missouri State University will work at the center while completing practicums in pursuit of college degrees. St. Francis began providing daycare and early childhood learning programs in 1986 after converting the current 3,000-square-foot facility, a former single-family home built in the late 1950s. Nixon said that to date more than $23 million in Start Smart funding has been awarded to 24 projects across Missouri that will serve approximately 2,300 pre-school-age children. “Access to early childhood education is a vital component of ensuring children are ready to start kindergarten with the skills they need to be successful,” said Nixon, who called creating educational opportunities for young people and adults alike “the best economic development tool there is.” “The first five years of a child’s development have an impact that lasts a lifetime,” the governor added. “Early education is a smart investment.” As for the Work Ready Community certification, Nixon said the designation will help employers identify qualified employees while providing a tool for economic development officials to use in recruiting new businesses and industries. “Nodaway County brought together local businesses, educators, and economic development leaders to earn this important designation certifying that the local workforce is ready to compete and win in the global economy,” Nixon said. The governor was joined at the podium at Nodaway County Economic Development Executive Director Josh McKim, who described Work Ready Communities as “an outstanding example of what is possible when a community sets its sights on excellence and works hard to achieve it.” McKim continued that the program is “a great way to assess the skill level of our existing and emerging workforce” that will allow business and community leaders to “understand the strengths and weaknesses of our labor base so that we can shape local workforce efforts.” He said the “metric” would also be useful in terms of recruiting new investment in the Maryville region by both new and existing employers. Work Ready Communities qualify for the designation by meeting requirements set by ACT, which is best known for its widely used college admissions test. http://www.maryvilledailyforum.com/business/article_4b421f3c-8aea-11e6-a8b0-dbc756c488fd.html

Maryville, Mo. – Gov. Jay Nixon today visited St. Francis Hospital in Maryville to congratulate Nodaway County leaders for being designated a Certified Work Ready Community. Gov. Nixon said Nodaway County’s successful efforts to strengthen its workforce training program is helping to attract and retain jobs to the community. “Nodaway County brought together local businesses, educators and economic development leaders to earn this important designation certifying that the local workforce is ready to compete and win in the global economy,” Gov. Nixon said. “This is an outstanding example of what is possible when a community sets its sights on excellence and works hard to achieve it. I congratulate everyone here in Nodaway County on becoming a Certified Work Ready Community.” “The Certified Work Ready Community program is a great way to assess the skill level of our existing and emerging workforce. This program allows us to firmly understand the strengths and weaknesses of our labor base so that we can shape local workforce efforts,” said Joshua McKim of Nodaway County Economic Development. “In addition, the CWRC is a great tool for the recruitment of investment, whether you are dealing with new or existing employers.” In 2012, Missouri was selected as one of the first four states to participate in the Certified Work Ready Communities initiative by American College Testing (ACT). The initiative aligns workforce training programs with the economic development needs of communities; matches appropriate applicants to jobs based on skill level; and strengthens businesses by strengthening the workforce. Jasper County, Missouri was named the first Certified Work Ready Community in the nation, and Missouri has 81 counties that are actively participating in the Certified Work Ready Community initiative and 36 fully certified counties. By participating in the Certified Work Ready Communities initiative, Nodaway County is: • Helping workers understand what skills are required by employers, and how to prepare themselves for success; • Helping businesses effectively communicate their workforce needs to area education and workforce training programs; • Providing educators with the tools needed to close the skills gap by establishing career pathways for students with stackable industry-recognized credentials; and • Equipping economic development organizations with an on-demand reporting tool to promote the quality of their workforce. Through this initiative, ACT has also awarded more than 77,000 National Career Readiness Certificates (NCRC) to workers in Missouri, including more than 6,520 certificates to Missouri veterans. NCRCs are accepted by more than 10,000 employers nationwide to verify individuals’ work skills. Various agencies along with dozens of businesses throughout the county joined together to make this designation possible for Nodaway County, including the Northwest Missouri Regional Council of Governments, Nodaway County Economic Development, the Missouri Job Center, Kawasaki, SSM Health, Northwest Missouri State University, and Jefferson C-123 and Maryville R-11 School Districts. Release Date: 10/04/2016 Contact: Scott Holste, (573) 751-0290

Maryville, MO – Scooter’s Coffee is pleased to announce a new location in Maryville, Missouri at 1308 S. Main Street. Founded in 1998, Scooter’s Coffee is fortunate to have nearly two decades of success due to its commitment to the original business principles and company core values: Amazing People, Serving Amazing Drinks. The location will serve drive-thru coffee along with an assortment of hot drinks, iced drinks, smoothies, and breakfast related food items. “The City of Maryville and Nodaway County Economic Development are excited to welcome Scooter’s Coffee to Maryville. Numerous citizen surveys over the years have indicated the desire for a specialized drive-thru coffee retailer. We look forward to the success of Scooter’s Coffee and their redevelopment of a vacant structure in our South Main commercial district,” stated City Manager Greg McDanel. Scooter’s Coffee roasts from the top 10% of specialty coffee beans in the world from over 150 stores in the United States. For more information please visit www.scooterscoffee.com .

Are you ready to have fun!?!? Please join us at Mozingo for the 4th of July Spectacular presented by Kawasaki Maryville Plant. The event is free to the public & will feature a FREE Human Foosball Tournament, inflatables & games, mechanical riding bull, FREE Kool Kats, live music from The Mixtapes & DOUBLE THE FIREWORKS!!! You don’t want to miss out! Special thanks to our additional sponsors Hy-Vee, PeopleService, Inc, Pizza Ranch Maryville, United Electric Cooperative, Oak Pointe of Maryville, & the City of Maryville, Missouri.  

By TONY BROWN Staff writer  Maryville Daily Forum Construction of a long-awaited hotel at Mozingo Lake Recreation Park officially got under way Thursday afternoon as local officials, along with representatives from developer Boulders Inn & Suites, picked up a dozen gold-painted shovels and turned over a few pounds of ceremonial earth. The 40-room hotel — a key component in the park’s 20-year master plan — is being privately developed by Iowa-based Boulders in conjunction with a group of local investors, Boulders Inn Maryville, and carries an estimated cost of $3.2 million. Boulders CEO Tim Stuart said that more than half the capital needed for the project was put up by the Maryville investment organization, which is organized as a separate limited liability company. Stuart said he expects construction to last through the late winter or early spring of 2017, and that the lodge’s opening will coincide with completion of a $4 million publicly financed conference center that is to contain a new golf course clubhouse and pro shop, restaurant, and banquet facilities. At 19,000 square feet, the hotel will be slightly more than half the size of the 30,000-square-foot center. As reported earlier, the hotel will be managed by Boulders and, with the exception of some utilities infrastructure, involves no expenditure of tax dollars either for construction or operations. The conference center restaurant will also be run by a private third-party vendor. Stuart said the Mozingo hotel represents his company’s 13th commercial lodging facility. Eleven of those lodges are operational, and a 12th is currently under construction in Manning, Iowa. Two of Boulders other properties are also located on golf courses and a third was developed on a lakeshore. Stuart said the Mozingo project is similar to the company’s first Boulders Inn, which opened in Denison, Iowa, in 2008, and likewise adjoins a municipal conference center. As with Boulders’ other developments, this one will use Huegerich Construction of Carroll, Iowa, as the general contractor. In an apparent response to social media posts made a week or so ago criticizing the use of out-of-town subcontractors, City Manager Greg McDanel said a number of local contracting businesses will take part in the project, and that some building materials, such as rebar, are being purchased locally as well. Tracing the history of the project in a brief speech during Thursday’s ceremony, McDanel said the concept for the lodge grew from a feasibility study commissioned by the City Council and completed by consulting firm IDM in 2012. That report declared that a 70-room hotel at the lake could make money. However the study also identified a number of downsides, especially an “unprofessional” marketing approach that failed to emphasize Mozingo’s potential as a regional tourist and corporate events destination. As the hotel proposal gained focus, it was championed by former city councilmen Glenn Jonagan and Jim Fall. Fall currently serves as executive editor of the Maryville Daily Forum. McDanel said both men instructed municipal staff to “make it happen,” marching orders that led to the creation of a comprehensive marketing campaign initially designed by a group of students at Northwest Missouri State University. Another piece in the hotel puzzle, McDanel said, fell into place with the hiring of Assistant City Manager Ryan Heiland, who was put in charge of overall operations at the 3,000-acre park. Heiland played a key role in streamlining Mozingo’s organizational structure — a move, in part, calculated to integrate development of a hotel/conference center complex with existing park operations. McDanel said it was Heiland who suggested recruiting Boulders Inn & Suites after seeing a television news report of a Boulders development adjoining a golf course and conference center in Polk City, Iowa. Thursday’s ceremony, McDanel said, was the “crescendo of a five-year effort” to bring commercial lodging to Mozingo Lake, and especially to the Sechrest 18 and Watson 9 golf courses. Stuart called the event “an exciting day for our company,” adding that he was eager to “get a shovel in my hands and get this thing going.” He also described his company’s relationship with local government and economic development officials as a “mutual admiration society.” “The more we looked, the more excited we got about coming to Maryville,” Stuart said. When completed, the hotel is to offer “upscale lodging” consisting of both single rooms and a limited number of suites. Stuart said that the facility’s modular design means it could be enlarged to 70 or 80 units at the point business volume justifies expansion. Thursday’s ground-breaking ceremony was hosted by the Greater Maryville Chamber of Commerce.