Businesspeople work globally but live locally

Jerry Nichols, CEO of AGC Refining & Filtration LLC, traveled 1.1 million miles last year en route to 38 countries, but his home is firmly rooted in the Ozarks.

Somewhat of a business diplomat, he primarily travels to developing nations to speak with government officials about his company’s patents: a way of re-refining oil with no carbon footprint.

“I go to a region and get the government on board with the environmental side of having a zero carbon footprint recycling plant,” Nichols said of plants built in Springfield and shipped internationally in pieces. “It would probably be tough to find an oil rig in the world that doesn’t have some of our equipment on it.”

Nichols said he typically travels to undeveloped places to help raise living standards.

Nichols returned from the Philippines late Nov. 21 and was sleep deprived during a Springfield Business Journal interview the next day. He doesn’t see much issue with the commute. He flies out of Springfield to either Chicago or Dallas and then elsewhere around the globe.

He remains based in Springfield because business incentives sweeten the deal.

“We are one of the few companies that makes 100 percent American-made products in the area and ships entirely abroad. So there are good tax incentives to do that,” he said.

But some careers and commutes may be better served elsewhere. Networking in key markets might pave some paths. Direct flights might be attained easier if near a hub and the painful and exhaustingly long drive home after international travel can be avoided.

For many business and creative people in the Ozarks, family is truly the tie that binds, but other motivations are the pace of life, cost of living and the ability to fully participate in and impact the community. Making that decision easier is the changing landscape in which business is conducted.

Rat race rejects
Springfield-based photographer Christian Gideon said there isn’t much geographical limitation for him anymore.

“With the internet and the global economy, you don’t necessarily have to be in New York or L.A. to get found,” he said via Facebook Messenger. “Assuming your work is on par with the best of the best, people will find you.”

Cinematographer Nathan Maulorico and his producer wife Megan, co-owners of Unknown Films, sometimes travel together when hired for the same project, for the Travel Channel, for example. Currently in the Caribbean, they will soon work on a television research project around Cuba. He’s worked on the road 18 months during the past two years.

Gideon’s busy season meant 60 flights March-November.

“That’s about one every five days,” he said.

Work most often takes him to New York City and the upper East Coast, although he travels more widely shooting for an advertising agency developing the Heineken soccer campaign. He also recently shot for the Adidas corporate office. Gideon said of the 30 weddings he photographed in the last year only three were in Springfield.

“New York is where the bread and butter is for me,” he said.  

Gideon and Maulorico periodically are exposed to the rat race and reject it as a constant way of life. They like the pace in the Ozarks.

“I can get my fill of hustle and bustle whenever I’m not home,” said Maulorico, who has lived on both coasts but prefers the Ozarks because friends have time to visit over dinner and houses have the space to accommodate the entire family.

“Time slows down for me here,” Gideon said. “I don’t spend two to three hours in traffic. I don’t spend an hour in the subway.”

Long commutes
Marty Brown is a coordinator of the Pacific Rim for the Washington Nationals Baseball Club, and he travels to Japan and Taiwan regularly. But he chooses to live in Rolla. His family has roots there, and he and his Japanese wife live in his boyhood home.

“Really, it’s not that big of an issue. Probably, the hardest part is when I get back from Japan, I have to drive all the way from St. Louis to Rolla,” Brown said.

Another compelling reason: The former professional ball player started Brown’s Baseball Academy a year ago in Rolla.

For these businesspeople in a variety of professions, the Ozarks is home.

AGC Refining & Filtration’s Nichols said family and a connection to the Ozarks keeps him here. His son is a senior at Ozark High School.

“It depends on how you do the statistics, but I was in two of the most populated cities in the world in the last two weeks. I enjoy traveling. It’s interesting. But there’s nothing like getting picked up by my family and getting back to my little ranch and back to the quiet,” he said.  

“I have no intention of going anywhere else. I don’t consistently go to any one place, so it wouldn’t help me to be based anywhere else. Plus, the company started here in the 1940s, and we are continuing that legacy.”

Web producer Geoff Pickle contributed.

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