The morning has not yet dawned on the Rountree Neighborhood, and four female professionals are laced up and ready to hit the pavement by 5:15 a.m.
Springfield Metropolitan Bar Association Executive Director Crista Hogan is in the middle of the pack as they hug the curbs along Pickwick, Walnut and Hammons Parkway, before completing the 5-mile jog back in Rountree. The early morning routine is as serious as the business day that follows for Hogan and company – criminal defense attorney Teresa Grantham, human resources consultant Andrea Turner and county prosecutor Olivia McNair.
Later in the day, Hogan will meet about another race, the Law Day 5K.
First, she pays a visit to her hair stylist of eight years, Paul Catlett of Studio 417 Salon. She’s gearing up for the monthly SMBA luncheon at The Tower Club.
“Your goal is to be naturally silver?” Catlett asks as Hogan settles into the swivel chair before 7 a.m.
The two banter like longtime friends. After all, their careers are entwined – Catlett was a client of Hogan’s husband, Dr. Tedd Hamaker; he advised the couple when they moved the veterinarian practice to Galloway Village; and he connected Hogan to a buyer of the practice after Hamaker died of cancer in August 2010.
“Paul fixed my hair the day of our wedding – and the day of his funeral,” Hogan explains.
Describing Catlett as a confidant, the topics this morning cover the Boston Marathon bombings, her ticket to the Macklemore concert at JQH Arena and her son’s work ethic.
“It’s almost therapy,” says Catlett, the son of a Paul Mueller Co. steelworker.
Hogan leaves the salon well before it technically opens and heads into the bar office, where she manages operations for some 900 members – up from 600 when she took the reins in late 2001.
She handles emails, preps for the upcoming Law Day and makes a last-minute call to new Tower Club GM James Clary about luncheon details. She rides up to the 21st floor well ahead of the higher than normal lunch crowd of 142. The Kickapoo High School mock trial team is on hand to receive its regional trophy, and University of Missouri law students are on a career development trip.
Hogan energetically greets guests as they spill out of the elevators and directs like a quarterback calling plays on the field.
“You’re going to be introducing the group,” she tells an MU student. “Sit with people you don’t know.”
The crowd quickly fills the lower level of The Tower Club, and the meeting goes off without a hitch. One new member joins, and the group is adjourned at 1:03 p.m.
Hogan sticks around along with bar board President Chip Sheppard to give a pep talk to MU students, some of whom are kin to familiar Springfield attorneys Tom Peebles and John Lightner. The pros emphasize networking and encourage the next generation to consider work in the executive branch.
“You may have to take a job like that because the market is so tight,” Sheppard tells the students.
With two bar interns in tow, Hogan is one of the last to leave the club, and on the way down, she recalls her time in law school. Later at the SMBA office, Hogan points to her picture holding her firstborn while in law school cap and gown at the University of Tulsa. She notes women represented half of her 1988 graduating class, and today only a quarter of the Springfield bar members are female attorneys.
With a board meeting on the docket the next day, Hogan turns her attention toward Law Day tasks. She’s on a mission to order 5K T-shirts and by mid-afternoon finds herself in the storage room of Five Pound Apparel at a cluttered table with co-founder Bryan Simpson. Two weeks from race day, Hogan admits she’s under a time crunch.
“I think we can make it work,” the laid-back Simpson tells her, outlining the options. “They also come in tank tops, if you want to get crazy.”
Given the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, Hogan is retrospective as they brainstorm the theme and logo design. They settle on using a quote credited to Abraham Lincoln: “I walk slowly, but I never walk backward.”
“I’m going to take some of the tanks off your hands,” Hogan says of the 150-shirt order.
Some personal shopping finds her with a few items for youngest daughter Theo Shuler, who is waiting on mom at the SMBA building. The Central High School student spreads homework on a table outside of Hogan’s personal office, which is engineered like a cockpit with her computer, phone, iPad and legal books within reach on all sides.
A decade ago, the nonprofit bar operations looked quite a bit differently. Hogan kept a corner office in the Woodruff building, she had three full-time staffers and dues revenues were half of today’s levels. Now, the bar owns a building at 1615 S. Ingram Mill Road, Hogan and Office Manager Melanie Richards rely heavily on interns, and nondues revenues – such as equipment and facility rental, and a weekly newsletter – are nearly dried up.
The business day ends at 5 p.m. at KY3 studios, where Hogan greets the panel for today’s edition of Call A Lawyer on the topic of health care directives. But the day’s not complete until the “only parent” of three completes a yoga session and picks up Theo for a homemade meal by friend and neighbor Dwight Rahmeyer, the CEO of Trust Company of the Ozarks.
“I’m fairly inadequate, but I’m all they’ve got,” Hogan jokes about being a working mother and widow. “It works for us.”
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