2014 Most Influential Women Honoree: Mary Beth Hartman

If you’ve walked around Park Central Square, then you’ve walked on improvements Mary Beth Hartman played a part in.

The square’s facelift a few years ago is just one public project completed by Hartman’s company, Hunter Chase & Associates Inc., of which she is founder and president. Others include Missouri State University’s Hutchens House and the Greene County Public Safety Center.

Hartman is proud to have consistently grown Hunter Chase during a wide range of economic conditions, which were especially challenging to the construction industry. She shares credit with her staff.

“I have a core group of loyal and wonderful employees who have trusted in my leadership and my commitment to them and to their families,” says Hartman, who also is executive vice president of Hartman & Co. Inc.,  her father Dean Hartman’s heavy civil construction business. “It is this commitment, as I’ve come to know, that is the most powerful and rewarding part in running a successful business.”

That commitment is a reflection of Hartman’s approach to all endeavors, whether personal or professional, a philosophy perhaps best defined by servant leadership.

“If there was only one example for my influencing the success of others, it would be to pass on my experience of the principle of sowing and reaping,” she says. “It’s in being able to ignite a passion to learn how awesome the opportunity is to pay forward to others a portion of the blessings one has.”

She credits the act of giving as the reason for her successes in life.

“Everyone has something to give, and the return on the investment in the act of giving continues to consistently exceed the gift given,” she says.

Hartman is engaged in the community in several ways. She is a board member of the CoxHealth Foundation and has worked to raise funds and awareness of various issues for the organization. She’s especially proud of her involvement with the Police-Fire Pension Trust Fund Citizens Task Force for which she spoke to civic groups to garner support for the ultimately successful passage of the sales tax.

Hartman also took a leadership role in the 2012 membership drive for the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce, helping her team bring in the largest number of new members. For her efforts, Hartman won five of six individual chamber awards.

In the past two years, Hartman has raised more than $10,000 on behalf of employees at Hunter Chase and Hartman & Co. for those suffering hardship.

“While it is so joyful to see the appreciation of a burden lifted from someone, it is also an opportunity to make the suggestion for them to pay their gratitude forward to the next person who crosses their path that has a need,” Hartman says. “Caring about others enough to share one’s assets of energy, time and resources reveals one’s talent and ability.

“It’s astonishing to see what lies inside one’s heart once inspired.”[[In-content Ad]]