A Conversation With ... Kim Inman

Still in the transition period until year’s end, you will replace 14-year CEO Rita Needham. What have you learned from Needham so far and how do you plan to fill her shoes?
I signed on Nov. 11, but for the first two weeks, Rita was still CEO and she will be here until the end of the year. I officially started as CEO Dec. 2. We are in a transition period, but we like to call it a blending period. We are trying to blend our two styles. Take her knowledge of the industry and transfer as much as she can to me.

My focus is adding the business development and technology side of things because of my background. We will continue to have our annual meetings, summits, but rather than have one event people from all over the state attend, we will be doing more webinars and I want to drive things technically. Instead of mailings, how much can we push to our members via email? That’s a piece of the puzzle.   

What did you learn from your time with the Double A Cardinals and how will you apply that at MAM?
When people show up for a game, they see the finished product and they smile. When people buy something off a store shelf, they receive the finished product and they are happy. What people don’t think about is all the work that went into that game experience and all the work that when into that item on the shelf. There are hundreds of pieces to every puzzle. The pieces may have changed, but business is business. I’m just arranging different pieces now. My experience with the Cardinals helped prepare me for this puzzle.

You have extensive experience fundraising for nonprofits, including serving as the founding chairwoman and executive baron of the American Cancer Society Cattle Baron’s Ball. How does that fit into MAM?
We are a not-for-profit and our goal is to help. If I can put programs together to help manufacturing member organizations and individuals, I want to. When I think of fundraising, I think about it as growing and developing a business. Whether it’s for March of Dimes or the American Cancer Society, they are all good opportunities and missions people want to support. Our mission is to support the manufacturers. We want to help them. The fundraising piece would be, how do we offer better and how do we make it better for them? It takes money from our standpoint to put these programs together. I’d love to be able to offer more educational opportunities, some sort of scholarship, but it takes fundraising. Fundraising comes through our events, business development, allied partners and membership.

MAM’s mission is to represent the economic, political, educational and social interests of manufacturers in Missouri. How do you plan to lead the association and be a voice in those areas?
I’m new to this organization and I’m new to lobbying. I will depend on other people we work with to educate and assist me. Rita is retiring officially on Dec. 20, but I still have access to her, which will also help. Lobbying is selling. With my marketing background, that’s where I come in. You have to believe in a product to sell it, so my first goal is to educate myself on our product. When I go to Jeff City, I can go feeling like I understand both sides while supporting the manufacturing industry.
 
What are MAM’s priorities for the coming year?
Growth is a priority. We need to have a louder voice and to do that, we have to grow across the state. We started in Springfield and we have grown and are developing in other regions such as St. Louis, Rolla, southeast Missouri and Kansas City. Our board is diverse, with members from Lebanon, St. Louis, Rolla, Joplin and other regions as we continue to work on expanding MAM. Our members have primarily been in southwest Missouri and it’s beginning to grow. We are very strategic toward St. Louis right now. They want that representation. The feedback we are getting from other towns is that they want a voice and they want network opportunities.