Editor's Note: Introductions on a need-to-know basis

It’s with that thought in mind that Springfield Business Journal delivers 12 People You Need To Know. By way of this special pullout product and a once-a-month breakfast event in 2008, I would like to introduce to you a group of people with fascinating careers, unique lives and special stories.

This inaugural class covers a big-city banker making a mark in the Ozarks, an executive who travels like a rock star with a Springfield hotel tycoon, a Filipino scientist developing life-saving technologies behind closed lab doors and a rookie general counsel taking flight with a major city entity. These people represent the heart and soul of business in the region.

Some are up-and-coming professionals, some have relocated and are building their southwest Missouri résumés, and some are instrumental yet behind-the-scenes personnel. Based on those three criteria, all are worthy of special introductions.

SBJ staff and trusted colleagues recommended names, and the editorial team, led by me, Features Editor Maria Hoover and Online Editor Dee Dee Jacobs, handpicked the 12 People named in these pages from a list of 125 qualified candidates. Tough decisions were made, and a dozen names rose to the top.

Thanks to SBJ Publisher, Dianne Elizabeth Osis, for allowing this staff to be entrepreneurial in so many ways. This enterprising project got off the ground during a planning lunch with Hoover at Springfield Brewing Co.

What started as an idea for picking 10 people under a “who’s who” In Focus discussion quickly morphed into 12 people – so readers could meet one a month.

The idea ultimately inspired a larger vision by SBJ’s management team to launch the supporting ticketed breakfast question-and-answer sessions.

Another thanks to sponsor Arvest Bank for giving the 12 People project legs on which to run. We’re doing just that in 2008, beginning in mid-January with the first of 12 live interviews, each held at Clarion Hotel’s Newsroom Café.

In the end, it’s my goal that – through discovering these 12 People – SBJ readers will have formed new relationships, become better informed to make business decisions, have learned a new career philosophy or two and maybe even have gained a competitive edge.

Please make the most of this editorial project. Introduce yourself to the 12 People You Need To Know.

And if there’s a local businessperson you’d like to meet, please send me an e-mail (eolson@sbj.net), as there will be a whole new class in 2009.