Stack receives Excellence in Business Award

But for someone with all of those accomplishments, his advice to newcomers to the business world is painfully simple: “Don’t be afraid to be stupid. Ask questions.”

That’s what Stack told those in attendance at Ozarks Technical Community College April 13, where he received the 2007 Excellence in Business Award from the OTC Students in Free Enterprise team.

The founder of SRC Holdings Corp. is the third recipient of the award; real estate developer John Q. Hammons received the award in 2005, and the 2006 honor went to the O’Reilly family.

After receiving the award, Stack sat down with Jim Anderson, president of the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce, for a conversation about his career and his business philosophy. The conversation included some surprisingly candid comments, including why Stack rejected a job offer from President Bush. Another topic covered the one thing people didn’t know about him.

“I’m afraid every day,” he said. “It’s one thing to go out and talk about a system, but it’s another to have to go back and make absolutely certain that the system works. We know that (open-book management) is a really common-sense system and that it works, and we’ve seen it time and time and time again. But my fear is that people will think if this company fails, the system fails.”

Despite the work he has put into both his business and his “Great Game of Business” management system, he downplayed his achievement.

“I accept this award for being lucky enough to have great friends, a phenomenal family, associates that I enjoy working with every day and a community that is incredibly supportive,” said Stack, who moved to Springfield from the Chicago area in 1978. “We were so embraced by the community that we had no choice but to succeed.”

Read more about Stack’s award, his White House job offer and the future of SRC in SBJ’s April 23 issue.