Banking on KC – Tom Sack, Former CEO of MRIGlobal
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Kelly Scanlon:
Welcome to Banking on KC. I'm your host, Kelly Scanlon. Thank you for joining us. With us on this episode is Tom Sack, the former CEO of MRIGlobal, a not-for-profit applied research organization based right here in Kansas City that also operates research facilities for the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense. Welcome, Tom.
Tom Sack:
Thank you.
Kelly Scanlon:
I mentioned that MRIGlobal is a research facility. Expand on that a bit for us, please.
Tom Sack:
Absolutely, Kelly. MRIGlobal is a laboratory in a applied research organization. So to do that, we have all kinds of laboratories that range from chemistry, biology, engineering, life sciences, and then all kinds of desk research as well. We conduct research basically to create solutions for using science and technology to make a safer, healthier, and more sustainable world. So to do that, oftentimes we're doing work that relies on developing new pharmaceuticals, testing pharmaceuticals, testing different therapies or countermeasures for disease or inventing ways to protect our soldiers as an example in our defense work or to create even better renewable energy resources when we do the work for the Department of Energy at the National Renewable Energy Lab.
Kelly Scanlon:
Talk to us about how MRIGlobal got its start. I believe it was back in the '40s.
Tom Sack:
MRIGlobal was started in 1944, and our regional corporate leadership in the Kansas City area was really concerned that a lot of technical talent might leave the region after World War II. As a result, they formed MRIGlobal ... At the time it was called Midwest Research Institute ... As a not-for-profit organization to provide R&D for the community and for the broader region and to support a lot of the science and technologists that were here during the war effort. At that time, we provided quite a bit of work at ... The way to think about it as like the R&D arm for local companies, and at that time we did a lot of work for ag and food science work. In fact, the very first project that MRIGlobal did was for a ag company to develop ammonium nitrate that was used as an explosive in the war to be a fertilizer so we could use it on our farms.
Kelly Scanlon:
If I also recall, it was at a time when there was a lot of mechanization and automation occurring in agriculture, and there was a little bit of concern that perhaps some of those jobs would no longer be available. Midwest Research Institute, as it was called at the time, was also developing ways so that people would be retrained or that those jobs would not be lost, right?
Tom Sack:
Yes, that's correct. Very much the same way in the defense industry. The Kansas City area had a lot of aeronautical defense regional building tanks, et cetera, and same type of thing. We wanted to make sure that expertise stayed in the region and helped build our community.
Kelly Scanlon:
What kind of advantages does having a research facility like MRIGlobal have for Kansas City? What does it bring to Kansas City to have MRIGlobal located right here in our backyard?
Tom Sack:
Sure. MRIGlobal's a very unique thing. There's only a handful of institutes like MRIGlobal in the country. Interestingly enough, most of them are about the same age at this point, were formed at the same time. What they bring is one, they bring an objective element. Not being a profit organization, we have the benefit of working on our mission and doing what we believe is the right thing to do without worrying about paying dividends or investors. That's one of the values.
Tom Sack:
The second is it brings an opportunity for researchers to convene around those areas of developing technologies, developing science, developing therapies that maybe aren't available elsewhere. Let me give you example. At a lot of our universities, we do basic research. We may invent a new drug candidate or we may invent a new technology. Oftentimes, as we all know, the trick is how do you develop that into a product, and there's a lot of work that happens in the middle. You'll hear that described oftentimes as the Valley of Death, et cetera. We work in the middle. So we help people take that creation, that technology, and move it along the pathway, whether that is improving it or refining it or getting it certified or testing it to the strict requirements of the government, whatever that might be, to help them get it to the point where now we can launch it into the market or put it into the marketplace.
Kelly Scanlon:
You worked for MRIGlobal for nearly 40 years before you retired a couple of months ago. I'm told that you started there as a dishwasher. So tell me a little bit about your career and how that early start that you got on the ground floor led you to becoming a CEO of this, I assume at this point, international organization.
Tom Sack:
Yeah, that's always an interesting story. It sounds, when I tell it to myself, it sounds more impressive than I think it probably is. But the way it started is I was a student at Rockhurst University or Rockhurst College at the time, and I had an opportunity to have a part-time job. I needed to work, and I had an opportunity to go to, at the time, Midwest Research Institute and wash dishes as a student. So basically I was a technician. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Here I was studying chemistry and I got to go work at this laboratory, which was the best thing in the world. As a result of that, I got to do a lot of things, learned a lot of things about what the research industry was all about and that helped me, between that and college, to decide to go to graduate school.
Tom Sack:
So I left Kansas City for five years and went to school, got a graduate degree, and it was just by a stroke of luck, frankly, that we were able to move back here to Kansas City and then basically get a job at MRIGlobal, as they were now working in the area that was my area of expertise. My wife and I were able to move back to the Kansas City region, which is our home, and the story proceeded from there. From that point I moved from being a laboratory person to project management, to staff management, and then into the leadership and executive levels over that 40-year career.
Kelly Scanlon:
So you've really seen it all at all different levels and throughout a period when innovation in this area has just gone through the roof. You've been an eyewitness to all of these changes.
Tom Sack:
Oh, absolutely. There's been so many things that have changed in the last 40 years in R&D and technology that it's pretty remarkable in terms of the number of things that are so different today and so much more highly refined and automated than they were 40 years ago.
Kelly Scanlon:
What was your favorite part about working at MRIGlobal throughout your journey?
Tom Sack:
Well, the part that drew me to MRIGlobal and kept me there for a long time, really it has two factors. Factor one is I had the opportunity to work with the brightest and smartest people I had ever met, and I got to do that for my entire career. I mean, I could go over a laundry list of remarkable people that helped me form my career and my time there.
Tom Sack:
But the other thing is solving problems. At MRIGlobal, being an applied research organization, I often used to joke that they don't create problems, they solve them. Whereas at a basic research, you create something that you need to deal with, you need to expand. We're problem solvers, and so that's what knits the MRIGlobal team together is they don't just act as chemists or biologists, but they knit together to actually address a broader and more integrated problem. That to me was very, very appealing. I think you would find the people that are at MRIGlobal today, that's the kind of thing that keeps them there too.
Kelly Scanlon:
When you talk about problem solving, that you aren't creating problems, you are solving problems, during your tenure at MRIGlobal, was there any particular problem that you were part of solving that really stands out for you that was perhaps a game changer or maybe just something that was little known but had huge impact?
Tom Sack:
Sure. I have a lot of examples of those. Some of those are things we did for commercial entities that I can't discuss much and some of those are for the federal government that were classified that I can't discuss either. However, I could easily say one of the most proudest moments for me has been really the last eight to 10 years of when I was there. A couple things happened. One was we struggled a lot there after the recession in 2008, and we were able to basically recover from that and become very sustainable by the time that I had retired. Really, they're on a great trajectory to continue to grow.
Tom Sack:
But in that same time period, we embarked on a mission to really consolidate our operations here in Kansas City. So we were able to move a laboratory from Florida to Kansas City, and in honor of our 75th anniversary, we created the Center for Diagnostics. We opened that center to help elevate our research in in vitro diagnostics, and it was ready to go when the pandemic hit. So we were kind of already running when this big infectious disease issue hit. We were able to provide a ton of support for a variety of organizations to help address various aspects of the pandemic and continue to do that throughout. Today we're really considered one of the global leaders in applied R&D for in vitro diagnostic support.
Kelly Scanlon:
As you step away from MRIGlobal now, what's your hope for its future? You've been there for nearly, or for more really than half of its existence. What do you hope for the future?
Tom Sack:
I would hope they continue to grow at the pace that they've been growing, and I'm very, very confident about that. There's a terrific team there, terrific leadership. The new President, CEO, Dr. Ian Colrain, I think is a very insightful and visionary leader. He's building his leadership team to really carry that global leadership in in vitro diagnostics and life sciences to even further levels. I don't really see no barrier to them continuing to grow and develop those kinds of technologies here in the region and even beyond that, I would suppose.
Tom Sack:
The other thing I think I would love to see, and we really got started in that over the last several years, which is trying to address the issues around diversity and in particular diversity in sciences. That was one of the things that MRIGlobal was really trying to do was advance diversity in STEM and through our charity that we do within the region, but also in our hiring practices. One of the things I do know that they're continuing to do and promote is pushing the business of diversity and inclusion within the sciences, which is always a very difficult thing to do.
Kelly Scanlon:
In trying to introduce more people and to create more diversity into the STEM fields, that almost has to start at the school level when kids are still in middle school, high school, even younger perhaps. Does MRIGlobal have any programs or any outreach into the school system for those kinds of efforts?
Tom Sack:
Absolutely. MRI has been engaged in STEM activities for over seven decades. For example, we've been the presenting sponsor at the Greater Kansas City Science and Engineering Fair for over 70 years. Continue to do that, and that engages with young engineers, scientists to really help develop their skills. That's one element.
Tom Sack:
Another element is we've engaged with the Paseo Academy to sponsor their robotics team and have been doing that for the last, I believe, 15 years really to try to engage and help those students be able to see their way through engineering, see their way through development of technologies, applied R&D. We have a variety of other things of that nature. But as a not-for profit, MRIGlobal doesn't have a ton of money to be able to throw around, but when we do, we focus it on STEM and the growth of STEM careers.
Kelly Scanlon:
You've stated throughout this interview that MRIGlobal is a regional powerhouse in life sciences. Where do you see the next opportunities for our region as a whole and for MRIGlobal in particular in life science research?
Tom Sack:
That's another area, over the last 20 years really, the Kansas City region has really amped up its game in life sciences. That started with the creation of the Stowers Research Institute as well as BioNexus KC. As a result of those efforts, we've developed a collaborative spirit within Kansas City in the region that ranges all the way from Manhattan to Columbia with our research universities, our research hospitals, our research institutes to really develop kind of a robust infrastructure here.
Tom Sack:
One example is the animal health corridor where Kansas City and the region assimilates or has a huge proportion of the world's animal health companies right here, and they're all focused on life sciences and animal health veterinary sciences. That's just one element.
Tom Sack:
Going down the road, there's several opportunities that I see are starting to really develop. The first one is really to start the business of, advance the business of looking at health inequities. How do we improve our healthcare systems and our healthcare delivery to ensure that everybody, regardless of their background or ethnicity or gender, whatever that might be, to have access to comparable and effective healthcare so that the outcomes are really good. I think that's one, and I see a lot of growth in that area and a lot of interest amongst the organizations here.
Tom Sack:
The second one is a more broad area called biologics, which is starting to look more closely at is there a regional effort that we can combine our resources to grow into using biological therapeutics. For example, rather than a small molecule like an aspirin, you might have a protein that is used as a therapeutic, and that would be more of a biologic. So using the biological systems to develop and help us advance more healthcare therapies. Those two things are starting to emerge and I think are gaining a lot of headway here within the region.
Tom Sack:
As far as MRIGlobal goes, they'll continue to advance in the activities around in vitro diagnostics, support of the pharmaceutical industry and that sort of thing to advance a whole ton of other therapies around a variety of diseases that range from infectious disease to chemical and biological threats for our war fighters. So there's a variety of things in there that will continue to grow and I think have no limit for MRIGlobal.
Kelly Scanlon:
You mentioned that there's a collaborative spirit among the universities and some of the other research facilities, Stowers you mentioned, and then just recently we heard about the University of Kansas Cancer Center getting the National Cancer Institute's granting it as comprehensive cancer center designation, which was huge. The area is really gaining attention. You mentioned the animal science corridor and that some of the world's, not just the country's, but the world's greatest companies in that area are right here in Kansas City. It's really making a name and creating a strong footprint.
Tom Sack:
Oh, it is. It is. I think as a result of that, as well as a number of other things, you're starting to see Kansas City show up as top X places to visit. You're starting to see us show up more often in the national media about things like that. I think it all builds itself together to demonstrate the vitality of this region.
Kelly Scanlon:
So as a native Kansas Citian with a long and varied perspective, what do you consider our region's greatest achievement over the last few decades? Or maybe you have more than one?
Tom Sack:
As I look at what's going on here is, as I mentioned, the life sciences is one example, the collaboration and that visionary spirit that is starting to grow more and more here in Kansas City. Couple things that really stand out to me that have resulted in putting Kansas City on the national and international stage and these things combine together. For example, putting the arena, so the T-Mobile Arena downtown helped revitalize our urban core, which is having ripple effects throughout the whole region of our Kansas City urban core. That's one thing.
Tom Sack:
Second thing is adding in things like the Kauffman Center and continuing to invest in and grow some of the areas in the Crossroads such as Union Station and World War I Museum, et cetera, are terrific. Then you throw into that equation the development of the area in Kansas City, Kansas, around the Legends. So we have the race track, we have Sporting Park, we have the baseball field, and then we have Sporting Kansas City, and now we have KC Current, which is going to build a new stadium. You're seeing this kind of advancement of our region into this powerhouse, and it's being noticed. As a result of that, for example, we got named to be one of the sites for the World Cup coming up in a few years. All these things build together, and so you've got our research, we have our industry, we have our sports culture, and then the vitalization of our urban core and developing and improving our neighborhoods and our schools, it all comes together. It's a very, very cool thing, and it makes you proud to be here to know that you're some small part of that.
Kelly Scanlon:
As you pointed out, it's been a very holistic approach. Whether that was done in a very determined way or whether that's just the way it ended up unfolding, you're right, it isn't just one thing or even two things. It's the cultural aspect, it's the research and scientific aspect, it's the sports, it's the development of the urban core. It's all of that coming together, as you say, to really elevate Kansas City, which in turn is elevating the region and hopefully ultimately the lifestyles and prosperity and opportunities for all Kansas Citians.
Kelly Scanlon:
Tom, you retired a couple of months ago. Are we going to see you involved in any other initiatives here in Kansas City, though? I mean, even in this interview, your passion for Kansas City and for its betterment shines through. So are we going to see more of you?
Tom Sack:
Yeah, I think so. I am currently evaluating the kind of options that I have as I look forward and transitioned from working for 40 years at MRIGlobal to doing something different. In the meantime, I continue to serve on the boards at Rockhurst University Union Station, and BioNexus KC. So I'm out and about quite a bit engaging with those organizations at this point.
Kelly Scanlon:
Tom, thank you so much for all that you've done over the last several decades. I know that there's more coming, and we really appreciate you being on the show today.
Tom Sack:
Thank you, Kelly, very much. I've enjoyed talking with you.
Joe Close:
This is Joe Close, President of Country Club Bank. Thank you to Tom Sack for being our guest on this episode of Banking on KC. During his decades long career with MRIGlobal, the organization solidified its ability to solve difficult scientific and engineering challenges to improve human, animal and environmental health. As Tom said, there's only a handful of institutes like MRIGlobal in the country. Today, nearly 80 years after its formation, MRIGlobal's prominence as a global life sciences leader is one of the many factors converging to advance the Kansas City region as an international powerhouse.
Joe Close:
Country Club Bank applauds the visionary spirit and collaboration of the business, civic and nonprofit leaders who are working across various industries to foster the growth and vitality of the Kansas City region. Thanks for tuning in this week. We're banking on you, Kansas City. Country Club Bank member FDIC.