Top Drawer
By William Stage
Interviews with some of St. Charles County’s best and brightest
A Chicago native. Rick Finholt earned his baccalaureate degree from the University of Illinois-Champaign-Urbana and went on to receive his Ph. D. from Northern Illinois University in American literature. As an American lit professor at Ohio-State"drifted into administration” and found his true calling, developing and running research parks for the next 22 years —five years at Ohio State, two years at the University of Florida and currently 15 years with the Missouri Research Park, owned and managed by the University of Missouri System. Rick, 59, is married to Mary Kay, a teacher with the Rockwood School District; they have two grown sons. When not in a meeting. Rick may be found on the tennis court, the golf course or in the dark confines of a movie theater.
You said your job is quite unique. How do you mean that?
"Well, the university can be a very difficult environment to work in, partly because of the bureaucracy but also because it is organized from the bottom up rather than the top down, so it's an environment where nobody gives orders. It's literally a community of scholars, so trying to implement something that's never been done — a research park or a technology incubator — begins with selling the faculty, and there's no shortcut for that. First of all, you have to understand the university — that's one advantage of being a former faculty member. But on the other hand you can't spend your whole time doing that. You do the internal selling and then move to the external selling. In the meantime, you have to have a vision that works. Whatever it is that you're trying to sell has to be sellable at the end of the day."
Sounds like you wear a lot of hats. How many jobs do you have?
"I'd say close to 10 in terms of assignments I cover for the university — that's the tendency at the university. If you do well at one job, they reward you by giving you another job and then another...."
You've worked in this field for 20 years; please explain the research park concept...
"It's been around since the '50s, starting with the development of the research triangle in North Carolina and the Stanford Research Park, which was the beginning of the Silicon Valley phenomenon. But the research park industry really came into its own in the 80’s. Our own park, for instance, began to receive funding in 1982. Basically, the idea is to 'use the university's real estate assets as a way of drawing high-technology and research-oriented companies in to the university's orbit of influence and to create a .campus-like environment, what I call an amenity-rich environment, that is attractive to high-technology companies."
What's the biggest challenge you've faced lately?
"The biggest issue we've had is getting our project underway at Fort Leonard Wood. It's the first time a research park has been established on an active military post, and we had to get a 33-year ground lease approved by the U.S. Congress, and that took over four years. Plus, you're working with the Pentagon and the bureaucracy within the Army, which makes it hard to get decisions made in a timely manner. Working with that bureaucracy has been the most exasperating thing."
You work hand-in-hand with military personnel?
"Very much so. Just as one example, our school of engineering at Rolla works closely with the engineering school at Fort Leonard Wood, awarding something like 130 degrees a year to Army personnel. And on our St. Louis campus, we have a specialty in law enforcement, and. that department is beginning to work with the military police school. My office facilitates those kinds of interactions.
Why is it so important to get a research park on an Army post?
"Well, Fort Leonard Wood is a huge economic engine in the state of Missouri. It's home to the U.S. Army's engineering school, the chemical school, the military police school and the Noncommissioned Officer Academy. What's happening at Fort Leonard Wood is important because the Army works with perhaps 100 to 125 Fortune 500 companies in one way or another, various private contractors under contract to the Army. It's an environment ready-made for a cluster. We've got one building completed and mostly occupied with another building underway."
A cluster?
"A cluster is the aggregation of technology-intensive companies in one geographical area. The technology corridor here in St. Charles County is an example. When I got here in 1989, there were very few jobs of a technological nature. We now have some 2,000 technology-oriented jobs in the Missouri Research Park, and in a four-mile stretch of Highway 64/40 from the Missouri Research Park out to WingHaven, which is the home now of Master-Card's Global Technology Division, there are 10,000 high-technology jobs. Once you get the cluster started, it tends to be self-perpetuating."
How does it feel to have devoted a big chunk of your life to the development of this corridor?
"It feels great. I think it's been a huge boon to the area, and it's helping establish the technological identity of both Missouri and of St. Louis. More than that, it's a good feeling to know that the University of Missouri has one of the outstanding research parks in the country and that I had something to do with that. When you're an American literature professor, you don't have much opportunity to measure your contribution to the university in millions of dollars, but you do when you're developing a research park.
Rick, as a former American lit teacher, which writers do you admire?
"I'm a big Tom Wolfe fan; I think he's an enormously important writer, as is Norman Mailer. Cormack McCarthy is impressive. I'm a big fan of Elmore Leonard; I'll read anything he writes. I could go on…"
While teaching, what was the worst excuse for work not being turned in?
"'I couldn't take the test because my grandmother died, and she couldn't even think of her grandmother's name."
Do you think that reading on a PC will ever take the place of book reading?
"I think so. More people I know don't get a morning paper anymore, but they'll read USA Today and the New York Times online, and once you've learned to navigate the site, it's easier than flipping pages. The Internet is an important adjunct to literacy in that people are interacting in a language-based mode. E-mail, for example. It's fascinating how people will write page upon page of e-mail, but they would never have sat down and written a letter that long, put it inside an envelope and sent it off.”
What is your pet peeve?
"I think communication is an extremely important talent. There's an art and a science to it, and being unable to communicate effectively, when that's actually your job, is something that I find astonishing."
What do you get accused of by your peers?
"When you say 'accused,' you mean my shortcomings? I've been told I'm willful."
How do you cope with stress?
"There's a line in T.S. Eliot's 'Ash Wednesday.' It's a prayer, actually. It changed my life, and the line is 'teach us to care and not to care.' And that has been my philosophy.
