Rounding The Bases With Joel Goldberg

With 25 years as a marketing professional, Bob Martin has navigated a career from start-up firms to established companies. During his career as a corporate executive, he worked for Gartlan USA, The Thomas Kinkade company, and the Walt Disney Company. He’s a co-Founder of several businesses, including iWerx, designWerx, The Mercantile, EnCorps45, Digital Legacy, and Martin Marketing Inc. He’s also an adviser to various companies.

Josh Ross is the co-founder and CEO of Kerauno, a leading provider of global cloud communications solutions for business around the world. Josh has played a visionary role in the company’s mission to advance human interaction through communication technologies. Under his guidance, the organization has experienced triple digit growth, built national teams for scale, and raised the largest series A funding round in Indiana history - ranked in the top 7% globally.

After nine years of being an engineer, Mitch dropped the conservative mindset and established his own definition of success and happiness. In the middle of a pandemic, Mitch decided to go all-in on building different businesses while giving himself the protected time to be more present with two young boys and a loving wife. Even through the fear, the anxiety, and the sleepless nights, he’s never been more happy, more clear, and more excited about the future and the work he gets to do!

Michelle Wimes is an impressive Thought Leader, Inclusion Specialist, Global Citizen, Social Justice Advocate, Speaker and Author Chief Equity and Inclusion officer at Children's Mercy Kansas City. The former attorney is a nationally renowned presenter on professional development, diversity and inclusion issues in the workplace. Michelle is highly respected among colleagues and in the community as she continues to make significant changes in the work environment.

Gary Wilbers is a successful lifetime entrepreneur. Known as the Positive Culture Mentor, he shares his experienced knowledge by helping individuals & organizations cultivate a positive culture. Gary has authored many books. His passion is working with Special Olympics Missouri. One of his greatest joys is playing unified golf with Keith Lueckenhoff, a Special Olympic athlete.

Chris Cheatham is the Vice President, Product, Insurance Intelligence for Bold Penguin. He moved into that role in October 2020 after Risk Genius, the company he served as CEO was acquired. Chris is fascinated by the application of technology to the insurance industry. He works with an amazing team to apply machine learning to insurance policies with software that is changing the way policies are reviewed.

Giving up has never been an option. She has overcome an array of circumstances and events. Angie used each negative circumstance to fuel her drive to be more than what the low success rates for foster children would allow. After being abused and abandoned, she couldn’t have anticipated just how successful she would become. She shares in her book, A Recipe For Bad Lemons, a few of the sweet ingredients that resulted in co-owning a multi-million dollar company and being the mom of four.

Jeff Eckert is a sports referee, author and CFO of Catholic Charities of Kansas City-St. Joe. He is the proverbial "jack of all trades" in his life. Exploring new horizons and challenges seems to drive him onward. This includes rising up through the ranks in Fortune 500 and nonprofit environments. This unique experience allows him to see how the parts fit together and be a globally effective decision maker. More importantly, Jeff is a mentor at heart with a desire to be a positive influence.

Karen Crnkovich is an active member of the Junior League of Kansas City, MO and serves as current President. Karen the first “plumber” President in the 107 year history of the JLKCMO. Karen is 100% owner and Chief Hand-Shaker of DMC Service, Inc. a Kansas City based HVAC and plumbing service contractor. She is founder of Strong Homes-Strong Families, a charity focusing on helping homeowners in need.

Jaysen Van Sickle has worked in a wide array of professions, from the restaurant and bar industry to corporate America to education as a professor. But his most significant role is his current position of executive director at Hope Faith, an organization that works to alleviate homelessness and poverty in Kansas City by providing basic necessities and critical services and programs to empower individuals experiencing homelessness and at-risk individuals to become self-sufficient and independent.

Daniel Harris is a 30-year veteran of the U.S. armed forces, the founder of Muddy Boots Leadership and the author of the book, On Guard: The Four Pillars of Leadership. Lt. Colonel Harris is also an adjunct professor teaching graduate-level business courses at Mercy College.He has strategic level experience from working at the DoD and can leverage experiential learning solutions through teaching, coaching and mentoring leaders.

In part two of an interview about Relentless Pursuit Outreach and Recovery, a nonprofit hoping to end sex trafficking in the Kansas City area, founder Lee Gibson is joined by board member Christine McDonald, a trafficking survivor, and former MLB player Adam Laroche to talk about Christine’s Place, RPOR’s drop-in center an crisis shelter that offers a safe, non-judgmental place for prostituted people from all backgrounds and races.

Lee Gibson is a former U.S. Army Ranger. When not working for the military or government, he has been a firefighter, police officer, diver, boxer and MMA fighter but found his true calling starting Relentless Pursuit Outreach and Recovery. RPOR is a veteran owned non-profit of former military special operation, intelligence community, law enforcement, social service workers, legal professionals, business owners and church leaders. The organization’s goal is to end sex trafficking in the area.

John Gordon Jr. is the Founder and Executive Director of Kansas City based BoysGrow. Since its inception in 2010, he has been responsible for designing, executing and overseeing the organization's approach to youth development. A graduate of UMKC, after working in the Northern California Juvenile Court System and seeing the positive impact agriculture had on young people, he relocated back to KC to start BoysGrow.

Jason Kander was the first millennial in the nation elected to a statewide office when he served as Missouri Secretary of State. His podcast, Majority 54, debuted at #1 on iTunes in 2017, He ran for mayor of Kansas City. Three months into that campaign he ended his candidacy to seek treatment for PTSD he’d been struggling with since coming home from Afghanistan. He reemerged in 2019 with a new role in public service as president of Veterans Community Project.

Rounding The Bases, in conjunction with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City, concludes its special series on mental health and the importance of mindfulness. The stressful situations that veterans and first responders deal with on a daily basis can take a toll on their behavioral health. Joel sat down down to discuss the topic with The Battle Within Program Director Nathan Magers, behavioral health expert Whitney Logan, and Kansas City Royals Director of Behavioral Health Science.

Wade Foster is the CEO and co-founder of Zapier, a workflow automation tool used to connect work apps you use every day. Zapier is a 100% distributed team helping people across the world automate the boring and tedious parts of their job by helping everyone connect the web applications they already use. Wade grew up in Jefferson City, MO and started Zapier with two co-founders in 2011.

Jim Atwater is the founder of InReturn Strategies and Scott Brouillette is the CEO. Atwater is a deaf entrepreneur who started the company because workers with disabilities are regularly overlooked and undervalued by employers. InReturn helps companies break the cycle of pouring millions of dollars into inclusion programs that are "extra and special" efforts, and helps companies simply be inclusive as an everyday.

Rounding The Bases, in conjunction with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City, continues its special series on mental health and the importance of mindfulness. Dr. Lauren Lucht, Licensed Clinical Psychologist and Executive Director of Mental and Behavioral Health at the University of Kansas Health System, talks with behavioral health experts Kristin Gernon from BlueCrossBlueShieldKC andWhitney Logan from The Battle Within as they discuss access to behavioral healthcare for frontline workers.

Dr. Rob Bell is a sport psychology coach, author, and speaker. He’s worked with 3 different winners of the PGA Tour and mental coach for the University of Notre Dame, Indy Eleven, and many more. With several ironman competitions, marathons, and a 50-mile trail run under his belt, he’s going to complete a 100-mile trail run this fall. He has a podcast focused on mental toughness and interviews those in the mental health field. He’s published in over a dozen articles.