About Me

James ‘Jim’ McNair

I was born at St. Luke’s Hospital on the Plaza and was raised in Overland Park. I was a Senior Patrol Leader, Order of the Arrow designee and an Eagle Scout and graduated from Shawnee Mission West High School. I earned a Business degree from Kansas State University graduating with honors in three-half years. I married my High School sweetheart, Pam Lindsey, and we celebrated 45 years of marriage this past February. We have two daughters that live in the Kansas City area; my oldest daughter is an attorney, and my youngest is a high school science teacher. We have two grandchildren.

I have advanced training with programs for expertise in management, information technology and logistics. My career has spanned the Agriculture, Animal Health, Consumer Products, Manufacturing, Health Care, and Not-for-Profit educational industries. I have worked directly with industry leaders in developing successful business operations. 

I am an accountant by training, my career started as a cost accountant for a company owned by Bayer. I was promoted through financial roles including Manager of Budgeting and Financial Analysis, Controllerships of US, and North American Businesses. I served on Pension Management committees, Information Technology design committees, and Business Acquisition task forces. I have also worked on teams to direct strategic investments. Also while working at Bayer, I was a Board member and Treasurer of joint ventures. I have also worked as the Treasurer of the Pride of Kansas City Foundation, and was the Vice President of Strategic Development. 

I worked for the American Royal Finance and Audit Committee, then as Co-Chair of the American Royal BBQ. I was then hired to be Vice President, eventually becoming the President and CEO of the American Royal Association. I retired in 2010 after working with the American Royal. After a year of retirement, I was recruited by Great Plains Manufacturing as an International Controller. I was promoted to Managing Director of Great Plains Western Europe, working in England and selling equipment around the world. I once again retired, but was then recruited by SCD Probiotics as Vice President of Finance. From there I was offered a position as the Controller of Franchise Operations for American Shaman Botanicals where I am currently responsible for accounting for over 200 franchisees.

I am quite proud of my family’s history of service to the community.  My dad, ‘Mac,’ served in the Navy in World War II and is a graduate of Park College. In 1951, he was hired by a fledgling young school district - Shawnee Mission. He served in the district for 35 years as an Elementary School Principal. My father was in the local Rotary Club, at one point serving as President. A fellow Rotarian, Ben Craig, gave me a student loan for my college expenses. Since I had one and a half years at JCCC, and two years at Kansas State, my student loan payment was $ 71.78 per month for ten years. Because I had some great opportunities, I was able to pay this off four years early. My dad also served on various volunteer Boards for the County – JoCo Mental Health Board, the Council on Aging, and was President of the Silver Hair Legislature for Kansas. I still have a picture of him standing in front of the Detox center that was opening in Johnson County.  My dad still resides in Overland Park. I appreciate his example of service.

I have been very fortunate to have spent almost my entire life and career in the community despite working for international organizations. Pam and I have built two homes in Johnson County. One in Shawnee, where we lived for seven years, and one in Leawood, that we have lived in for the past 32 years. I have served as Homes Association President of our current subdivision and on the K-150 Development Committee. 

I was raised to always respect the individual. I always tried to follow that in my life and in my leadership in organizations. I have two daughters and I want them to have the same opportunity as anyone else. It is often easier to evaluate your culture by comparing it to other cultures. For example, my philosophies that were implemented when I was the Managing Director for Great Plains in Europe, I was surprised by what I thought was discrimination. If we needed to add a sales representative in Germany – I would get a lot of feedback to hire someone from Germany.  “You cannot hire a person of English citizenship to sell in Germany.”  “Do not hire a German to sell in Poland.” “You cannot use an English representative to sell in Denmark.” There were various “reasons” given to me as to why this was not discrimination. But, after 35 years of working in the United States, the few years I worked in England made me reevaluate what we could do in the United States to make sure that everyone has equal access and opportunities. The business I led was manufacturing in rural England. One of our markets was selling replacement parts into the French market. French mechanics do not speak English. To assist this market I thought we needed a person at our site who spoke French. I was told that there was no one who spoke French in the community. I insisted that we advertise, and we immediately got applicants. We hired a woman from Belgium and married an English soldier. I was surprised because the church I attended in this rural area was named after the Patron Saint of France, Saint Deny. I was committed to trying to build these bridges.

The church in this small community had a place of worship there for over 1,000 years. It was a part of the Church of England. The building was quite historic. The boiler was out, and the building had no heat. I was informed that it was okay to wear my coat during services as it was a little chilly at times. Despite being part of the Church of England, there was no funding for heat. The congregation had started a separate fund to pay for heated pews. The fund needed 5,000 quid to dismantle the old boiler and another 5,000 quid to complete the new project. In a joint church / business project, I had a telehandler forklift that belonged to the company wheeled into the church and the old boiler was taken out – very carefully – under arches and over the gravestones that were inside of the church. We recycled the old boiler as scrap raising 5,000 quid to complete the project. I am motivated by finding these opportunities when a local business can partner with a not-for-profit and achieve results.

The most incredibly heroic person I have ever met was Steve Palermo. Steve had life by the tail and risked everything to help someone he did not even know. A true hero. I was Treasurer of the Pride of Kansas City Foundation while Steve was President of the Organization. I loved to listen to Stevie’s stories – I tried to convince him to write a book. 

I worked for Neal Patterson. I actually met him in 1976 when I was a bookkeeper for Commonwealth Theater Chain and Neal was our external auditor. Neal was a visionary who knew he could improve anything that he touched - never satisfied with the status quo. Neal was Chairman of the American Royal when I was the President and CEO of the Royal. Neal believed you should always pay for someone’s lunch as a “Pay-it-Forward” gesture. I try to replicate that. 

The people who influenced me the most were people who reported to me during my time at Bayer. I did not hire any of them, but rather “inherited” them from the organization as I was promoted. They all had passion. They would tell me their opinion of different issues and always suggest ways to make things better.  We worked in a “traditional” accounting department. Cost Accounting kept track of costs – closing the books each month. Then, Reporting took over and categorized all the costs. After that, the Financial Analysis section would explain to Management the reasons for gains and losses. We were all dedicated to making things work better. The business plan was to expand into four markets. So, we reorganized the accounting department so that each market had an accounting leader with Cost, Reporting, and Analyzing responsibilities. Instead of someone being a Cost Accountant, they were now a Business Unit Accountant. All four of us accountants had ties to a business and a profit and loss statement. We felt that this empowered the organization and also aligned us with the Research and Marketing departments. The other three individuals were Trisha Kocour, Teresa McGranahan, and Bob Grant. They all are still living here in Johnson County.

One of the first business leaders that really influenced me was the General Manager at Bayer Agriculture – Heinz Wehner.  Heinz also lives here in Johnson County. Heinz was great at making decisions based on long term results. I was the Budget Manager at Bayer Ag at the time, and one of my responsibilities was a rolling five-year business plan. One year we were having a challenging time due to market conditions. Our market share grew, but the market size had shrunk. We were a very aggressive business with 20% of our sales revenue spent on research. With our lower sales, we needed to cut back on our research budget. The Research Vice President was furious. He went over the list of high value projects that he would cut based on this direction. But Heinz countered that those were the projects that we were going to keep, and it was the other projects that would have to be cut, so let’s figure out how we can move resources. Heinz taught me the lesson of aligning your spending with your strategic goals. Always look for underutilized resources that can be shifted. The people in an organization love to move from a low value strategic project to a high value project. 

I also believe it is important to demonstrate leadership. When I became Managing Director of Great Plains in Western Europe, our manufacturing operation in rural England suffered from not achieving projected production schedules. It seemed the portion of our production line that was the bottleneck was “shot-blasting.” The newly fabricated parts were stripped clean of any oil so that paint would adhere to the surface. Shot-blasting involved getting into a space suit and entering a controlled environment to fire a large gun with small metal balls that would clean the surface. Holding and aiming the gun was physically demanding. You had to make sure your gun did not discharge in the direction of the other co-worker in the closed section. Each rotation was 22 minutes. No employees wanted to do this job. I suggested that each job be rotated so that each employee would only do two rotations of shot-blasting a day.  Most employees would not agree to this, and it was mainly the Polish immigrants who would do this job. Whenever a willing person was absent, the line crawled to a slow pace. So I went out, put on the space suit and assisted in the shot-blasting. I was not asking them to do anything that I was not willing to do. 

One of my favorite groups to work with were the people from Poland. I am a history buff.  For over a thousand years, Poland has had the unfortunate geographical position of being between Germany, Russia, and Finland. These empires were always conquering Poland – killing, burning, destroying. Infrastructure in Poland would always suffer. With the fall of the Soviet Union 30 years ago, Poland was no longer a border country. New investment has flowed into Poland, and they have had an expanding economy for 30 years. People of Poland are quite proud of their development. They are very eager to show the world their ability to adapt to new technology and expand production. The Polish market for agriculture equipment had been a dumping ground for used equipment, and now they buy new equipment with the best technology. Poland is very eager to support Ukraine in its fight to maintain their independence. I think this shows the importance of giving people opportunities that they have not had.

I have had a number of great opportunities in my career. I am an experienced executive with a passion to improve the lives of those in our community. There are many factors that contribute to the success of a community. One of the most basic needs is long-term quality water supply. The product is not just water.  It is the process and the people who get it delivered, so that there is no doubt that the supply will continue tomorrow and 30 years from now.