Kansas City has emerged as a mid-continent investment capital, often being called "the Midwest's most important money management group to Wall Street."

The Leading Industries

Over the last century--and that in-cludes the Depression years--Kansas City has had a remarkably stable economy.

One reason for that is the large federal presence. The federal government employs more than 18,000 workers in the area and that does not include the 6,000 employed at Fort Leavenworth 45 minutes to the north or the 6,000 employed at Whiteman Air Force base about 60 minutes to the east. In fact, the ten-county metropolitan area has 2.5 times as many federal employees as one would expect in an area this size.

In addition to the U.S. Postal Service, now an "independent establishment" of the Federal government, some 25 "major government agencies" are served by the Kansas City Service Center. Kansas City is home to one of only twelve Federal Reserve Banks in the United States.

The Federal government's presence in Kansas City has historically been a stabilizing factor to the area's economy. Above: the Charles Evans Whittaker United States Courthouse in downtown Kansas City.

Unlike those cities that depend heavily on a given industry--like, say, oil or IT or aerospace--Kansas City's leading industries range across the industrial spectrum. This diversity provides not only a buffer against recession but also a fluid and highly versatile work force for present and potential employers.

A look at the area's largest employers--that is 5,000 or more employees--reinforces the role that a diverse employer base plays in the health of the area's economy. These include manufacturers as distinct as the Ford Motor Company and Hallmark Cards; service-oriented entities like HCA Midwest and Saint Luke's Health System; cutting edge tech industries like Sprint Telecommunications, DST, and Sprint PCS, and, of course, the various branches of government.

Companies that employ more than 1,000 people reflect, if anything, an even wider diversity. On the tech front there is AT&T, Southwestern Bell, DST Systems, the agricultural division of the Bayer Corporation, and the Cerner Corporation, arguably America's leading innovator of health care software solutions.

The presence here of three venerable engineering/architectural firms--Black & Veatch, Burns & MacDonnell, and HNTB--have created a tradition that resonates to this very day--the engineering Mecca known as Kansas City. For a variety of reasons, all of them logical, greater Kansas City employs more consulting engineers and architects per capita than any other metropolitan area in the world.

Quietly, too, Kansas City has emerged as a veritable mid-continent investment capital, what Hank Herrmann, president and chief investment officer of Waddell & Reed Financial Inc., calls "the Midwest's most important money management group to Wall Street."