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Kyle Salem and the business of asking better questions
A research scientist became an Omaha CEO without quite leaving the classroom. Across two decades at Cassling and CQuence Health, Kyle Salem has made teaching part of the work of building a business.
Jared Hollinger’s bet on what needs tending
From a Nebraska property business to farmland and open-air retail, Jared Hollinger has built his career around the work that follows a purchase. At Sower Investment Partners, the deal is the beginning of the job.
Mary Ann O’Brien and the promise a brand has to keep
She was signing her name “CEO” in third grade. From Gateway Computers to OBI Creative in Omaha, Mary Ann O’Brien has built her career around a harder question: does the customer get what the company promises?
Greg Andersen and the $100 question about Nebraska
After 26 years in New York and Los Angeles, Greg Andersen came home to Omaha with a question for advertising: how well do you know the people beyond your own postcode? At Bailey Lauerman, the answer has become both a business strategy and a research project.
Exodus made crypto feel simple. Now comes the hard part: spending it.
A free wallet became a $121.6 million business by making crypto easier to handle. Its next wager is that digital dollars belong at the checkout, not just in a portfolio.
The Omaha Agency That Starts by Keeping Quiet
Most agencies arrive with ideas. OBI Creative arrives with questions - then follows the answers all the way from the interview room to the media buy.
The Ad Agency That Learned to Count Past the Click
Smith Kroeger survived six decades of media upheaval by treating attention as a business problem, not a beauty contest. Its most revealing number is not an award count - it is 2.6 million lottery tickets sold.
The Ad Agency That Found 92% of America Hiding in Plain Sight
Bailey Lauerman spent decades being told that Omaha was far from the action. Then it made distance from America’s biggest cities the product - and built an agency around the people marketers fly over.
Terry Kroeger Bought the Next Chapter Instead of Retiring Into the Last One
He started near the bottom of a newspaper company, kept sneakers under his desk for emergency lawn duty, and eventually ran Warren Buffett's newspaper group. Then Terry Kroeger traded the publisher's office for an Omaha agency with a future to write.
FNTS keeps the mainframe in the picture
The Omaha IT provider has built a business around systems that enterprises cannot casually replace. Its pitch: change the way they run before deciding what to throw away.
Brooke Brockman Built Her Career by Listening Before She Marketed
Her route to the C-suite ran through customer success, lifecycle marketing and one useful conviction: a brand gets stronger when the people using the product can recognize themselves in its story.
Agemark Senior Living
Agemark Senior Living is a family-owned operator of senior living communities founded in 1983 by real estate partners Richard Westin and Jesse Pittore. From a single converted hotel in Vancouver, Washington, the company has grown to own or manage 28 communities across six states, offering independent living, assisted living, memory care and skilled nursing. Guided by its in-house LifeCycles wellness philosophy, Agemark aims to reframe aging and end-of-life as stages to be celebrated, and has been certified a Great Place to Work for seven consecutive years.
Richard Westin
Richard Westin is the co-founder of Agemark Senior Living, an Omaha-based operator of 28 communities across six states. The first American to work full-time for Club Med, he imported a resort-style hospitality ethos into a category usually defined by clinical efficiency. He led Agemark as CEO from 1987 until 2022 and now sits as a principal as his son Forrest steps into co-CEO.