Matt Smithmier

Design KC • December 12 2025

The gift of good design

Wintertime, the holiday season, extra time with friends and family—it’s easy to be in a giving spirit this time of year, and as Americans, our charitable giving habits prove it. Yet, here in the Kansas City metro, our charity and philanthropy have never been confined to a single season.

CNR Magazine • December 3 2025

This pair of work boots will make you excited about work boots

When it came time for new work boots, I assumed they all were basically the same as the last pair I bought: tough yet rigid, safe but terribly uncomfortable. The kind of boots you were thankful for while wearing them, but oh so grateful to have off your feet at the end of a long work day.

Design KC • September 16 2025

Subtle yet effective: Plaster finishes are making a welcome comeback

Sherwin-Williams may offer more than 1,700 different colors, but sometimes paint just won’t cut it.
Once only connected with opulent Italian villas or ancient Roman palaces, a historic wall treatment is shedding that old-world association and making a striking appearance in modern homes, including plenty right here in Kansas City.

ArborTIMES • January 27 2025

Sounding the Alarm : Hearing loss risks in tree care

Hearing loss is a lingering souvenir from Alex Kundrat’s lifelong career in the tree care industry. The condition affects his family, his relationships, and even his role as a firefighter...

Construction News + Review • November 7 2024

Minority participation goals: MBEs wary of GCs who game the system

While he certainly understands the spirit and intent of the programs, he makes no qualms about his frustrations around their real-life application.

“They’re pretending to help minority and disadvantaged businesses,” Thompson said, “but the very programs designed to help are hindering our growth.”

KC Options • November 5 2024

Can't stop the hustle

A crowded room? A packed restaurant? For Edith Cruz, they’re all one big battery charger. “I love that. I need people and energy around me.”

KC Options • November 5 2024

New exec receives warm welcome

It’s a story Jeff Jones loves to tell.
Previously with Uber, the newly minted president and CEO of tax-prep giant H&R Block was unfamiliar with Kansas City before accepting the job in 2017. But during his first downtown exploration, the sight of so many locals sporting Kansas City apparel opened his eyes.

Arkansas Money & Politics • October 14 2024

Profile: For Neil Denman, patience pays off

Like most aspects of his life, Neil Denman is all about playing the long game. That includes his hobbies. Despite his wife’s skepticism — and in just a few years — he has turned his joking threat of beekeeping into a successful hive of about 40,000 bees that should yield about 45 pounds of honey this year, but the payoff did not come without effort and a little patience...

Construction News + Review • September 6 2024

Record production, huge losses: Inside the multifamily mess of 2024

The multifamily construction industry in 2024 is really a tale of two data perspectives, which makes the bigger story a little confusing...

KC Options • June 8 2021

The boys are back in town

Annual star-studded Big Slick weekend is personal for its celebrity founders.

Flatland • December 26 2016

Building life sciences: Real estate unlikely source of startup cash in KC

Doctors, nurses, scientists—just some of the usual suspects that come to mind when you think of medicine. Real estate experts? Not so much. Yet, economic development pros are helping catalyze some promising developments within the Kansas City-area’s life sciences industry.

Northland Lifestyle • November 1 2012

Bark of approval

Walk by the double glass entrance doors of Yappy Hour Pet Resort and you'll hear it. The dogs inside greet every visitor the same way, and they all greet you at once. Deep woofs, shrill yaps, hound dog howls—saying hello the only way they know how: loud but welcoming.

Northland Lifestyle • January 2 2018

A Life Unleashed

Oh, she made a terrible running partner. It wasn’t her fault, of course. Like almost every Lab I’ve known, she was filled with unbridled enthusiasm and a lust for life no leash could contain.

Kansas City Business Journal • April 20 2016

NIH cancer funding increases, but KC-area research needs more

Although it seems most issues fall along party lines, Congress came together last year to pass a major funding bill that included the largest increase in more than a decade — an additional $2 billion — for the National Institutes of Health.

The largest chunk will go the National Cancer Institute — and some of that will trickle down to Kansas City.

Kansas City Business Journal • November 27 2015

MarksNelson - Impact Award

Leave it to a bunch of accountants to notice the details.

When a group of MarksNelson employees was helping out at the local Ronald McDonald House at the annual volunteer day last year, the outdated tube TVs in the guest rooms really stuck out.

Patient Resource Women's Cancer Guide • July 10 2015

Caregiving advice for men

She’s no medical expert. Neither are you. But together you’ll make lots of decisions – with the help of your health care team, of course – and your job is to help her decide and then support her decision.

Patient Resource Cancer Guide • November 12 2014

Rebound leader: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar bounces back from CML battle

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar bounces back from CML battle and works to help others with the disease.

Missouri Life • July 31 2012

Downtown mercantile

The empty streets that showed their years like old wrinkles are springing back to health in downtown Excelsior Springs. Once drawing visitors from around the country with its healing mineral springs, the historic town is again showing signs of life, led by a humble bistro and retailer nestled among the old buildings.