TOO MUCH SUBSIDY? Mayor Tishaura Jones is leading a rethinking of the way St. Louis subsidizes development. Jim Gallagher and David Nicklaus say such a move is long overdue, but they worry that Jones is still leaving the door open to potential abuse.
Kendrick Faison decided St. Louis is the place to give his business a fresh start.
The 41-year-old entrepreneur currently lives in the Maryland suburbs between Washington and Baltimore, where he runs a small geospatial consulting firm called . In fact, his whole career has been spent in government and private-sector jobs in or near the nation’s capital.
But, feeling that his firm needed a reset after the disruption caused by COVID-19, Faison recently decided to uproot his family and head west. He has signed a lease at the T-Rex incubator downtown, which has a dedicated space for geospatial firms, and will move later this month.
Why St. Louis? Faison had visited friends here and felt comfortable; he can toss out cultural references to Red Hot Riplets and Cardinals baseball. Mostly, though, he was drawn to the business opportunity.
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No other city, he said, has gotten as much attention from his industry since the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency began building its new western headquarters here. And for good reason: The NGA has signaled that it will increasingly need private-sector help to perform its mission. The agency is opening its own Moonshot Labs at T-Rex, one floor below SpatialGIS’ office.
“St. Louis is now a mecca for the development of next-generation geographic information systems,†Faison told me. “There’s also the lure of T-Rex, of having an opportunity to come and network. It is hard to go anywhere and find a place so geospatially focused, even in Washington.â€
Faison, who is Black, is passionate about helping diversify the industry’s workforce. As an intern at a major geospatial company in 2003, he said, “None of the people looked like me. Now, I see more African-Americans in the room, but I still don’t see too many senior folks who look like me.
“That was one of the reasons I started SpatialGIS: To have a bully pulpit to start the conversation.â€
He has encouraged historically black colleges and universities — including his alma mater, Fayetteville State University in North Carolina — to prepare students for geospatial careers. He hopes to work with Harris-Stowe State University here, which has already begun building ties to the geospatial industry.
Last year, the to help the university educate science teachers. Harris-Stowe and Maxar Technologies, a major geospatial firm, recently that includes internships and a student mapathon.
Stacy Gee Hollins, dean of Harris-Stowe’s Anheuser-Busch business school and a member of the region’s GeoFutures task force, said via email that she hadn’t spoken to Faison yet but expects to help him “ensure that the training and talent pipeline is inclusive and diverse.â€
SpatialGIS is far from the largest geospatial firm expanding in St. Louis recently. It’s just a four-person company, and Faison will be the only employee here at first.
Still, his move feels significant. “In some ways, entrepreneurs can be a leading indicator,†said Jason Hall, chief executive of Greater St. Louis Inc. “They are very good at finding opportunities.â€
Both the year-old GeoFutures road map and the region’s STL 2030 jobs plan place a strong emphasis on inclusion. The GeoFutures report, for example, notes that St. Louis “has a largely untapped talent resource in its Black and disinvested communities, which must be leveraged.â€
If a talented and motivated newcomer can help with that effort, Faison may have an impact far beyond whatever jobs his company creates here.
