(From left) Paul Matteucci, Laura Burkemper, Paul Martin and Dale Woods were honored during the annual Salute to Business Achievement Awards. (Photo by Derik Holtmann)

Laura Burkemper has built a long and distinguished career in the business world over more than three decades, culminating in her current role as CEO of Scaleblazer. Through all her success, she’s appreciated the role the University of Missouri–St. Louis played in her ascent.

“When I think about the education that I received from UMSL, it really is the foundation,” said Burkemper, who graduated with her BSBA in 1990 and also has a certificate in negotiation mastery from Harvard Business School Online. “It’s the foundation from which everything else launches. Being a brand person, putting things on a solid foundation is key. You would never put the roof on the house before the walls, before the foundation. Same thing in business. One of the things that I do is build brands and scale companies, and that solid foundation is what is key to building a solid business.”

That was a theme connecting Burkemper and each of the other honorees at Thursday’s Salute to Business Achievement Awards. The annual event, hosted by the UMSL Alumni Association, recognizes alumni who have made an impact on the business world both locally and nationally.

As Stan Anderson, the chair of the UMSL Business Alumni Association and presenter for the event, noted, Burkemper’s expertise on leadership, marketing and brand strategy has been showcased around the country; she has been featured on CNBC, Fox Business, ABC, CBS, NBC, Essence, US Weekly and INC Magazine, to name a few outlets.

The next distinguished alum to take the stage in the Century Rooms at the Millennium Student Center was Paul Martin, a 1982 BSBA graduate who is the CFO of Perficient, a global digital consultancy company. He echoed Burkemper’s thoughts.

“In my role as CFO, I have responsibility for legal, IT, HR and so many other areas,” Martin said. “And the broad foundation of courses I had, and the ability to solve problems and to manage, I really feel like that foundation came from UMSL. I’m very happy with that.”

Before joining Perficient, Martin worked in executive finance roles with companies such as Rawlings Sporting Goods, Charter Communications and Fort James Corporation. That experience, built on his UMSL base, has served Martin well as Perficient has thrived under his leadership.

“When I joined in 2006, I think we had about 500 employees and $150 million in revenue, and over an 18-year period, we did 35 acquisitions and we grew organically,” he said. “We now have 7,000 employees in 14 countries, and sometimes I have to pinch myself. It’s been an amazing run to be part of building something and building it in your hometown. Our corporate headquarters are here. And a lot of the foundational things that allowed me to do that came from being at UMSL.”

Martin has made it a point to give back to UMSL. He’s not only currently serving on the Executive Advisory Council, but he’s also serving as a mentor with the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center’s Anchor Accelerator program. Martin works with founder Jordan Russell of R2 Industries and intern Tommy Gerding to offer feedback and advice. The desire to give back to UMSL – with both time and scholarship money – was another theme from the honorees at the event.

Paul Matteucci, a 1991 BSBA graduate, has designed major federal systems for the IRS, NASA, DHS, GSA and SEC. In 2012, he joined a small start-up, Attain, became partner in 2016 and grew the business to more than $60 million before merging with corporate IT giant Maximus. Along the way, he’s helped organize and lead UMSL Alumni events in Florida and Washington, D.C.

“I tried when I can to help the university through making scholarship funds available, especially for my MIS department,” he said. “Vicki Sauter was my closest faculty member over the years, a long-time confidant. She needed money to redo the MIS Lab. This is a place we would spend all night in working because, in those days nobody had the ability to connect to a computer at UMSL. It just didn’t exist. We had to be on campus.”

Matteucci has also donated to help build the Richter Family Welcome and Alumni Center, the still-under-construction building named for alumni Kirk Richter and his wife, Maureen.

“He is the one that got me to come back to UMSL and give back, so I thought it very fitting to make that contribution to his legacy,” Matteucci said. “Because he brought me back to the UMSL legacy, I want to appreciate all he did.”

Dale Woods, now the director of shared services at American Industrial Transport, worked in the senior leadership at Boeing for 20 years and has always been willing and able to help UMSL students shape their careers.

In addition to his past service on the UMSL Accounting Advisory Board and the Boeing-UMSL mentoring program, he currently chairs the Alumni Engagement Committee of the Business Dean’s Executive Advisory Council.

“I would challenge each of the alumni that are here tonight, just reach out to me, to some of your colleagues, and get involved,” Woods said. “It doesn’t have to be hundreds of hours in a month. All you have to do is volunteer at a student event, mentor a student. Just get involved. You’ll be amazed at how much you get back. With so many students and so many needs, it’s so rewarding. So I would just leave the stage with that challenge to you. I think there’s great things to come.”