Mixing business with mixed drinks: Great Range Capital’s offsite meeting at J. Rieger & Co.
As the Great Range Capital team adjusts to sheltering in place, we’re feeling especially grateful for our annual offsite meeting held in early March.
We were able to spend a day together at J. Rieger & Co., a distillery that got its start back in 1887. Though it was shut down by Prohibition in 1919, the brand was lovingly resurrected 95 years later by two entrepreneurs—including the great-great-great-grandson of founder Jacob Rieger—and now operates out of the historic Heim Brewery’s 100-year-old bottling house. This incredible 3-story building in Kansas City’s East Bottoms boasts multiple bars, conference rooms, and a 40-foot slide—all of which were instrumental in helping us both work and relax as a team.
Before any cocktails were poured, we pored over the particulars of our growing firm to formulate standard processes and procedures for everything from deal flow to letters of intent. Then we shifted the attention to ourselves as Theresa Carey, President of Performance Pointe, helped us understand our Gallup Strengths Finder assessment results. We are working toward becoming a strengths-based organization because we believe (and research shows) that when team members have a better understanding of their talents and how to integrate them into the business, everybody benefits. We finished the day by sampling the fruits of J. Rieger & Co.’s labors via mixed drinks in the Monogram Lounge.
“One of the reasons we organize these offsite meetings is to break out of our normal routines and push ourselves to look at the firm from fresh angles,” said Mark Robinson, Managing Director of Great Range Capital. “And now that the coronavirus pandemic has forced our team into daily offsite meetings, we’re aiming to seize this same spirit of ingenuity from our home offices.”
Despite being unable to visit J. Rieger & Co. during this period of social distancing, its adaptability and commitment to the community continue to inspire us from afar as it recently redirected all of its efforts into producing hand sanitizer. You can learn more about it here.
About Great Range Capital
Great Range Capital is a private equity firm based in greater Kansas City. It primarily targets controlling equity investments in companies with revenues ranging from $10 to $150 million that are based in Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. Learn more at www.greatrangecapital.com.