Katy St. Clair
Purchase Photo
People
Glendale Soccer Coach Jeff Rogers on Building Teams That Last
At Biz 417’s sixth annual Best Places to Work event, the longtime Glendale High School coach shared lessons on culture, leadership and what it takes to build a team people want to be part of.
By Jordan Blomquist
Sep 2026
On September 2, Biz 417 hosted its sixth annual Best Places to Work event, and it was the biggest one yet. With 520 attendees, the event brought together southwest Missouri’s top workplaces to celebrate their teams and learn how they ranked among the region’s best.
An extra-big thanks to our presenting sponsor, Grooms Office Environments, and to Keep Supply, Oasis Hotel and Convention Center, Ollis/Akers/Arney Insurance & Business Advisors and Spencer Fane for helping us recognize the people and companies setting the standard for great workplaces in southwest Missouri.
Achieving Your Best won No.1 best place to work in the Best Small Companies (10–50 Employees) category.
Ollis/Akers/Arney Insurance & Business Advisors took a top spot for the fourth year in a row, this time in the new Best Mid-Size Employers (51–149 Employees) category.
Arvest Bank ranked first for the Best Large Employers (150+ Employees).
The Barnabas Foundation ranked sixth in the small companies category, but No. 1 in bringing the spirit and energy to the event! They entered with costumes, chants, confetti—the whole shebang!
To see where the rest of the top businesses rank and read more about them, check out our recent feature.
The rankings were just one part of the day, with plenty of memorable moments and celebrations happening along the way. Glendale High School soccer coach Jeff Rogers is one of the winningest coaches in the state of Missouri. He started the girls soccer team in the ’90s and has coached both boys and girls soccer. “You will spend more time with your work family than your own family,” he says. Here are our top takeaways from his talk, “It’s A Family Thing.”
Winning Starts With The Culture You Build
Rogers said successful teams don’t just happen. They’re built over time through a culture people want to be a part of. At Glendale, he spent decades creating that foundation and watching traditions form. Over the years, more than 25 of those players have even come back to coach alongside Rogers.
“You lay the groundwork, you have your traditions and you develop that pathway,” Rogers says.
He says that same idea applies in the workplace. People want to know what they’re a part of, what’s expected of them, and how they can contribute to something bigger than themselves.
Great Coaches Invest in People, Not Just Performance
One of the main points in Rogers’ talk was that being a coach goes further than the soccer field, and the same goes for leaders in the workplace. He shared stories about being there for athletes through championships and celebrations, but also through grief, family struggles, financial hardships and difficult transitions. “It was in that moment that I realized what an honor, what a privilege I had to live life with kids,” Rogers says.
A Great Coach Can Change a Life
Rogers closed his speech by returning to a quote from UCLA basketball coach John Wooden: “A good coach can change a game. A great coach can change a life.”
Everyone in the room is a coach in one way or another. They can choose to focus on wins and losses, or on the people around them and making a difference in their lives.
