SIFE Alum Talks China, Career, and COVID-19.

May 1, 2020

By: Lindsey Temaat

UMKC SIFE Alum Roger Moore has lived and worked in the Kansas City metro his entire life. Raised in Blue Springs, Missouri, he stayed local to get his business degree at UMKC, and now works as a manager for Wholesale Operations at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

“I’ve traveled all over the country for various reasons and I’ve had an opportunity to see a lot of different cities around the U.S. and from my perspective, Kansas City is just hard to beat,” said Moore.

Moore joined the UMKC SIFE team in 2007 (rebranded as Enactus in 2012) and was involved until he graduated in May of 2010.

“At that point in time, we had a very small team, I would say we had less than a dozen individuals that were a part of the group,” said Moore. “I worked on a couple of different projects, but the highest profile one would have been the Inaugural trip to China that we took in the fall of 2009.”

According to Moore, the project started with an international student that had family connections within academic and government institutions in China.  

“It was through a combination of networking through an individual on our team to see what resources she had available in China and also working with the university to see how they could help support (the trip),” Moore said. “I will admit it was a fairly simple presentation that we gave, everything was pretty low-tech, but at the end of the day, it was more of a cultural exchange where we shared information on what life is like in the United States and helped to dispel some myths. I know that in the years after we went the production of it got a little bit more sophisticated.” 

And that, it did. In fact, The KC Economic Development (China) Project ran for 9 years and is one of the most widely recognized projects to come out of UMKC SIFE/Enactus to date, with members of the team traveling to more than 10 cities in China, meeting with over 25 universities and presenting to numerous government organizations and large scale companies. 

During his time in SIFE, Moore worked closely on the project with the then project leader and SIFE President Jason Patterson. 

“I think in general some of my favorite memories were being around the team and building those friendships and relationships,” said Moore. “I remember in the months leading up to the China trip, Jason (Patterson) and I would spend quite a bit of time on Skype with individuals we were working with in China and those always ended up being fairly late night conversations because of the time difference.”

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Following the first trip to China, Moore delivered a debrief presentation at the Kauffman Foundation for Entrepreneurship to the team’s stakeholders within the university and other interested parties in the community. 

“There was an individual in the audience that was from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City that came up to me after that presentation and said they liked what they saw and encouraged me to apply for a position through their campus recruiting program,” said Moore. “I did and the person I spoke to that night ended up being one of the people that I interviewed with.”

 

“I would venture to say that I owe getting started with my career to Enactus.”

 

Moore started at the Federal Reserve as an analyst in Cash Services in June of 2010. Moore quickly moved into a leadership role, managing the operation that processes and destroys currency for a few years before moving into his current position in 2015. 

“I think that night and that presentation was my conduit to getting a foot in the door at the Federal Reserve,” said Moore.“I would venture to say that I owe getting started with my career to Enactus.”

Now, Moore is responsible for the “full scope” of the Wholesale operation at the Kansas City Federal Reserve, and has a team of 23 individuals under his supervision that provide operational and customer support to financial institutions that use the FedWire wire-transfer services. 

However, the Federal Reserve, like many institutions in the United States, were not exempt to the effects of the current pandemic. According to Moore, he and his team adapted quickly to working remotely in mid-March.

“There were some aspects of our operation that we had experience doing remotely, but generally we would only do that in certain scenarios, like if we had a big snow storm coming,” said Moore. “Recognizing that this was going to be a prolonged issue, we really had to move quickly and implement processes that would allow us to do a lot of things electronically that would have otherwise relied on physical documentation.”

Moore also added that his team has been innovative in coming up with different ways of getting the work done.

“One of the bigger challenges we have experienced in managing through the current situation is that we have to be much more intentional in how we communicate, in the office it was easy for me to walk out onto our department floor and talk to folks at their workstation,” said Moore. “We have to make sure that we are being proactive about maintaining communication and not just talking when there’s an operational issue.”

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While working at the Federal Reserve is Moore’s day job, he also owns Pyramid Place Early Education Center in Eudora, KS with his wife Devin Moore, who works at the center full time. According to Moore, they usually average about 50 kids in the center, but since stay-at-home orders took effect enrollment has reduced to less than 15 children on any given day.

“We’ve had to contend with many of the same challenges that a lot of other small business owners have been facing over the past several weeks,” said Moore.“For example, we applied for funding from the Paycheck Protection Program and we’ve had to be really careful with our expenses in light of significant drops in revenue.” 

Moore notes that they have also had to reduce staff hours and implement safeguards to protect the health of the staff and children at the center. 

“Reducing personnel cost is the biggest lever that we can pull because that’s where, like a lot of businesses, the bulk of our costs go,” Moore said. “In response to the pandemic itself we’ve had to implement wellness checks on all children upon arrival, making sure that parents don’t leave the front lobby, and we’ve also implemented enhanced cleaning practices within the building to make sure we are disinfecting toys and furniture in the classrooms on a regular basis.”

While there is no perfect way to respond to COVID-19, or prepare for a career, Moore remarked that his time in UMKC SIFE/Enactus helped develop skills that he still uses today.

“From my perspective it seemed as though some of the projects I worked on with Enactus had some very relatable skills that I was able to translate into my career,” said Moore.