Hungry babies have an unexpected champion in this heroic firefighter and his brother-in-law.

Amarillo Little Theater (ALT) has been in production since 1927. It is one of the nation’s longest continuously running theaters.  All productions are conducted by volunteers in the community. The theater hosts mainstage productions as well as academy productions.

Angela Knapp Eggers is the Senior Director of Community Outreach at the Laura W. Bush Institute. The institute, created in 2007, funds research on sex- and gender-based medicine as well as other innovative and lifesaving missions.

Amarillo National Bank has been a key economic contributor to the Amarillo community. The Wares’ last name is well known for their community influence. For five generations, the Ware family has owned ANB.

“To foster economic growth, innovation clusters need to draw on the power of an interrelated ‘quad’ of sectors: public, private, civil, and academic.” - Ernest J. Wilson III, USC

Earlier this summer, in a meeting with Kyla Frye of the WT Enterprise Center, I was introduced to the concept of the “Quad,” an economic model created by a dean at the University of Southern California. Jeff Reid, Incubator Director at the WT Enterprise Center, had written a report on the model for an Economic Development capstone project.

In essence, the model suggests that collaboration and vision alignment across four sectors — government, business, nonprofit and academic — is the key to a community’s maintained economic growth.