Henderson Engineers President & CEO Rich Smith and Kansas City, Missouri, Mayor Sly James spoke at the KC Global Design worldwide launch Tuesday night at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. The reception was held in conjunction with the Discover Global Markets Design + Construct international conference, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s flagship event series for U.S. exporters.

The conference selected Kansas City as its destination because of the numerous leading design and construction firms headquartered in KC.

Smith serves as a co-chair of KC Global Design along with David Bower of Populous and Tim Triplett with Black & Veatch.

After Mayor James welcomed the crowd, he turned the microphone over to Smith, who spoke on Kansas City being a great place to live, work, build a career, and raise a family. He also described that KC Global Design was launched because of the young talent in the region and a commitment to firmly establishing Kansas City as the global destination for talented people and innovation in the engineering, architecture, and technology industries.

“We are here to celebrate this growth opportunity for our region,” Smith said. “To recognize this place – KC – as a key ingredient to the success of our companies, to link our industry to the success of this region, and to build an even stronger business and talent attraction case for our companies.”

KC Global Design is part of the KC Rising program that was created in 2014 when the regional Kansas City business community came together to launch a promise: create a sustainable 20-year-plus vision to accelerate the Kansas City region’s economic growth. KC Rising is a long-term vision for the greater Kansas City region to build capacity, bring existing businesses to scale, and fully realize the KC region’s potential. The program is regional in focus, but global in perspective targeting high growth in trade, people, and ideas.

KC Global Design includes 700-plus engineering, architecture, and technology companies employing more than 20,000 professionals headquartered in Kansas City. Water systems designed for 20 percent of the world’s population originate from the Kansas City region and the seventh-highest architecture and engineering employment share in America exists in Kansas City.

Coordinated leadership for KC Rising includes the Civic Council of Greater Kansas City, Kansas City Area Development Council, Mid-America Regional Council, and KC Chamber.