KAI Founder & Chairman honored with 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award
The St. Louis American Charitable Foundation has honored KAI Enterprises Founder and Chairman Michael Kennedy, Sr. with its 2024 Lifetime Achiever in Business award. Founded in 1928, The St. Louis American newspaper is the single, largest weekly newspaper in the state of Missouri and the leading, most-trusted voice of the St. Louis area’s African American community. Kennedy was recognized during the newspaper organization’s 22nd Annual Salute to Excellence in Business Awards and Networking Luncheon on Feb. 22 at the Ritz-Carlton St. Louis. where he received the Lifetime Achievement Award.
“It is my pleasure to accept this award. Your recognition is truly fulfilling and greatly appreciated,” said Kennedy. “Throughout my career, it has been my goal to work with the intention to gain recognition and appreciation by the African American community for the work that is produced by an African American-owned company. I will tell everybody that becoming an entrepreneur and representing the African American community required me to always be conscious of what impressions I was leaving, because at the end of the day, what I wanted was African Americans to say, ‘I’m proud of him. I’m proud of what he did; I want to do that too’ because that is more fulfilling than anything else.”
Kennedy wanted to be an architect since age nine and became fascinated with construction watching homes being built in his Richmond Heights, MO neighborhood designed by Black architect Charles Flemming. Despite a high school guidance counselor advising him in 1963 that Washington University’s School of Architecture “only took the cream of the crop and no negroes,” the University reached out to Kennedy in 1969 as the Civil Rights movement gained recognition and invited him to enter its architecture school as a graduate student with a degree in another subject. He went on to study architecture at Washington University for an additional four years before finally becoming one of the first Black architects registered in the State of Missouri.
Supported by his wife Lynn, Kennedy founded Kennedy & Associates, Inc. (later renamed KAI Design & Build) in 1980 from his home office and grew the business by taking on public sector design work, the only architectural projects available to African Americans at the time.
Over the course of his highly successful career, Kennedy and his team designed many notable St. Louis-area landmarks, including the St. Louis City Justice Center, St. Louis Metro Light Rail Stations, Clyde C. Miller Career Academy, Harris-Stowe’s William L. Clay Early Childhood Center, and the Downtown Gateway Transportation Center, among many others.
“Mike has mentored a lot of people; there’s a lot of people who talk about working for Kennedy and Kennedy & Associates over the years, but he also did a lot of projects that were impactful not just to St. Louis, but to other cities where he has expanded the firm around the country” said KAI Managing Partner Brad Simmons, FAIA. “So, I think his legacy is very much one of building a solid company; transitioning to the new group of partners and leaders and a legacy of doing community work that really made a difference to a lot of people and teaching others how to do that.”
In 2000, the eldest of Kennedy’s three sons, Michael B. Kennedy, Jr., joined KAI to head its business development department. Promoted to various positions in the company over the next several years, the younger Kennedy was named KAI’s president in 2008, then CEO in 2018.
Alongside his son, KAI has grown into one of the largest minority-owned AEC firms in the country with a diverse workforce of over 170 employees at its St. Louis headquarters and offices in Kansas City, KS; Atlanta, GA; and Dallas-Fort Worth, TX.
“The future is in his hands now,” said Kennedy of his son. “And today, I just want to thank Mike for being my partner for the 23 years that we spent together. Know that they were the best 23 years of my career.”
A video produced by The St. Louis American highlighting Kennedy’s career is available for viewing at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00qwR29nP58.
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