"While Michael contributed to many civic initiatives to advance St. Louis, I'd like to share one about which most people are unaware. Back in 2013-2015, when the City of St. Louis was in the midst of a fierce Site Selection competition to both retain the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) western HQ and its 3,100 employees, as well as succeed in winning the award of the $1.75-billion new western HQ to be built in North St. Louis at the 1,500-acre NorthSide Regeneration development ---Michael made a critical financial contribution to enable the St. Louis civic campaign to successfully compete for and to win the project. Like so many other civic contributions, Michael's went unnoticed and was thanks to his steadfast commitment to St. Louis."