Cape businessman known for starting NARS dies at 49

Christopher Buehrle, a businessman and Cape Girardeau native whose company, National Asset Recovery Services, once employed hundreds of area residents, died Sunday. He was 49.

His wife, Becky Buehrle, said Buehrle’s legacy is one of humble generosity.

“It would amaze you,” she said. “He was the most loving and caring, thoughtful and generous person I’ve ever met.”

She said when she met him in 1990 — and soon after married him in 1991 — he was working part time for Citicorp, doing collections.

“He had this idea for a type of collections that at the time weren’t being done,” she said.

He grew that idea into a business that would employ about 3,000 people in offices in St. Louis, Cape Girardeau and Jamaica. His clients included dozens of Fortune 500 companies.

Becky recalled Christopher showing her the space where he later built NARS’ Cape Girardeau office. The space had been a Sears and was rather unimpressive, she said.

“He just pulled out a folding chair and a legal pad and just drew out a sketch for how the whole office would be designed,” she said. “I was just standing there, stunned. He could see the big picture, and then he would convince everyone else, ‘Hey, come walk this way with me. Follow me here; trust me.’”

Greg Cappa, one of Buehrle’s business partners, said Buehrle’s visionary streak was invaluable.

“Chris was an amazing leader. He really put a group of people together that had great chemistry and worked well together, especially under some extreme pressure,” Cappa said. “He had the ability to look a mile down the road when the rest of us could only see a quarter-mile.”

He said without Buehrle, NARS would never have grown like it did.

“He was on a higher mountaintop, seeing what we were trying to achieve,” Cappa said.

Buehrle’s loyalty to Cape Girardeau was unwavering, Cappa said. When the company was looking to expand in Missouri, “reasonable people would have said, ‘OK, let’s go to Columbia, [Missouri].’ That went out the window. Chris said, ‘We’re going to Cape,’” Cappa recalled.

Cappa said they trusted him and the strength of his conviction.

Former Cape Girardeau mayor Jay Knudtson said the city was fortunate to have Buehrle’s loyalties.

“While he was certainly a tough negotiator, he wanted to bring his business to Cape Girardeau,” Knudtson said. “A lot of times we are negotiating with people driven purely by the incentives they can get and the dollar amount they can receive. Chris had a fondness, a love and a loyalty for Cape Girardeau that really made it a terrific relationship. It was a major, major impact on our economics in that it brought several hundred people full-time employment.”

In 2013, NARS had become Integrity Solution Services, and one of its large clients, Charter Communications, canceled its service with the company. This caused the closing of the call center in Cape Girardeau.

But Knudtson said he’s more grateful to have known Buehrle personally.

“What I remember from those negotiations more than anything was that I developed a friendship with Chris Buehrle,” he said. “He became a dear friend, and his family became dear friends of my family.”

The man’s generosity, Knudtson said, was perhaps best exemplified by the day-care center he built in the NARS office to ease the burden of working parents.

“At large expense to him, certainly nothing that could perhaps be justified on a business pro forma, he made an investment to building out a portion of that building to be able to provide day care,” Knudtson recalled. “He was certainly very contentious about being successful and profitable, but he was equally committed to looking out for maybe some of the more less fortunate; some of the people who needed a hand up. It was an amazing blend of business tenacity balanced with compassion for people.”

One of Buehrle’s former employees, Barb Cagle, said he was “by far the most caring and generous person I have ever worked for.”

Buehrle raised money for breast-cancer research by hosting charity golf tournaments for many years, and Cagle recalled when she found out she had breast cancer, Buehrle was the first person she called.

“I said, ‘I have breast cancer, I need an appointment, I need some help,’” she said.

Buehrle helped her, she said, like he would have helped any of his employees.

“He saved my life,” she said. “But that’s Chris.”

Knudtson said Buehrle will be missed.

“My comments come more not from a mayor. They come from a friend,” he said. “Chris Buehrle was a dear friend of mine. Chris Buehrle did make a difference in Cape Girardeau. We are a better place because of Chris Buehrle, and our prayers are with his family.”

tgraef@semissourian.com

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