- [Group] Two, three.

- Go!

- [Jim] The ribbon's been cut at the AB brewery, but not for a new beer but a new business and a new product-- - We're operating on it.

We've got the powder that drops out.

- [Jim] That just might end up in your protein bar of all places.

The Merchants Bridge has never been in the postcard view of St. Louis, but getting it back into shape is key to keeping this city's economy rolling along.

Women in construction?

Sure.

There are programs to diversify this workforce, but it does come with challenges.

- If I didn't understand what I was being a part of, I just wanted to go to work.

- [Jim] And with the passing of Mikhail Gorbachev at age 91, we look back on his speech in Fulton, Missouri, and the world back then and now.

- I mean, there was such hope.

But on the other hand, it was very short-lived.

- It's all next on Living St. Louis.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) I'm Jim Kirchherr.

And you probably know where I am.

Anybody who knows St. Louis knows the Anheuser-Busch brewery by sight, and even if you're not here, by aroma.

A lot of things come to mind when we think about beer making in St. Louis, but Anne-Marie Berger's story is about some things that may not be so familiar, protein, nutrition, sustainability.

- [Anne-Marie] St. Louis is known as a beer town, but over the last decade or so, it's earned a reputation as being a great city for innovation and startups.

So what happens when you combine the two?

Well, when the world's largest beer maker is involved, it's not your average startup.

- This journey started a little over a year ago when we announced that we were gonna invest $100 million to restore and really reinvigorate one of our historic buildings.

And today, we're excited to share that EverGrain is officially open for business.

(crowd applauds) - [Anne-Marie] Last June, Anheuser-Busch opened the doors to EverGrain.

Simply put, this company takes the high protein nutrients from spent barley grains used to brew beer and turns them into nourishing ingredients.

- These ingredients are largely used as an ingredient into like a ready-to-mix protein powder.

It can be incorporated into beverages like a plant-based milk or a nutrition shake.

- [Anne-Marie] So why is Anheuser-Busch InBev getting into the plant-based game?

Well, in 2021, plant-based products were a key driver of sales growths at grocery retailers nationwide, growing three times as fast as overall food sales.

And one problem with plant-based milks, like oat milk and almond milk, is they don't offer the same level of protein as dairy milk.

But guess what is a good source of protein.

(bells chime) Barley.

Beer brewing uses only the starch from barley and what's left behind is what EverGrain refers to as the golden remainder.

- So we estimate that the entire brewing industry is about nine million metric tons of what the industry calls spent grain or spent brewing grains, and Anheuser-Busch InBev has 1.4 million metric tons, and embedded in that is 400,000 tons of protein.

It can impact tens of millions or hundreds of millions of people.

So what EverGrain seeks to do is we intend to capture those nutrients and include them in ingredients that'll go into great, amazing consumer products.

- [Anne-Marie] It sounds simple.

AB InBev already has the brewer saved grains or BSGs, and there's definitely a market for a plant-based protein additive.

But the process of extracting, filtering, and drying that coveted nourishment is as layered as beer brewing itself.

- We're right next to the brewery campus.

- Rob Haas, Chief Supply Officer for EverGrain, walked me through the process.

So it goes from the brewing, spent process, goes in here.

- Correct.

So all these tanks are full of our brewer saved grain.

And this is our storage area as we begin our process in our main area, which is this beautiful building right here.

- [Anne-Marie] The brewer saved grains make their way across the street through a pipe bridge to this once vacant 118-year-old building now turned world class BSG processing facility.

(laid back music) Creating this product has three main steps, extraction, filtration, and drying.

So after the brewer saved grains makes its way across the street, extraction begins.

- If you were in your kitchen and you were making spaghetti, right, the BSG is the equivalent of that raw spaghetti, - Yeah.

- The dried spaghetti.

We're gonna boil it up, okay?

Now, there's a lot more to it in here, but basically, here's where we're gonna take that spaghetti.

And now, imagine that when you put it into your sieve, the liquid coming out, for us, has all that wonderful protein.

- It has the nutrients.

- So we want that liquid as our starting point.

- The pasta water.

- You got it, the pasta water.

(Anne-Marie chuckles) - [Anne-Marie] Once the protein is completely pulled away from the grain, it goes through a two-step filtration process.

- This is the stage that takes out a lot of the bigger molecular weight particles.

- Then it's on to the dryer.

I am six stories up.

This is the top of the drying process.

This is where the liquid begins the process of turning into powder.

- And we're gonna hit that liquid with hot air, heated air, over 420 degrees.

And the air is going to drive out the water, and it's going to dry the powder.

The powder's gonna drop out.

- So the water goes away and the powder-- - [Rob] The water gets evaporated.

- [Anne-Marie] Okay.

- [Rob] And the powder powder drops out.

- [Anne-Marie] The protein stays.

- [Rob] Correct.

The protein is in the powder.

- [Anne-Marie] According to EverGrain execs, their protein creates the lowest carbon footprint of any plant-based protein on the market today, and it does make sense.

While their process does play a role in that, they already have the grains on site.

- So one of the things that was very important to us is making sure that we build a sustainable like operation.

And we could have built a facility that's hundreds of miles away, but that would involve like transport.

It would involve additional like greenhouse gas emissions.

So if we could locate here in St. Louis, it would have been, it's more efficient and more sustainable.

- [Speaker] So what we have here today is our 35-gram RTD, started from grams of protein in 11 ounces.

- [Anne-Marie] Now, if you're going to the store looking for EverGrain products, they will be hard to identify.

Remember, their barley protein powder is an ingredient, a protein additive for existing plant-based products.

- Exactly.

So we will be selling to startups, local food startups, as well as like the major CPGs, like Nestle and Kraft Heinz and others.

And our goal is to incorporate our ingredients to reach the everyday consumer.

So those are gonna be big, small companies, small local companies, as well as big multinational companies.

- Besides beer and baseball, St. Louis's identity is as a river city, and that brings to mind, well, the steamboats of the past and the barges today.

But to really survive and to thrive today as a river city in the middle of the country, you can't just think about boats.

You have to think about bridges.

And that was the topic one day in late August on a special trip by the Becky Thatcher.

Usually, the boat takes tourists and other passengers for some sightseeing and some history talks.

But this time, media and other guests were on board for a lesson in transportation infrastructure.

The boat headed further up river than usual to the Merchants Bridge.

It is far north of downtown and used only by railroads.

And while it is one of the city's lesser known bridges, it does not mean it's less important.

It was built in 1890, and for the past several years has been being rebuilt in stages section by section.

This trip was bringing people to see the final truss that would finish the job.

And officials were on hand to explain just why this was such a big deal, not for commuters, but for a very different kind of traffic flow.

- So in general, freight traffic's anticipated to grow through the time period of 2050 about 50% of what it is now, and we already have congestion at today's levels.

This is gonna add double the, this is gonna double the capacity of the bridge.

- In fact, when we asked the barge industry, "What's your number one infrastructure project," they said the Merchants Rail Bridge.

And that's because their barge rates are dependent on rail rates, and that's because of that interconnectivity of all the modes working together.

And if one mode is not operating efficiently, it impacts all the modes of transportation.

- [Jim] It's a big deal today.

It was even a bigger deal 132 years ago.

(horn honks) The Merchants Bridge was dedicated on May 3rd of 1890.

The Governors of Missouri and Illinois, David R. Francis and Joseph Pfeiffer, they each took trains to the new bridge and then walked to the center to shake hands.

Eight-year-old Josephine Cobb read a poem and christened the new bridge.

There was a parade.

There were speeches.

There were dinners and plenty of talk about a new St. Louis.

One speaker said the trade of St. Louis will bound forward like a wild gazelle.

(horn honks) This bridge was St Louis's second rail bridge, built to break the monopoly the Eads Bridge owners had on rail traffic and bridge charges.

And the Merchants Bridge project was what we would today call a public-private partnership.

Today's rebuilding took the same kind of effort.

- We had both Missouri and Illinois Departments of Transportation, two state agencies then working with manufacturing, logistics companies on both sides of the river.

All modes of transportation, rail, barge, truck, and our airports, we all work collectively together, along with the East-West Gateway Council of Governments or Metropolitan Planning Organization, and that's where we had public and private sector leaders working together, setting transportation priorities.

- [Jim] Getting those trusses in place takes a lot of time, so it is best to speed up the video to see the barges moving it into position, then very, very slowly, it is lifted into place.

- This has been the, my favorite project I've ever seen.

It's not the biggest I've ever been on, but it is a fantastic project, once in a lifetime project.

- [Jim] When it was done, there was once again a gathering of representatives from two states, businesses, and the Terminal Railroad.

- On behalf of the TRRA, I'd like to welcome you all to the September 15th, 2022 grand reopening of the Merchants Bridge!

(crowd cheers and applauds) - Yes, woo!

(group applauds) (horn honks) - Completion means the Merchants Bridge will once again be back in business with two-way railed traffic at optimum speeds.

For most of us, this will all be out of sight, but for many who watch the regional economy, not out of mind.

(horn honks) Like a lot of jobs, construction work is not for everybody, but it might be for more people than we might think.

About 9% of construction workers in the country are women.

And there are reasons that number's so low, and there are reasons it could be higher.

Ruth Ezell puts on her hardhat for this story.

(upbeat music) - [Dawn] I love construction.

I always was the girl that went to shop over home ec.

Anything hands on, it's what I love to do.

- [Ruth] But it would be years before Dawn Fleming realized she could make a living in the construction industry.

With degrees in medical office administration and human services, those fields never resonated with her.

Then about five years ago, someone told Fleming about a construction apprenticeship program she should look into.

Her construction trade of choice was carpentry.

- The school and everything is paid for.

Your actual contractors who you work for, they put money into your pay to pay for your schooling.

So that's one of the best things about actually being an apprentice and stuff like that.

You don't have to pay for tuition.

These guys actually take the time.

And they're patient.

They teach me stuff.

- [Ruth] Fleming is often the only woman on her construction sites.

And while she has the support of her contractors and supervisors, Fleming's presence in a traditionally all-male environment isn't necessarily welcomed by all.

- The mindsets that people have, it's a different world out there.

And to get men to shift how they think about women being in a field that's predominantly male, it is a big challenge.

And it's a lot of proving yourself to them, to letting them know that you have rights to be there just as much as they do.

It's very challenging on the part of you overly doing some of the things to try to prove that you do belong because you try to outwork the men or you do some other things just to be there with them.

- Dawn Fleming is on a construction crew here in the Cortex District that's building a parking garage for Washington University School of Medicine.

The general contractor on the project is Tarlton Corporation, where women are prominent in leadership positions.

Sondra Rotty is Tarlton's Vice President of Operations.

- It should be upon us companies to demonstrate what a great opportunity construction provides for everyone, women included.

There are challenges.

If you're a tradesperson, you're out on the job site for a solid eight and a half or nine hours.

There's not a lot of flexibility there.

So we need to start thinking proactively about how to make construction more accommodating to men and women who have families, and who might have a sick child at home, or might have personal issues that they need to deal with.

- At present, women make up only three to 4% of the workforce in the trades in the St. Louis region.

And according to Construction Forum, which works to improve female and minority participation, there are plenty of opportunities.

But as Construction Forum's CEO, Diana Wilhold, explains, you may want to brush up on your math skills.

- No matter what trade you're getting into or you're going into, you definitely have to be strong in math.

Algebra 2 or higher would be excellent skills to have in order to get into a trade.

The other thing that looks good in your application is that you have demonstrated that you have and you know how to work as a team player.

The construction industry is very team oriented.

You are with a crew.

You are going out as a team, and you are knocking out the job as a team.

There are a variety of different career paths.

There are many individuals that we work with that have gone on to a four-year degree only to come back and say, "You know what?

"That's great, but I really want to be the trade.

"I want to be an electrician.

"I became an electrical engineer "and I really would like to be an electrician "and work on the trade side."

- I didn't know coming into the trade that I was part of a movement and trying to help more women get into trade.

I didn't understand what I was being a part of.

I just wanted to go to work and make a living for me and my children.

But now that I'm in, I have a passion for all kind of things, and I would love to see more women out here, not just women, just minorities and whomever.

Whomever that can work and is capable of working, they should be able to work.

We're at a point where we need a lot of people.

Why couldn't they work?

We need everybody out here.

- Finally, the world recently noted the passing not just of Queen Elizabeth, but also of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the USSR and one of the most important and famous world figures I ever got to see in person.

But then, so did a lot of other people when he came to Fulton, Missouri and spoke at Westminster College.

The 30th anniversary of that speech was this past May, and we sat down to talk about what the world looked like back then and how things have turned out.

It was that day, May 6th of 1992, Mikhail Gorbachev came to Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, the place where Winston Churchill gave his Iron Curtain speech 46 years before.

Our live coverage that day was titled Full Circle.

(majestic music) Gorbachev was the last leader of the USSR.

His political social and economic reforms led to the fall of the Berlin wall, and opposition at home brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union.

This speech was given at the sculpture crafted from sections of the Berlin Wall.

The artist was Churchill's granddaughter, Edwina Sandys.

His speech here was considered a fitting symbolic end to the Cold War.

It was Churchill's speech that was considered the start.

And while the theme of that speech, the Sinews of Peace, called for an Anglo-American postwar alliance, it would later become known simply as the Iron Curtain speech.

- From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.

Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe.

(Gorbachev speaks in foreign language) - [Translator] More than 46 years ago, Winston Churchill spoke in Fulton, and in my country, this speech was singled out as the formal declaration of the Cold War.

- [Jim] Gorbachev looked back at the period immediately following World War II, when the former allies united against Nazi Germany split, faced off, built their nuclear arsenals.

He said both sides made mistakes.

But for the most part, he was looking ahead at a world more democratic, with new opportunities for greater international cooperation to tackle all kinds of global problems.

In the moment, it sure seemed like things were looking up.

- We sure thought so at the time.

We sure hoped so at the time.

- [Jim] Washington University professor, James Wertsch is a Russia scholar.

- I mean, there was such hope.

And Gorbachev was a brilliant thinker and a brilliant maker of that speech, I'd say.

But on the other hand, it was very short-lived, what he was saying.

There was real hope.

He was the guy that Margaret Thatcher said, "I can do business with this man," et cetera, et cetera.

- I remember too that Gorbachev and his wife, Raisa, these were people, really the first Soviet leaders that Westerners could relate to.

- Right, oh, yeah.

They were charming.

Boy, he had the energy and the kind of political skills.

He'd jump out of a car and talk to a crowd.

I don't think Brezhnev could ever imagine doing that.

It was just impossible of previous leaders to think of that.

So he really broke a lot of molds, but he had to do it in a context that didn't change nearly as fast as he wanted it to.

(Gorbachev speaks in foreign language) - [Translator] One of the worst of the new dangers is ecological.

When Winston Churchill gave his speech here, most people on this planet did not even suspect a mortal threat from that direction.

But today, global climatic shifts, the greenhouse effect, the ozone hole, acid rain, contamination of the atmosphere-- - It surprised me when I looked back at that speech-- - [James] Yeah, me too.

- To see what he was talking about.

- And it's brilliant because these are things we can agree to work on even if I don't like you at all.

I mean, I'm gonna roast too, so maybe we should get together.

And so he was trying to do that, but it was already, at the time, it was a very big uphill struggle trying to get to be part of the common European community, the European family that he so much talked about.

But I think, since I think he already felt you're gonna have to work very fast if you're gonna have any chance of being able to show Russia that we have something to benefit by joining this community.

(Gorbachev speaks in foreign language) - [Translator] It would be a supreme tragedy if the world, having overcome the 1946 model were to find itself once again in a 1914 model.

A major international effort will be needed to render irreversible the shift in favor of a democratic world, one which is democratic for the whole of humanity, not just for half of it.

(audience applauds) - [Jim] We looked at that moment as the symbolic end of the Cold War.

- Mm-hmm.

- [Jim] And Gorbachev did as well.

- Mm-hmm, yeah.

- That the Cold War was behind and he said, "Don't look at who won.

"It can't be a winner for just one side.

"It has to be a winner for everybody."

- [James] Right.

- But we haven't got there.

- No, and I think that's where we played one of our cards really wrong.

We did, it's the end of history.

We have won.

I mean, that was all over the hubris we had at the time.

And it's hard not to feel it if you're an American citizen and say, "We've been fighting this for a long time.

"It looks like they've collapsed and we're still here.

"So that's a win, right?"

But the amount of arrogance, I think, that we set off the world to tell about how this just proves that our system is better, so you better get in line as well, and that just grated terribly.

It's not to say that we should, none of this is to say you should excuse any of the things that the Soviet Union and Russia did, that somehow they did them because we insulted them and it's our fault somehow.

There are people who say that.

That's ridiculous, I think.

But it is to say arrogance is not a good card to play in global relations.

(Gorbachev speaks in foreign language) - [Translator] This is not just some ordinary stage of development like many others in world history.

This is a turning point on a historic and worldwide scale.

- [Jim] Gorbachev is 91 years old, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, but it appears that he did not really set something in motion but was just a blip, an outlier in Russian history.

You talk today about how Gorbachev is seen in Russia.

He's not as popular as Putin.

- Oh, no, no.

He's very low ratings compared to Putin.

It always shocked me.

Since I started going there, I get into long conversations with vodka and cigarettes and the Kuski stole everywhere.

At the end of the night, a lot of people, including the liberals that were highly educated, say, "In the end, Jim, Russia needs a strong leader."

We have our national narrative, other countries do too, but there, it's one about being forced again and again to defend themselves from external enemies and having to expel those enemies.

And it goes on from there because it's not just kind of getting up off the mat and punching the next guy that comes up there, but it's about a mission that Russia has as well.

(Gorbachev speaks in foreign language) - [Translator] This existing and intensifying integration of the world opens up a broad spectrum of favorable opportunities for the future of mankind.

- [Jim] I think he was, it seemed at the time, and I think he is one of the most important figures in the 20th century.

- Mm-hmm.

- And yet, I think people maybe 30 years younger than I am-- - [James] Yeah.

- May not know who he is.

- Yeah, no.

Mostly, they won't.

And my Russian friends, they don't, even the liberals, in a lot of ways, they don't have any use for Gorbachev.

And it goes downhill from there.

So you have nationalists saying he was a traitor.

He gave away, destroyed the Soviet Union then handed it over to the West, and so he really has a very low reputation in Russia.

But I agree, he maybe averted what could have been a catastrophe.

- 30 years ago, this was one stop on Gorbachev's tour of the US, giving speeches, raising money for his new institute.

But this speech in the small Missouri college town of Fulton where Winston Churchill had warned of an iron curtain, this was a powerful symbol even if the guest of honor himself would never return to power.

And that's Living St. Louis.

Thanks for joining us.

I'm Jim Kirchherr, and we'll see you next time.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Living St. Louis is made possible by the support of the Betsy and Thomas Patterson Foundation, the Mary Ranken Jordan and Ettie A. Jordan Charitable Trust, and by the members of Nine PBS.