Dr. Dean Kumpuris never met a challenge he did not like, especially when it served the people of Little Rock
On a sunny midmorning so clear and idyllic it felt imported from a movie set, Dr. Dean Kumpuris, city director, held down a chair in a downtown Little Rock coffee shop as the bulk of the morning crowd came in for a java detour en route to nearby office spaces. Kumpuris was a vortex for those awaiting their lattes and scones. Well-heeled businessmen and community shakers — including, at one point, the mayor — streamed in from nearby tables, nodding and waving on their way in or out.
His navigation of the 10 steps from the counter to his seat near giant windows was a study in networking and gladhanding. Once there, he could see, aquarium-like, the people gliding by on the street outside.
Kumpuris loves the bustle and longs for more of it in the neighborhood, truth be told. Saturdays are bliss as he watches the throngs headed to the Little Rock Farmers Market, the families enjoying the playground and splash pad, and visitors and locals alike strolling the Vogel Schwartz Sculpture Garden, all of which came to pass, in no small way, thanks to him.
“Dean’s been instrumental in everything that’s happened in the downtown area, from the presidential library to Peabody Park to the sculpture garden to the River Market,” former Little Rock City Manager, the late Bruce Moore, told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 2010. “One of the things I’ve enjoyed about him over the years and getting to work with him on a lot of projects is that he has a keen ability to get things done, and he really doesn’t worry about who gets the credit for it. His philosophy is, ‘Let’s just get it done, and others can enjoy the publicity.’”
“I truly believe that your downtown is the heart of your city,” Kumpuris said. “Some people say that’s crazy, and what I tell people all the time is that if you want to spend money in a town, you either have a downtown that’s vibrant, that’s making money, that’s putting back in the tax roll, or you have a place where no one’s there, and you’re spending all the time in the world on police protection.”
As a physician, Kumpuris understands the interconnectedness of systems, the equation of the body as an exceptionally resilient whole created of incredibly fragile parts. For decades, he has applied that same understanding to his role as a community-builder, both formally as a city director and informally as a disciple of his hometown, especially as it pertains to the city’s core.
“There’s a whole group of people who don’t really care about downtown,” he said. “My thought is if you’re going to bring people into your community, you have to have excellence downtown. I decided I was going to try to make it excellent.”
Born the eldest of three in 1948 in Little Rock, Kumpuris graduated from Hall High School. The son of a surgeon and, later, brother to a cardiologist, he attended Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, followed by medical school at Emory University in Atlanta. He then completed his gastroenterology training at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, after which he came home to go into private practice in Little Rock.
“My day job is my real passion,” he said. “I like doing what I do. I like seeing people. I like taking care of people.”
Over time, he applied his desire for physically treating individuals to helping the population of Little Rock in general. He accepted an appointment to fill a vacancy on the city board in January 1995 and, despite what he described as great reluctance to seek elected office, was convinced to run for Position 8 At-Large City Director the following year.
He won and was reelected in 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2020, even serving as vice mayor of Little Rock from January 2011 to December 2012. One would think with a record like that, he would be accomplished on the campaign trail. He is bemused at best about being seemingly unbeatable at the polls.
“I am absolutely the worst campaigner,” he said. “I hate campaigning. I mean, if you look at Frank [Scott Jr., mayor] or you look at Bill Clinton, they get energy when they go out and do those things. I’m an introvert; I hate going out and doing it, but I like what I get to do in office.”
What separates Kumpuris from the long line of big dreamers who have come and gone from the work of reimagining downtown is that while anyone can think audaciously, his ideas have a way of coming into existence. Much of what he has achieved in office has been nothing short of transformative for the city, particularly as it pertains to the city’s oldest neighborhood.
While he often downplays his influence in projects, (“My story’s pretty boring,” he said. “I’m really a pretty boring guy.”) those who know him best insist the bookish, mild-mannered routine is merely cover for a tenacious spirit that is all in for the cause du jour. Moore described him as “a hard charger who really doesn’t take no for an answer,” an assessment agreed to within Kumpuris’ own household.
“My wife says to me all the time, ‘You walk into a room, and all these people go, ‘Oh my God, he’s going to ask me for money again,’ or ‘He’s got this crazy idea again,’” he said. “It’s a chronic problem.”
Nearly everything of substance in the downtown corridor, from Riverfront Park to the Clinton Presidential Center to the Ottenheimer Market Hall, Vogel Schwartz Sculpture Garden and Peabody Park, among others, bears his fingerprints, and each was an idea considered more far-fetched than the last. It is easy to see the city as it is now and recognize the value of downtown amenities, but many, when proposed, were thought to be improbable at best and impossible at worst.
The Ottenheimer Market Hall, on which he aligned with developer and former fraternity brother Jimmy Moses, was widely seen as a pipe dream, targeting as it did a riverfront section of the city made up largely of crumbling warehouses. Instead, the seed project sprouted into more improvements, now collectively the River Market district, and became the taproot for other landmark developments to come, including the Central Arkansas Library System Main Library and the Clinton Presidential Center, two major anchor points within the neighborhood.
Each completed downtown project towed restaurants, hotels, and commercial and residential development in its wake, investment that now runs in the billions. Even more valuable than that, Kumpuris said, was how many of the initiatives created unifying spaces where all residents could gather, recreate and enjoy.
“I like parks. I like outdoors. I like kids’ activities,” he said. “I like that if you come down here on Saturday or Sunday, you see Caucasians, Hispanics and African Americans all in the same park, all playing together, all using the same thing in Little Rock.”
Beyond the physical structure, Kumpuris has also been instrumental in providing for the educational future of the city’s residents, especially those from challenging backgrounds, through the nonprofit Arkansas Commitment. The organization helps a cohort of 40 high school achievers annually by “dismantling barriers that hinder access to higher education,” its literature states. It does that via weekly coaching, personalized college counseling, essay writing workshops, ACT prep and application assistance, among other services.
Since 2011, Arkansas Commitment students have earned more than $60 million in college scholarships, and they have a 92 percent college admit rate. More than 500 students have completed the cohort experience, and 100 percent of them enrolled in college. Every year, the group routinely produces National Merit Scholars, class valedictorians, student body presidents, and recipients of millions in scholarships from colleges and universities coast to coast.
“I remember after one of our first meetings, a grandmother, an African American woman, came up to me and said, ‘What’s the catch? Never in my life has anybody, especially a white person, come to me and said, ‘We’re gonna give you something. There’s always a catch,’” Kumpuris said. “I said, ‘There is no catch.’
“To me, this is just another opportunity help somebody who needs it. What’s kept it going for 23 years now is it all comes down to recognizing that these kids are there, helping them maximize their potential and helping them learn how to live in a big world.”
The morning rush concluded, and the coffee shop traffic slowed to a trickle, leaving just a few students tapping on laptops and a retiree or two blowing the steam off their cups. Kumpuris’ docket, however, has never been more full. He’s in demand at City Hall and as a valued mentor serving multiple institutions, including the Downtown Little Rock Partnership Executive Board and the Clinton School of Public Service Dean’s Advisory Board.
Both the city and the Little Rock Convention & Visitors Bureau’s master plans offer much to be accomplished before he hangs it up, from a much-needed facelift for the River Market’s Ottenheimer Market Hall to the prospect of a sprawling new central park space, to name just a couple.
Such things will not just happen, of course. Support must be rallied and money must be raised, and as has been true for decades, Little Rock’s favorite son will be in the middle of it, officially or unofficially. The late President Harry S. Truman once said, “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit,” and as summations of Kumpuris’ life go, that comes close to perfection.
“You know, 10 years from now, I really don’t care if they know who Dean Kumpuris is,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed what I’ve done. It’s fun for me to do what I do. I don’t care about a legacy; all I care about is that I took the opportunity to give back.”
DR. DEAN KUMPURIS ON COMMUNITY SERVICE
“In order to have a full life, to really fulfill one’s potential, you’ve got to give back. My worry today is there’s not only a lot of young people who want to give back, or they don’t see what giving back gives you. That’s a problem. Giving back gives a person the experience of having things work, and you also learn about dealing with failure. You learn what it’s like to say, ‘I want to do something,’ and someone says, ‘Hell, no.’ That’s part of life. What I would tell young people is you’ve got to step out, you’ve got to take a chance, you’ve got to take a risk, and you’ve got to give back.”
DR. DEAN KUMPURIS ON AUDACIOUS IDEAS
“I don’t know if this is really a secret. For me, it starts with a question: ‘How can I try and improve the lives of people?’ From there, it’s just problem solving. Being a doctor, you see people all the time who come to you and say, ‘I’ve got this problem.’ My job is not to say ‘I’ve done these tests, and I don’t know. Sorry,’ and that’s it. My job is to figure out, if I don’t have the right answer, then what’s the next answer? What are the next steps?”
DR. DEAN KUMPURIS ON SELLING
“Most people don’t like to hear the word ‘no,’ but it’s important to not only get comfortable hearing it but to develop ways to overcome rejection when you have something you’re trying to achieve. In the South especially, when the answer’s ‘no’ we tend to be polite. We’re not going to be pushy about things. If you’re going to get something done, though, sometimes ‘no’ has to mean, ‘Tell me more.’ As for me, if it’s something I think needs to be done and I want you to listen to it, I don’t listen to the word ‘no.’ I just don’t.”
DR. DEAN KUMPURIS ON OPPORTUNITY
“Sometimes I don’t see a lot of people who want to do things, to do something that addresses the problems that we see in our community. I always just looked at these things as opportunities. Some people have asked me, ‘Well, how did you plan all this?’ I didn’t plan anything. Every time an opportunity came up, I just did it. The nice thing about it was since no one wanted to do it, no one cared if I did it, so no one was there to say, ‘Hey, you can’t do that.’ Most of the time, it’s as simple as just saying, ‘I want to do something,’ and then taking the opportunity when it comes up.”
DR. DEAN KUMPURIS ON PERSEVERANCE
“The people who are successful most of the time are the ones who are persistent about what they’re doing. If you’re trying to get something done and it doesn’t work this way, you hit this wall, then you go about it another way. Find a little success. Once you’ve found that, then the next idea that you come up with, people tend to say, ‘OK, we’ll give you the chance to try it.’”
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