It's Baton Rouge: Out To Lunch

We talk a lot about business on this show, and what it takes to be successful in business. On this edition of Out to Lunch Stephanie focuses on an aspect of business that doesn't typically get so much attention: ethics. Aaron Beam is a former executive who travels around the country lecturing on ethics in business. It's a topic he knows well. In the late 1990s, Aaron participated in a 2 billion securities fraud scandal at Health South, the extremely successful Fortune 500 company he had co founded in the 1980s and helped lead as CFO. When the fraud was discovered, Aaron had opportunity in prison to reflect on what he had done. In the years since, he has taken those lessons learned and now tries to help others avoid making the same mistake. Tom Ryan is Professor of Theology and Ministry at Loyola University in New Orleans, and Director of the school s Institute for Ministry, which has an extension program in Baton Rouge. Tom is an expert on the Catholic Church and its teaching and has been nationally recognize

We hear a lot on this show from entrepreneurs — some successful, some just starting out— about what they do and what makes them tick. On this edition of Out to Lunch we turn our attention to a whole new breed of business people: high school entrepreneurs.  Deborah Sternberg is founder and chairperson of the Baton Rouge affiliate of a nationwide organization called Young Entrepreneurs Academy (YEA). Deborah founded the local chapter of YEA in 2018, after more than a decade as President of her family's business, Starmount Life Insurance and in just two years, the academy has already created some remarkable successes. YEA partners with LSU's E.J. Ourso College of Business to train its students and help them launch companies by generating business ideas tied to their interests, writing business plans, filing their business with the Louisiana Secretary of State’s Office and pitching to a shark-take like investor panel for seed funding.   Channing Hall, is a junior at Baton Rouge Ma

Teach For America is a nationwide initiative to address the shirtage of teachers in the US. A recent study estimated that the nationwide shortage in 2018, which was around 110 thousand, is expected to nearly double to 200 thousand by 2025. Teach For America is an organization that seeks to enlist and mobilize bright, motivated future leaders and put them to work for two year stints, helping improve some of the nation’s poorest performing and most under-served public schools. Laura Vinsant heads the South Louisiana region of Teach for America. Laura is an alum of LSU and its Manship School of Mass Communications, who was drawn to TFA’s mission after graduating in 2007 because of her positive experience as a volunteer tutor. Laura spent the next two years teaching second and third grade students at a school in North Baton Rouge, and became so invested with the organization she stayed with it. Since 2016, Laura has led the South Louisiana TFA region, which was one of the six original regions the orga

Kelli Scott Kelley is a leading light in the world of Baton Rouge art. Kelli is an artist and a professor of painting in the LSU School of Art. Kelli has exhibited and lectured throughout the United States. She specializes in mixed-media narrative paintings, drawings and objects, and has authored a book featuring her narrative artwork entitled Accalia and the Swamp Monster in 2014, for which she received an ATLAS (Awards to Louisiana Artists and Scholars) grant . Kelli’s work is featured in the permanent collections of the Hall Art Foundation, LSU Museum of Art, Tyler Museum of Art, the East Baton Rouge Parish Library Special Collections, the Eugenia Summer Gallery, and her work is represented in New Orleans by Soren Christensen Gallery. Jason Andreasen is Executive Director of Baton Rouge Gallery. For some 50 years Baton Rouge Gallery has showcased the works of local artists at its home in city park. As Executive Director, Jason is an ambassador for the gallery and works to add to the area's experience

Over the next few years, the disaster management industry in the United States alone is expected to top $122 billion dollars, which points to a lot of problems with our climate, but also to the many opportunities that exist for companies able to respond to the needs of city, state and local governments when they’re hit hard by natural disaster. Louisiana has a growing expertise in the disaster management arena and is home to a handful of companies that are carving out a space in the field and helping to define it as it becomes more specialized. At the same time, the state’s tech industry is become more sophisticated and competitive, and local companies are providing services to clients in newer, different and more effective ways. Bart Farmer is co-founder and managing partner of The Workforce Group, a local company that provides claims, staffing and disaster assistance to private clients and state and local governments.    Rob Wise is CEO of IT Inspired, a local IT company that helps bus

Because you live in Baton Rouge, you might be familiar with the Albert King lyric, "Everybody wants to go to Heaven but nobody wants to die." We want to stay alive as long as we can, and we keep finding new ways to do it. On this edition of Out to Lunch we're talking about two of the newsest and most popular: CBD, and Orange Theory Fitness. Heather Carter is owner of Mountain Pure CBD, a Baton Rouge-based company that produces and sells a line of CBD products designed to cure everything from back pain to ADD. Heather and her friend, Marjorie Ourso, started the company in 2017. In the years since, they've expanded into a distribution and online retail business that sells their growing-product line in doctors' offices, boutiques, coffee shops, nutritional stores and more. Elle Mahoney is the franchise owner and Louisiana Area Representative for Orange Theory Fitness, a boutique fitness concept that's taking the local market and the country by storm. Orange Theory offers 60-minute group interval workouts that

Teaching skills and imparting knowledge are perhaps the greatest gifts and tools we can give to the young, and the young at heart, hungry to learn. Local Baton Rouge entrepreneurs are coming up with creative ways to turn the act of teaching and educating into small businesses with limitless potential. Jacques Hopkins was an electrical engineer whose desire to be an online entrepreneur led him, five years ago, to walk away from his day job and create a local company that promises to teach even the most tone deaf students how to play the piano in just three weeks. Piano in 21 days is an entirely online tutorial that takes everything you learn in traditional piano lessons and throws it out the window. Jacques lessons are unique in that they re fast, fun and require no classical training. Now, this might seem very remarkable, not in the least because Jacques, by his own admission, took piano lessons as a child growing up in New Orleans for 12 years and can only play two songs But his small company is doing well a

Agriculture is one of Louisiana's major industries. But while we know a lot about the rice, sugar cane and cattle farms around the state, there are other types of farms and aspects of farming you may not be so familiar with. For example, bees and crickets! David Fluker is a second gerneration cricket farmer. David owns and operates Fluker Farms, a Port Allen based family farm company that grows live crickets and sells literally millions of live crickets very year to customers around the country. These crickets are traditionally fed to pets. But Fluker Farms is changing that. They're moving into breeding and selling crickets for human consumption. Bob Danka is a research leader and research entomologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture Baton Rouge Bee Lab, who specializes in the behavior and management of Africanized honey bees, honey bee behavior related to crop pollination, and the genetically based resistance of bees to mites, which as you may know, are very bad for the bee population. Bob has been w

In politics there are the kings, and then there are the king makers political consultants who are the power behind the power. In business, it s not that different. There are the companies, and then there are the consultants, experts and industry associations who lobby on their behalf, help them shape their image, and guide them through crises with messages that will resonate with an increasingly skeptical public in an increasingly divisive time. It might not surprise you to know that women are particularly adept at this. Camille Conaway is Senior Vice President of Policy and Research at the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry. LABI, as it s better known, is the voice of business in Louisiana, representing more than 2,000 employers statewide, and Camille leads public policy analysis, development and research initiatives across a range of issues important to LABI and the community. Christel Slaughter is co owner of SSA Consultants, a firm Christel runs with her husband, Bill Slaughter, which is the v

Making it in today s business environment isn t about hanging out a shingle and selling lots of widgets. It s about constantly reinventing yourself, creating your own unique brand and, in some cases, branding yourself as an expert in helping others create their own brand. It s business 21st century style, and Baton Rougeans are proving themselves adept at playing by the new rules. Cary Bonnecaze is owner of Bonnecaze Absinthe and Home, a Baton Rouge based manufacturer and wholesaler of absinthe fountains, spoons, glasses and sugar cubes used to prepare traditional French absinthe as it was made in the Belle Epoque. You would think there would be a limited market for this, not least because the heyday of absinthe was not in the last century but in the one before that. But you d be wrong Bonnecaze Absinthe and Home sells to a robust clientele that includes Las Vegas casinos, large scale absinthe distilleries and mom and pop retailers around the US and Canada. By the way, if you, think you recognize Cary s name

Baton Rouge is home to a lot of budding entrepreneurs. It s also home to a lot of just plain interesting people, whose companies and careers have propelled them to be creative forces, influencers and advocates for nonprofits, the needy, and doing the right thing in the community. Ava Leavell Haymon is a poet and author of four books who served as Poet Laureate for the state of Louisiana from 2013 2015. Ava s writings have been described as "Concrete descriptions of a woman s life in the mid twentieth century American South..." Ava is also a generous philanthropist in the community,giving of her time and talents to many organizations. Heather Sewell Day is owner of The Red Cake event planning. The Red Cake plans private, corporate and community events with a unique twist, incorporating signature fourished that range from the use of Heather s vintage VW van to the involvement of modern dancers flying through the air on silks. Among the events Heather has helped stage are Hunks and Heels, and Emerge into Dance.

Though Louisiana isn t known for its tech community, Silicon Bayou has produced some pretty impressive tech companies over the years. One of the most impressive is a nationwide industry leader, Watch Systems. Mike Cormaci is president and co founder of the nearly 20 year old IT company that is well known to law enforcement agencies around the country because of its flagship product, Offender Watch, a sexual offender management and community notification software used by more than 3,500 agencies 60 of the offender pool within the US. Before Offender Watch there was no comprehensive registry for sex offenders. Every jurisidiction and state had its own system for monitoring and managing sex offenders and they didn t talk to each other. Offender Watch has changed all that. Ben Cherbonnier is a pioneer in the local IT community. Ben got his start as information systems director at a local CPA firm, Postlethwaite and Netterville, in 1969. In 1984 Ben went out on his own and founded CMA Technology Solutions, which,

In 2018, the U.S. wedding industry was worth an estaimted $75 Billion. The average wedding set the happy couple, or their parents, back by a whopping $44,000. That's nearly double the average cost of a just a year or two earlier. But, for every action there's an opposite and equal reaction. Today, brides are balking at spending big money on weddings. And savvy entrepreneurs are finding ways to make the special day a little less special, financially. Lauren Bercier is co-founder and CEO of Something Borrowed Blooms, a startup company that offers rent-and return flowers for weddings. The company uses high-quality silk flowers and then does the arrangements themselves, being mindful of the latest trends and fashions in floral arrangements. Lauren founded the company in 2015 with her cousin, Laken, based on her experiences as a bride, and after a couple of years of slow growth, company revenues shot up 400 percent in 2018. Their 2019 target was 12 weddings a month. They are currently doing 400. Felix Sherman, J

Although we all agree that education is the key to success in so many areas of life, getting an education isn't as straightforward and easy as we'd like. That's why whay Stephanie Riegel's guests on this edition of Out to Lunch Baton Rouge do what they do. Nancy Cadwallader is owner of Collegiate Advisory Placement Service, an independent educational consulting firm that helps families find the best educational options for their kids-from elementary school all the way through graduate school. The firm also works with families that may have a nontraditional learner and those who need therapeutic programs with counseling support and other resources. The firm was founded in 1984 by Nancy's mother, the late Adele Williamson. Nancy is a certified education planner, and has been very active in this area for more than three decades now, speaking around the country on college and university campuses. Sarah Broome, founder and Executive Director of Thrive Academy, makes a return visit to Out to Lunch to catch us up

Crime is one of the biggest problems facing Baton Rouge at the moment. In 2017, the city had one of the highest murder rates on a per capita basis in the country. It s a problem that s holding the community back, and affecting economic development. But efforts are under way to address the crime and the systemic problems that are causing it, especially in the most impoverished areas of our community. Rinaldi Jacobs is Executive Director of the Baton Rouge North Economic Development district, which was created in late 2016 to spur investment in the vast area of the parish known as North Baotn Rouge and roughly defined as everything above Florida boulevard. Rindald was one of the creators of the district and served on a volunteer basis before becoming Executive Director in the fall of 2017. Kelly Leduff is owner of Open Eyes, a company that provides safety training, safety systems and other safety servces to clients in and around Baton Rouge. The firm started out providing self defense training to businesses and

Seafood is something we do well here in south Louisiana. We re fortunate to be blessed with an abundance of mollusks, crustaceans and fin fish that not only keep our local population well fed but have enabled Louisiana cooks and chefs to be recognized around the world for their culinary exploits. So you might think there s not much room for improvement. But you would be wrong. Stephanie s guests on Out to Lunch have come up with a way to create a better oyster. Not a better way to prepare oysters, an actual better oyster Steve Pollock and Ginger Brininstool are scientists, who through careful research have figured out how to breed a better tasting, more flavorful oyster so good some local restaruatns refuse, even, to chargrill it so as not to detract from its natural goodness. Steve and Ginger are a husband and wife team. Ginger teaches biology at LSU by day. Steve used to teach biology at LSU too, till he quit to go all in with their business, Triple N Oyster Farm, in the Caminada Bay near Grand Isle. The se

The rising cost of health care is one of the biggest challenges facing Americans today. Between 1996 and 2015, health care spending in the United States rose over a TRILLION dollars. And there is no end to this trend in sight. Locally, businesses and patients certainly feel the pressure. Sso do insurers and providers who are trying to innovate and find ways to keep costs down while remaining competitive and effective. Edgardo Tenreiro knows this first-hand. Edgardo is President and CEO of Baton Rouge General, which has facilities on Florida Boulevard in the mid city area and its main campus on Bluebonnet Boulevard. The General, as it's known in Baton Rouge, has a long and venerable tradition in the market dating back to its founding in 1908. In the years since, it has grown to include the two main campus and multiple satellite facilities, including freestanding emergency departments and acute care clinics, around the Capital region. Edgardo has been CEO of baton Rouge General since 2017, though he joined the

Conscious capitalism has become a popular buzzword around the country. It refers to companies and businesspeople who are about more than making money they re about making a difference. Like Dave Treppendahl, right here in Baton Rouge. Dave is a real estate broker in the Baton Rouge area with NAI Latter and Blum and has more than three decades experience in the commercial real estate sector. But over the past year, Dave has turned his considerable talents and energies into helping the less fortunate in Baton Rouge, from low income residents of north Baton Rouge to political refugees. Dave s latest project is an example of Conscious Capitalism at work it s the Ardendale Oaks Apartments, a multifamily complex in north Baton Rouge that was one of the worst in north Baton Rouge when Dave bought it for 2.9 million. Some 9 million later it is one of the nicest in the area and Dave is determined to give people on a limited income a decent, affordable place to live. Logan Atkinson Burke is Director of the Alliance for

Here in Baton Rouge we really think of ourselves as a big small town, where everybody knows everybody else. And Baton Rouge circles do tend to overlap, particualry in business. But there are so many small businesses out there you've likely never heard of doing really cool things and making their mark - literally - on the local economy and the world stage. Guy Barone is President and CEO of Xenetech Global, a local business with a worldwide reach that has made its mark with its laser and rotary engraving systems that can etch a design into just about anything you can imagine. Guy's brother in law founded the company in the mid 1980's. Today Xenetech sells to more than 7,000 customers as far away as Australia. Layne Zuelke is master engraver and owner of Southern Custom Engraving, which does engraving the old fashioned way. Layne's craft is an ancient and venerable one - he hand engraves firearms, knives, tools and jewelry. Layne was formally trained as a jeweler some 30 years ago but has spent about half tha

In just 10 years, America will cross an important demographic threshold: all of the country's Baby Boomers will be 65 or older. This will expand the size of the nation's elderly population so that 1 in every 5 adults will be retirement age. What are we doing to prepare for this? And, who's looking ahead to the not-so-distant future to prepare us for the changes this shift will bring to our institutions, our economy and our way of life? Matthew Rachleff heads up a local branch of a national organization called Aging 2.0, a business connection and innovation platform for the aging and senior care sectors. Founded in San Francisco, Aging 2.0 aims to spur aging-focused innovation through its 80 groups around the country that promote collaboration and entrepreneurship. Toni Philips is founder of One Up Fit, a local fitness program that seeks to educate and deliver fitness training in a playful atmosphere for seniors, and others. One Up Fit is particulalty focused on helping its clients gain critical skills to pr