It's Baton Rouge: Out To Lunch

For more than 20 years now, we’ve been hearing about how Louisiana is losing a football field of coastline every 30 minutes or so. Although progress has been made addressing this very real problem, climate change has continued to make the situation more dire, as temperatures increase and storms become more frequent and intense. What exactly is the status of Louisiana’s efforts to protect and rebuild its coastline? Where are we in the battle against mother nature?  To get a readout on how close we are in Louisiana to slip-sliding away into the Gulf of Mexico, we turn to Chip Kline. Chip is Executive Assistant to the Governor for Coastal Affairs, and board chair of the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, the state agency in charge of saving the Louisiana coastline, which is no small task. In 2023 the CPRA will oversee some $1.35 billion in coastal projects – the largest amount ever in the more than-decade-long history of the state’s coastal program. Those projects include things like sedimen

The global fast fashion market topped $21 billion in 2021, and by the end of 2022, that number is expected to exceed $93 billion - which will not surprise you if you have teenage girls anywhere in your orbit. The need to keep up with the latest fashion trends is fueling an 8% annual growth in fast fashion, a rate that is unprecedented and largely attributable to the growth of social media. But some entrepreneurs are bucking the mainstream with fashionable trends of their own: vintage clothing and sustainable jewelry. Josh Holder is the owner of Time Warp Boutique, a vintage clothing store in Mid City that carries original men’s and women’s clothing and accessories dating from the 1920s to the early 2000s. Josh opened the store in 2001, back before vintage got to be a thing. In the years since, he has grown the store to be one of the largest vintage clothing stores in the south, with a selection of merchandise that also includes hand crafted upcycled vintage garments, accessories, gifts and jewelry by local ar

Most of us escape from work by pursuing activities that might involve things like exercise, travel or possibly some combination of the two. Some people are fortunate enough to have figured out how to turn the stuff they do for fun into their actual business.  What is their secret? Is working at your hobby as idyllic as it sounds? Lann and Caroline Wolf are co-owners owner of Underwater Adventures, a dive shop in the heart of mid city in Baton Rouge that sells dive equipment, provides service to divers, and offers SCUBA training and certification. More fun still, Underwater Adventures will take you on a dive trip, where you can build your skills, further your experience and learn to become a master diver. The business has been a fixture on the Louisiana dive community for over 30 years and the Wolfs bought the business from longtime Baton Rouge dive legend Mark Smith after Lann retired from a career in the military and law enforcement, including a stint as an East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Deputy

It’s been more than a decade since microbreweries and craft distilleries began to emerge across the country, and locally too. In the years since, their number and popularity have continued to grow. In 2010, there were 1,800 microbreweries in the US. Today, there are nearly 9,000. Craft distilleries, meanwhile, are growing at an annual rate of more than 11% and number nearly 2,300 – including some right here in Baton Rouge. Olivia Stewart is Chief Operating Officer of Three Roll Distillery, a craft distillery located in downtown Baton Rouge that specializes in a variety of rums made from sugar cane that is sourced and grown right across the river at Olivia’s family plantation in West Baton Rouge Parish. Olivia’s family has owned and operated Alma Plantation since 1859. Her childhood on the farm instilled a passion for all things sugarcane, and eventually rum. When the pandemic hit, Olivia moved back home to operate the family’s distillery. The company was previously was called Can

Change is good. Right? Well, maybe not when you tack the word "climate" in front of it. with a changing climate and rising utility costs, the way we design and build our structures and communities is changing to keep up. And while that presents new challenges it also presents opportunities for those who are thinking about and rethinking the way we do things.   Tom Neyhart is founder and CEO of PosiGen, a Louisiana-based company that designs and installs solar systems to homes in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods and communities of color. Tom founded the company in 2011, after growing frustrated with the disparate recovery process in post-Katrina New Orleans and wanting to do something to help those with limited means find better more affordable ways to rebuild and move forward. PosiGen provides that help by designing and installing solar-power systems, including solar hot water systems, with roofing and energy-efficiency services added to the mix. The systems are available for purchase or lease and

If you’re looking for yet another worry to keep you up at night, consider this: pretty much every category of cyber attack increased in the past 12 months. And we’re not talking small scale numbers, either. Ransomware, encrypted threats and crypto-jacking attacks all more than doubled in this country last year.  In total, more than 1 billion attacks – from small scale home PC invasions to attacks that threatened our critical industries and infrastructure. And the trend line isn’t going down any time soon.   Jeff Moulton is President and CEO of the Stephenson Stellar Corporation, a not-for-profit applied research firm focused on cybersecurity for its customers, most of whom are federal agencies. Jeff is a return guest on the show. You may remember our visit with him in 2021. At that time Jeff was also leading the LSU Stephenson National Center for Security Research and Training. But at the beginning to 2022, Jeff left that position to focus his effort solely on the Stephe

South Louisiana is famous for its food. There is seemingly no end to the number of new and interesting restaurants that capitalize on this truly great aspect of our local culture. But restaurants and caterers aren’t the only ones in the culinary sector. Foodie entrepreneurs in Baton Rouge are coming up with all sorts of new products and services using their creative culinary abilities to fill a gap or carve a new niche. Take, for example, Mary Joy Fasullo and Ebony McAlister. Mary Joy is Marketing and Communications Strategist for Focus Foods, a Baton Rouge-based company that provides meals to schools, nursing homes, disaster victims and residential customers. Focus Foods started in 2019 as a network of former food truck owners who began manufacturing easy-to-prepare, frozen meals. It has grown to now provide 30,000 meals a week for K-12 students across seven parish school districts, and operates in partnership with agencies like Meals on Wheels and nursing homes to provide meals to seniors across 11 pa

There’s an old saying in business, "It’s not what you know but who you know," and as anyone who’s done business will tell you, there is more than a little truth to that adage. In today’s LinkedIn world it's easy to connect with people, but how do you get to know the right people? For that matter, how do you really know the people who are a part of your organization and whether they are maximizing their potential? John Beck can shed a bit of light on these questions. John is CEO of The Assessment Company, a Donaldsonville-based company that specializes in employee assessment solutions - which means, specifically helping match people to the work they do best. The Assessment Company does this using different IT tools John has developed – software that measures, for instance, a candidate’s cognitive abilities, behaviors and interests, or that predicts the likelihood of certain types of conflicts with employees, or that helps unlock an employee’s hidden potential. John dev

Whether or not you have adopted it or invested in it, you’ve probably heard a lot in the past few years about cryptocurrency, like market-leader Bitcoin. More recently, you’ve probably heard a lot of buzz about NFTs: digital versions of artworks that are all the rage in sophisticated tech savvy circles and are sold online and can be purchased only with crypto. Are you able to wrap your mind around either of these concepts? Is it important to understand really what they are and how they work? Is it all just a passing fad or is it the future pathway to wealth as crypto advocates claim in which case should you get in the market now while the getting’s good? Stephanie Riegel puts these questions to Will Haynie, founder and co-owner of Pelicoin.  Pelicoin is a network of secure cryptocurrency ATMs with more than 35 machines in five states in the South. Will and his brother founded Pelicoin in 2016, after playing around in the Bitcoin market for several years prior, and it has quickly grown t

During the COVID pandemic, much of life and learning went virtual, and we all thought we could get by just fine doing everything on Amazon and Zoom. But more recently, we have come to find out just how important in-person connection and interaction are – for business, pleasure and especially education. While it’s great we have technology to help us do things remotely, Baton Rouge entrepreneurs are helping people realize that institutions like libraries and brick-and-mortar learning spaces play an invaluable role in the learning process, for kids and adults. Baton Rouge resident Tony Zanders is founder and CEO of Skilltype, a talent management platform that Tony created in 2018 specifically to help libraries better attract, train and retain personnel so they will be better able to compete in the 21st century. Tony hit upon the idea for Skilltype several years ago, when he realized that many libraries struggle with personnel problems caused by the fact that the training and professional development

It’s not often in today’s world you find people who all agree on something. But if you talk to business owners, large and small, around the state they’re all but guaranteed to agree on the fact that Louisiana needs to beef up its workforce and do more to train workers for a variety of professions. Even before the pandemic, employers were complaining about a lack of trained and skilled workers. Now, it’s even worse. Dr. Monty Sullivan has dedicated his life to rectifying this problem. Since 2014 Dr Sullivan has been President of the Louisiana Community and Technical College System, which comprises 14 2-year institutions around the state and is focused on preparing the state’s workforce for the future. During his tenure to date at LCTS, Monty has strengthened and diversified the system and led strategic planning efforts. Prior to heading LCTCS, Monty was chancellor of Delgado Community College in New Orleans, which, under his leadership, saw significant gains in fundraising, studen

In every society on earth, for probably millions of years, humans have come up with communal methods of eating that reflect their particular human condition. In our world we’ve married eating with capitalism. We’ve devised a method of paying  other people to prepare meals for us in spaces we call restaurants. As our communities have gotten bigger and restaurants have proliferated, the competition among them has gotten more serious and – as it is when any market gets saturated with competitive choice -  prices come down to attract customers. Keeping a restaurant open requires more than just the ability to cook good food. For example, the biggest restaurant chains in the world, if you ask a food critic, have the worst food. In this kind of topsy-turvy business, what do you do to keep a restaurant profitable? Do you stick with quality and hope you find an appreciative market? Or do you turn to big data, AI and IT systems designed for the restaurant business? Stephanie Riegel puts this

There has been nothing short of a revolution in the way we do business over the past 20 years, thanks to the Internet. It’s killed some industry sectors, disrupted others, while at the same time creating new opportunities. Local entrepreneurs have come up with some amazing ways to take advantage of those opportunities, and they’ve also managed to adapt and hang on in the face of constant change. Take, for example, Jerry Pearson. Jerry is owner of Pearson’s Travel, Baton Rouge’s oldest and only family owned full service travel agency. Jerry has owned the agency since 1981, when he founded it as an offshoot of his Pearson’s Luggage and Gifts that he had opened in the 1970s. Travel was different back then. And so was retail! But over the past 20 years, the internet has changed all that. Now, travelers can book their own flights and hotel stays online – or even plan their entire trip – and they don’t need to go into a brick and mortar store to buy a suitcase. Those

It’s no small feat to sustain a long and happy marriage. Just like it’s no small thing to build a successful business - or two or three - with the same, trusted business partner. So to do all of that with the same person is nothing short of amazing. Most of us cannot imagine what life would be like if our spouse was also our business partner. Or if our business partner was also our spouse. In some instances it can be a disaster. But it can, apparently, also be the magic bullet; the secret to success. Take, for example, Misti and Brumby Broussard. Misti and Brumby have been married for nearly two decades, are parents to two children and co-owners of one of Baton Rouge’s most popular food businesses, BLDG 5. BLDG 5 is a marketplace, eatery and patio that specializes in seasonally inspired food in a unique, funky location under the Perkins Road Overpass. Misti and Brumby have a successful track record founding and running small businesses. Before they moved back to Baton Rouge in 2015, they own

Entrepreneurs and other creative ambitious types have been figuring out how to make money by selling food since people have lived in community. Restaurants in some form or fashion have been around for hundreds of years. But only in the past century or so have things gotten really interesting. The possibilities are endless, and some of them are being tried and tested right here in Baton Rouge Speed Bancroft, who, besides having perhaps the coolest name in the world, is an entrepreneur with one of the coolest ideas you can imagine. It’s an automated food kiosk that can deliver hot, fresh food directly to your car window. Speed’s company, Speedy Eats, has designed a robotic kiosk that can store, warm and serve an array of fresh, hot entrees - like pizza and wings - with side dishes and beverages, while promising investors a quick and easy return on their investment. It’s like something out of the Jetson’s. or perhaps it’s more accurate to think of it as a 21c twist on the Automat of

Is aiming to be being smart, fit, and happy too much to ask? Not if you ask Stephanie's guests on this edition of Out to Lunch. What we'd all like to know is, how do you get there? Well, step one is, you start today. Right now. In today’s complex, high-tech, polarized and post-pandemic era, it does indeed, as someone famously once said, take a village to raise a child. You as a parent cannot do it alone. Raising balanced, productive little people requires not only concerned caregivers but a robust school system and a variety of other programs that address emotional, physical and psychological needs. Dr. Sito Narcisse is Superintendent of East Baton Rouge Parish Schools, which has more than 45,000 students. Since taking over at the helm of the system in January 2021, Sito has rolled out an ambitious new strategic plan aimed at improving student achievement and creating a dual enrollment program that will help make more Baton Rouge students ready for college. Sito comes to EBR Schools with more than a dec

We know south Louisiana is famous for its good food and festivals, a vibrant petrochemical sector, and a thriving hospitality sector. Many of us may not realize that Louisiana leads the way in certain healthcare specialties - not just the diabetes and obesity research that goes on at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, but some really innovative care for very rare diseases. Kevin Tracy is Director of the National Hansen’s Disease Program, which is based right here in Baton Rouge and is the epicenter of Hansen’s Disease research and information in the United States. Hansen’s Disease is better known as Leprosy. Although it’s not the biblical plague it once was, it still exists around the world today. Fortunately, a lot more is known about it today than back in biblical times or even in the late 1800s, when south Louisiana was home to one of the country’s foremost leprosy hospitals, or leprosaria, in Carville. Today, that center remains open only as a museum, but the Hansen&r

A lot of us have dreamed about coming up with a great idea that would address a need or demand in society while enriching us in the process. But there’s a long and winding road between thinking up the Next Big Thing and making it a reality. On this edition of Out to Lunch Baton Rouge we meet a couple of folks who know this journey well. Clerc Bertrand is founder and owner of Workaru, an app that you can kind of think of as an Airbnb for office space. The Workaru app lets professionals find, compare, and book on-demand workspaces. Workaru helps connect people looking for a temporary workspace with businesses looking to monetize their available space - maybe an empty office, a conference room  or a shared work room. This is especially relevant in the era of Covid, when a lot of employers are paying pricey leases every month for a lot of large office space they no longer need.  Currently, Workaru has available space listed in four of Louisiana’s five largest cities. Clerc is a native of sma

Two thirds of the planet is covered in water. In south Louisiana, it may often seem like a lot more than that! We are surrounded by lakes and bayous. We're bisected by one of the largest rivers in the world. And we're sloughing off a football field of land every 30 minutes into the massive Gulf of Mexico that makes up our south coast. We are so vulnerable to the power of all this water, and also so dependent on it. We love the water - we rely on it not just for sustenance but also for recreation. We even pay companies to dig pools of water in our back yards so we can swim, sunbathe and entertain. Unsurprisingly, Louisiana businesses and institutions have become experts in water – how to contain it, control it and have fun with it. Alyssa Dausman is Senior Vice President and Chief Scientist at the Water Institute of the Gulf, an independent, non-profit, applied research institution that was created right here in Baton Rouge over a decade ago to advance science and develop integrated methods to solve comp

Being a mid-sized city in the deep south, you might not think of Baton Rouge as necessarily being a center for the performing arts. But there is a lot of hidden talent in this town doing really impressive things on the stage – and at birthday parties!  Jenny Ballard is the managing artistic director of Theatre Baton Rouge. Jenny began her career in Tennessee and came to Baton Rouge after several years in local theater there, to pursue a master’s degree in fine arts. After completing the program, Jenny joined Theater Baton Rouge in 2014, and in the years since has helped lead the company through many successful productions, a huge capital campaign and efforts to grow the company’s volunteer base and its education programs.  Venessa Lewis is also in the performing arts arena -  though not on stage. Rather, she’s more likely to show up at a kiddie birthday party or perhaps swimming with the sharks in Mexico dressed up as the Louisiana Mermaid, which is her alternate persona