It's Baton Rouge: Out To Lunch

It’s not unusual on Out to Lunch to have a guest who’s a star in their own world. Someone who’s well known and highly regarded in a particular field. It’s much less common for me to have lunch with someone who’s a real star. Someone whose face and name is known nationwide. But that’s who I’m having lunch with today. My guest on this edition of Out to Lunch Baton Rouge is Matt Flynn. Matt was a football player who first found fame as a quarterback for the LSU Tigers. Unless you’ve been living under a rock or just moved here, you don’t need me to tell you that in 2008 Matt led LSU to a BCS National Championship, and to the number one rank in national polls. Matt went on to the NFL where he was on the Green Bay Packers team that won the superbowl in 2011, and he played for a number of other teams in the NFL, including the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks. Typically, star athletes who graduate from professional sports go on to be a spokespers

Louisiana, for all its man-made foibles and imperfections, is blessed with a lot of lush greenery, natural wildlife, and a temperate climate that allows for outdoor recreation. We also take our great outdoors for granted, and as a result, have one of the worst environmental records in the state and a host of regulations to deal with it. Diane Baum is owner of Baum Environmental Group, a contract and consulting firm that specializes in helping commercial and governmental clients secure environmental permits dealing with things like sotrm-water runoff, while also providing services to make sure their clients stay in compliance. Baum helps its clients not only with the planning and the paperwork but also the technical work, silt fencing or hydroseeding, for instance. The company also helps companies determine their environmental risk, and helps commercial and residential customers design more eco-friendly buildings and homes. Diane is an engineer, who founded the firm in 1995 after leaving the Louisiana Departme

One of the most exciting and interesting aspects of entrepreneurship is that there are so many niches, fields and areas of specialty that didn’t exist as recently as just 20 years ago but today provide opportunities for the creative and ambitious to build entire lifestyles and careers. What’s also unique and special about these emerging fields is the way they blend entrepreneurship and business know-how with a higher mission – to help others or to help the environment or just to do things with an eye on making the world a better place. Chenese Lewis is an entertainer, entrepreneur and multimedia success story, who is one of the original plus size influencers in the country. Chenese is a Baton Rouge native, who moved to L.A. to launch her career in the early 2000s and, not long thereafter, won a plus-sized beauty pageant. She went on to become a plus size model, and an advocate for women’s positive body image and self-esteem. Chenese was an influencer before most people even knew what t

Although we’re living in an age of hyperbole where headlines and politicians are apt to cast everything in terms of absolute disaster or unprecedented achievement, it might be surprising but no exaggeration to claim that there are institutions and scientists in Baton Rouge that are world leaders in healthcare. Dr. John Kirwan is Executive Director of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center. “Pennington” as it is mostly referred to locally, is a 30-year-old facility in Baton Rouge that is arguably the most prestigious research institute in the world focused on chronic diseases diabetes and obesity. Recently Pennington has become home to a bariatric treatment center that is expected to attract the most severely obese patients from around the world. Dr. Kirwan came to Pennington in 2017 from the famed Cleveland Clinic, where he was working on a cure for type II diabetes. When he came here he brought a couple of dozen researchers with him, along with their millions in federal researc

The petro-chem sector may be Louisiana’s largest industry in dollar terms, but food is no doubt number one in the mindset of the collective culture. Louisiana is blessed with so many regional cuisines, restaurants and food entrepreneurs. On this edition of Out to Lunch Baton Rouge two colorful, local food entrepreneurs share their unique journeys, including how COVID has impacted the way they do business. Spuddy Spuddy Faucheaux is owner and chef of Spuddy’s Cajun Cooking, a local business based on the River Road in Vacherie that specializes in Cajun smoked meats. For more than 25 years, Spuddy’s was a small restaurant too, beloved by locals. But that all changed in December 2018, when a crane on a passing barge hit the bridge over the Mississippi near Spuddy’s restaurant, changing traffic patterns, rendering the restaurant unprofitable and forcing Spuddy to lay off half of his employees. So Spuddy reinvented his business. In September 2019 Spuddy launched the Cajun Cooking E

There’s an old saying about how you can never go home again. Which means, actually, that once you’ve moved away from a place and you come home, it’s different than it was when you left. But sometimes, what has changed is for the better and creates new opportunities for those who return. On this edition of Out to Lunch, Stephanie meets two young entrepreneurs who left town but are now back home in Baton Rouge with new companies and concepts that a new Baton Rouge is ready to embrace. Apps Land in Baton Rouge Chris Boyd is the founder of Apptitude an IT firm that specializes in app development, app repair, and web development. Chris is young, like I said, but he does have 10 years experience under his belt, which he got during his years as a student at LSU and, then, in Houston, where he worked, first with Continental Airlines and then with high-paced teams at WordPress, Hearst Corporation and Rice University. In 2012, Chris participated in the NOLAbound project, which encouraged peo

You probably noticed during the COVID-19 pandemic that people started spending a lot more time enjoying parks, public green spaces and the great outdoors – whether walking, jogging, hosting socially distant backyard gatherings, or riding bikes. When the pandemic hit in early 2020, those of us in south Louisiana were just beginning to enjoy the best of a lovely, cool spring and, based on anecdotal observation and hard data about bicycle sales, a lot of us started took to do it on two wheels, many for the first time since childhood. Not all business have been hit hard by the pandemic. Bike business is booming. Dustin LaFont is owner of Mid City Bikes, which has a large selection of new and used bikes, as well as accessories and bike parts for the DIY biker. Dustin is also Director of Front Yard Bikes, a nonprofit organization that he runs out of his bike shop, dedicated to teaching kids from underserved communities how to work on and build their own bicycles. Dustin founded Front Yard Bikes

We’ve all heard the alarming statistic: Louisiana loses a football field of coastline every 30 minutes. And we know a lot of money and resources is being put towards the problem. But, is it too late to really change the trajectory we’re on? And what does that mean for where Louisiana’s citizens will live in the years to come? Sea Dr. Craig McLain is Executive Director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, or LUMCON, a research institute based on the coast that promotes, facilitates and conducts research in marine and coastal sciences relevant to the sustainability of coastal and marine environments in the Gulf of Mexico. That includes areas dealing not only with coastal loss and restoration, but the impact humans have on coastal and marine systems, and the intersection between the physical, chemical and biological environments. Craig has been at the helm of LUMCON since 2016, and is a nationally recognized marine, ecological and evolutionary biologist with more than 60 published a

If you’re like a lot of parents with school age children, you’ve probably spent a lot of time in 2020 juggling your career with taking care of your kids, who were off school, and then helping them with online school. Perhaps it’s given you a better appreciation for what educators and people who otherwise wrangle children, go through every day. On this edition of Out to Lunch Baton Rouge, Stephanie talks with two local entrepreneurs who have built successful businesses taking care of our kids and teaching them valuable creative skills. Tessa Holloway is owner of Kidz Karousel, a Baton Rouge-based chain of childcare centers with five locations along the I-10-/I-12 corridor, and two others in the planning stages.  Tessa founded the business with her husband, Derek Holloway, in 2006, opening their first location in Port Allen. In the years since, they have expanded throughout the Capital Region and into Mandeville, where they provide full-time child care services and educational programs fo

It’s a well worn cliché around here that Baton Rouge is a tale of two cities – with both the highest income levels and outcomes in the state and the lowest. Which of the two cities you’re in depends on whether you’re north or south of Florida Boulevard. There are a lot of reasons for this. On this edition of Out to Lunch, Stephanie and her guests focus specifically on real estate investment – and dis-investmet and reinvestment – to better understand how and where developers are investing in this community, and what’s going on in some long-neglected areas. Chris Tyson is President and CEO of Build Baton Rouge, the city-parish redevelopment authority, which was founded in 2009 to promote equitable investment in disinvested communities throughout Baton Rouge. Chris took over at the helm of Build Baton Rouge in 2016 and is leading the agency through an ambitious effort to revitalize one of Baton Rouge’s most blighted corridors – Plank Road. Chris is a r

Although we're living in an age of hyperbole where headlines and politicians are apt to cast everything in terms of absolute disaster or unprecedented achievement, it might be surprising but no exaggeration to claim that there are institutions and scientists in Baton Rouge that are world leaders in healthcare. Dr. John Kirwan is Executive Director of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center. "Pennington" as it is mostly referred to locally, is a 30-year-old facility in Baton Rouge that is arguably the most prestigious research institute in the world focused on chronic diseases diabetes and obesity. Recently Pennington has become home to a bariatric treatment center that is expected to attract the most severely obese patients from around the world. Dr. Kirwan came to Pennington in 2017 from the famed Cleveland Clinic, where he was working on a cure for type II diabetes. When he came here he brought a couple of dozen researchers with him, along with their millions in federal research dollars, making John Kirwa

The petro-chem sector may be Louisiana’s largest industry in dollar terms, but food is no doubt number one in the mindset of the collective culture. Louisiana is blessed with so many regional cuisines, restaurants and food entrepreneurs. On this edition of Out to Lunch Baton Rouge two colorful, local food entrepreneurs share their unique journeys, including how COVID has impacted the way they do business. Spuddy Spuddy Faucheaux is owner and chef of Spuddy’s Cajun Cooking, a local business based on the River Road in Vacherie that specializes in Cajun smoked meats. For more than 25 years, Spuddy’s was a small restaurant too, beloved by locals. But that all changed in December 2018, when a crane on a passing barge hit the bridge over the Mississippi near Spuddy’s restaurant, changing traffic patterns, rendering the restaurant unprofitable and forcing Spuddy to lay off half of his employees. So Spuddy reinvented his business. In September 2019 Spuddy launched the Cajun Cooking Experience,

There’s an old saying about how you can never go home again. Which means, actually, that once you’ve moved away from a place and you come home, it’s different than it was when you left. But sometimes, what has changed is for the better and creates new opportunities for those who return. On this edition of Out to Lunch, Stephanie meets two young entrepreneurs who left town but are now back home in Baton Rouge with new companies and concepts that a new Baton Rouge is ready to embrace. Apps Land in Baton Rouge Chris Boyd is the founder of Apptitude an IT firm that specializes in app development, app repair, and web development. Chris is young, like I said, but he does have 10 years experience under his belt, which he got during his years as a student at LSU and, then, in Houston, where he worked, first with Continental Airlines and then with high-paced teams at Wordpress, Hearst Corporation and Rice University. In 2012, Chris participated in the NOLAbound project, which encouraged people from k

You’ve probably noticed during this COVID-19 pandemic that people are spending a lot more time enjoying parks, public green spaces and the great outdoors – whether walking, jogging, hosting socially distant backyard gatherings, or riding bikes. When the pandemic hit earlier this year, those of us in south Louisiana were just beginning to enjoy the best of a lovely, cool spring and, based on anecdotal observation and hard data about bicycle sales, a lot of us started took to do it on two wheels, many for the first time since childhood. Not all business have been hit hard by the pandemic. Bike business is booming. Dustin LaFont is owner of Mid City Bikes, which has a large selection of new and used bikes, as well as accessories and bike parts for the DIY biker. Dustin is also Director of Front Yard Bikes, a nonprofit organization that he runs out of his bike shop, dedicated to teaching kids from underserved communities how to work on and build their own bicycles. Dustin founded Front Yard Bikes

If you spend much time in Baton Rouge business circles, you know that real estate is one of the most vibrant and robust sectors of the local economy.  The real estate market has been on a roll since the Great Recession, with a boom in new commercial and office development and a steady increase in residential activity.  That is, up until the Covid crisis of 2020 threw a wrench in the real estate market, as it has with so much else. Now we're looking at what we are optimistically calling a post Covid economy and in Baton Rouge post Covid real estate there are surprising opportunities. Real estate experts are  trying to wrap their heads around what’s going on and where we’re headed. Dottie Tarleton is a Senior Broker Associate at Stirling Properties.  Dottie specializes in commercial real estate – retail shopping centers – which were already in the process of reinventing themselves before the pandemic, thanks to the Amazon effect. Dottie sees the transition of the mall

Have you checked out what happens when you Google Cure For Cancer? You get a lot of information about cancer treatment, but there's not a lot of information about who is working on an actual cure for cancer. On this edition of Out to Lunch Baton Rouge, Stephanie Riegel dives into a cure for cancer, and what's up with Google search. Cure for Cancer We often hear stories from successful entrepreneurs that contain the sentence, "Everybody told me I was crazy when I started out." The reason we only hear from a handful of successful entrepreneurs is because a lot of people's ideas for a new business are in fact crazy. If you're an entrepreneur with an idea that has no clear predecessor, when nobody knows what you’re talking about, where there is no proven pathway to making money, how do you know if you're a genius, or just misguided? In the case of Paige Miller, if she's right about her crazy idea, she's going to change the world. She's going to cure cancer. From right here in Baton Rouge. Paige is President

What do you use to fight crime? How about an advanced AI tool called Crimer? A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) is one of those terms that can send chills up your spine and make you think of a creepy futuristic, science fiction film. But A.I is not the future, and it's not fiction. It’s here.  Lex Adams is the founder of Crimer, a software company that uses AI and analytics to predict patterns of a crime, to stop it crime BEFORE it's committed.  Alex and some of his computer science buddies created Crimer in 2018 while they were still students at LSU. In a short time they've gotten a lot of attention with their software, which pulls data from a variety of sources, feeds it into an A.I. system, then it spits information predicting where crime will happen. Crimer's software has implications beyond crime. Crimer can be used to help emergency responders be prepared to deploy to areas that could become hot spots, and there are also potential applications for real estate investors! Cyber Crime Bill Leec

As Out to Lunch Baton Rouge prepares to go back to hosting live lunches, for inspiration we're taking a look at some of our shows from BC (Before Covid). Here's an Out to Lunch Best of: Be Nice and Win Big. In 2011, Mary Patricia Wray was a young law student at Loyola University Law School in New Orleans. Just three short years later, she found herself serving as the communications director for a longshot candidate in the Governor’s Race, a democratic state Representative from Amite named John Bel Edwards. You know what happened next: Edwards made the runoff and went on to beat his Republican challenger David Vitter and become the only Democratic governor in the dark red deep south. Mary Patricia Wray, who goes by M.P., was instantly thrust into the spotlight of state media and today M.P.’s political consulting firm, Top Drawer Strategies, represents clients on a variety of policy fronts, at all levels of government.   Jill Rigby Garner is a different kind of consultant. Jill’

As Out to Lunch prepares to go back to hosting live lunches, for inspiration we're taking a look at some of our pre-Covid shows. Here's an Out to Lunch Best of: Baton Rouge Performing Arts. Imagine that you're the most beautiful person in the world. And you happen to have a sister, who is even more beautiful than you! If you didn't happen to be compared to your sister all the time, you'd be a really big deal. That's kind of how it is with the Baton Rouge performing arts. Baton Rouge is unfortunate in its proximity to its older sister, New Orleans. But there are actually a number of extraordinarily talented people in the Baton Rouge performing arts world. For example, Jamie Ray. Jamie Ray is owner of Air Seekers Acrobatic Movement, a professional acrobatic company that focuses on cirque-style and physical theater performances. Jamie is a professional movement artist and instructor whose work is informed by her background in aerial dance, theater, and partner acrobatics.  Vastine Stabler is Managing A

As Out to Lunch prepares to go back to hosting live lunches, for inspiration we're taking a look at some of our pre-Covid shows. Here's an Out to Lunch Best of: Principle versus Profit. 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