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 found...
Nov 20, 2019•29 min
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 fami...
Nov 13, 2019•29 min
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 ...
Nov 06, 2019•29 min
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 ...
Oct 29, 2019•29 min
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 he...
Oct 10, 2019•29 min
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 bac...
Sep 26, 2019•29 min
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 th...
Sep 19, 2019•29 min
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....
Sep 12, 2019•29 min
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 p...
Sep 05, 2019•29 min
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 ...
Aug 29, 2019•29 min
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 twen...
Aug 22, 2019•29 min
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 ...
Aug 15, 2019•29 min
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 Someth...
Aug 08, 2019•29 min
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. Th...
Aug 01, 2019•29 min
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, whic...
Jul 25, 2019•29 min
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 oyster...
Jul 18, 2019•29 min
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 ...
Jul 11, 2019•29 min
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 fortun...
Jul 04, 2019•29 min
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 e...
Jun 20, 2019•29 min
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 organ...
Jun 06, 2019•30 min
Living in the shadows of New Orleans, one of the great tourist destinations of the country, if not the world, Baton Rouge isn't typically thought of as a hot spot for the leisure traveler. But that has started to change in recent years, as the city and industry associations have begun marketing the Baton Rouge more aggressively as a place not to only to come do business at the state capitol or watch LSU football, but to come play. Paul Arrigo is the longtime President of Visit Baton Rouge, the c...
May 30, 2019•29 min
With the technology explosion that seemingly never ends, there's never been a more exciting time to be an inventor, an innovator or a creator. But the same tech that brings an inventor's ideas to life also open us up to complications, and challenges that make us vulnerable to threats from competitors who may want steal our great ideas. And that's why we have Intellectual Property laws. Michael Leachman is an attorney with Jones Walker who specializes in Intellectual Property: patents, trademarks...
May 23, 2019•31 min
"One man's trash is another man's treasure" is not just a cliche, it's a fortunate dynamic for those whose livelihoods and missions are built around selling second-hand stuff. Used merchandise was once pretty much limited to hipsters in funky neighborhoods. Today, it's gone mainstream, particularly among younger millennials and I-Gen-ers, who have turned a cottage industry into a major retail sector. Charlotte Smith is owner of Pop Shop Records, a locally owned record store in the heart of Mid C...
Apr 18, 2019•29 min
Paul Charbonnet is the owner of Atmosphere Cinema. Atmosphere Cinema is not a movie theater, it's a Baton Rouge company that shoots aerial video and photography, primarily from its fleet of drones. Paul founded the company in 2014. Atmosphere Cinema shoots video for the movie industry. Car chases, sweeping shots of landscapes, and other scenes that would normally take a huge crew, a huge amount of time, and huge expenses, can now be filmed by a drone fitted with a camera and operated by just two...
Apr 11, 2019•29 min
Padma Vatsavai is founder and CEO of Vinformatix. Vinformatix is a software development company that specializes in designing and maintaining web-based applications, websites, and portals for public and private sector clients. Vinformatix designed the web-based system that 90,000 victims of Hurricane Harvey in Texas used in 2017 to apply for disaster aid. The firm also designed two web-based portals for Louisiana Economic Development, including Louisiana Job Connection, which helps businesses fi...
Apr 04, 2019•29 min
Just five years ago, Louisiana led the nation as the number one site to make movies, outpacing even California and New York. We attained this lofty position as a result of a generous program of state tax incentives , which cost the state treasury real dollars. But what did we gain in the process? By any measure, a lot of economic ripple activity and brand recognition, until the legislature put a stop to it all in 2016, with strict caps to the program that sent the movie producers packing for mor...
Mar 28, 2019•29 min
Being a mid-size city in the Deep South - known as a "tertiary market" in the business world - Baton Rouge is not known for being an artistic hub. But the Capital City has a wealth of artistic and musical talent that is often overlooked and under appreciated. It's not hard to find, it's just that the city cares more about the fortunes of its beloved LSU Tigers than its singers, songwriters, dancers and theatrical performers. On this edition of Out to Lunch baton Rouge, Stephanie Riegel talks wit...
Mar 21, 2019•29 min
Dr. David Carmouche is President of the Ochsner Health Network, the accountable care network of the massive Ochsner Health System - the largest nonprofit, academic healthcare system in Louisiana. It boasts 40 owned, managed and affiliated hospitals and specialty hospitals, more than 100 health centers and urgent care centers, nearly 25,000 employees and more than 4,500 physicians. Dr. Carmouche is a veteran of the healthcare industry in Louisiana. Prior to joining Ochsner, he was Executive Vice ...
Feb 28, 2019•29 min
There are countless studies of equality in the workplace that demonstrate how unequally men and women are treated, in everything from opportunity to income. In entrepreneurship, we create our own playing field. In small women-owned businesses, women are the boss and they make a point of treating of other women how they would like to be treated. Monique Scott Spaulding is owner of Jani King of Baton Rouge, the local franchise of the world's largest commercial cleaning company. Monique started the...
Feb 21, 2019•29 min
On this edition of Out to Lunch, Stephanie's guests can make you look like a million bucks and feel like a million bucks. Blair Couatre, with her husband Dustin Clouatre, owns a business called Mera Salon Suite, a co-working space for aesthetic entrepreneurs. Mera rents out space in its state-of-the-art salon on a weekly basis to beauty and wellness professionals, who want to go out on their own but don't want to have all the expenses and headaches that come with full salon ownership. Tenants in...
Feb 14, 2019•28 min
