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 und...
Jan 27, 2021•30 min
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 environme...
Jan 20, 2021•27 min
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 a...
Jan 13, 2021•27 min
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 argua...
Jan 06, 2021•28 min
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 base...
Dec 30, 2020•27 min
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...
Dec 23, 2020•27 min
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...
Dec 16, 2020•27 min
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 a...
Dec 02, 2020•28 min
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...
Nov 18, 2020•27 min
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...
Nov 11, 2020•27 min
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 argua...
Nov 04, 2020•28 min
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 base...
Oct 28, 2020•28 min
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...
Oct 21, 2020•27 min
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, ...
Oct 14, 2020•27 min
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 Covi...
Oct 07, 2020•26 min
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 ...
Sep 30, 2020•29 min
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 C...
Sep 23, 2020•31 min
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 B...
Sep 16, 2020•29 min
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 unfortuna...
Sep 02, 2020•30 min
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 busines...
Aug 27, 2020•29 min
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: Down on Silicon Bayou. Down on Silicon Bayou, local Baton Rouge companies are carving out an amazing space in the tech sector. They’re designing impressive software platforms and tools that are attracting worldwide attention. Steve McKinney is the Chief Operating Officer of Cell Control , a Baton Rouge company that, in 2009, came up with...
Aug 20, 2020•29 min
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: The Next Generation of Tech. As technology continues to evolve and change the world around us, our local economy is changing too and adapting — taking advantage of the opportunities the tech sector creates and preparing the next generation of tech workers for the jobs that need filling today and in the years to come. Jacquelyn Craddock i...
Aug 13, 2020•31 min
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: Hoarding Disorder. We all have a pack rat in the family. Maybe, in fact, you’re the one with the house that’s always a little messy and disorganized. You might not diagnose yourself as having a hoarding disorder - or other mental disorders you wouldn't expect in a business podcast - but that's where we're going on this edition of Out to ...
Aug 06, 2020•30 min
Wherever you live in Louisiana, or anywhere in the US for that matter, you might have noticed something has changed in your local supermarket, in offices, and even in airports and hotels. That something is, Plexiglass. Those giant sheets of plexiglass that now stand between you and the person on the other side of a counter are called Sneeze Guards. Have you wondered where they suddenly all came from? Peter Seltzer has laser cutters that he uses to make paper products at his company, Pete’s Paper...
Jul 28, 2020•29 min
If you had to list two of the pillars of American existence you might choose Liberty & Justice. Or, maybe Equality & Opportunity. Well, how about Rent & Beef? Rent The pandemic has forced us to confront a number of economic issues that were due for examination. One of them is the rental market. Even without the added stress of reduced pay or a lost job, renting can be a strained relationship, for both landlord and tenant. in 2019 Marco Nelson came up with an app called Rentcheck and ...
Jul 21, 2020•30 min
Back when we first started making Out to Lunch in New Orleans, one of our earliest guests was a young woman by the name of Amy Chenevert. Amy had gone to a football game and realized that all the guys were wearing fan fashion, but there was nothing fashionable for women to wear on game day. So Amy started up a company that made gameday apparel for women sports fans. That was back in 2007. During the 2019 football season, a new piece of women’s sports apparel started popping up. If you don’t have...
Jul 14, 2020•30 min
"Everything is changing" is a phrase we don't get to use often about describing society. But living through 2020 we know it's pretty accurate right now. Things that were simple and fundamental, like going to the doctor and interacting with co-workers, are no longer so simple. On this edition of Out to Lunch we're looking at changes in how we visit doctors and digital distancing. Digital Distancing How’s the social distancing going? Are you managing to keep 6 feet away from everybody else? How do...
Jul 07, 2020•30 min
On this edition of Out to Lunch, Peter Ricchiuti, Stephanie Riegel and Christiaan Mader meet at the nexus of the Latinx Hub City Pang Wangle. Okay, let's unpack that: LatinX There’s no two ways about it – this is a tough time to be in business. There is help available to get through this rough patch – in the form of business loans, and even grants. Some are through Federal agencies, some are from State agencies, and there’s money available from city governments in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and L...
Jun 30, 2020•29 min
On this edition of out to Lunch, Peter Ricchiuti and Christiaan Mader discuss the daily ritual of deleting email, but not dog dating email. Email You Don't Want to Delete Opening this segment of Out to Lunch, Peter says, "I’m always wary of hosts of shows like this who start off a story with, “If you’re like me…” But I’m willing to go for it right now, because I bet there is one thing we have in common. "If you’re like me, you checked your email today, and went down the list going delete, delete...
Jun 23, 2020•30 min
Although most businesses in the US and around the world are hurting as a result of the global pandemic, some businesses are booming as a direct result of the lock-down. Yes, there is an upside to Covid 19. Pang Wangle Before a previous disaster, Hurricane Katrina, blew Stephanie Riegel and her family to Baton Rouge, Stephanie was a journalist and news anchor at WWL TV in New Orleans. One of Stephanie's colleagues there was fellow journalist, Jennifer John. Stephanie is still a journalist but Jen...
Jun 16, 2020•31 min
