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...
Jul 13, 2022•29 min
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 an...
Jul 06, 2022•28 min
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 ...
Jun 15, 2022•27 min
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 cr...
Jun 08, 2022•28 min
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...
May 25, 2022•28 min
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 t...
May 18, 2022•28 min
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 Market...
May 10, 2022•30 min
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...
Apr 27, 2022•28 min
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 ...
Apr 20, 2022•29 min
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 a...
Apr 13, 2022•29 min
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 ...
Apr 06, 2022•27 min
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 cho...
Mar 23, 2022•30 min
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 ...
Mar 16, 2022•29 min
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 suc...
Mar 09, 2022•29 min
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...
Feb 23, 2022•29 min
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 robu...
Feb 09, 2022•30 min
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 t...
Jan 26, 2022•30 min
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, com...
Jan 19, 2022•26 min
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...
Jan 12, 2022•30 min
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,...
Dec 22, 2021•27 min
We’ve talked a lot on this show about how businesses have adapted to the challenges created by the pandemic. But for nonprofit organizations, which sort of live in a constant state of responding to challenges - closing gaps and providing services to the community in any number of ways – the pandemic and post-pandemic has created its own set of obstacles and opportunities for growth and reinvention. Renee Chatelain is President of the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge , a nearly 50-year-old non...
Dec 08, 2021•27 min
Time was, every town had cobblers and tailors. Fairy tales and history books alike are replete with references to these noble tradesmen, who kept people "shodded" and clothed. Today, you can still look good in a sharp suit and shiny shoes. Commerce has evolved from local service providers to department stores, big box retailers and online sites, but, here in Baton Rouge, although old fashioned businesses have become fewer and far between, they haven't completely disappeared. Clyde Lawrence is ow...
Nov 30, 2021•27 min
We all have two sides to our brain: the right brain which is said to control our creative artistic abilities and the left side which is the analytical part that can do math and science. We often tend to describe people as left brain or right brain people, depending on whether they’re particularly gifted with one set of abilities or the other. Is this valid? Or does a successful computer guy need to have artistic skills as well? Does a successful artist need a left brain as well? Tim Rauls might ...
Nov 17, 2021•27 min
If you live in the big cities of Louisiana, like Baton Rouge or New Orleans, you might not realize just how rural much of Louisiana actually is. And how important agriculture is to the state’s economy: it's the state’s 5th largest sector behind oil, natural gas, commercial fishing and chemicals. A lot of research around agriculture - and it’s sister discipline, horticulture – goes on right here in Baton Rouge, where we also have some micro organic farms in the middle of the city! Heather Kirk Ba...
Nov 09, 2021•27 min
It’s cool enough to have one successful entrepreneur in a family. What happens when you have two? Stephanie’s guests on this edition of Out to Lunch have a unique perspective on the topic of love and business. Greg Milneck is president and owner of Digital FX , which produces commercials and feature films, as well as post production work for the movie and TV industry. The company also rents equipment and leases out its 15,000-square-foot LEED certified studio for film and video shoots. Greg foun...
Nov 03, 2021•29 min
There aren’t enough bad things we could say about the COVID-19 pandemic. It's cut a path of death, destruction and suffering around the globe since early 2020. But, like any major disaster, it has also disrupted the old way of doing things and forced us to come up with new alternatives that will live on after the pandemic has passed - like telehealth consultations and working from home. This long-running crisis has also created opportunities - for entrepreneurs and innovators. Some of them in Ba...
Oct 27, 2021•27 min
As we were reminded during hurricane Ida, Louisiana is home to critical infrastructure that serves not only the region but the entire country. Ports and petrochemical plants line the Mississippi River from the Gulf past Baton Rouge. They are vital assets that keep life humming along, and in this digital age they are increasingly interconnected - and reliant on technology to function. Which means they – and we – are vulnerable to threats from cyber attacks. Very few people within a 500mile radius...
Oct 20, 2021•28 min
How many kids have gazed up into the sky and pondered what it’s like to be an astronaut or space traveler? How many adults, for that matter? There’s something about outer space, which we get a glimpse of through the night sky, that excites the 10 year old watching Star Wars in all of us. But, deep space doesn't have any connection to Baton Rouge, does it? Yes, Luke, it does! Bob Fudickar is Executive Director of the LSU National Center for Advanced Manufacturing , which, among other things, is b...
Oct 13, 2021•27 min
Our Cajun Creole heritage in south Louisiana is famous all over the world. People come here for food, music, and historic architecture they can t get anywhere else. And for those who can't get here, or who want a taste of Louisiana once they get back home, we have some crafty entrepreneurs who have figured out how to capture our local culture, bottle it or box it and export it to folks outside Louisiana. Primo Troy Primeaux is the co owner of Primo's Peppers . It's a company that grows several v...
Oct 05, 2021•26 min
In the age of Internet shopping, retail is an increasingly difficult way to make a living. When shoppers don't care if you're local and, no matter where they live, want current fashion and accessories at a fair price, how does a local business compete? Scott Berg says it starts with service. Scott has other strategies too, and proven successes to back them up. Scott is Baton Rouge Market President of Lee Michaels Fine Jewelry , including a Pandora franchise in the Mall of Louisiana . Scott was j...
Sep 29, 2021•28 min
