Montgomery Business Journal – June July August 2014 by Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce

IMPROVING THE BOTTOM LINE DIVERSITY SUMMIT KEYNOTE SPEAKER TALKS DIMENSIONS OF DIVERSITY NATIONAL PROMINENCE MONTGOMERY LAW FIRM BEASLEY, ALLEN, CROW, METHVIN, PORTIS & MILES, P.C., STILL STRONG AT 35 TRASH TALKING INFINITUS RENEWABLE ENERGY PARK FACILITY PUTS MONTGOMERY ON ENVIRONMENTAL MAP

READY TO ROLL JUN-HA KIM, PRESIDENT AND CEO OF HYUNDAI MOTOR MANUFACTURING ALABAMA, LEADS THE TEAM PRODUCING THE ALL-NEW 2015 SONATA

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Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

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Scott Chavers (334) 395-3502

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Contents Calendar

Q&A with Fred Keeton

Reporterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Notebook

Member Profile: US Foods

State Farm independent agent Willie Durham separates himself from other agents

Infinitus Renewable Energy Park puts Montgomery on the environmental map

Montgomery business leaders forecast a robust third quarter

State of the State

Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama is set to produce the 2015 Sonata

Beasley Allen firm still going strong at 35

Rep. Mike Rogers warns about U.S. foreign policy

Member Profile: Admiral Movers

Carl Whatley working on a third medical company

Business Buzz

Members on the Move

Ribbon Cuttings & Ground Breakings

New Members

Economic Intel

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SUMMER 2014

26 Summer 2014 Montgomery Business Journal

THE NUMBER ONE BUSINESS SOURCE FOR MONTGOMERY AND THE RIVER REGION PUBLISHER

Randall L. George EDITORIAL

Tina McManama David Zaslawsky Lashanda Gaines Melissa Bowman DESIGN

Copperwing Design PHOTOGRAPHER

Robert Fouts ON THE COVER

Jun-Ha Kim is president and CEO of Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama.

ADVERTISING:

Linda Drumheller 334-240-9494 mbjsales@montgomerychamber.com Montgomery Business Journal c/o Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce Post Office Box 79 41 Commerce Street Montgomery, Alabama 36101 Telephone: 334-834-5200 Fax: 334-265-4745 Email: mbj@montgomerychamber.com www.montgomerychamber.com/mbj The Montgomery Business Journal (USPS NO. 025553) is published monthly except for the combined issues of June/July/August and November/December, by the Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce, 41 Commerce Street, Montgomery AL 36104, (334) 834-5200, www.montgomerychamber.com. Subscription rate is $30 annually. Periodicals Postage Paid at Montgomery Alabama, 36119+9998, USPS NO. 025553. Volume 6, Issue 6 POSTMASTER send address changes to Montgomery Business Journal, c/o Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce, P.O. Box 79, 41 Commerce Street, Montgomery AL 36101, or email mbj@montgomerychamber.com. The Montgomery Business Journal welcomes story ideas from its readers. Email to: editor@montgomerychamber.com. Subscriptions are a part of the Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce dues structure. Subscriptions can also be purchased for $30 per year at www.montgomerychamber.com/mbjsub.

Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

“On a farm, every season is a TURNING POINT. The right partner is the difference between surviving and thriving.”

Teddy Schneider

Schneider Farming Partnership

Get the whole story at regions.com/turningpoints

As a fourth-generation farmer, Teddy Schneider knew that occasional ups and downs in production just came with the territory. Having a banker stand by him during the hard times – now that was a turning point. Regions Banker Tripp Shepherd understands the unique needs of Teddy’s business, so Tripp is constantly bringing him solutions that help him move forward. Like when he introduced Teddy to Regions’ commodity hedging* product. Being able to book the price for crops 24 months in advance was another turning point for Schneider Farming Partnership, one that not only reduced Teddy’s overall risk and stress, but also helped him to streamline, optimize and, most importantly, continue to move forward. To see how we can help your business move forward when it’s at a turning point, turn to Regions.

Loans | Treasury Management | Can-Do Attitude © 2014 Regions Bank. All loans and lines subject to credit approval. *Commodity hedges are offered to eligible clients subject to asset and net worth requirements; credit, security and documentation requirements; terms; conditions; and fees. Commodity hedges: Are not FDIC Insured I Are Not a Deposit I May Go Down in Value I Are Not Bank Guaranteed I Are Not Insured by Any Government Agency I Are Not a Condition of Any Banking Activity.

Calendar Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce Events

JUNE

JULY

60 MINUTE COFFEE Sponsored by The Grandma Home House Retreat 8 AM @ The Grandma Home House Retreat 386 Old Campbell Road, Pike Road Free event, exclusively for Chamber Members CEO & PEER MENTORING ROUNDTABLE SOCIAL 4 PM @ Small Business Resource Center 600 South Court Street, Suite 460, Montgomery Registration: montgomerychamber.com/ceo

16 19 26

BUSINESS PLANNING SEMINAR Business Basics Presenting Sponsor: BWS Technologies 4 PM @ Small Business Resource Center 600 South Court Street, Montgomery $10 at the door MILITARY FAMILY APPRECIATION DAY AT THE ZOO Presenting Sponsor: Capitol Chevrolet 11 AM @ Montgomery Zoo 2301 Coliseum Parkway Montgomery Free with Military Identification

10 24 31

BUSINESS AFTER HOURS Sponsored by Spa at Montgomery 5 PM @ Renaissance Montgomery Hotel & Spa 201 Tallapoosa Street, 8th Floor, Montgomery Free event, exclusively for Chamber Members

Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

MINORITY BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT NETWORKING MIXER 5 PM @ Small Business Resource Center 600 South Court Street, Montgomery Free event, registration required montgomerychamber.com/MBDmixer BUSINESS TAX SEMINAR Presenting sponsor: BWS Technologies Two Sessions: 3 PM & 6 PM @ Small Business Resource Center 600 South Court Street, Montgomery Free event, open to the public BUSINESS AFTER HOURS Sponsored by Verizon Wireless 5 PM @ Multiplex at Cramton Bowl 220 Hall Street, Montgomery Free event, exclusively for Chamber Members BACK TO SCHOOL BREAKFAST Presenting Sponsor: Information Transport Solutions, Inc. 8 AM @ RSA Activity Center 201 Dexter Avenue, Montgomery Registration: montgomerychamber.com/back2school

60 MINUTE COFFEE Sponsored by COSTCO 8 AM @ COSTCO 8251 Eastchase Parkway, Montgomery Free event, exclusively for Chamber Members

BUSINESS PLANNING SEMINAR Business Basics Presenting Sponsor: BWS Technologies July 7th & 21st 4 PM @ Small Business Resource Center 600 South Court Street, Montgomery $10 at the door

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MONTGOMERY, AL

DOTHAN, AL

PRATTVILLE, AL

WETUMPKA, AL

NASHVILLE, TN

334.834.7660

www.jacksonthornton.com

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Calendar Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce Events

AUGUST

SEPTEMBER

5 6 13 28

INBOUND MARKETING LIKE A PRO Presenting Sponsor: BWS Technologies 12 PM @ Small Business Resource Center Registration: montgomerychamber.com/inbound ENTREPRENEURIAL UNIVERSITY Presenting Sponsor: Integrated Computer Solutions, Inc. 6 PM @ Small Business Resource Center 600 South Court Street, Montgomery Registration: montgomerychamber.com/EU CHAMBER ORIENTATION Sponsored by Charter HR 8 AM @ Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce 41 Commerce Street, Montgomery RESERVATION IS REQUIRED Contact Sandra Kelley 334-240-9298, skelley@montgomerychamber.com 60 MINUTE COFFEE Sponsored by HEALTHSOUTH Rehabilitation Hospital of Montgomery 8 AM @ HEALTHSOUTH Rehabilitation Hospital of Montgomery 4465 Narrow Lane Road, Montgomery Free event, exclusively for Chamber Members BUSINESS AFTER HOURS Sponsored by The Jobs Company 5 PM @ The Jobs Company 2897 Eastern Boulevard, Montgomery Free event, exclusively for Chamber Members BUSINESS PLANNING SEMINAR Business Basics Presenting Sponsor: BWS Technologies August 4th & 18th 4 PM @ Small Business Resource Center 600 South Court Street, Montgomery $10 at the door

Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

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60 MINUTE COFFEE Sponsored by Brantwood Children’s Home 8 AM @ Brantwood Children’s Home 1309 Upper Wetumpka Road, Montgomery Free event, exclusively for Chamber Members BUSINESS AFTER HOURS Sponsored by Associated Business Services 5 PM @ Shashy’s Bakery & Fine Foods 1700 Mulberry Street, Montgomery Free event, exclusively for Chamber Members DIVERSITY SUMMIT Presenting Sponsor: Stivers Ford, Lincoln, Mazda 8 AM @ Renaissance Montgomery Hotel & Spa at the Convention Center 201 Tallapoosa Street, Montgomery Registration: montgomerychamber.com/diversity BUSINESS PLANNING SEMINAR Business Basics Presenting Sponsor: BWS Technologies September 1st & 15th 4 PM @ Small Business Resource Center 600 South Court Street, Montgomery $10 at the door

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DIMENSIONS OF DIVERSITY Q & A WITH FRED KEETON

Fred Keeton is vice president of finance, external affairs and chief diversity officer for Caesars Entertainment Corp. He was recently interviewed by the Montgomery Business Journal’s David Zaslawsky. Montgomery Business Journal: What does diversity mean to you? Keeton: Diversity simply means difference across any set of circumstances. I think people sort of pigeonhole the word very often and make it something that it isn’t, but diversity is in and of itself about difference. MBJ: Why do people make it into what it’s not? Keeton: I think very often people make into this one-dimensional thing. While it is a noun and while in our traditional approach to thinking about it, we attach it only to protected classes. We attach it to only race, gender, sexual orientation, disability and those kinds of things and that’s very, very inappropriate and a shortcoming in terms of how we think about the word. Diversity is really similarities and differences and the tensions that relate to those. MBJ: How important is it to have a diverse work force? Fred Keeton is vice president of finance, external affairs and chief diversity officer for Caesars Entertainment Corp.

Keeton: I think it’s hugely important to have a diverse work force. Let’s go back for a second though and really get how we ought to think about the dimensions of diversity. MBJ: What are those dimensions? Keeton: We need to think about those dimensions of diversity from the standpoint of cognitive diversity – differences in how we think. We need to think about them from the standpoint of cultural diversity – differences CONTINUED ON PAGE 12

Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

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“It requires great leadership so that relevant dimensions of diversity are never left out dependent upon the area or the situation or the circumstance that you’re working around.” - Fred Keeton, vice president of finance, external affairs and chief diversity officer for Caesars Entertainment Corp.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10

in culture and approaches. We should think about it in the way of market diversity – what are the different markets and who are they made up of and how do we engage those. We should think about it internally from the standpoint of structural diversity – what does our organization look like in terms of the way it’s structured; all the different pieces. Again, you hear that word “different.” And then we should think about it from the standpoint of product diversity – what are those products, goods and services that would be most meaningful to our particular customer base. How can we create a compelling value proposition for those customers based on diversifying our products in a way that would be most meaningful to them as customers of ours from a service perspective? When you’re thinking about diversity and you think about it in that way, now you have all of these pieces and all of those categories that I just mentioned to you, including the protectedclass issues. All of those go together to help us to when we mix them and manage them appropriately to think about the business in markedly different ways and to become much more intelligent about how we do what we do as we drive outcomes in the business. I wanted to make sure that I made this point to you because this is a huge point and very often we miss it. MBJ: From what you are saying, diversity had a limited connotation in the past, but you are expanding it to the point where it includes everything about what a business is. Keeton: Yes. So when you think about that and you think about what is necessary … if you think about complexity theory and – forgive me for going here, but I really want to share this with you – when we think about complexity theory and we think about complex systems, what we know is that a city is a complex system; that a company is a complex system, especially the larger that they get with the more moving pieces and the different functional areas and the like. Of course, the environment is a complex system. What we want to do is create the capacity for that system to remain not simply a complex system, but a complex adaptive system.

Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

MBJ: What do you mean by a complex adaptive system? Keeton: What that means is that system creates a degree of intelligence within itself so that it pre-emptively makes adjustments to the environment so that the environment doesn’t always force the change. If you deal in complexity science, it’s called emergence – the ability for that system to emerge with all these different pieces making decisions that really move that organization or that system forward, sometimes not even realizing that a particular decision that was made in one place has such a big impact in another. It does it as a matter of course and what that means is, it plays on its diversity. As you think about diversity, we’ve talked about it here, but we haven’t talked about inclusion. MBJ: Why is inclusion so closely linked to diversity? Keeton: Diversity is a noun; inclusion is a verb. Diversity simply means, as I said earlier, difference. It’s all of these differences that we manage. Inclusion is the management of those in a way that helps you to drive your way toward organizational objectives based

on outcomes. It’s very, very important to understand that that mix is key. This is a both approach rather than an either-or approach. It requires great leadership so that relevant dimensions of diversity are never left out dependent upon the area or the situation or the circumstance that you’re working around. MBJ: You’re saying you can’t have one without the other. Keeton: Yes. For an example, every dimension of diversity is important, but every dimension of diversity may not be relevant in every set of circumstances. I may have a situation where I don’t have … just if we were to think about the traditional way of thinking about diversity – I may be in a business situation where I don’t have a protected-class issue that I’m managing from an inclusion perspective. I have a functional diversity issue, where I have some cross-functionality that needs to take place appropriately and it’s not taking place. I have different functions in the organization that aren’t working together like they ought to in order to drive the very best outcome. As you’re thinking about it, you are now able to say in this particular instance I don’t have a

traditional protected-class diversity issue. I have an issue of cross-functionality. It’s not working. These folks aren’t engaging each other. If we go back and think about the very basics of diversity and the reason why we would do it, our chairman Gary Loveman says that ‘the collective IQ of the organization ought to increase with every new hire.’ MBJ: What’s the implication of that? Keeton: Does that simply mean we need to hire smart people? I would offer to you that if we simply hire smart people we wouldn’t get to that collective IQ increasing. If we’re hiring smart people, now we have to create the capacity to engage those folks in a way that they are included in making the organization smarter. I can have 10 MBAs on my team in a room and if we were to give each cognitive tools and if I was to lop their heads off, which is a pretty grisly thing, and put tool boxes in the place of their head – each one of those 10 folks would have a set of tools in those boxes dependent upon their background; and how they have been trained educationally, etc. If all of those folks are really, really similar CONTINUED ON PAGE 15

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it’s very likely they’re going to have a very similar set of tools. If I can bring in another three folks and with those 10 MBAs and each one of them had 10 tools – I have 100 tools to work from, but many of them are the same. If I bring in another three folks and make a team of 13 folks, but these folks are not MBAs from the fancy schools. These folks are really, really smart businesspeople, who had a number of experiences across a number of different functions and industries. They only have eight tools apiece, but four of the eight tools they have are different than any of the tools that the other 10 MBAs have. If those folks can be heard, then the team will get smarter. If their tools are relevant and they can be heard, the team will get smarter. You have to think about how you’re engaging in that way. A part of my toolbox comes from the fact that I am a 57-year-old African-American male from Morton, Mississippi, about 36 miles east of Jackson. The fact that I’ve been with this company 30 years on the 23rd of July; the fact that I’ve been in risk management; that I’ve been in development; that I’ve been in

government affairs; that I’ve been in finance – all of that has contributed to this diverse cognitive toolbox that I have. The way I view the world; the way I engage the world – the foundation for that goes back to Morton, Mississippi. And everything builds upon that, so both how I think, which is a DNAdriven thing; and the cultural side of things I come from, and I just don’t mean protectedclass issues. I mean the Southern culture. I mean the small-town culture. I mean all of those different things go into this toolbox that I have. MBJ: I would expect a number of your coworkers to be from the West Coast. Keeton: Some of my colleagues are here from out west. They went to UCLA, and as you might imagine, as we think about things very often, we think about them markedly differently and it’s our ability to mix and mesh those to recombine those tools in ways to help us look at the very same thing, but to see it differently that makes us smarter in the organization and smarter about how we do what we do as a business. The people who fit in roles like mine and who call themselves chief diversity officers – we are very often our

own worst enemies when we’re talking about this very critical, critical role that we have in organizations; that we have in business overall; and that’s key to every economic system that exists: How do the elements of that system combine and recombine and react to the environment – and quite frankly, pre-emptively push the environment from time to time to drive the very best outcomes for us in a way that is sustainable; and in a way that really sets the stage for us. We talk about diversity and inclusion and we do a number of things when we talk about it. MBJ: What are some of those things? Keeton: We talk about not suspending business logic in order to engage in diversity and inclusion and we don’t believe that you have to. We also believe that the suspension of business logic is a double-edged sword. CONTINUED ON PAGE 16

Summer 2014 Montgomery Business Journal

MBJ: Talk about questioning orthodoxy.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 15

If you are ignoring diversity and inclusion then that’s the suspension of business logic as well. I can go about my ways and do this in the wrong way and it’s not going to drive the outcomes that I need to drive. Or I could not do it at all and it’s certainly not going to drive the outcomes that I need to drive. It’s incumbent upon business leaders to really step back and understand what we need to do in order to be as smart as we can be in an organization and in order to really drive the outcomes that we need to drive in a way that we question – we create the capacity within our organization to question orthodoxy.

Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

Keeton: To really understand how do we maintain the requisite reliability in our systems, but how do we at the same time validate new ways of thinking about the business and driving outcomes. Diversity becomes super-additive when you put it in those kinds of circumstances. I want you to understand that the foundation has to be – how do we drive the very best outcomes? What is it that we want to do in order to be as smart as we can as a business and how do we want to make sure that we are in a position globally to address the issues we need to address? If I were to think about Montgomery and the region, I would think about Montgomery in the same way. What are those elements? I already know that Montgomery is a node. If you think about a node, that’s where an attachment point comes to from a number of different places. Within that node itself there is diversity, but there are attachment points that come from other places away from Montgomery that attach to the military presence there; that

attach to the automobile presence there; that attach to a number of different industries that are already there. How do I play on that diversity, because that is a complex system and you want it to become a complex adaptive system? You want the whole Montgomery area to say, “What we want to do is, we want to create an increase in the interdependent value of our node, so that people think they have got to attach to us because there’s this thing that we bring that is super-additive to their existence in another place.” When you think about it that way, that’s what inclusion is all about. You have to be very intentionally inclusive and if you’re not intentionally inclusive, you will be unintentionally exclusive and with really terrible consequences that come from that. Because you don’t position yourself appropriately for the new ideas that are coming and the new opportunities that are going to come. MBJ: Are businesses beginning to realize what diversity and inclusion mean for their

customers and offering different services and products to the various segments they deal with? Keeton: Beginning to understand it. One of the really critical things that you have to think about is why companies engage in diversity and inclusion. Very often when you talk about diversity and inclusion and markets, you simply think about it in the construct of multi-cultural markets. They talk about Asians helping to market to Asians; they talk about African-Americans to African-Americans; they talk about Latino to Latino, etc. When you’re doing diversity and inclusion in the right way – if you are really managing it at a high level – then it makes you better at multi-markets. Multi-markets means that you can look at markets that you’ve been working with forever and you can see something different because you’re mixing and remixing the eyes that are looking at it. If you want to think differently about a market, you have to put some people on with relevance who will question how you’ve been approaching that market or who have a capacity to see a market difference

in a way you might consider approaching that market. When you’re thinking about how can I look at this business differently, the further away that you get from an issue with relevance, the more likely you are to get a breakthrough. MBJ: You seem very passionate about diversity and inclusion.

Keeton: I get very excited about it. We are losing such a great opportunity because we get stuck on what diversity and inclusion ought to be about. Some people say you should do away with it. Are you going to do away with leadership? How are you going to lead different people unless you understand how to motivate them? You motivate them in ways that are within the construct of an overall structure and plan. •

“If you’re not intentionally inclusive, you will be unintentionally exclusive and with really terrible consequences that come from that.”

- Fred Keeton, vice president of finance, external affairs and chief diversity officer for Caesars Entertainment Corp.

Palomar insurance

Summer 2014 Montgomery Business Journal

Reporter’s Notebook by David Zaslawsky

AGRICULTURE’S IMPACT The state is ranked second in the country for broilers sold, inventory of quail and production of peanuts, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Census of Agriculture for 2012. About $5.6 billion worth of agricultural products were sold in 2012. Here are some other highlights from the report: Less than 4 percent of the farms in the state earn at least $1 million, but account for 63 percent of the agricultural sales. Ninety-one percent of all farms in Alabama are operated by families or individuals.

LAMP RETAINS TOP RANKING About 2,200 farm operations sold $9.2 million of products directly to consumers. “Our next challenge remains developing our vast agricultural, forestry and agribusiness resources to meet burgeoning world demand for food and fiber while remaining good stewards of our land and water resources,” Alabama Commissioner of Agriculture & Industries John McMillan said in a statement.

Loveless Academic Magnet Program (LAMP) High School in Montgomery was once again named the state’s No. 1 magnet school by U.S News and World Report. LAMP was also named the country’s 18th best high school out of 31,000-plus schools and was the seventh best magnet school nationwide. Two other schools in the Montgomery Public Schools district – Booker T. Washington (BTW) Magnet High School and Brewbaker Technology Magnet High School – were ranked in the state’s top five schools. BTW was No. 3 in the state and 477th in the country while Brewbaker was No. 5 in the state and 719th in the country.

MONTGOMERY TOPS RIVALS Montgomery was the only large metro that ranked in the Top 10 of the Alabama Policy Institute’s most businessfriendly cities. Montgomery was No. 8 on the list while Huntsville was 35th; Mobile was 46th and Birmingham ranked 47th. Millbrook was ranked No. 1 and Prattville was No. 2. The state’s 50 largest cities were compared in four categories: economic vitality (job growth, population growth and average per-capita income); business tax burden (property taxes and sales taxes); community allure (cost-of-living index, crime rate and education performance); and transportation infrastructure (variety of transportation hubs).

Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

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ECONOMIC OUTLOOK

Hyundai set an all-time April sales record with 66,107 vehicles, Hyundai Motor America announced. The April sales were up 4.4 percent over the same period a year ago. Both the Sonata and Elantra, which are produced at Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s facility in Montgomery, had monthly sales that topped 20,000. Sonata sales were up 30 percent over April 2013 and

Sonata Hybrid set an all-time sales record with 2,055 units. â&#x20AC;&#x153;With consumer confidence continuing on an upward swing and the economy improving across the nation, customers appear to have put cars back on their shopping lists,â&#x20AC;? Bob Pradzinski, vice president of national sales for HMA, said in a statement.

SUB BASE CONTRACT

The stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s economy is forecast to grow 2.4 percent this year, according to the University of Alabamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Center for Business and Economic Research. The growth may seem modest, but compare it to last yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 1.9 percent increase. That 2.4 percent growth means 25,000 new jobs this year, with about 18,000 of those coming from services, including 3,500-plus in the retail sector. Employment is forecast to grow 1.3 percent this year, another very modest increase, but from Feb. 2013 to Feb. 2014, employment grew just 0.9 percent.

Caddell Construction Co. has been awarded a $34.3 million contract for the construction of land/water interface at the Naval Submarine Base in Kings Bay, Georgia. The project, which involves marine, civil, electrical and security work, is expected to be completed in April 2017.

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Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

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MEDICAL PROJECT Montgomery-based Goodwyn, Mills & Cawood is the project architect for the 60,000-square-foot, 19-bed Great Falls Clinic in Montana. The new facility, which is expected to be completed next fall, will contain operating rooms and an emergency room. It will be attached to the Great Falls Clinic Specialty Center.

APARTMENT PROJECT COMES TO OLD CLOVERDALE Construction is expected to begin this summer on a three-story, 48-unit apartment complex in Old Cloverdale. The project is being developed by Josh Lowder, vice president/associate broker with Colonial Commercial Realty Inc.; and Jimmy Lowder, chairman of The Colonial Co. The high-end 48 Midtown complex will have one-, two- and threebedroom units.

COMPETING FOR BREWERY Montgomery is one of the cities that responded to Stone Brewing Co.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s request for proposal for a brewery in the eastern U.S. The company, based in Escondido, California, is the 10th-largest craft brewery in the country, producing 213,000 barrels of beer last year.

LOCAL SCORE CHAPTER WINS BIG The Montgomery chapter of Service Corps of Research Executives (SCORE) received the organizationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Southeastern Regional top award this year. The local chapter was recognized for increasing the number of services to clients; increasing the number of workshops; expanding services for small businesses; and being a leader in the implementation of the new CORE computer system.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The High Voltage Award recognizes a chapter which is not just a great resource but an exciting, vibrant energy source leading the way for the progress of small business and the SCORE organization,â&#x20AC;? SCORE vice president Eric Thompson said in a statement. The Montgomery chapter, a resource client at the Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce Small Business Resource Center at 600 S. Court St., offers free counseling services.

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Investor Member Profile Profile BUSINESS BUZZ (CONTINUED FROM PAGE 63)

Quenten Wentworth is president of US Foods Montgomery division.

Keeping Food on the Table US Foods massive operation supplies restaurants, other food service organizations by Melissa George Bowman

photography by Robert Fouts

Anyone traveling Selma Highway will eventually see planes flying to and from Montgomery Regional Airport. In fact, most of us associate that locale with catching flights. However, just a short distance away is another busy travel hub. Selma Highway is also home to US Foods. There, a constant flow of trucks travel back and forth making deliveries and shipping products to the companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s long list of clients.

Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

US FOODS EMPLOYEES

MORE THAN 600 You may not know it, but you’re probably a US Foods consumer. You’ve likely eaten at a restaurant that serves its products. The company is one of the country’s top food service distributors to restaurants as well as hospitals, educational institutions and a number of other facilities.

AREAS SERVED

“Any place where food is consumed onsite is our customer,” said Quenten Wentworth, division president of US Foods Montgomery. Providing those customers with the food and supplies they need is no small task. Nearly 13,000 different products are housed in US Foods’ massive warehouse. With manufacturers’ items constantly coming in and customer orders constantly going out, the company’s 600-plus employees must perform a well-choreographed routine to ensure clients have exactly what they need.

WWW.USFOODS.COM

“We’re a real full-service distributor, so any item you want we can provide,” Wentworth said. “We have a tremendous track record for ontime service and having the right products in place at the right time.” US Foods’ 400,000-square-foot warehouse resembles a gigantic grocery store. A seemingly unending supply of food rests on shelves stacked from floor to ceiling. The warehouse is divided into three sections for dry goods, refrigerated products and frozen items. The frozen area is kept so cold that even on the hottest Alabama days workers wear heavy winter clothing. Their attire also prepares them for the occasional snow flurries that appear if any humidity is in the air. Having so many products to choose from could be overwhelming to customers, but US Foods has developed a cutting-edge and very userfriendly online ordering process. Clients can customize the system to meet their needs, making navigation simpler. “We have the best in class food service online technology, and we are actually the second largest online distributor in the United States after Amazon,” Wentworth said. US Foods may be a modern company in terms of technology and innovation, but it also has a long history with Montgomery. The company traces its roots to 1871 when Leopold Schloss and Maurice Kahn opened a grocery and commission house on Commerce Street. The company was bound for food service distribution as part of its business included servicing covered wagons going to the West. The business grew over time and moved to several different buildings downtown before settling in its current location. As it began to specialize in food service distribution, it also developed its Sunday Dinner brand. Wentworth says some long-time customers still refer to US Foods as Sunday Dinner. Eventually, after a series of buyouts, Chicago-based US Foods purchased the company.

ALABAMA AS WELL AS PARTS OF FLORIDA, GEORGIA AND MISSISSIPPI WEBSITE

Scoop is a publication customers receive that highlights the latest food trends and offers ideas for serving these products. This is especially beneficial to smaller restaurants as it “helps them stay on the front end of innovation,” Wentworth said. While serving customers is important to US Foods, serving the community is also a high priority. The Montgomery Area Food Bank is among the local nonprofits US Foods supports. The company was also a title sponsor of this year’s Walk of Life benefitting the Joy to Life Foundation. US Foods and several of its restaurant clients not only provided food at the event, they also joined forces to raise $15,000 for the charity. US Foods future plans include even more community outreach. The company has also taken on several other projects including its recent partnership with Alabama Gulf Seafood. Fish caught in Alabama waters are shipped to US Foods’ warehouse. Staff members then prepare the fish according to client specifications, which may include deboning or cutting into steaks or fillets. The prepared fish are then transported to restaurants where they are served “as Alabama-homegrown seafood,” Wentworth said. He added that because “farm to fork is now a major trend” the company has made efforts to work with more Alabama farmers and manufacturers. “We can then turn to our customers and say we’re all helping each other, and it’s local and it’s fresh and it’s good for you,” he said. Helping their customers and helping the community drive the people of US Foods. Although much of their work is behind the scenes, the company’s reach extends far beyond its warehouse walls. So the next time you’re enjoying a meal at a local restaurant just remember that a US Foods truck probably helped get it to your table. •

Both in the beginning with Schloss and Kahn and today as US Foods, the key to the company’s success has been customer service. US Foods goes beyond simply processing orders and offers clients information that can help their businesses thrive. For example, The

Summer 2014 Montgomery Business Journal

State Farm independent agent Willie Durham is a presenter at the Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce Entrepreneurial University. He talks about his experiences as a smallbusiness owner – the ups and downs – the challenges and the rewards. “If you have never been in business before and you’ve always worked for somebody and got a guaranteed paycheck – it’s different when you open your own business,” said Durham, who opened his own business about nine years ago. “In working for yourself, there is no guarantee. You have to be motivated. You have to be disciplined and you have to have some business acumen to get out there and make the door open. Every independent agent has not made it in Montgomery. People think that you hang out the shingle and it says State Farm and you’re going to make it. It takes a lot of work. A lot of people see the glory, but they don’t see the story.”

Your Good Neighbor State Farm insurance agent

saturates area with his name

by David Zaslawsky

Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

photography by Robert Fouts

His game plan is top-of-mind awareness. “I want to saturate the market so that when an opportunity presents itself and you are considering insurance, I want the top-of-mind to be – “I’ll call Willie.” He can also talk about how it’s different when as a small business owner you go from renting office space to buying land and building an office. That’s what he did about a year ago and at the same time added two employees, increasing his staff from three to five. The move geographically was only about 500 yards, but the new location on North Eastern Boulevard he now owns, and there was not much assistance from State Farm other than designing help, which did reduce some costs. The new office is 2,400 square feet compared to the 1,500-square-foot office he was renting and there is room to add another employee. He is thinking about hiring either a part-time marketing employee or intern, who would focus on business-to-business clientele and manage the agency’s social media, including its Facebook page. It’s an area that gets neglected “because no one has ownership of it,” Durham said. Durham is the company’s marketing guru. He makes sure his name is out in the public in every conceivable manner because he is competing not only against other insurance companies, but the other 22 independent State Farm agents, who offer the exact same products he does. “What I try to do is separate myself from the other 22,” Durham said. “I believe you do that through personal branding. We have to be able to distinguish ourselves. I believe that people do business with people they know,” he said, and he wants as many people to know him as possible. Durham said he wants people who are considering changing their agent to say, “ ‘I see Willie everywhere. Let me call him.’ ” He has his name displayed on his car; billboards, television ads; pens at restaurants; and notepads at Realtors’ offices and apartment complexes. On the bottom of his business card in red print, you will find: “The greatest compliment you can give is a referral.”

He is highly visible in the community, including Chamber networking events, but Durham is also dedicated to community involvement. He is a Rotarian, who puts service above self. “I believe it helps build the State Farm brand because like a good neighbor … a neighbor is someone that’s involved in the community. It’s part of our core culture to be a good neighbor in the community. I see it as a win-win for me as an agent and State Farm as a corporate partner.” When Durham first joined State Farm, the insurer was making a big push into financial services, and that’s the area that he concentrates on. He has a securities license and mortgage license. He provides retirement planning and the company has a bank, finances vehicles, offers home equity loans, credit cards, and educational savings accounts. “I will sit down with you and look at what you’re doing for life insurance, long-term care, disability, retirement planning, because very few customers are looking at those areas,” said Durham, who spent one year as an industrial uniform sales representative for Cintas before becoming a State Farm independent agent.

“In working for yourself, there is no guarantee. You have to be motivated. You have to be disciplined.” - Willie Durham, State Farm independent agent

His employees focus on the home and auto areas. “I have a great team here and when a call comes in we want to be able to wow you,” Durham said. “We want to be able to exceed your expectations.” The agency has doubled in size and enjoyed annual growth of 10 percent, according to Durham. He credits “exceptional customer service” and word-of-mouth and those words are: “There’s only one Willie Durham.” •

Summer 2014 Montgomery Business Journal

Dozens and dozens of guests and dignitaries attending the grand-opening ceremony for the Infinitus Renewable Energy Park (IREP) at Montgomery sat in the facility’s cavernous tipping point.

TALKING TRASH Recycling facility puts Montgomery ‘on environmental map’ by David Zaslawsky photography by David Robertson Jr.

Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

They listened to nine speakers describe the $35 million waste recovery facility and then went on guided tours or skipped that and went straight to the bar or the tables of food. This event was being held where just a couple of weeks later trash will be stacked – tons and tons and tons of trash in the 20,000-square-foot area with 12-foot walls separating the tipping point from the equipment used to sort the trash. Trash will be 10-feet high in that area. The guests learned a lot about trash and recycling and how simple it will be for Montgomery residents who will put their garbage in a single container. The concept of multiple containers for plastics or paper or glass as what happens in some cities does not apply to Montgomery. One size fits all needs. “This is the most advanced mixed waste recycling center in the United States and it’s right here in the City of Montgomery,” said Kyle Mowitz, CEO of Plantation, Fla.-based Infinitus Energy. It’s so advanced that in the near future, the organic waste will be transformed into compressed natural gas, which will be used to fill up the city’s garbage trucks. How’s that for recycling? There will be an on-site natural gas fueling station for heavy fleet vehicles. All materials of value will get recycled, including metals and plastics. Those materials will be compressed into bales and then shipped. The facility can handle trash from 90 miles away, which includes not only Selma, but the Auburn-Opelika area and Birmingham. The more waste that the facility handles and it has a capacity of 225,000 tons a year, generates revenue for the City of Montgomery, which has a 25-year agreement with Infinitus Energy. The state-of-the-art equipment, which was designed, engineered and manufactured by Bulk Handling Systems out of Eugene, Ore., will sort and recover items such as cardboard, mixed paper, metals, aluminum cans, plastics and wood based on density, size, shape and material composition. Some sorting will also be performed by hand. At least 80 percent of the waste will eventually be recycled, according to Mowitz. He said that is the highest rate in the country and “Montgomery becomes the leader in conversion and recycling in the country.” Montgomery Mayor Todd Strange said the city did not spend any money upfront on the facility, but made a commitment to provide garbage – a lot of garbage. By recycling 80 percent of its garbage, that will mean less waste at the landfill, which extends the landfill’s life. CONTINUED ON PAGE 29

Summer 2014 Montgomery Business Journal

â&#x20AC;&#x153;This is the most advanced mixed waste recycling center in the United States.â&#x20AC;? - Kyle Mowitz, CEO of Infinitus Energy

Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 27

He said that 18 communities were looking at the facility. “This does in fact put us on the map,” Strange said. “It puts us on the environmental map. It puts us on the green energy map. This is a win-win-win all the way around.” The nearly 82,000-square-foot facility, which will have 110 employees, will actually be operated by San Jose, Calif.-based Zero Waste Energy. “When you think about the level of sophistication of how to build something this complicated yet this elegant really is a marvel of engineering and technology,” Zero Waste Energy CEO Eric Herbert said. He said that compressed natural gas, which takes 21 days to develop,” is a net carbon negative fuel.” Montgomery County Commission Chairman Elton N. Dean Sr. said that the county will discuss sending its trash to the facility.

“You’re not only creating jobs, you’re creating capital investment and you are building a better environment.” - Leslie Sanders, chairman of the Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 30

Summer 2014 Montgomery Business Journal

Elected leaders and Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce officials joined Infinitus Renewable Energy Park executives and business partners for an official grand opening.

“It puts us on the environmental map. It puts us on the green energy map. This is a win-win-win all the way around.” - Montgomery Mayor Todd Strange

Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 29

“We’ve heard some great trash talk haven’t we?” said Leslie Sanders, chairman of the Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors. “You’re not only creating jobs, you’re creating capital investment and you are building a better environment. We want to pledge our support to you not only today, but every day to come.” It took about 10 months to complete the facility, which contains enough steel to build 466 cars, said Angel Mendez, chief operating

officer of Infinitus Energy. He said the facility used so much concrete that you could extend a five-foot wide sidewalk 44-plus miles. It took almost 70 truckloads to transport Bulk Handling Systems’ equipment to the facility. That equipment took more than 45,000 hours to design, engineer and manufacture, said Steve Miller, CEO of Bulk Handling Systems. He said the system determines the molecular content of each waste item. The amount of conveyor belts used would equal 26 football fields, Miller said. He said the system will process 35-plus tons of waste per hour. He said the systems will extract in excess of 95 percent of the valuable materials.

facility uses about 20 acres of a 75-acre site. “Over time not only are we going to make this investment here, but we’ll also continue to make investments to make this better and better and better down the road.”

Infinitus Energy has future plans for Montgomery. “Our company is also committed to making additional investments in this city,” Mowitz said. He noted that the

The company is exploring converting the 20 percent of waste it will not recycle into an “engineered fuel that may power coalpowered energy plants,” Mowitz said. •

Summer 2014 Montgomery Business Journal

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The leadership in this city and in this state is just unbelievable.â&#x20AC;? - Kyle Mowitz, CEO of Infinitus Energy

TJ Williford, Founder/Broker

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Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

INFINITUS ENERGY CEO PRAISES LOCAL LEADERS, CHAMBER by David Zaslawsky

Infinitus Energy CEO Kyle Mowitz, whose company invested $35 million in a municipal solid waste recycling center in Montgomery, praised local elected leaders at the facilityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s grand opening. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The leadership in this city and in this state is just unbelievable,â&#x20AC;? he said. Mowitz said that he talks to officials in other cities and states â&#x20AC;&#x153;and the vision that not only Mayor (Todd) Strange has, but the governor has and the other leaders have here is just unbelievable.â&#x20AC;? In a statement, Mowitz said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;The citizens of Montgomery should applaud the vision of their government leaders that have contributed to this projectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s benefits â&#x20AC;&#x201C; benefits that will be realized for years to come.â&#x20AC;?

I always knew I was going to Montgomery Eye Physicians. Their reputation is second to none. After getting LASIK, I play golf, I go hunting, and I can see and shoot a lot better now. And just for normal, everyday things — everything’s clear. — DREW WOODS

getLASIK.me tLASIK 334.272.2020 334 272 2020 The $35 million Infinitus Renewable Energy Park has a capacity of handling 225,000 tons of trash a year.

Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley also complimented local elected officials. “I want to say how proud I am of the leadership in Montgomery.” Bulk Handling Systems CEO Steve Miller said in a statement, “The City of Montgomery deserves a lot of credit as an early adopter and environmental leader, an example we project other forward-thinking communities will follow.”

“I just have to say this is not your typical chamber of commerce. We are used to going to cities and we have some cookies and a handshake. This chamber of commerce has become a partner to us and we are really, really appreciative of them. I mean this with all honesty – absolutely the best chamber of commerce that we’ve ever worked with. For the past year or so, they have been a wonderful partner.” •

Mowitz also praised the Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce. “We travel around to a lot of cities and we talk to a lot of cities about bringing this to them,” he said. “There has not been one place that we’ve been received quite like the chamber of commerce here.

Summer 2014 Montgomery Business Journal

Optimistic Bunch Montgomery business leaders forecast robust third quarter by David Zaslawsky

Montgomery area business leaders are the most optimistic of the state’s fourlargest metro areas about the secondquarter economy.

In three of the six ABCI components, Montgomery had an index that was at least four points higher than overall index numbers, which include all four metro areas:

The local metro area has an overall business confidence index of 58.8, which is slightly better than Mobile (58.3). BirminghamHoover is third at 57.0 and Huntsville still lags the other metros at a barely positive index of 50.7.

> Montgomery’s index for the national economy was 57.8 points vs. the overall index of 52.5 points.

The Montgomery participants in the quarterly Alabama Business Confidence Index (ABCI) conducted by The University of Alabama’s Center for Business and Economic Research, had an index that was 3.2 points higher than the overall index (55.6). The most upbeat sectors are transportation, information, utilities, financial, services and manufacturing. It is the fifth consecutive quarter that the business confidence index for Montgomery has been in positive territory and is the highest rating in two years. The previous high for the overall Montgomery index was 58.4 in the second quarter of 2012 and the lowest in the last two years was 44.3 points in the first quarter of last year. The current secondquarter index of 58.8 is 5.5 points more than the 2013 second quarter.

Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

> Montgomery’s index for the state economy was 62.5 points vs. the overall index of 58.4 points. > Montgomery’s index for industry sales was 65.6 points vs. the overall index of 61.6 points. The industry sales index rose 9.5 points from the previous quarter, a massive increase. The component is so upbeat that nearly eight times as many participants are forecasting an increase in sales compared with a decrease (63 percent to 8 percent). It’s a nearly five-to-one margin of participants expecting the state’s economy to improve in the second quarter vs. a projected decrease (52 percent to 10 percent) and a three-to-one margin when it comes to forecasting an increase in the national economy vs. a second-quarter decline (44 percent vs. 15 percent). About 45 percent of Montgomery’s survey participants expect industry profits to increase in the second quarter, but another 40 percent expect no change from the first quarter. About 15 percent are forecasting profits to decline. The component index did increase 4.5 points from the previous quarter.

ABCI QUARTERLY BREAKDOWN 2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

Source: The University of Alabamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Center for Business and Economic Research

The hiring component is the least upbeat with only one-third expecting a second-quarter increase compared with 21 percent expecting a decline and about 45 percent expecting no change from the previous quarter. The component actually declined 0.4 points from the first quarter. The capital expenditures component does have a nearly two-to-one margin of those expecting an increase (35 percent) vs. those expecting a decline (19 percent). â&#x20AC;˘

The second quarter 2014 is the fifth consecutive quarter that the business confidence index for Montgomery has been in positive territory and is the highest rating in two years.

Summer 2014 Montgomery Business Journal

BUSINESS CONFIDENCE INDEX HITS PRE-RECESSION MILESTONE by David Zaslawsky

The Alabama Business Confidence Index (ABCI) has returned to an important prerecession level of being more than 50 points for four straight quarters.

STATE ECONOMY For the 39th straight quarter, panelists are more optimistic about Alabamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s second quarter than the national outlook. The state index rose 4.6 points to 58.4.

The last time the quarterly index was above 50 for four straight quarters was in 2007.

INDUSTRY SALES This component topped the others with an index of 61.6 and jumped 7.5 points from the first quarter.

Actually the index, which is conducted by The University of Alabamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Center for Business and Economic Research, was above 50 for 24 consecutive quarters. The overall second-quarter index rose 4.4 points from the first quarter to 55.6, the highest index since the second quarter two years ago. The following is a component-by-component breakdown of the second-quarter ABCI:

INDUSTRY PROFITS The component was up 4.2 points from the first quarter to 56.5. INDUSTRY HIRING The component increased just 1.5 points to ease into positive territory at 51.1. INDUSTRY CAPITAL EXPENDITURES The

component, which rose 3.8 points to 53.7, is close to its high in the last 27 quarters. â&#x20AC;¢

NATIONAL ECONOMY The index increased

4.7 points to 52.5 and into positive territory. An index of 50 or more represents a positive outlook.

BOLDLY GO, KNOWING WEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;VE GOT YOUR BACK

Warren Averett Members Richard Stabler, CPA Tommy Sisson, CPA and Ray White, CPA

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Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

STATE OF THE

STATE Bentley looks to modify incentives program by David Zaslawsky

photography by Robert Fouts

One of Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley’s top legislative priorities next year is revamping the state’s incentives program to recruit new industries and support existing industries. Bentley of course will need to get re-elected in November to tackle the incentives program, which is a debt-driven model. The debt is funded by bonds and the General Fund has to pay the debt service on those bonds, according to Bentley’s former chief of staff David Perry, who left the governor’s office in late May. Perry replaced the governor for the Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce Alabama Update. Bentley was spending the day touring Pike County. Meanwhile, former Alabama Speaker of the House Seth Hammett is replacing Perry on an interim basis. Perry, who has joined Protective Life Corp. as a vice president, said, “Alabama has fallen behind other states the last few years in the creativity and structure of incentives that we can provide to new and expanding

industries.” He said that Bentley wants to move to a model that is “specifically tailored to the industry that is coming in. That will make a substantial difference in our ability to recruit significant projects, both new industries as well as the existing industries that provide most of the new jobs in this economy.” In the governor’s 31⁄2 years in office, 50,000plus jobs and more than $13.9 billion in capital investment have been announced and most of those jobs have not be filled. Golden Dragon Precise Copper Tube Group, which was scheduled to break ground on its $100 million plant in Wilcox County, plans to hire about 500 people over the next two to three years. The county had a 15.5 percent unemployment rate in April, which was more than twice the statewide rate. CONTINUED ON PAGE 38

Summer 2014 Montgomery Business Journal

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 37

“The state of the state is strong, but we have tremendous challenges facing state government.” - David Perry, former chief of staff for Gov. Robert Bentley

Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

Although 15,000 more Alabamians have been employed during the February-April period, the state’s unemployment rate rose from 6.1 percent to 6.9 percent because more people were looking for a job. Increasing the number of jobs has been Bentley’s No. 1 priority since Day 1, according to Perry. The state’s economic development programs were overhauled into Accelerate Alabama, which focuses on 11 key sectors. At the same time, education and business have formed a bond. “Businesses are communicating more regularly and more meaningfully with the education sector and the government sector than we think we’ve seen in a long, long time,” Perry said. He praised State Superintendent of Education Tommy Bice and Alabama Community College System Chancellor Mark A. Heinrich. The state’s high school graduation rate has climbed from 72 percent just two years ago to 80 percent, which is ahead of the pace of a 90 percent graduation rate by 2020.

“For every single percentage point that increases in the high school graduation rate, that’s 600 new potential employees coming into the work force, who are going to reap and yield much higher investment returns than our high David Perry school dropouts,” Perry said. He also cited strong gains in career tech and in dual enrollment programs. “The state of the state is strong, but we have tremendous challenges facing state government,” Perry said. “One of the greatest challenges over the next year is going to be to continue to find ways to streamline

state government and to make room for continued investment in the education system and the essential functions of government,” he said. The state government is continuing to streamline operations, including its 30-year-old finance and payroll system as well as consolidating information technology resources.

with a minimal drop off in state services and that is a direct result of an increase in efficiencies in state government from taking advantage of technology,” Perry said. The state saved an additional $350 million by reforming state pensions and now the state’s Medicaid program is being reformed – moving from a fee-for-service model to a quality-based program. •

The governor has reduced the state work force by 5,000 employees and that saved $350 million. “We’ve been able to do that

Summer 2014 Montgomery Business Journal

WE BUILT 40

Â© Fouts Photography

Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

T IT

New launch energizes HMMA employees by David Zaslawsky

Summer 2014 Montgomery Business Journal

last year. Sonata sales have topped 200,000 in each of the past three years with a high of about 230,000 units in 2012. Sonata sales are projected to reach 225,000 this year, Neal said, which would include both the 2014 model and the 2015 model. One of the employees at Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama’s facility in Montgomery – at least one – has a vanity license plate that says: “I built it.”

2015 SONATA SE STANDARD FEATURES

> 2.4L GDI 4-cylinder engine (185 hp) > 6-speed automatic transmission with SHIFTRONIC® > Front, front seat side, curtain and driver’s knee airbag > Driver’s blind spot mirror > LED daytime running lights > Projector headlights > 16-inch alloy wheels > Rear lip spoiler > 6-way passenger seat

AVAILABLE FEATURES

> Power driver seat with lumbar support > 5-inch color touchscreen audio display > Rearview camera > Blue Link® Telematics System

Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

Employees built just a shade less than 400,000 Sonatas and Elantras last year. Now with the 2015 Sonata launch – an allnew Sonata – it will be up to the production department to do its job. No matter how stunning the vehicle is; how well it handles; how quiet the ride is; all the safety features it has; how roomy the interior is; or how magnificent the technology is – Montgomery has to do its job for the 2015 Sonata to be successful. “There is no absence of anxiety among our management staff and production team members because we need to get it right from the very beginning,” said Rick Neal, senior vice president for human relations and administration for HMMA. “You’re building a brand new car and the quality has to be as good or better as the current vehicle because without quality we have nothing – particularly in a new vehicle launch.” The launch of the 2015 Sonata is so critical to Hyundai that during its reveal at the New York Auto Show in April, Dave Zuchowski, president and CEO of Hyundai Motor America (HMA), the marketing and sales arm, told HMMA employees via a webcast that is “one of the most important vehicles in our entire lineup.” Then he turned the heat up even more: “You know how important this vehicle is to the entire Hyundai brand.” The Sonata is so important to U.S. sales that it was the company’s best-selling vehicle for eight straight years and was second to Elantra

The seventh-generation Sonata, code named LF, was scheduled for full production in mid-May. Neal said that there has been “a lot of added pressure and stress because our president has given us the command that he wants our quality for the new launch to be as good or better than the quality of our current YF Sonata within a period of just two weeks.” That’s pressure. “One thing that you’ll find when you talk to team members across the campus is that they all realize that the car they’re building that very minute could be sold to a family member, a friend, a friend of a friend,” Neal said. “They know they have to get everything right because their own flesh and blood could be buying one of these cars and driving it around town. They want everything to be perfect as it should be.” The new launch has energized employees from the assembly line to those in management and that’s important to Fountain Valley, California-based HMA. Zuchowski said that HMMA “is integral to what we are CONTINUED ON PAGE 44

“You’re building a brand new car and the quality has to be as good or better as the current vehicle because without quality we have nothing – particularly in a new vehicle launch.” Rick Neal, senior vice president for human relations and administration for HMMA. Photo courtesy of Hyundai Motor America.

Summer 2014 Montgomery Business Journal

2015 SONATA SPORT 2.0T STANDARD FEATURES

AVAILABLE FEATURES

> 2.0L Turbo GDI 4-cylinder

> Panoramic sunroof

> Sport front fascia

> Electronic parking brake

> Rear diffuser

> Infinity® premium audio system

Some of the HMMA employees on a webcast likened a new launch to giving birth to a baby. Frye described a new launch “actually is participating in the cycle of life because you bring in a new product and you’re going to carry it through its four or five years. You never allow time to be sad at the passing of the old model because you have the new one coming along and it has you all worked up saying, ‘Yah, I’ve got another one coming.’

> Quad exhaust

> 8-inch touchscreen navigation

And you’re loving every minute of it.”

> HID headlights

> HD Radio™ technology

> LED tail lights

> 4.2-inch color LCD trip computer

> 18-inch alloy wheels

> Ventilated front seats

> Proximity key entry with

> Integrated Memory System for power

Neal thanked the community for the support it gives HMMA. “I’m not aware of any other OEM (original equipment manufacturer) anywhere in the United States that gets the kind of support we get from our local community leaders and this trip to New York was no exception,” he said, referring to the auto show where the 2015 Sonata was revealed to the public.

engine (245 hp)

> 6-speed automatic transmission with paddle shifters

> Sport-tuned suspension and steering

push-button start

> Hands-free smart trunk > D-cut steering wheel

> Smart cruise control > Lane departure warning > Forward collision warning > Rear parking assistance system

driver seat and exterior mirrors

> Heated rear seats Source: Hyundai Motor America

> Aluminum pedals > Sport seats with leather surfaces and contrast stitching

> 5-inch color touchscreen audio display

> Rearview camera > Dual automatic temperature control

> Premium door sill plates > Auto-dimming rearview mirror with HomeLink®

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 42

trying to do. We couldn’t do it without them. They do a terrific job. It’s not just sheet metal. You need the individual worker to take personal pride in that and know it’s built in Montgomery, Alabama. And that’s how we all win.” Neal said that “our team member population is extremely proud to work at HMMA and to build the best-selling vehicle in the Hyundai lineup for sale in the United States.” He said that the Sonata 2015 launch “is an energizing event. We’ve been building the YFs since 2011 and it’s repetitive work. You come in and build the same thing day after day; week after week; month after month. Now you have an opportunity to build something brand new, and that just gives team members something else to look forward to – a change of pace. They are excited about the improvements that have been made.” That new launch is “exciting” for Ashley Frye, vice president of production for HMMA and a 33-year veteran in the automotive industry.

“There are some of us kind of like that (adrenaline junkies) when it comes to new product launches. It is truly invigorating.”

Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

The Montgomery contingent was represented by Secretary of Commerce Greg Canfield; Dan Harris, vice chairman of the Montgomery County Commission; Leslie Sanders, chairman of the Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors and vice president for Alabama Power Co.’s Southern Division; Capell & Howard shareholder Henry Hutchinson; Auburn University at Montgomery Chancellor John Veres III; David Reed, executive vice president of Goodwyn, Mills & Cawood; Lance Hunter, CEO of Hodges Warehouse + Logistics; Carl Barker, president/ CEO of ServisFirst Bank in Montgomery; Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce President Randall L. George; and Ellen McNair, senior vice president of Corporate Development for the Chamber. Neal said although some areas might become complacent and take you for granted, the community’s support for HMMA is “genuine and continuous. It makes us feel good to know that they continue to welcome us being here.” •

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Sitting in a 2015 Hyundai Sonata orangecolor sport model, you can’t help but smile, and although you are just holding the steering wheel, you think about how much fun this vehicle will be to drive.

NEW SONATA REVS UP PULSE RATES by David Zaslawsky

That’s right. Fun. It’s not one of the words heard at the New York Auto Show when the 2015 Sonata was revealed. The words at the reveal were “taut, sophisticated, athletic, refined, sleek, elegant, intuitive.” Of course, all of that is expected when you are launching a new product and there definitely was a wow factor when the drape was pulled off that orange 2015 Sonata Sport 2.0T, one of four current trim levels. The others are SE, Limited and Sport. There may also be a Limited 2.0T and a hybrid version is likely. “It’s not any one thing with the all-new Sonata,” said Dave Zuchowski, president and CEO of Hyundai Motor America, which markets and sells the vehicles. “It’s the cumulative effect of everything being perfectly integrated to deliver an extraordinary feeling of confidence. The bottom line – it’s a more advanced Sonata in every possible way.’

A lot of attention was paid to reduce noise; improve the handling; introduce more safety features; and increase the interior. When the vehicle was introduced in Seoul, Korea, the home of Hyundai Motor Co., President and CEO Choong Ho Kim said in a statement, “We are confident that the all-new Sonata will change the landscape of the global mid-size sedan market.” The 2015 Sonata is only slightly longer and wider, but that difference in the interior has the vehicle classified as a large car by the Environmental Protection Agency, unlike its competitors in the mid-size segment, which include Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, Nissan Altima, Ford Fusion, Chevrolet Malibu and Volkswagen Passat. The 2015 Sonata follows in the footsteps of the Genesis with Hyundai’s fluidic sculpture 2.0. “We were able to use our premium products, Genesis in particular, as a chess board to develop technologies that are absolutely unheard of in a vehicle in this segment,” Zuchowski said. “You’ve got things in this car that you would never expect to see in a mid-size car. The lessons perfected with the Genesis are now being applied in every detail to the all-new Sonata.” CONTINUED ON PAGE 48

Photo courtesy of Hyundai Motor America.

Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

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2015 SONATA SPORT STANDARD FEATURES

AVAILABLE FEATURES

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 46

> 2.4L GDI 4-cylinder engine (185 hp)

> Blind spot detection

> 6-speed automatic transmission with SHIFTRONIC®

> Proximity key entry with push-button start

> 17-inch alloy wheels

> Hands-free smart trunk

> Dual exhaust > Sport front fascia

> Sport seats with leather bolsters and cloth inserts

> Side mirror turn-signal indicators

> Dual automatic temperature control

> Side rocker panels with chrome molding

> 8-inch touchscreen navigation

Some of those features include: blind spot detection, forward collision warning system, lane departure warning system, rear crosstraffic alerts, hands-free smart trunk, smart cruise control, driver’s seat memory, heated steering wheel, LED daylight running lights, driver knee airbag, electronic parking brake, rear parking sensors, heated rear seats, rear side curtain blinds and 8-inch navigation system. The vehicle will be one of the first to offer Apple CarPlay later in the year.

> Power driver seat with lumbar support

> 4.2-inch color LCD trip computer

> Heated front seats

> Auto-dimming rearview mirror with HomeLink®

> 5-inch color touchscreen audio display

> HD Radio™ technology

> Rearview camera > Blue Link® Telematics System

The Sport 2.0T – turbo-charged – model is expected to be the top-seller and although it won’t have all the bells and whistles that the Limited model does – it has a unique rear bumper fascia, 18-inch alloy wheels, sporttuned suspension, larger front brakes, electric power steering system and 245 horsepower.

2015 SONATA LIMITED STANDARD FEATURES > 2.4L GDI 4-cylinder engine (185 hp)

AVAILABLE FEATURES

> 6-speed automatic transmission with SHIFTRONIC®

> HID headlights

> Blind spot detection

> Smart cruise control

> LED tail lights

> Lane departure warning

> 17-inch alloy wheels

> Forward collision warning

> Dual exhaust

> Rear parking assistance system

> Chrome front grille

> Integrated Memory System driver seat

> Side rocker panels with chrome molding

> Electronic parking brake

> Chrome exterior door handles

> 8-inch touchscreen navigation

> Proximity key entry with push-button start > Hands-free smart trunk > Woodgrain interior trim > Leather seating surfaces > Heated front and rear seats > Dual automatic temperature control > Rear side-window shades > Premium door sill plates > Auto-dimming rearview mirror with HomeLink® 48

Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

“It’s going to handle well,” Zuchowski said. “It’s going to have great fuel economy. It’s going to have great power. It’s going to have all this content that is going to absolutely shock people. It’s beautifully styled. It’s going to be very well priced. It’s not one thing. It’s a combination of checking every box and saying, ‘there is no reason not to buy a Sonata.’ ”

> Panoramic sunroof

> Infinity® premium audio system > HD Radio™ technology > 4.2-inch color LCD trip computer > Ventilated front seats > Heated steering wheel

Christopher Chapman, chief designer of Hyundai Design North America, said that the 2015 Sonata’s exterior features a larger, more refined grille. He said that more than 50 percent of the vehicle’s platform has advanced high-strength steel. The suspension and steering have been redesigned, said Michael O’Brien, vice president of corporate and product planning. “The all-new Sonata is the outcome of our engineering approach to ensure that every vehicle attribute is developed with a sense of integration, designed to deliver a premium driving experience.” It was a mission to reduce noise and O’Brien said the ride is so quiet that “maybe you can hear a pin drop.” Zuchowski described the vehicle as “tomb-like in its silence.” He said, “Sonata is the next step in this engineering tour de force, bringing premium segment features to the midsize segment in a way that no existing competitor has managed to achieve yet.” •

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The Hyundai Motor Co. design team from Korea visited the company’s manufacturing facility in Montgomery to discuss the LF Sonata. That’s code for the seventh generation 2015 Sonata.

PROJECT TEAM TRAINS IN KOREA by David Zaslawsky photography by Robert Fouts

Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama (HMMA) employees learned about the composition of the all-new Sonata and were asked for feedback to make improvements in the design. “What we want to do is minimize the amount of effort required for team members to perform a part assembly,” said Ashley Frye, vice president of production for HMMA. “You refine that through the design of the parts.” He said it’s important that employees don’t have to perform a lot of fitting, which would eat up valuable time. The Montgomery plant sent about 100 employees to Korea to train on the vehicle. They were there for about three weeks, spending a lot of time at the $69 million pilot plant at the Namyang Research & Development Center. It amounts to training the eventual trainers. Those 100 were tasked to develop plans about how the car would be produced. That project team “figures out where the

Montgomery Business Journal 0%-B([SR B0D\ LQGG

Summer 2014

differences between the current platform and the new platform that’s coming in to us and how can we position those changes into our processes with the least impact in terms of moving equipment and process operations,” Frye said. The bottom line is keeping the same pattern in place as much as possible. The project team develops the training requirements and components are sent from Korea so employees can train offline. Remember while all this is going on, the production department is still manufacturing 2014 Sonatas and 2014 Elantras – lots of them. “Those 100 come back and use the knowledge that they’ve acquired in Korea and transfer that to other production team members at HMMA,” said Rick Neal, senior vice president for human relations and administration. There are designated areas where the training takes place and all production employees from three different shifts learn about the new model and the new components. Some employees may train for up to four hours at a time and are replaced on the assembly line by another production worker or supervisor.

The new vehicle is also going through a validation process at the plant, which means “that we are confirming that the vehicle is meeting the design specification,” Frye said. That validation continues after the 2015 Sonata is at full production mode “to make sure that everything is as it should be.”

desert and high altitude. Those vehicles may end up with 70,000 miles in a couple of months, Frye said.

Through its product development department and quality control personnel, HMMA works with its suppliers, which will be sending the new components to the Montgomery plant. Actually, Ashley Frye is vice president HMMA pays for the new Yet the detailed training of production for HMMA. equipment needed by suppliers to process is unable to manufacture the new parts. The new create all aspects of launch, which takes two to three years, will building a vehicle – the difference of putting parts together offline as opposed to when they cost hundreds of millions of dollars. are on a conveyor in real time. Not all jobs on the assembly are equal, according to Frye. “Some jobs – simply Hundreds of vehicles were made in the put – are easier than others,” he said while pre-production cycle. Those vehicles were some are more complicated such as hanging used for numerous purposes, including crash the doors on the vehicle, which requires “a testing in Korea and for marketing personnel lot of technique and finesse of handling the at Hyundai Motor America. equipment that’s handling all the weight.” The pre-production vehicles, which have a Frye’s rule of thumb is that assembly line combined 1 million-plus miles on them, are employees get accustomed to the new driven in a wide range of conditions: snow,

components after 10,000 repetitions. “What that does is put that muscle memory in place so that you really can almost do the job blindfolded,” Frye said, but immediately added that there are no blindfolded workers on the assembly line. He said that there are “subtle differences” with the majority of assembly line jobs. “When the designers are putting together the design package for the vehicle, they determine as part of their bogie (target) … they have many targets for overall vehicle pricing; each of the component prices; the cost of the tooling to make the parts and part of the objectives that are provided is also the manpower to assemble it,” Frye said. “What they determine is the design allocation time to put the car together. They roll all that time together to us in a big bucket and we figure out how to make it happen within our own processes.” The target for labor allocation did change with the new model, but the assembly line remains fixed at the rate of 73 units per hour. Just how involved is a new vehicle launch? “I was here at 11 o’clock last night,” Frye said. •

Summer 2014 Montgomery Business Journal

GROWTH THROUGH TRIALS Beasley Allen firm still going strong at 35 by David Zaslawsky photography by Robert Fouts

Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

The Montgomery law firm of Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C., grew steadily if not spectacularly for its first 20 years. “We were an Alabama-only law firm,” said Tom Methvin, managing partner and a shareholder as well as president of the board. “We were doing quite well. We were representing mostly consumers and people who had been victims of wrongdoing.” Methvin, who joined the firm in August 1988, nearly nine years after Jere Beasley founded the law firm, said laws were changing in Alabama as were the politics. He said that so-called tort reform has made laws less favorable to the consumer and working people. “By necessity we had to either decide we were going to get real small and stop taking cases or we were going to have to branch out to other states and start a national practice,” Methvin said. “Because of the laws changing in Alabama … we decided we better try other states.” The first state the law firm tried was Mississippi and the litigation on the diet drug Fen-Phen, which led to a nearly $3.8 billion settlement. The drug was pulled from the marketplace. “We started getting involved with a national practice, mostly against the pharmaceutical companies for injuring people on drugs that were pulled from the market,” Methvin said. At the same time, Beasley and Dee Miles were representing the State of Alabama and winning large verdicts in Montgomery County against drug companies overcharging the state’s Medicaid agency $1 billion. “That was good for the firm and good for the state,” Methvin said. It also resonated with other states’ attorneys general. The law firm was hired by Louisiana, Mississippi, Utah, Kansas, Hawaii and Alaska.

Clockwise from top: Jere Beasley, Tom Methvin, Greg Allen.

Now Beasley Allen was a national law firm. “We had a vision and thought we needed to go more national in order to be successful or to be able to help more people,” Methvin said. “Things were changing too quickly in Alabama. We couldn’t just be an Alabama firm any more. That was when we started really pushing the national scene in getting lawyers to send us cases from other places because 90 percent of our cases come from other lawyers.”

The consumer fraud section is at 272 Commerce St. and is run by Miles. The toxic torts section is run by Rhon Jones and is quite busy with BP oil spill lawsuits and claims from the coal ash spill from the Tennessee Valley Authority. That section operates out of the Hobbie Building. Andy Birchfield runs the mass torts section at 234 Commerce St. The personal injury/products liability section is led by Cole Portis at 218 Commerce St. “I go building-to-building to check on everybody, talk to people and see how things are going,” Methvin said. “My job is to look at the big picture – to sit here and think what kind of cases do we need to be working on now to be helping people over the next three to four years.”

The firm developed four sections – areas of practice – about the same time it went national. “That was the smartest thing and I had nothing to do with it,” Beasley said. He gives all the credit to Methvin. That CONTINUED ON PAGE 54 most likely happened in 1999, according to Methvin. “The law was getting more and more specialized 20 years ago and has gotten even more specialized now,” Methvin said. “We thought a lawyer could develop more expertise if they do the same cases over and over. They learn more who the defendants are; where the documents are; what the defenses are going to be …” Each section not only has a lawyer in charge and its own support staff, but is located in a different building. Methvin described it as “almost like a mini firm.”

Summer 2014 Montgomery Business Journal

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 53

The law firm has handled cases with verdicts and settlements totaling more than $21 billion. The firm has come a long way from its humble beginning back on Jan. 15, 1979, when Beasley hung out his shingle in a leased office on Hull Street with a secretary and legal assistant. He described his early days as “lean” and said that his time in politics – he was lieutenant governor and lost a race for governor – was a detriment to his law practice. “A lot of people did not understand what type lawyer I really was. They equated my practice to a corporate-type practice, which I could not do. It probably took two to three years for the word to get out that I was a trial lawyer and not a corporate-type lawyer.” He remembers owing $1 million from a political campaign, but not the amount that was loaned for operating money to fund his fledging law firm. He said in the early days clients “weren’t beating down the door trying to get in.”

Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

Beasley said he hired a lawyer the following year after judge Bob Varner said his law clerk Frank Wilson needed a job. Beasley said that Varner said, ‘you probably can’t afford to hire him, but he doesn’t need any money because he is already rich.’ I said, judge, you’re right. I really can’t afford it, but if he wants to come, I’ll be glad to talk to him.” Beasley said he hired Wilson and they agreed on a percentage basis – Beasley received 75 percent; Wilson got 25 percent. Greg Allen, who is a shareholder, was the second lawyer to join the firm. Beasley recalled telling Allen, ‘Greg, we can’t afford to hire you. He said, ‘I can work for nothing.” Allen, who went to law school at night, did work for six months without pay. That was 34 years ago. “He (Allen) ends up being the best product liability lawyer in the United States of America,” Beasley said. The firm’s first multi-million dollar case was a $5 million verdict in a fraud case in the early 1980s, Beasley said.

Beasley eventually moved the firm and bought a two-story building at 418 Hull St. The new office had room for 12 to 15 people and Allen said it might have been 3,000 square feet. The growing law firm then moved to the Bell Building, leasing two floors – an estimated 16,000 square feet. The firm had eight lawyers in 1989 and that increased to 15 to 18 by 1998. The firm moved to Commerce Street after outgrowing the Bell Building. “We’ve grown at an extraordinary rapid pace the last five years,” Beasley said and credits the Vioxx litigation and a nearly $4.9 billion settlement against Merck & Co. for that growth. There were other large verdicts, including $11.9 billion against ExxonMobil Corp. The firm works on a contingency basis and if Beasley Allen loses a lawsuit it not only receives nothing, but is stuck with expenses. Beasley said the firm could easily spend $200,000 to $300,000 in a normal product liability case involving an automobile. That

money is for experts and investigators â&#x20AC;&#x201C; not for the lawyers. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t charge time,â&#x20AC;? Beasley said. He expects the firmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s costs in the BP oil spill will total $1 million. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You have to watch the cash flow,â&#x20AC;? Beasley said. Methvin examines potential new areas for the law firm that would fit into the four existing sections. Beasley Allen is looking at the credit card hacking at Target as well as asbestos cases; oil and gas and securities. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We look at new areas all the time,â&#x20AC;? Methvin said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We see what other people are doing and see if we need to be in that kind of work.â&#x20AC;? His job is crunching the numbers â&#x20AC;&#x201C; â&#x20AC;&#x153;make sure we pay the light bill. We are not looking to get any bigger. We like the size we are now.â&#x20AC;? If necessary, the firm hires additional lawyers on a contract basis and uses an agency for temporary employees. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We are kind of maxed out on employees and space,â&#x20AC;? Methvin said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We are really not looking to add a bunch of employees or

â&#x20AC;&#x153;We had a vision and thought we needed to go more national in order to be successful or to be able to help more people.â&#x20AC;? - Tom Methvin, managing partner, shareholder, and president of the board space, but we do use contract people from time-to-time.â&#x20AC;? The firm turned 35 years old earlier this year and the firm has survived because of what Allen said was â&#x20AC;&#x153;hard work, success, dedication and really good, talented lawyers. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been very fortunate to find people that are really good at what they do and not afraid to work.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;˘

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Summer 2014 Montgomery Business Journal

The Beasley Allen law firm operates in four buildings on Commerce Street and owns three of them.

Allen said that the lot was sold to the city at a profit. “That was the only real estate deal we ever made that was productive,” he said. The firm was accused of a sweetheart deal. “I wanted to just keep my lot,” Allen said. “I wanted to keep my security because I didn’t want (city officials) to come back later and say you need more parking.” He entered into an agreement with the city that parking would be provided and the firm would pay market rate.

BRINGING COMMERCE BACK TO COMMERCE STREET by David Zaslawsky photography by Robert Fouts

Then-Montgomery Mayor Emory Folmar told Greg Allen, a shareholder in the law firm of Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C., that he had to buy an empty lot for parking near the downtown office. “It was an accident that we ended up with that lot,” Allen said, referring to the land where Riverwalk Stadium was built for the Montgomery Biscuits, a minor league team of the Tampa Bay Rays. The firm also had some lawyers working in an office there in an old railroad building.

By the way, Allen does not recall how much money the city paid for the lot, but he did consult developer Jerry Kyser, president of Jerry Kyser Builder Inc., on what he would sell the lot for. “He gave me a number and I reduced it by $1 a foot and that’s what I sold it to the city for,” Allen said. Although the $26 million Riverwalk Stadium was built there, at the time of the lot sale, the plan was to build the facility a block away. What would have happened to downtown Montgomery if Jere Beasley, the founder and shareholder in the firm, and Allen had not been forced to buy the parking lot and later sold it to the city? Local officials constantly cite Riverwalk Stadium as a catalyst for downtown development. It was 10 years ago that the Biscuits opened the stadium and four years later that the Renaissance Montgomery Hotel & Spa at the Convention Center opened. It was five years after the Biscuits played their home opener that The Alley opened. That is the economic development impact of Beasley and Allen. Why Allen and Beasley bought the three buildings the law firm has on Commerce Street has nothing to do with being astute real estate investors or developers for that matter. Allen said he became responsible for the firm’s real estate because “I found this building (218 Commerce St.).” It was purchased from Durr-Fillauer Medical. “I told Jere that I found a new home for the Beasley firm.” He recalled telling Beasley that “it’s a great building and the best thing of all it has plenty of room for expansion. By the time we renovated it, we were full.”

Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

When 218 Commerce St. was purchased, “downtown Montgomery was as dead as a doornail, especially this area of downtown (Lower Commerce Street),” Beasley said. “We decided to buy the building and take a chance.” Allen and Beasley – not the firm – own those three buildings. “We both shared these same feelings about these old buildings,” Allen said. “They are just too beautiful. Brick and wood – that’s a lot of history. Not a lot of cities have this many classic, old buildings that could be restored.” Could be restored is a relative term. The firm spent about $6 million restoring the three Commerce Street buildings the law firm uses. There was a small building between 218 Commerce St. and 234 Commerce St. that could not be saved and now is used as a parking lot. A small piece of that building hangs over the parking lot. Allen traded a parking lot for the building at 234 Commerce St., which was owned by a group of lawyers from the Montgomery firm of Capell & Howard, P.C. Beasley and

Allen bought the building at 272 Commerce St. because they had already outgrown their space. The law firm’s buildings helped shape that part of Commerce Street and the firm’s economic impact has grown astronomically over the years from leasing a 2,000-square foot office in the Winter Building on Hull Street in 1979 to the 70,000-plus square feet it now has in those three Commerce Street buildings and the parts of two floors leased in the Hobbie Building. First of all, Beasley and Allen have been key investors in The Alley, owning the buildings of Bistro B, The Dauber Gallery, SaZa Serious Italian Food, Alley Station, Jalapeno’s in The Alley. Another building is currently under construction. That’s millions of more dollars invested.

registered for last year’s event. It is the largest conference of its kind, according to Dawn Hathcock, vice president, Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce’s Convention & Visitor Bureau. She estimated that the economic impact from last year’s conference at the Renaissance was $1 million, and of course, the accolades that Montgomery receives as a meeting destination are priceless. Through the years – 35 of them – the Beasley Allen law firm has grown from three people (one attorney, secretary and legal assistant) to 300-plus employees, including 75 to 80 attorneys. The law firm has a multi-million dollar annual payroll, said Tom Methvin, managing partner and shareholder of the firm and president of the board. An annual, multi-million dollar payroll is itself a powerful economic impact. •

Eight years ago, the firm hosted an annual legal conference and drew about 400 people to that inaugural event. More than 2,000

Summer 2014 Montgomery Business Journal

‘We have a dangerous world’ Rogers warns about U.S. foreign policy by David Zaslawsky

As a member of the House Armed Services committee, Rep. Mike Rogers is disturbed by what he calls little or no action from the Obama administration on Syria, Russia, North Korea and Iran and the message it sends to America’s allies.

Rep. Mike Rogers

Speaking at a Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce Eggs & Issues, Rogers asked, “How can Japan or South Korea expect the United States to defend them after the U.S. threatens Syria and Russia and does nothing?” Rogers said that Obama should not warn Russian President Vladimir Putin about

Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

consequences if there are no consequences. That’s also how Obama responded to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, according to Rogers. NATO allies near Ukraine, where Russia has thousands of troops inside the country and on its border, as well as the Balkan countries “are now wondering if they’re next and if we’re going to do anything,” Rogers said. “We have very nervous friends now in South Korea and Japan” as well as Western Europe. “When they see the United States telling a small dictator in a small country, ‘You better behave or else,’ and then you don’t follow through, it makes them nervous.

What if China (or North Korea) starts messing with these folks in Asia? Are we going to be there or not?” He said the United States can respond to Russia’s incursions without putting boots on the ground by: > Installing a radar system in the Czech Republic. > Placing an intercept missile system in Romania in six months instead of the scheduled 12 months. > Placing an intercept missile system in Poland next year instead of 2017. “All of these things horrify Russia because it kind of puts a fence around them,” Rogers said. “Those are the things that will make him (Putin) stand down.” The national security issues are further compounded by Obama’s goal of a defense budget that is 3 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), Rogers said. The current budget is 4 percent, but should be 5 percent or 6 percent, Rogers said.

“We have a dangerous world,” said Rogers, who chairs the Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee that oversees nuclear weapons, missile systems and satellites. “We don’t know where we’re going to be next. We have fires we have to put out everywhere. And we are the world’s only superpower.” For Rogers, defense spending is a top priority. He said he has two primary objectives as a member of the Armed Services Committee: “If we go to war with somebody, it’s not a fair fight and … we fight it on their homeland.” He acknowledged his bleak assessment of international affairs after he presented what he called a “bleak” domestic picture. Rogers said he “was very concerned” about the Affordable Care Act’s impact this fall on large companies. “I’m really concerned that people are going to be scared as they learn they can’t afford their health insurance or it’s going to be so expensive it’s going to hinder their ability to make ends meet,” he said. That’s the reason he said the Senate will switch to Republican control after the November election. “As a Republican,

I’m happy to see the Senate become Republican, but not under these circumstances,” he said. “I think people are going to be terrified, angry and unfortunately are going to have unrealistic expectations about what a Republican Senate would mean. The fact is, even if the Senate goes Republican, we’re still going to have a Democrat president and his namesake piece of legislation (Obamacare). He’s not going to let it be repealed. It’s going to be a very difficult time for our country this fall and going into next year, but it is what it is and we’ll make the most of it.” With the election cycle looming, Rogers expects “nothing of significance is going to happen ...” in Congress this year because he said that there are “fundamental, philosophical differences between the two chambers.” He said that half the country hates Republicans for blocking Obama’s agenda and half the country hates Republicans “because we can’t stop that socialist (president). That’s just the way it is.” •

Summer 2014 Montgomery Business Journal

Investor Member Profile Profile BUSINESS BUZZ (CONTINUED FROM PAGE 63)

Admiral Movers President and CEO Scott McNelley (orange shirt) celebrates the companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 25th anniversary with employees.

Always Moving Forward Admiral Movers celebrates 25th anniversary by Melissa George Bowman

photography by Robert Fouts

On a pleasant April afternoon, Admiral Movers President and CEO Scott McNelley addressed friends, family, staff and clients at the companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 25th anniversary celebration.

Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

ADMIRAL MOVERS YEAR FOUNDED

1989 Standing outside in a spot his team often meets to plan large moves, he reflected on how far the business has come and expressed gratitude for the people who have made its success possible. “This (25th anniversary) is really about all of these folks (employees and family),” he said. “We send them out and I don’t even know where they go sometimes. They take care of us.” The people at Admiral Movers are not just movers in the literal sense. For 25 years this company has committed to always moving forward in terms of growth, ideas, innovation and technology, with customer service being its highest priority. Admiral Movers has come a long way since it began in 1989. Originally housed in a small cotton warehouse in downtown Montgomery, the company started with a single pick-up truck that had seen better days. The young business faced its first bout of adversity when that truck burned and McNelley says they became a “moving company without a truck.” However, they soon overcame this and other obstacles. “If you’ve been in business and you haven’t been flat on your back or almost flat on your back, then you haven’t been in business very long,” he said. “It’s those lessons and that training that will lead to your long-term success.” Perseverance eventually paid off. After some initial struggles, Admiral began benefitting from a reputation it was earning for quality and professionalism. While the business has always done a large share of household moves, from the beginning its focus has been office moves and those are what set it apart. “We basically invented office moving the way it’s done in Central Alabama,” McNelley said. According to McNelley, there is a “wide chasm” between the way office movers and household movers must approach a job. For instance, there cannot be much down time for a business because profits are lost every day it is not operational. This is the kind of challenge Admiral loves to meet head on. Over the years, its employees, who McNelley says are “all really good problem solvers,” have invented systems and equipment that offer clients time and money-saving solutions. One example is a “boxless” moving system the company created. It saves businesses time because they do not have to pack and unpack. Admiral transports everything on a special set of rolling shelves that allow files to stay in order and be instantly accessible when they arrive at their new destination. This kind of ingenuity is one reason Admiral has experienced such growth in its 25 years. Eventually the company outgrew the little cotton warehouse and in 2004 moved to a 23,000-square-foot facility on Newell Parkway – and they have kept growing. Last fall the company added 18,000 square feet of warehouse space. Today, Admiral not only serves customers in the River Region and throughout Alabama, its list of clients also extends to Georgia, Florida, Mississippi and Louisiana. Additionally, the company has shipped to every state and nearly every continent.

AFFILIATIONS

IN 2006 ADMIRAL MOVERS BECAME AN AGENT FOR MAYFLOWER TRANSIT LLC AND THE UNIGROUP COMPANIES WEBSITES

WWW.ADMIRALMOVERS.COM AND WWW.ADMIRALRECORDSMANAGEMENT.COM business of records management, and so in 2006 Admiral Records Management was born. The company specializes in helping offices and individuals move, store, access and secure their protected information in the most efficient and economical way possible. “Everybody has protected information,” McNelley said. “We offer a lot of people a firewall between their physical operation and their information assets.” Among Admiral Records Management’s clients are businesses wanting to go paperless in the digital age; those who want the added protection of storing important documents offsite; and those who want to free up office space by relocating years’ worth of boxes. “Storing boxes in your office no longer makes that much economic sense,” McNelley said. “We can store for pennies and nickels what they’re storing in their class A space.” The service and solutions Admiral Movers and Admiral Records Management have provided have earned them numerous awards. One of which McNelley is most proud is the 2013 River Region Ethics in Business Award. “The fact that people think of us as ethical means a lot because it says a lot about our people,” he said. Looking ahead, McNelley says the company will keep delving into the latest technology and “continue to look for a better mousetrap on the moving side and the records side.” With more global industries establishing roots in Alabama he also sees international business on the horizon. In fact, last year Admiral shipped 400,000 pounds of cotton manufacturing equipment to India. Whether across the globe or right here in the River Region, Admiral’s clients have one thing in common: they are doing business with a company that cares. “We try every day to win over the customer and (have) them think of us as something more than just a company that comes out and moves them,” McNelley said. •

Physical growth is not the only way the company has expanded. It has increased the types of services it provides as well. As an experienced office mover, it was a natural progression for Admiral to go into the Summer 2014 Montgomery Business Journal

When someone co-founds two medical companies it should not be a shock to hear that same person has started a third one with a partner and returned to the highly successful field of generics.

Carl Whatley is co-founder of Vitruvias Therapeutics, a generic medical company.

NEXTGENERATION GENERICS Whatley working on third medical company by David Zaslawsky

Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

photography by Robert Fouts

Carl Whatley’s latest co-venture, which was 13 months old in June and was expected to hire its first full-time employee the same month, is in a highly specialized area. The company, Vitruvias Therapeutics, is “developing generic products that have a moderate to high barrier to entry,” Whatley said. In layman’s terms, that means products that are difficult to formulate or difficult to manufacture. Vitruvias will develop products that fit into both categories. He said it’s a higher risk, higher reward market. It costs more to develop these type of generics “and the number of people out there who do the formulation work in the products that we’re (involved with) is low,” Whatley said. “In the generic business, it’s supply and demand, so the more participants you have selling a generic product, the lower the price. The fewer you have – the higher the price.” The company is developing generic creams and ointments – no pills. The products will be used for fungal and bacterial infections. “We’re looking at some interesting opportunities in the wound care space,” said Whatley, who co-founded ProEthic Pharmaceuticals which was sold to Kowa Pharmaceuticals. He was also co-founder of Midlothian Laboratories, a generic drug company which was a wholly owned subsidiary of ProEthic. “It was immensely profitable,” Whatley said. “We made money from day one with the business.”

Midlothian was sold to an Australian company. His partner, Bryce Harvey, retired from Midlothian last January and “identified” opportunities in the generic topical products that are both difficult to formulate and manufacture. The “wound care space” is a $350 million-a-year market, according to Whatley, and he projects that Vitruvias will grab 10 percent to 15 percent of the market share. His conservative forecast is $30 million a year in sales for the company’s first products, which took 10 months to develop. “We had to essentially reverse engineer every component in these products,” Whatley said. It will take two more years for the company’s first generic products to reach market, all the while there has been quite a lot of money outgoing. Whatley called it “an expensive endeavor.” About $5 million has been raised from investors, including “a considerable amount personally,” Whatley said. He hopes to raise more seed money. The company has developed three products and is in the process of getting FDA approval. With a new FDA user fee of $64,000 per product under review, the approval process has been cut from three years to two years with a goal of 10 months by 2017.

PERFECT SPACE PERFECT PLACE

When Whatley first started in the generic business, brand names ate up more than 90 percent of the market. Now generics are 85 percent of the market and prices are increasing because: > Production has declined in India after increased regulations and inspections. > The Affordable Care Act will increase the number of people using generic products. > Consolidation in the industry. Two more areas that Whatley is looking at are eye products and injectables. The company is looking at four potential opportunities in the “very attractive” eye market, Whatley said. “Just going through the diligence of trying to determine if this is something you want to do takes several months,” he said. “You have to look at markets; you have to look at competition; you have to look at potential development costs; potential barriers.”

“We had to essentially reverse engineer every component in these products,” Whatley said.

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He said that most of the current drug shortages are for injectables because there are not a lot of manufacturing facilities. The company is considering generic steroid products. Whatley said that one of the advantages of the generic market is that the products are automatically substituted for brand names at the retail level. “You could cover the whole country with three or four account representatives in the generic business,” he said. You just need to have the product in distribution facilities.” •

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Summer 2014 Montgomery Business Journal

Member News

BUSINESS BUZZ ALABAMA AG CREDIT RETURNS $6.1 MILLION PATRONAGE TO CUSTOMERS

James L. Bassett

W. Thomas Dozier III

Timothy D. Tucker

MONTGOMERY – Alabama Ag Credit recently declared a $6.1 million cash patronage to its customers and two members of Alabama Ag Credit’s board of directors were re-elected during the recent annual stockholders’ meeting. W. Thomas Dozier III of Montgomery and Timothy D. Tucker of Uriah were both reelected to three-year terms on the board. Dozier has been farming for 46 years and is majority owner of W.T. Dozier Farms, Inc., an Elmore County-based farming operation with principal commodities of cotton, grain, cattle and hay. He graduated from Auburn University with a degree in agricultural economics. Tucker has been a full-time farmer all his adult life and his operation primarily produces cotton, cattle and peanuts. He is also a stockholder, vice president and board member of Monroe County Gin, a cotton-ginning and warehousing operation. The record patronage amount was based on the co-op’s 2013 financial results and was approved by the Alabama Ag Credit board of directors.

Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

Patronage payments are based on the amount of business a borrower does with the co-op and lower the borrowers’ cost of borrowing. As a cooperative, Alabama Ag Credit is owned by its borrower-stockholders. When the co-op performs well, it shares its earnings with its stockholders.

Some of the criteria used for the adviser list are client assets, return on assets compliance records and client satisfaction/ retention. The advisers must have at least seven years of experience overall and one year with their current firm.

“Our association again achieved very strong financial results — loan volume grew, credit quality continues to improve and earnings and capital remain strong,” James L. Bassett, chairman of the Alabama Ag Credit board of directors, said in a statement. The co-op, which is a member of the nationwide Farm Credit System, has returned more than $36 million in cash to its borrowers since 2006. Alabama Ag Credit provides financing for farms, timber and forestry operations, agribusinesses, recreational land and other rural property in 40 counties in southern Alabama. The financing co-op operates offices in Demopolis, Dothan, Enterprise, Loxley, Monroeville, Montgomery, Opelika, Selma and Tuscaloosa.

BARRON’S MAGAZINE RECOGNIZES TWO MERRILL LYNCH FINANCIAL ADVISERS MONTGOMERY – Two financial advisers from Merrill Lynch’s office in Montgomery have been recognized as top advisers in the state by Barron’s magazine. Robert Runkle and Laurie Russell were named to Barron’s “America’s 1,200 Advisors: State-by State list.” Runkle has been with the firm’s Montgomery office for 31 years and Russell has been with Merrill Lynch for 20 years.

Patrick Ryan

JACKSON HOSPITAL UNVEILS STRYKER iSUITES MONTGOMERY – Jackson Hospital unveiled its latest surgical technology – the Stryker iSuites for navigated spine surgery. The system uses computerassisted technology to act as a GPS for the human body, giving doctors more precision than ever before. As the only hospital in the River Region with this new technology, Jackson Hospital’s physicians are excited about how tiny cameras and 3-D imaging are changing the way spine surgeries are performed. “The Stryker iSuite lets me see all the information that comes back from the sensors and monitors during surgery in one central location, and I can then make precise adjustments as needed,” Dr. Patrick Ryan, a neurosurgeon at Jackson Hospital, said in a statement. “The surgeon’s experience, combined with this technology that navigates an exact surgical path, provides a better outcome for the most important person in the room – the patient. The latest in spine care is right here in Montgomery.”

and career enhancement. She is an experienced and strategic partner with businesses, major corporations, universities, community groups, charitable organizations and independent professionals.

Christy M. Pruitt-Haynes

BUSINESS OWNER CREATES CORE CONSULTING MONTGOMERY – Christy M. Pruitt-Haynes has established Creating Organizational Resourcefulness & Excellence (CORE) Consulting. Pruitt-Haynes is an experienced facilitator, trainer, coach and speaker who provides human resources department outsourcing; team, department, and organization-wide training; motivational and informational speaking; and individual coaching

For information, contact Pruitt-Haynes at 3066 Zelda Road, Suite 363 or call her at (334) 399-1926. Her email address is Christy@ COREConsultingOnline.com.

As a personal coach, she helps individuals create a CORE plan for success. Pruitt-Haynes received a master’s degree in human resources development and has a bachelor’s degree in personnel and labor relations. Pruitt-Haynes addresses the latest trends and opportunities in human resources, organizational development and strategic growth on her website: COREConsultingOnline.com. She blogs at: http://blog.csuitenetwork.com/organizationalexcellence-part-1/ and http:// www.inpowerwomen.com/careeraptitude-skills-interests/

Vickie Lawrence

THE SHOPPES AT EASTCHASE FARMER’S MARKET CELEBRATES 10TH ANNIVERSARY MONTGOMERY – The Shoppes at EastChase Farmer’s Market will celebrate its 10th anniversary this year, bringing in more vendors,

cooking demonstrations and fitness options for adults and children throughout the summer. Since opening in 2004, The Shoppes at EastChase Farmer’s Market has grown every year, adding vendors and increasing fresh produce, local cheeses, fresh breads and unique gift items. The market started out with eight vendors and this year will boast 36 vendors. In 2013, the market added a fitness component by introducing yoga classes throughout the season and will again this year, along with CrossFit and Zumba for kids. There will also be live cooking demonstrations hosted by Williams-Sonoma and wellness seminars from Earth Fare Organic Grocer. “We have seen a huge growth of the market over the past 10 years,” Vickie Lawrence, (CONTINUED ON PAGE 66)

Summer 2014 Montgomery Business Journal

BUSINESS BUZZ (CONTINUED FROM PAGE 65) marketing manager at The Shoppes at EastChase, said in a statement. “The market has become a Saturday tradition for families, and we try to offer something for the entire family – whether that be shopping, cooking seminars or fitness options. We want to be more than just a market – we want to be a hub that encourages health and wellness for the entire family.”

The farmer’s market will be open 7 a.m.-noon every Saturday through Aug. 30. For information about the farmer’s market, call (334) 279-6046.

ALABAMA MUNICIPAL ELECTRIC AUTHORITY NAMES PRESIDENT’S AWARD WINNERS MONTGOMERY – Bilee Cauley of Wetumpka and Luverne Mayor Joe Rex Sport were the recipients of the Alabama Municipal Electric Authority (AMEA) President’s Award. Cauley worked as a paralegal at the Montgomery law firm of Johnson and Thorington from

Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

1979 until her graduation from law school. The firm then hired her as an associate. She was appointed assistant reporter of decisions for the Alabama appellate courts in July 1989. She was the first person to occupy that newly created position. In October 2001, she was appointed reporter of decisions for the Alabama appellate courts. She is the first woman to hold that position. She was instrumental in the 1981 formation of AMEA from Alabama municipal electric utilities. Sport, who has served as Luverne mayor since January 2003, was on the Luverne City Council from 1989-2003. He was on the AMEA board of directors from 1989 until 2003, serving as secretary. He also served on the AMEA Budget/Audit/

Rate Committee. He currently represents Luverne on the AMEA Election Committee, a seat he has held since 2004. “Bilee and Mayor Sport are true AMEA pioneers,” Fred Clark, president and CEO of AMEA, said in a statement. “AMEA has become a valued partner in Alabama’s electric utility community due to their leadership and dedication.” AMEA, located in Montgomery, is the wholesale power provider for 11 public power utilities in Alabama, which serve some 350,000 customers in the cities of Alexander City, Dothan, Fairhope, Foley, LaFayette, Lanett, Luverne, Opelika, Piedmont, Sylacauga and Tuskegee.

BUSINESS BUZZ BEASLEY ALLEN ATTORNEYS NAMED TO SUPER LAWYERS LIST MONTGOMERY – Fourteen Beasley Allen attorneys were selected for inclusion on the 2014 Super Lawyers list. Included on the list are the firm’s founding shareholder, Jere L. Beasley as well as shareholders J. Greg Allen, Michael J. Crow, Thomas J. Methvin, J. Cole Portis, W. Daniel “Dee” Miles III, Andy D. Birchfield Jr., Rhon E. Jones, Benjamin E. Baker Jr., Julia A. Beasley, Kendall C. Dunson, Ted G. Meadows, Roman A. Shaul and C. Gibson Vance. Four Beasley Allen attorneys also were included on the Super Lawyers “Rising Stars” list, which recognizes the top up-andcoming attorneys – those who are

40 years old or younger or who have been practicing 10 years or less. Beasley Allen’s Rising Stars are Christopher D. Boutwell, Christopher D. Glover, Danielle Ward Mason and J. Parker Miller. Super Lawyers, a Thomson Reuters business, is a researchdriven, peer influenced rating service of outstanding lawyers who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. The mission of Super Lawyers is to bring visibility to those attorneys who exhibit excellence in practice.

MAX4KIDS DONATES $25,000 TO HIGH SCHOOL SENIORS

organization created in 2000 by MAX Credit Union employees to give back to the community. The foundation has awarded more than $315,000 through the MAX4Kids Scholarship Program to high school seniors for their scholastic achievements and nearly $800,000 to local children’s charities.

MONTGOMERY – The MAX4Kids Foundation donated $25,000 to 10 Central Alabama high school seniors. “MAX4Kids salutes all the great young people who competed for our scholarships this year,” D. G. Markwell, MAX Credit Union senior vice president of marketing and MAX4Kids Foundation president, said in a statement. “We also congratulate these outstanding winners, and know they have bright futures in higher education and in their careers to come.”The MAX4Kids Foundation is a nonprofit

The Super Lawyers lists are published in Super Lawyers Magazines and in leading city and regional magazines across the country. The Super Lawyers Magazines also feature editorial profiles of attorneys.

(CONTINUED ON PAGE 68)

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'ƌĂƉŚŝĐƐ Θ DĂŝůŝŶŐ ^ĞƌǀŝĐĞ͕ /ŶĐ͘ ;'D^͕ /ŶĐ͘Ϳ ŽĨĨĞƌƐ ƐŽƵŶĚ ĂŶĚ ƉƌŽǀĞŶ ƐƚƌĂƚĞŐŝĞƐ Θ ƐŽůƵƚŝŽŶƐ ĨŽƌ Ăůů ǇŽƵƌ ĚŝƌĞĐƚ ŵĂƌŬĞƚŝŶŐ ĐŚĂůůĞŶŐĞƐ͘ tĞ ĐĂŶ ŚĞůƉ ǇŽƵ ĨŝŶĚ ŶĞǁ ĐƵƐƚŽŵĞƌƐ͕ ǁŝŶ ŵŽƌĞ ƐĂůĞƐ ĂŶĚ ŵŽƚŝǀĂƚĞ ƌĞƉĞĂƚ ďƵƐŝŶĞƐƐ ĂŶĚ ƌĞĨĞƌƌĂůƐ͘ dŚĞ ƌĞƐƵůƚ ŝƐ ŝŶĐƌĞĂƐĞĚ ĐƵƐƚŽŵĞƌ ƚƌĂŶƐĂĐƚŝŽŶĂů ǀĂůƵĞ ĂŶĚ ƌĞůĂƚŝŽŶƐŚŝƉ ŐƌŽǁƚŚ͘ 'D^͕ /ŶĐ͘ ƉƌŽǀŝĚĞƐ ƚƌĂĚŝƚŝŽŶĂů ƉƌŝŶƚ ĂŶĚ ĚŝƌĞĐƚ ŵĂŝů ƐƚƌĂƚĞŐŝĞƐ ĂůŽŶŐ ǁŝƚŚ ĞǆĐŝƚŝŶŐ ĚŝŐŝƚĂů ƐŽůƵƚŝŽŶƐ ŝŶĐůƵĚŝŶŐ ƉĞƌƐŽŶĂůŝǌĞĚ ƉƌŝŶƚ ĂŶĚ ĞŵĂŝů ĐĂŵƉĂŝŐŶƐ͘

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Summer 2014 Montgomery Business Journal

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David Allred

J. Parker Miller

CENTRAL ALABAMA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION PLACES STAMP IDEA GROUP PRINCIPAL ON BOARD OF DIRECTORS

BEASLEY ALLEN SHAREHOLDER NAMED TO LAW360 RISING STARS

MONTGOMERY â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Stamp Idea Group Principal David Allred has been named to the board of directors for the Central Alabama Community Foundation (CACF).

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The Central Alabama Community Foundation is a nonprofit philanthropic organization established in 1987 by a group of local civic leaders for the betterment of the local community. Since its founding, CACF has grown to hold $36 million-plus in charitable assets while distributing more than $19 million to organizations that serve the community. Through its 190-plus funds, CACF addresses a wide variety of concerns, supporting projects and programs in education, health, human services, cultural arts, recreation, historic preservation and other civic concerns. The foundation also oversees several affiliated funds designed to address needs in Autauga County, Elmore County and Southeast Alabama. Allred is a graduate of Huntingdon College with a bachelorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s degree in finance and computer science. He joined LWT Communications in 1992 and became partner in 1994 when he and Jim Leonard bought the firm. In 2013, LWT merged with Reid/Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Donahue Advertising to form Stamp Idea Group.

MONTGOMERY â&#x20AC;&#x201C; J. Parker Miller, a shareholder at the law firm of Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C., has been included in the 2014 Law360 Rising Stars rankings. Law360â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Rising Stars profiles the top legal talent younger than 40. The winners are comprised of top litigators and dealmakers practicing at a level usually seen from veteran attorneys. Miller is a lawyer in the firmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s environmental section, and focuses primarily on complex litigation and property owner and business-on-business environmental litigation. He has counseled some of the largest business entities in the Southeast, and has served as cocounsel to Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley in the valuation of the State of Alabamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s oil spill claims. Parker graduated high school from Marengo Academy in 2001. He attended Auburn University and received a bachelorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s degree in business administration in 2005, and he received his law degree from Faulkner University in 2008.

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BUSINESS BUZZ

Annamarie Wendlandt Jones

AUM COLLEGE OF BUSINESS HONORS JACKSON THORNTON PRINCIPAL MONTGOMERY â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Jackson Thornton Principal Annamarie Wendlandt Jones was recently honored as the 2014 Outstanding Business Leader by the College of Business at Auburn University at Montgomery. The prestigious award is not exclusively for AUM alumni. Jones was unanimously selected from a group of River Region business leaders. She was

recognized for her service as the co-chair of the Business Finance Career Academy Advisory Board; a member of the Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce Women in Business Steering Committee; and a member of the Family Sunshine Center Advisory Council.

Jones has worked as a certified public accountant with Jackson Thornton since graduating from AUM in 1994. Jackson Thornton is a certified public accounting and consulting firm.

Jones was also recognized for her role as an active volunteer for AUM serving as the treasurer of the AUM Alumni Association; College of Business Deanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Advisory Council; and chairperson of the Accounting Department Advisory Board. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We are very proud of Annamarie,â&#x20AC;? Ned Sheffield, president and managing partner of Jackson Thornton, said in a statement. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Her commitment to the business community, her clients and AUM is evident and we are fortunate to have her on our team.â&#x20AC;?

Prosthetists and Orthotists by Gov. Robert Bentley. Gary, who is also a general surgeon with The Jackson Clinic, will represent physicians while making important decisions that impact the citizens of Alabama. He will serve a four-year term that expires in September 2017. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Honesty and integrity are two virtues that I prioritize for my administration to exemplify, and I know that you will do the same while in service to our great state,â&#x20AC;? Bentley said in a letter to Gary.

Brian C. Gary

JACKSON HOSPITAL PHYSICIAN APPOINTED TO STATE BOARD OF PROSTHETISTS AND ORTHOTISTS MONTGOMERY â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Jackson Hospital Chief of Surgery Dr. Brian C. Gary was appointed to the Alabama State Board of

The mission of the Alabama State Board of Prosthetists and Orthotists is â&#x20AC;&#x153;to safeguard the health, safety and welfare of the people of Alabama against the unauthorized, unqualified, and improper administration of prosthetic and orthotic care.â&#x20AC;? (CONTINUED ON PAGE 70)

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Summer 2014 Montgomery Business Journal

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Business Journal Summer 2014

5/22/2014 9:38:54 AM

“This design retains a small amount of residual magnetism, so when it is switched on by the crew, the new ES-10024B-5 has the ability to develop 100-amps of electrical power without the use of a separate power source,” Disbrow said. Mike Disbrow

DAHER-SOCATA SELECTS ALTERNATOR FROM HARTZELL ENGINE TECHNOLOGIES MONTGOMERY – Hartzell Engine Technologies President Mike Disbrow announced that DAHER-SOCATA has selected the new lightweight, 100-amp ES-10024B-5 unit as the standby alternator aboard the newgeneration TBM-900 singleengine turboprop aircraft. “The TBM-900 is a truly advanced airplane and we are very proud to have our lightweight, 100-amp standby alternator selected as standard on this exciting new aircraft,” Disbrow said in a statement. “While the new ES-10024B-5 shares technologies with other Hartzell alternator units, this model has been developed specifically to meet the unique power requirements of the TBM900’s completely revamped electrical system.” Disbrow said that in order to meet the current regulations, DAHERSOCATA needed a “self-exciting” standby alternator that is able to come on line to power the TBM-900’s electrical system and its Garmin G1000 avionics suite in the extremely unlikely event of a failure in the primary generator and battery.

“DAHER-SOCATA’s selection helps us maintain our leadership position as a provider of alternators for today’s leading single-engine turbine aircraft supplying standby, secondary and even primary electrical power. In addition to the new TBM-900, we provide alternators for the Cessna Caravan, Piper Meridian and the forthcoming Cirrus SF50 Vision personal jet.” SOCATA North America President and CEO Nicolas Chabbert said in a statement that his company selected the Hartzell alternator because of “the company’s reputation; the new technologies they offered; the unit’s light weight and the most important reason – with 100 amps, it gives the pilot the options to select what needs to be loaded in the event of a main generator failure.” • To submit your business news for publication, email a press release to editor@montgomerychamber. com. Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce Members only.

Member News

MEMBERS ON THE MOVE Paul Peiffer

David Christenberry

David Christenberry, Darrell McNeal, Mark Evans and Tim Timmons are the new senior vice presidents who have more than a century of combined experience with Alfa.

JACKSON HOSPITAL NAMES CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER MONTGOMERY – Paul Peiffer has been selected as the new chief financial officer for Jackson Hospital. He most recently served as CEO for Covington County Hospital in Mississippi. “Paul brings more than 19 years of experience in hospital administration to Jackson Hospital with past experience in Florida, Missouri and Mississippi,” Jackson Hospital President and CEO Joe Riley said in a statement. “His diverse background in administrative and financial positions makes him an excellent fit to oversee financial operations at Jackson Hospital.” Peiffer received a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Cincinnati. He obtained a master’s degree in hospital and health administration from Xavier University and completed a residency at Mercy Hospital in Miami.

Darrell McNeal

Mark Evans

Tim Timmons

ALFA INSURANCE PROMOTES FOUR TO SENIOR VICE PRESIDENTS MONTGOMERY – Alfa Insurance announced the promotion of four regional sales vice presidents to senior vice presidents in the marketing department.

“We’re proud of their accomplishments and are eager to watch them lead their teams to even greater success,” Executive Vice President of Marketing Al Dees said in a statement. “Together with Marketing Services Senior Vice President Carol Golsan, our five senior vice presidents have more than 150 years of sales and marketing experience.” Christenberry will continue to lead Alfa’s marketing team in south Alabama. A native of Fayette and an Auburn University graduate, Christenberry joined Alfa in 1977 as an agent. He became a district manager in 1978. He was inducted as a charter member of the Alfa Hall of Fame in 1996. McNeal, who is a native of Cullman now living in Woodstock, Georgia, leads Alfa’s Georgia marketing operations. He received a bachelor’s degree in marketing from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Phoenix. McNeal was hired as an agent in 1986 and was promoted to district manager in 1990 before being named a vice president in 1998.

Evans provides leadership for Alfa managers, agents and customer service representatives in Mississippi. He grew up in Columbus, Mississippi, and studied business at Mississippi State University. Evans joined the Alfa marketing team in 1987 as an agent and was promoted to district sales manager in 1998. He was promoted to vice president for Mississippi sales and development in 2010 and regional vice president in 2013. Timmons is from Fort Payne and is a graduate of Faulkner University. He joined Alfa in 1987 as an agent and was promoted to district manager in 1988. In 2013, he was named regional marketing vice president for north Alabama. He was inducted into the company’s Hall of Fame in 2011.

EXIT HODGES REAL ESTATE ADDS 10 AGENTS MONTGOMERY – EXIT Hodges Real Estate has added 10 agents. The new agents are Ruthie Allums, Anna Cox, Kathy Dooley, Jachala Ezell, Bobby Hall, Randy Kinman, Jenny Motyka, Laura Selmon, Towannah Smith and DeeDra Wheeler. (CONTINUED ON PAGE 72)

Summer 2014 Montgomery Business Journal

(CONTINUED FROM PAGE 71)

company with publications near the Lake Martin area.

A.J. Watson

ALABAMA FARMERS FEDERATION HIRES COMMUNICATIONS SPECIALIST MONTGOMERY â&#x20AC;&#x201C; A.J. Watson has joined the Alabama Farmers Federation as an agricultural communications specialist in the department of public relations and communications. Watson, 24, is a 2013 graduate of Troy University, where he studied Spanish and print journalism. He comes to the federation from Tallapoosa Publishers Inc., a newspaper

â&#x20AC;&#x153;A.J. has experience in all phases of the publications business, from writing and photography to advertising,â&#x20AC;? Jeff Helms, publication relations and communications director for the federation, said in a statement. â&#x20AC;&#x153;These skills, coupled with his knowledge of the organization from family connections, will allow him to hit the ground running.â&#x20AC;? Watson will write news and feature stories for the federationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s print publications and website and will work on various public relations projects with other staff members. â&#x20AC;&#x153;My family owns a small tree farm â&#x20AC;&#x201C; both short-leaf and longleaf pine â&#x20AC;&#x201C; near Gantt, so Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m very familiar with the federation culture, and I know it has a

sterling reputation in whatever itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s involved in,â&#x20AC;? Watson said in a statement. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t wait to get in the mix of things and do whatever I can to help the farmers we represent and the employees who work here.â&#x20AC;?

Felicia Long

HILL, HILL, CARTER, FRANCO, COLE & BLACK ANNOUNCE NEW SHAREHOLDER MONTGOMERY â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Felicia Long has joined the law firm of Hill, Hill, Carter, Franco, Cole & Black, P.C., as a shareholder.

Long will continue to focus her practice on complex civil litigation and insurance defense matters. She has successfully represented corporations, small businesses and individuals in state and federal courts throughout Alabama in matters involving first-party and thirdparty insurance claims, coverage questions, fraud, bad faith, arson, theft, construction defects, business/contract disputes, employer liability, premises liability, truck/automobile litigation, and catastrophic injury. Prior to joining the firm, she practiced with another civil defense firm in the state and served as law clerk to Alabama Supreme Court Associate Justice Champ Lyons Jr. Long is a graduate of Auburn University and Faulkner Universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Thomas Goode Jones School of Law. â&#x20AC;˘

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Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

Ribbon Cuttings & Ground Breakings

HERE WE GROW AGAIN CHICKEN SALAD CHICK 7924 Vaughn Road Montgomery, AL 36116 334-649-4828 www.chickensaladchick.com Justin & Cassie Boyd-Franchise Owners Restaurants

SUPER COIN LAUNDRY, LLC 3029 Rosa L. Parks Avenue Montgomery, AL 36105 334-593-6211 Ashraf Hijaz-Officer Laundromat

LITTLE CAESAR’S PIZZA 4021 Atlanta Highway Montgomery, AL 36109 334-819-4900 www.littlecaesars.com Bud Dyess-Franchise Owner Restaurants-Pizza

ISAGENIX 463 South Mobile Street Fairhope, AL 36532 251-205-0523 www.isagenix.com Diane Daniell-Independent Isagenix Consultant Health & Nutrition

SIMPLY SOUTHERN CAFÉ 3457 McGehee Road Montgomery, AL 36111 334-391-6185 LaMonica Ponder-Williams-Owner Restaurants

BEAUTY & BEYOND 2762 Eastern Boulevard Montgomery, AL 36117 334-538-9963 Ashraf Hijaz-Officer Beauty Supplies

TOWER LOAN OF MONTGOMERY 111 Brown Springs Road Montgomery, AL 36117 334-386-8025 www.towerloan.com Nathan Rhymes-Branch Manager Financial Services

FRIENDLY HOME RENTALS, LLC 4103 Norman Bridge Road Montgomery, AL 36105 334-517-1100 www.friendlyrentals.webs.com Courtney Thornton-Store Manager Furniture-Rental

HOMEWOOD SUITES BY HILTON 1800 Interstate Park Drive Montgomery, AL 36109 334-272-3010 www.homewoodsuites.com Jason DeLuca-General Manager Hotels/Motels

ADMIRAL MOVERS, INC. 1200 Newell Parkway, Suite 1 Montgomery, AL 36110 334-262-6666 www.AlwaysLeading.com Scott McNelley-President Moving Transfer & Storage Relocation Concierge Services Moving Transfer-Office Space

INCREDIBLE EDIBLES 11123 F Chantilly Parkway Pike Road, AL 36064 334-244-8808 www.pamsincredibleedibles.com Pam Hawkins-President Catering Service Event Venue Rental Equipment Bakery

GRACE POINT BEHAVIORAL, LLC 8439 Crossland Loop Montgomery, AL 36117 334-409-9242 www.gracepointbehavioral.com Dr. Caroline Abolade-Medical Director Psychiatrists

Summer 2014 Montgomery Business Journal

NEW MEMBERS Advertising Specialties CLEAR CHANNEL INTERSPACE AIRPORT Justin Tanis 4635 Crackersport Road Allentown, PA 18104 800-628-6800

Airport Shuttle and Transportation Service CONCIERGE SERVICES, INC. David A. Sadler P.O. Box 971 Montgomery, AL 36101-0971 334-538-6383

Associations/Non-Profit MONTGOMERY BICYCLE CLUB Jeff Feet 135 Catoma Street, #4652 Montgomery, AL 36104-3401 334-322-0639

Auctions GRANGER, THAGARD & ASSOCIATES, INC. Jack Granger 1806 Oxmoor Road Birmingham, AL 35209 205-326-0833

Bakery INCREDIBLE EDIBLES, INC. Pam Hawkins 11123 F Chantilly Parkway Pike Road, AL 36064 334-244-8808 LIGER’S BAKERY Ivy Davis 3040 McGehee Road Montgomery, AL 36111 334-288-6550

Buses-Charter/Tours MONTGOMERY TOURS Jake Williams P.O. Box 250265 Montgomery, AL 36125 334-450-5183

Catering Services INCREDIBLE EDIBLES, INC. Pam Hawkins 11123 F Chantilly Parkway Pike Road, AL 36064 334-244-8808

Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

Concrete

Newspapers

GARAGE EXPERTS OF ALABAMA, LLC Jacob Dubin P.O. Box 11311 Montgomery, AL 36111-1311 334-316-4300

ALABAMA GAZETTE, LLC Loretta Grant P.O. Box 4562 Montgomery, AL 36103 334-356-6700

Construction Services

Psychiatrists

ALL DEVELOPMENT, LLC Chase Ming P.O. Box 232 Hope Hull, AL 36043 334-239-7733

GRACE POINT BEHAVIORAL, LLC Caroline Abolade 8439 Crossland Loop Montgomery, AL 36117 334-409-9242

Contractors

Publications

D&J CONSTRUCTION David Moreno P.O. Box 230785 Montgomery, AL 36123 334-424-7107

RIVER REGION LIVING MAGAZINE Charles Shamburger 1430 I-85 Parkway, Suite 228 Montgomery, AL 36106 334-265-0066

Event Venue

Real Estate Sales and Development

INCREDIBLE EDIBLES, INC. Pam Hawkins 11123 F Chantilly Parkway Pike Road, AL 36064 334-244-8808

Furniture ROOMS TO GO Doug Crawford 6810 EastChase Parkway Montgomery, AL 36117 334-277-5640

Health & Nutrition ISAGENIX Diane Daniell 463 South Mobile Street Fairhope, AL 36532 251-209-0523

Hotels/Motels RAM MONTGOMERY HOSPITALITY, LLC Rinkesh Patel 233 12th Street, Suite 301 Columbus, GA 31901 706-660-5620

Laundromat SUPER COIN LAUNDRY, LLC Ashraf Hijaz 3029 Rosa L. Parks Avenue Montgomery, AL 36105 334-593-6211

Legal Services - Attorneys LAW OFFICE OF GEORGE WALTHALL, JR. George P. Walthall 141 West Main Street Prattville, AL 36067 334-365-2255 Ext 209

HUDSON GROUP Christopher A. Hudson 4171 Pike Road Pike Road, AL 36064 334-215-1551

Rental Equipment INCREDIBLE EDIBLES, INC. Pam Hawkins 11123 F Chantilly Parkway Pike Road, AL 36064 334-244-8808

Restaurants CHICKEN SALAD CHICK Justin Boyd 7924 Vaughn Road Montgomery, AL 36116 334-649-4828 SIMPLY SOUTHERN CAFÉ LaMonica Ponder-Williams 3457 McGehee Road Montgomery, AL 36111 334-391-6185

Restaurants-Pizza LITTLE CAESAR’S PIZZA Bud Dyess 4021 Atlanta Highway Montgomery, AL 36109 334-819-4900

Unemployment Data Civilian Labor Force APRIL P 2014

AREA Montgomery MA

MARCH R 2014

Unemployment Rate APRIL R 2013

APRIL P 2014

MARCH R 2014

APRIL R 2013

164,967

166,730

166,889

6.40%

7.20%

5.80%

Autauga County

25,184

25,441

25,534

5.40%

6.10%

4.90%

Prattville City

16,082

16,229

16,336

4.70%

5.30%

4.40%

Elmore County

34,752

35,118

35,190

5.80%

6.50%

5.20%

3,838

3,891

3,908

10.80%

11.80%

10.70%

101,193

102,279

102,257

6.80%

7.50%

6.00%

90,534

91,522

91,523

6.60%

7.40%

5.90%

523,772

530,861

526,304

5.40%

6.10%

5.00%

88,285

89,550

88,504

7.30%

8.00%

6.60%

211,103

213,322

212,777

5.50%

6.10%

4.90%

89,652

90,646

90,422

5.50%

6.20%

4.90%

181,897

183,071

183,286

7.10%

7.80%

6.70%

84,619

85,186

85,124

7.50%

8.10%

6.90%

2,121,169

2,146,308

2,133,447

6.20%

6.90%

5.70%

154,845,000

155,627,000

154,739,000

5.90%

6.80%

7.10%

Lowndes County Montgomery County Montgomery City Birmingham-Hoover MA Birmingham City Huntsville MA Huntsville City Mobile MA Mobile City Alabama United States

MA=Metropolitan Area. pPreliminary rRevised Estimates prepared by the Alabama Department of Industrial Relations in Cooperation with the Bureau of Labor Statistics, based on 2013 benchmark.

Sales Tax Collections APRIL 2014

APRIL 2013

YEAR OVER YEAR % CHANGE

YTD 2014

YTD 2013

YEAR OVER YEAR % CHANGE

Montgomery County

$3,603,675

$3,583,428

0.57%

$13,780,715

$13,611,407

1.24%

City of Montgomery

$8,446,904

$8,294,780

1.83%

$31,984,293

$31,689,362

0.93%

$137,540

$135,426

1.56%

$601,624

$633,919

-5.09%

Prattville

$1,772,135

$1,497,460

18.34%

$6,833,590

$6,930,142

-1.39%

Millbrook

$526,590

$500,015

5.31%

$1,979,166

$1,924,933

2.82%

Autauga County

$617,604

$663,116

-6.86%

$2,545,873

$2,624,477

-3.00%

Wetumpka

$494,774

$530,201

-6.68%

$1,858,249

$2,013,421

-7.71%

Pike Road

Sources: Montgomery County Commission, City of Montgomery, City of Pike Road, Autauga County Commission, City of Prattville, Elmore County Commission, City of Wetumpka, City of Millbrook. Note: YTD numbers are January 2014 thru current month.

Summer 2014 Montgomery Business Journal

Montgomery Regional Airport APRIL 2014 Air Carrier Operations

YEAR OVER YEAR % CHANGE

APRIL 2013

YTD 2014

YTD 2013

YEAR OVER YEAR % CHANGE

889

910

-2.3%

3,285

3,452

-4.8%

5,144

5,185

-0.8%

20,936

18,256

14.7%

Enplanements

13,145

13,874

-5.3%

48,290

52,947

-8.8%

Deplanements

13,275

13,788

-3.7%

49,432

53,325

-7.3%

Total Passengers

26,420

27,662

-4.5%

97,722

106,272

-8.0%

Total Operations

Source: Montgomery Regional Airport (MGM) Dannelly Field

Hyundai Sales VEHICLE

YTD 2014

YTD 2013

Accent

APR 2014 6,419

4,730

22,427

18,644

Sonata

20,495

16,077

60,748

63,362

Elantra

20,495

24,445

73,462

78,991

8,997

6,940

32,437

26,386

Santa Fe Azera

APR 2013

701

1,409

2,819

4,118

Tucson

3,962

3,733

16,078

14,743

Veloster

2,579

3,120

9,445

9,477

Veracruz

152

2,264

2,584

7,500

10,697

285

261

1,203

1,075

66,107

63,315

226,120

227,645

Genesis Equus Total

Source: Hyundai Motor America

Building Starts Building Permits

Building Valuations

APRIL 2014

MARCH 2014

APRIL 2013

APRIL 2014

MARCH 2014

APRIL 2013

New Construction

$3,901,200

$3,909,400

$5,778,600

Additions and AlterationsÂ

$4,981,900

$4,793,700

$2,588,200

Others

$163,000

$112,000

$627,200

Total

137

139

153

$9,046,100

$8,809,100

$8,994,000

Source: City of Montgomery Building Department

Montgomery Metro Market Home Sales APRIL 2014

MARCH 2014

MONTH/MONTH % CHANGE

APRIL 2013

YEAR/YEAR % CHANGE

STATEWIDE APRIL 2014

Median Price

$125,000

$131,000

-4.58%

$121,000

3.31%

$133,037

Average Price

$142,329

$143,541

-0.84%

$133,569

6.56%

$151,195

2,951

2,901

1.72%

2,815

4.83%

33,592

Months of Supply

9.9

10.00%

8.9

11.24%

8.8

Total # Sales

297

321

-7.48%

316

-6.01%

3,831

Days on Market

144

157

-8.28%

115

25.22%

163

Units Listed

Source: Alabama Center for Real Estate (ACRE), The University of Alabama

Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

Airline Fares Roundtrip airfare comparisons from Montgomery, Birmingham and Atlanta airports to key destinations. DESTINATION

MONTGOMERY

BIRMINGHAM

ATLANTA

Baltimore (BWI)

$467

$309

Boston (BOS)

$494

$486

$332

Charlotte, NC (CLT)

$279

$283

$275

Chicago (ORD)

$480

$283

$314

Cincinnati (CVG)

$398

$433

$301

Dallas/Ft Worth (DFW)

$345

$323

$223

Denver (DEN)

$483

$440

$238

Detroit (DTW)

$420

$335

$312

Houston (HOU)

$319

$345

$267

Indianapolis (IND)

$457

$496

$222

Las Vegas (LAS)

$619

$500

$440

Los Angeles (LAX)

$634

$514

$384

Memphis (MEM)

$354

$414

$264

Miami (MIA)

$324

$309

$243

Nashville (BNA)

$497

$329

New Orleans (MSY)

$498

$375

$248

New York (JFK)

$469

$377

$321

Orlando (MCO)

$445

$351

$222

Philadelphia (PHL)

$476

$312

$178

Pittsburgh (PIT)

$447

$403

$255

St Louis (STL)

$438

$274

$328

Seattle (SEA)

$663

$545

$430

$1,932

$1,893

$1,794

Tampa (TPA)

$445

$329

$220

Washington DC (DCA)

$447

$314

$348

Seoul (SEL)

Date of travel: July 15-20, 2014. Date of pricing: May 11, 2014. Source: travelocity.com

Summer 2014 Montgomery Business Journal

Quarterly Reports YEAR-AGO REVENUES

YEARAGO NET INCOME

$0.97

$21.3B

$4.9B

$0.80

$0.90

$2.9B

$141.1M

$501M

$0.69

$0.70

$2.5B

$210M

$3.8B

$1.1B

$1.82

$1.64

$4B

$1B

N/A

$11.8M

$1.52

N/A

$9.3M

Profit up 27.4%

Regions Financial

$1.3B

$311M

$0.21

$0.20

$1.3B

$327M

Overall expenses declined 14%

Yum Brands

$2.7B

$399M

$0.97

$0.84

$2.5B

$337M

KFC comparable sales rose 7% in China

Trustmark Bank

N/A

$29M

$0.43

N/A

Single-family mortgage portfolio grew $48.2M

BancorpSouth

N/A

$28.4M

$0.30

N/A

$20.8M

$4.6B

$351M

$0.39

$0.56

$3.9B

$81M

International Paper

$7B

(-$95M)

(-$0.21)

N/A

$7.1B

$318M

Closing mill in Courtland; took $495M charge

McDonald’s

$6.7B

$1.2B

$1.21

$1.24

$6.6B

$1.3B

Comparable sales at U.S. locations fell 1.7%

Chipotle Mexican Grill

$904.2M

$83.1M

$2.64

$2.88

$726.8M

$76.6M

Raising prices for first time in three years

Marriott International

$3.3B

$172M

$0.57

$0.51

$3.1B

$136M

Revenue for available room up 6.2%

O’Reilly Automotive

$1.7B

$173.9M

$1.61

$1.58

$1.6B

$154.3M

Profit rose 13%

Starbucks

$3.9B

$427M

$0.56

$3.6B

$390.4M

Plans to open 1,500 locations worldwide

Havertys

$181.7M

$6.1M

$0.27

N/A

$186.1M

$8,3M

Burger King

$240.9M

$60.4M

$0.17

$0.19

$327.7M

$35.8M

Profit jump 69% on cost cutting

$3B

$398M

$0.40

$0.39

$3B

$462M

Profit declined 14%

$231.8M

$49.1M

$0.58

$0.57

N/A

$48.6M

Revenue dropped 5.5%

QUARTERLY REVENUES

NET INCOME

$20.6B

$5.6B

$1.05

Family Dollar

$2.7B

$90.9M

BB&T

$2.3B

PNC Bank

NAME Wells Fargo

ServisFirst Bank

EARNINGS PER SHARE

EARNINGS ESTIMATE

(Pizza Hut, KFC, Taco Bell)

Southern Co.

NOTABLE Profit increased 14% Plans to close 370 underperforming stores Profit jumped 139% Commercial loans grew 3% to $3.6B

Profit surged 36.5% Cold weather impacts earnings

(Alabama Power)

CSX Hancock Holding

Montgomery Business Journal Summer 2014

Sales fell 2.3%

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Post Office Box 79 Montgomery, AL 36101