Arkansas Money & Politics February 2024 by AY Magazine

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ICON LITTLE ROCK RADIO MAINSTAY BROADWAY JOE GIVES BACK

CELEBRATING 10 YEARS

amp Arkansas Money & Politics

TOP INSIDE: Fifty Over 50 | Tech 20 | Diamond Hogs TEN

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HORSEPOWER MATTERS.

For more than 40 years, Gary Houston Electric Company has served Central Arkansas with affordable, quality and timely Commercial and Residential electrical contracting services with a strong emphasis on customer service. We service both new construction and existing structures needing electrical repair or being remodeled.

1922 West 3rd Street | Little Rock, AR 72205 501-375-8330 | garyhoustonelectric.com

WARREN A. STEPHENS

CHAIRMAN, PRESIDENT AND CEO

LOOKING AHEAD TO 100 YEARS OF EXCELLENCE

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My dad, Jack Stephens, once famously said about our business, he did not have a 10-year plan but a 100-year plan. With each new year, all of us at Stephens renew our commitment to serve our clients and communities today, and for decades to come.”

111 Center Street Little Rock, AR @Stephens_Inc • Stephens.com

Building Value Since 1933 STEPHENS INC. • MEMBER NYSE, SIPC

CELEBRATING 10 YEARS

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TOP TEN

CELEBRATING 10 YEARS

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FEATURES FEBRUARY 2024

TOP TEN

14 BROADWAY JOE Little Rock’s iconic DJ Broadway Joe Booker does more than spin tunes. He gives back to his community in multiple ways.

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110 NEW INDUCTEES

A TROPHY’S IMPACT

The Arkansas Black Hall of Fame is inducting a new cohort of six Arkansans who made and make a profound impact on their communities.

Searcy and surrounding communities rallied around the Harding Bisons as they competed for and won a D-II national football championship.

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FE B RUA RY 2024

February 2024 PRESIDENT & PUBLISHER

8 | Plugged In

Heather Baker | hbaker@armoneyandpolitics.com

SMALL BUSINESS

9 | Publisher’s Letter 10 | Viewpoint

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Dwain Hebda | dwain@armoneyandpolitics.com

120 Whiskey Town

SENIOR EDITOR Mark Carter | mcarter@armoneyandpolitics.com

12 | Discovery Economics

ASSOCIATE EDITORS Sarah Coleman | scoleman@armoneyandpolitics.com Mak Millard | mmillard@armoneyandpolitics.com

144 | The Last Word

EDITORIAL COORDINATOR Darlene Hebda | darlene@armoneyandpolitics.com

LISTS

STAFF WRITERS John Callahan | jcallahan@armoneyandpolitics.com Sarah DeClerk | sdeclerk@armoneyandpolitics.com 2024

2024

FIFTY FIFTY

Rock Town Distillery in downtown Little Rock is making its mark in the industry after owner Phil Brandon decided it was time to follow a dream.

20 50 50 126 OVER

OVER

AMP’s annual list recognizing 2024 some of Arkansas’ top2024 business and political leaders over the age OVER OVER of 50 includes a wide range of talent and expertise.

GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Lora Puls | lpuls@armoneyandpolitics.com Jenna Kelley | jkelley@armoneyandpolitics.com

50 50

SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Greg Churan | gchuran@armoneyandpolitics.com

2024

CELEBRATING 10 YEARS

amp Arkansas Money & Politics

TOP TEN

In honor of the 2024 magazine’s 10th anniversary year, AMP once again features 10 profiles of some of the state’s most interesting businesspeople.

STARTUPS

48 Assemble your team

Prices for medical marijuana are down in Arkansas, but so are sales, despite the industry recently white / $1 gray billion 20 hitting the mark in overall sales.

130 Visionary

Greg Hatcher not only launched one of the state’s most successful insurance agencies, he’s the father of the sport of wrestling in the state.

SPORTS

140 Diamond Hogs ‘24

2024

Launching a startup requires more than a good idea that meets a need. It requires people to help along each step of the startup journey.

white with orange 20

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ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Mary Funderburg | mary@armoneyandpolitics.com Karen Holderfield | kholderfield@armoneyandpolitics.com Jona Parker | jona@armoneyandpolitics.com Dana Rodriquez | dana@armoneyandpolitics.com Bethany Yeager | bethany@armoneyandpolitics.com EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT Jessica Everson | jeverson@armoneyandpolitics.com ADVERTISING COORDINATOR Natika Gatson | ads@armoneyandpolitics.com Angela-Maria Jones | ads@armoneyandpolitics.com CIRCULATION circulation@armoneyandpolitics.com ADMINISTRATION billing@armoneyandpolitics.com CEO | Vicki Vowell

TO ADVERTISE call 501-244-9700 email hbaker@armoneyandpolitics.com TO SUBSCRIBE armoneyandpolitics.com/subscribe CONTRIBUTORS

Becky Gillette, KD Reep, Lori Sparkman, Chris Davis, Kenneth Heard, Todd Traub, Caleb Talley

52 Show me the money Startup founders won’t get anywhere without capital, and the angel investors and venture capitalists who provide it have requirements.

ONLINE WRITER Kilee Hall | khall@armoneyandpolitics.com PRODUCTION MANAGER Mike Bedgood | mbedgood@armoneyandpolitics.com

Wacky weed

FIFTY FIFTY

Arkansas competes above its weight class when it comes to tech, and AMP is proud to profile some of the state’s 2024technology leaders.

MANAGING DIGITAL EDITOR Kellie McAnulty | kmcanulty@armoneyandpolitics.com

The Arkansas Razorbacks open the 2024 college baseball season this month, and expectations are once again high for Dave Van Horn and crew. 6

AMP magazine is published monthly, Volume VI, Issue 10 AMP magazine (ISSN 2162-7754) is published monthly by AY Media Group, 910 W. Second St., Suite 200, Little Rock, AR 72201. Periodicals postage paid at Little Rock, AR, and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to AMP, 910 W. Second St., Suite 200, Little Rock, AR 72201. Subscription Inquiries: Subscription rate is $28 for one year (12 issues). Single issues are available upon request for $5. For subscriptions, inquiries or address changes, call 501-244-9700. The contents of AMP are copyrighted, and material contained herein may not be copied or reproduced in any manner without the written permission of the publisher. Articles in AMP should not be considered specific advice, as individual circumstances vary. Products and services advertised in the magazine are not necessarily endorsed by AMP. Please recycle this magazine.

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Whether you are looking to BUY OR SELL OR BUILD, give me a call. I can help. 501.944.8687 2411 McCain Blvd., Suite 4, North Little Rock, Arkansas 72116

RE/MAX ELITE

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Broadway Joe Booker was photographed for the cover by Lori Sparkman at the Power 92 studios in Little Rock. Booker’s iconic broadcasting career is featured inside.

ICON

(See story, page 14.)

LITTLE ROCK RADIO MAINSTAY BROADWAY JOE GIVES BACK

CELEBRATING 10 YEARS

amp Arkansas Money & Politics

TOP INSIDE: Fifty Over 50 | Tech 20 | Diamond Hogs TEN

$5 USD

FEEDBACK DJ WILLIAMS JOINS 103.7 THE BUZZ My favorite Razorback #45! The Buzz just stepped their game up leaps & bounds! Congratulations! DG Boveia Treglown SELIG CELEBRATES 20 YEARS WITH CJRW THANK YOU for all the love and support. It means a lot. I’m so incredibly grateful to be part of the CJRW family! Jane Embry Nisbet Selig TOP TEN: MISTI COKER, INSPIRING OTHERS Misti Coker has always inspired me! Brenda LaRoche Stone Bank has hired Stephanie Alderdice as senior vice president and director of marketing.

INFLUENCERS 2024: TIFFANY WILKERSON, A FAIR BET Congrats Tiffany! You are doing an amazing job! Dan Sawyer ARKANSAS VISIONARY: SHERMAN TATE, WALKING THE WALK Good man. Mr. Tate was my Dad’s boss for years. They still talk to this day after Dad retiring years ago. Alicia Acock ALDI COMING SOON TO WEST LITTLE ROCK I can hardly wait...I miss shopping there. Jeanie Traylor GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK: THE LEGENDARY CRAIG O’NEILL SIGNS OFF I love your compassionate heart toward others and your enthusiasm and dedication to keeping us informed. Thank you for your broadcasting service to the Great State of Arkansas! May God shower you with blessings as you embark on your next journey!! Happy Retirement, Craig O’Neill! Karen Rubertello Geldien

TOP ONLINE ARTICLES Jan. 9 - Feb. 5 1 Good Night and Good Luck: The Legendary Craig O’Neill Signs Off 2 ALDI Coming Soon to West Little Rock 3 Arkansas Man Nominated for 2024 Bass Fishing Hall of Fame 4 Historic Hotze House of Little Rock on Market for $1.45M 5 Construction Begins on Unique Multi-Family Project in Springdale 6 For Arkansas’ First Female Governor, It’s Green Light Ahead in ’24

CHI St. Vincent recently hired Megan Bonney as president of CHI St. Vincent North, which went into effect Jan. 7.

7 DJ Williams Joins 103.7 The Buzz 8 Hotel Project Underway at Historic Lafayette Building 9 Razorback Baseball Releases 2024 Season Schedule 10 Work Underway to Build Hotel and Event Center at Saracen F E B RUA RY 2 024

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FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK

By Mark Carter

FIELD OF STREAMS: CHARGE MORE AND THEY WILL PAY

here are Luddites among us who miss basic cable — certainly not the customer service that seemed to redefine the concept, and not in a good way. The relative simplicity of the basic cable model, that is what we miss. Once upon a time, one could turn on the TV and land at the exact spot you left off. Familiar, comfortable, non-threatening, one click gets you to the menu. Streaming, on the other hand, though it does indeed open up a veritable universe of content, requires tedious daily tribute, an encomium worthy of Bilbo’s encounter with Smaug under the mountain, for each viewing. Need to click on the set in a hurry to catch that final shot? OK then — only seven or eight steps to go. The service, after all, needs to confirm who you are and what you like first, if not establish a personality profile worthy of Freud. It wasn’t that long ago major media companies were struggling to get a handle on the new phenomenon called streaming and all the dexterity gymnastics that come with it. Get a handle they did. Consumption of TV and movies is now absorbed mostly via streaming services. TV networks have their

companion streaming services. Most major movies are released both theatrically and through a streaming platform (though how much longer for the former?) Streaming has become so mainstream as to saturate the market, which is in the process of determining winners and losers. Consumers shouldn’t expect many new platforms, the experts tell us — the existing players are in survival mode. As the market-

place wars play themselves out, expect to pay higher prices for streaming, of course. Remember when Netflix emerged as the remote alternative to Blockbuster? Seems like a generation ago, and perhaps it was. Netflix is producing its own blockbusters these days. CNET warned last year that consumers should expect more ad-supported tiers (the services that make money from both the consumer and the advertiser), as well as rising costs for ad-free tiers. The latter, of course, will make platforms more money but also likely lure more customers into the ad-supported tiers. As for mergers — expect more of them, CNET warned. The only way to survive moving forward? “Be gigantic.” There are two silver linings. First, those automated La-Z-Boys that provided everything one could need and whirled folks around the Ark 2.0 in Pixar’s WALL-E sure looked comfy. Better yet, with content condensed down to fewer platforms, maybe it’ll be easier for the Luddites among us to turn on the TV at a moment’s notice and see that last second jumper find the bottom of the net.

PUBLISHER’S LETTER

By Heather Baker

LET’S GET MOVING in the state, is this month’s Arkansas Visionary. We’ll preview the 2024 Razorback baseball team, of which big things are expected (and given the Hogs’ current slump on the gridiron and hardwood, we could use more good news emanating from the Hill). Also this month, AMP offers a suite of stories on entrepreneurship, from where to start to finding capital; considers the current Arkansas technology revolution; celebrates the Harding Division II football championship; visits Rock Town Distillery in Little Rock; features the latest inductees into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame; and talks rice with Arkansas Secretary of Agriculture Wes Ward and others. Plus, we have got another round of our Top X profiles of 10 special Arkansans in honor of AMP’s 10th anniversary year. There is a lot to digest this month, as AMP breaks out of winter and barrels toward spring. We are glad you decided to join us on the ride. Thanks for reading, as always. Hit me up with questions, comments or suggestions at hbaker@ armoneyandpolitics.com.

unxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow up in Pennsylvania on Feb. 2. Count me among those Fox Mulder types who “want to believe” that means an early spring is on its way. 2024 is off to a fast start, and we had our fun in the snow. Let’s get moving now with a hint of spring in the air because there is a lot to see and do in Arkansas. The February issue of Arkansas Money & Politics reflects the state’s fast-paced business vibe. Inside, we recognize 50 Arkansas business and political leaders who are working to keep the state’s economy thumping. We will also take a look at the Tech 20, a group of Arkansans who are working on both sides of the radar to help grow the innovation economy in the state. A pair of central Arkansas legends are Heather Baker recognized inside. Anyone who grew up in the Little Rock area is familiar with radio powerhouse Broadway Joe Booker, who gives of his talent and his time. He is featured in this month’s issue. Greg Hatcher, businessman extraordinaire and father of wrestling

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FE B RUA RY 2024

VIEWPOINT

WHAT WORKS IN WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT: A WELL-ROUNDED APPROACH By Jennifer Cobb

ince the enactment of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and the creation of the Works Progress Administration, the term “workforce development” has been tossed around liberally as the key to long-term economic growth and global competitiveness. What exactly do these programs entail, and what do they need to be successful? Perhaps more importantly, how do we know if we are focusing our collective efforts — and often, our personal dollars and government funds — on the most effective ones? For decades, our country’s workforce development initiatives have traditionally focused on equipping individuals with technical capabilities such as computer coding or steelmaking, often to the exclusion of other proficiencies. How about turning these efforts on their heads by promoting more wide-ranging programs that ensure participants gain the hard and soft skills needed to thrive in any industry? The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis notes how the goal of workforce development programs is to “create, sustain and retain a viable workforce,” yet it acknowledges the often-divergent mindsets for achieving it. One side is more individual-centric, pushing greater access to relevant social services, job training and education. The other takes a societal perspective to meet the specific needs of business or industry. Instead of this split approach, the bank reaffirms the need for a more comprehensive workforce development strategy, which includes various components, from “deep community connections” to “human service supports.” The St. Louis Fed’s recommendation for an “integrated” approach begs the question, “Are there existing workforce development initiatives that we can look to as models?” The Brookings Institution states that the current “evidence of ‘what works’ in training and workforce development programs is remarkably sparse.” The American think tank notes that investments, particularly government-led ones, should be funneled toward those that “have proven successful and can be scaled.” We can look no further than City Year as an example of a national program that yields results — for its participants and the industries they will serve. In nearly 30 U.S. cities, including Little Rock, the education nonprofit has recruited participants between the ages of 17 and 25 for what has been heralded as a “valuable, challenging and meaningful” gap-year program. City Year’s AmeriCorps members work in their site’s local partner schools as student suc-

F E B RUA RY 2 024

cess coaches to provide kids in need with the academic, emotional and social skills they need to achieve their full potential. As part of their service, Jennifer Cobb these young adults receive more than 200 hours of professional development, including hands-on training, mentorship and career coaching. They also receive a biweekly stipend, the Segal AmeriCorps Education Award, exclusive access to scholarships, paid vacation time and health insurance. When they hang up their signature City Year red jackets, the young adults have a full suite of in-demand durable skills to take with them into their next steps. Employers report that these individuals consistently demonstrate a strong work ethic, as well as the ability to communicate effectively, think critically, resolve conflicts, problem solve and more. This experience leads to direct gains not just for their workplaces, but for their state’s education sector. According to City Year data, more than half of the nonprofit’s AmeriCorps members go on to work as teachers, administrators, guidance counselors, youth practitioners and at education-focused nonprofits. City Year is one of many programs that illustrate the effectiveness of a multi-faceted approach to workforce development. There are others in Arkansas and across the U.S. that can be used as evidence-based models or scaled for greater impact. As we debate our future workforce development efforts and subsequent investments, we must remember to incorporate strategies that account for the needs of the participants, targeted industries and our economy. We should also continue to support proven programs such as City Year, which have — and will continue to — deliver results in preparing the next generation for workforce success. Jennifer Cobb is the senior vice president and executive director of City Year Little Rock, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping central Arkansas students and schools succeed. During the 2023-2024 academic year, its AmeriCorps members are serving in the Little Rock School District and Jacksonville North Pulaski School District. For more information about City Year’s impact or to donate, visit cityyear.org.

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HOME COOKIN’

Grandma’s dishes set the stage for Saracen Express room chef By Sarah DeClerk // Photo by Jamie Lee

elping her grandmother in the kitchen in her hometown of Grady was just the start for Pamela Scott, who now serves as room chef of the employee market and Saracen Express at Saracen Casino Resort in Pine Bluff. There, guests can order hot plate specials and try Scott’s take on Southern classics such as greens, beans and blackened grilled chicken, along with Chef Pam’s Mac & Cheese. Other specialties include chicken gizzards, chicken livers and fried okra. “They definitely have to try the fried chicken because we have the best fried chicken in Arkansas,” Scott said. She managed the mess hall at the Pine Bluff Arsenal after 9/11, and she said it was rewarding to learn about the military and serve the soldiers protecting the U.S. She joined Saracen as supervisor of the Q Store in 2019 and later transitioned to cook. Scott quickly moved up the ranks from a cook to a lead, a sous chef and her current role at Saracen Express, where she maintains the budget, generates new menu ideas and trains new hires. “Chef Pam weaves the rich tapestry of Southern hospitality, serving up dishes that are as heartfelt as they are flavorful,” said Todd Gold, senior director of hospitality. “With every meal, she honors the legacy of downhome cooking, ensuring that both the souls and stomachs of her internal and external guests are deeply nourished.” Scott enjoys making soups, mixing different types of beans and experimenting with seasonings for chicken. She keeps her flavors plain and simple, and her secret ingredient is Lawry’s Seasoned Salt. Although she still cooks a lot of the foods she grew up with, she said her time at Saracen, especially a two-week stint at Red Oak Steakhouse, has enhanced her knowledge of cuisine beyond the tried and true. “I love it,” she said. “Everybody is friendly. Because I’ve been here these four years, it’s like family. All the management are extra supportive. Anything you need, anything you don’t know how to do, they will be able to show you.” Tyrone Fox, executive sous chef, and Manley Clark, executive chef, are two of her greatest mentors at Saracen. Scott said they encourage her to step outside her comfort zone. Chef Pamela Scott

“Chef Pam Scott weaves her culinary magic with a dedication that fuels her every creation,” Clark said. “Her dishes are a symphony of flavors painted with a down-home Southern charm that not only tantalizes taste buds, but also warms hearts. Through her food, she serves more than just meals; she crafts moments of comfort and joy for all who gather around her table.” With a new hotel and event center in the works, she said, there are plenty of opportunities for advancement at Saracen. “If you get in here and work hard, you’ve got some kind of cooking skills, we can train you here,” she said. “You can accomplish your goals here, and you can advance.”

Photos provided

DISCOVERY ECONOMICS

A SORE SPOT: Dr. Kyle Quinn Aims to Heal Unhealable Wounds By AMP Staff

r. Kyle Quinn, professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, has no grand illusions about the pragmatic nature of assembling a research team. “Most young people interested in research want to find a cure for cancer,” he said. “Their first instinct isn’t to pursue better diagnostics for monitoring and treating wounds.” However, Quinn and his team are taking on a challenge that costs Arkansas and the nation billions of dollars every year and is every bit as deadly as cancer. Quinn specializes in skin wounds that, for a variety of reasons, refuse to heal. This is a prevalent affliction for people suffering from diabetes, which often results in debilitating foot ulcers. Because these ulcers are so difficult to heal and can get infected, more than 70,000 people in the U.S. undergo amputations each year. In fact, a lower limb is amputated due to diabetes every 30 seconds worldwide, according to the National Institutes of Health. “The cost of treating diabetic foot disease is substantial, and not just to the health care system, but to individual patients,” said Quinn, who was also the inaugural recipient of the Arkansas Research Alliance’s Lawrence E. Cornett Ph.D. Award for Excellence in Biomedical Research. The total medical cost for the management of diabetic foot disease in the United States ranges from $9 to $13 billion annually, according to NIH. This burden weighs heavily on Arkansas, where 13 percent of adults are diagnosed with diabetes. Quinn believes that significant suffering and cost can be allayed with innovative diagnostic tools. “There are many reasons why a wound won’t heal,” he said. “Determining the cause is critical to determining how to treat the wound, and even then, knowing whether or not a treatment is working often takes weeks to months to determine. We’re working on imaging tools that make it easier for physicians to accurately diagnose a problematic wound and monitor its response to treatment.” Quinn said he sees extraordinary promise in measuring the natural fluorescence of our skin. “Our skin will glow under a black light lamp, and we can measure the color of that fluorescence to assess cellular behavior in and around the wound,” he said. Specifically, Quinn’s lab is using a technology called multiphoton microscopy , which can be used to visualize cells within F E B RUA RY 2 024

living tissue in real time. While current diagnostic techniques often require an invasive biopsy procedure to collect tissue from the patient, Quinn’s technique would require a simple scan of the wound using a light source. “It’s completely noninvasive,” he said. “Through this technology, we can obtain 3D images of live cells or tissue without biopsy, sectioning or staining [a coloring Dr. Kyle Quinn technique used to better visualize cells and cell components under a microscope].” The benefits of this technology could improve the quality of life for thousands, even millions, of people suffering from diabetic foot ulcers, and other wounds that do not heal, such as bed sores. However, making the technology and its images accessible and decipherable to health care professionals accustomed to visualizing wound tissue through traditional microscopes is another challenge, one that Quinn is addressing with artificial intelligence. “Our lab recently received an NIH grant enabling us to pursue the use of AI in enhancing this type of diagnostic imaging,” he said. “We are training an AI system to perform many of the functions that would take a technician hours to do, such as outlining relevant wound features within images or even adding virtual staining procedures that mimic what a pathologist would see when evaluating a biopsied tissue. Basically, we want to develop a system that is capable of a completely noninvasive optical biopsy to make the process of diagnosis easier for physicians and painless for patients.” Quinn’s lab is funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, the National Science Foundation and the Arkansas Biosciences Institute. Quinn also serves as the director of the Arkansas Integrative Metabolic Research Center at UA. Discovery Economics is a monthly feature highlighting the work of the Arkansas Research Alliance Academy of Scholars and Fellows, a community of strategic research leaders who strive to maximize the value of discovery and progress in the state. ARA recruits and retains strategic research leaders to enhance the state’s competitiveness in the knowledge economy and the production of job-creating discoveries and innovation. Learn more at aralliance.org. 12

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“Start a business,” they said. “It’ll be fun,” they said.

K, I won’t lie. Starting a business is one of the most fun things I can think to do. I have started or helped start more businesses than I can count. I will also, however, be the first one to admit that it is an acquired taste. Those who have read my previous columns may be expecting me to opine on the importance of proper corporate structure or the need for exit planning, but I’m going to switch it up this time and put on my certified financial planner hat. If you want to start a business, you have to understand that being an entrepreneur is completely different than being an employee. When I say that everything is different, I mean everything. You are taxed differently, you are paid differently, you require different insurance, and don’t even get me started on the working hours. You have to be prepared to build your entire personal financial plan differently than almost everyone you know. You have to come to grips with the idea that your path to building wealth will likely center around the value of your business, and it will require constant care and focus. You will also quickly begin to feel the effects of having an income that fluctuates wildly. That’s right — don’t expect to put yourself on a salary right out of the gate. That is for your employees to enjoy, and you get to have what’s left over. Every dollar that you take in income is one less dollar that is available for marketing, inventory or even just keeping the lights on. Statistically speaking, you should not expect to pay yourself consistently for at least a couple of years. When people ask me what is the most common mistake that I see new business owners make, it is trying to pay themselves on day one. This inconsistency of income means that you are likely not going to be funding traditional retirement accounts with any regularity. You will hopefully reach a point where you can afford to put some cash away for yourself, but be prepared for that to take a while. In that same vein, you have to remember that you own most of all of the available shares of your small business, which will make investing in the stock market pretty darn unattractive. You are going to think differently about using your cash to build someone else’s business when you could likely invest it in your own and have a good chance to grow it a lot faster. Do not forget about insurance. General liability, worker’s compensation, commercial property and employee benefit plans are just the start. Your business will also probably need to purchase life insurance so that all of your employees do not automatically have to search for new jobs if you die. If you do

not have a spouse who has their own benefit plan that you can qualify for, you might need to be prepared to buy health and disability insurance on the marketplace. Oh, and do not forget that most of the people around you will assume that your net worth is higher than it really is because you own a business, so be ready for a simple fender-bender to become very attractive to your local personal injury attorney. I do not want to give you the wrong impression. Being an entrepreneur is what gets me out of bed. I find stepping into each day without knowing what will happen to be the most fun you can have, but I also recognize that not everyone is wired like me. Some people thrive in routine and consistency. Some people sleep better at night knowing exactly what to expect with their next paycheck. Those people are probably not going to be interested in taking this ride. For those of you who are prepared to handle the unique aspects of it, starting a business can be the most rewarding and thrilling process you can jump into. Just don’t make the leap without a full appreciation for the impact it will have. Victor Werley, CFP, ChFC, CDFA, CVA, MAFF, CFE, CEPA, is a financial consultant in Little Rock and the founder of Pinnacle Advisors. Werley has practiced for more than 20 years and has managed hundreds of business transitions for himself and his clients. He has spoken to numerous groups in the business and legal fields about business valuation, how to structure good business deals and many other topics. He is passionate about small businesses and helping the economy of Arkansas. Victor Werley

LITTLE ROCK • CABOT www.pinnacleadvisor.net | (501) 327-6277

COVER

MASTER OF BEATS The People’s D.J.

Broadcasting legend Broadway Joe Booker still telling it like it is By Dwain Hebda // Photos by Lori Sparkman

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roadway Joe Booker is an endangered species. ery good radio station has to have three elements, especially Easily grouped into the most recognized names if you’re an urban station: You have to have good information, in Arkansas radio, and arguably all Arkansas education and entertainment. If you have those three things, broadcasting, he has spent more than half his life you can be successful.’” on the airwaves, including nearly four decades in Little Rock Listening to Booker work, as thousands do every day, is to alone, uninterrupted save for a six-month dalliance with a major hear a vocal performance that morphs easily to match the suburban station in his native South Carolina. An elder statesman ject matter, his delivery deepened and nuanced by time. During of the airwaves, he is one of only a few remaining personalities the course of each show, the audience savors notes of newscastwho can legitimately call himself a former disc jockey from the er gravitas and Sunday preaching, of barber shop debate and era before mandated corporate playlists and preprogrammed community coach, critic and cheerleader, all of which are findigital feeds. ished with enthusiasm. The station’s nickname is the “People’s Booker cuts a contrasting figure at the Cumulus Media Station,” and he is the people’s voice, the person his audience studios in west Little Rock, where he wears the knows and the message his audience trusts. title director of programming alongside that “We have one of the youngest engineers in of broadcasting legend. A lifetime in radio all of our Cumulus stations. He’s probably in For us as a has invested in him a curator’s log of hishis early 30s,” Booker said. “He said to me radio station, we’ve tory about the local market, which he one time, ‘Man, every time I go somedisplays during a tour of the building. place, if I mention Power 92, everybody been here a long time, Poking his head into a half-dozen knows you. Y’all are just like Facebook.’ but what have you really studios, he offers a lived piece of I thought about it, and I’m like, well, trivia about each station that calls done for the people and the you know, before Facebook, it was us. the place home. That’s where people came for their incommunity? I would think, if I At the same time, he is no relic formation, and I think a lot of people who shakes a fist as the industry palook back on it, our work has still do. I think that’s important. rade marches by. Physically, a love of “As African Americans, we expect to not been in vain. I think athletics stretching back to high school, get all our information, education and particularly basketball, has kept him entertainment from our radio station, that we’ve helped a lot trim and provides an energy that more and that goes back to the ῾50, ῾60s and ῾70s. of people. than matches that of his considerably youngThat’s the history of us as African Americans. er co-hosts. Throughout the morning show, he We expect to get it there, so you can give informais surrounded by blinking apparatuses on all sides, tion. You can talk; you just have to be talking about from a space-age console to various hand-held devices, which relevant information and educating people. The entertainment he juggles effortlessly as he talks about the news of the day. is the music that we play, the little jokes on the side and things Booker’s approach to his craft has also stood the test of time, like that that we do, but if you’re giving people substance, indespite a line of past management types trying to change him formation and education, you can always win, especially in the at various points in his career. He resisted on the strength of his urban format, because people will listen.” conviction that connection to the audience transcends changing Joe Booker was born in Kingstree, S.C., and was promptly fashion and taste. Possessed of a lacquered conversational barihanded over for adoption to Henry Lee and Bertha Booker. The tone that moves up half an octave on the air, Booker is anything couple, who married late and wanted a family, informed him of the audience needs him to be, most of what they want him to be his beginnings when he was about 9 years old. and always uniquely himself. “I got so much love from my adoptive parents,” he said. “I “In the ’90s, early 2000s, I remember being told, ‘You’re talkwas raised in the church. They were older people, so a lot more ing too much. You’re saying too much. People don’t want to hear settled. I got a lot of good morals and good values there. My [exthis. They don’t want to hear that’,” he said. “It always amazed tended] family accepted me immediately, and today, I have that me how they would say that all the urban audience wants you to family that I visit when I go back, my adoptive family.” do is play good music. Basically, just keep good music on. Booker would seek and meet both his birth mother and fa“I remember going to a convention and meeting a gentlether in middle age, giving him clues to his personality and helpman by the name of Al Bell who was a radio guy before he ing him understand more of his personal heritage. All four parowned Stax Records in Memphis, [Tenn.] In fact, he used to ents are now deceased. work at KOKY [in Little Rock]. He said at the convention, ‘Ev“My mother was very different. She moved to Baltimore and ARM O N E YA ND P O L I T I C S .COM

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COVER never really came back to South Carolina again,” he said. “She just basically didn’t want to have any ties there. The South wasn’t good to her, and she loved the North. She was a very strong, independent woman, and it’s kind of difficult sometimes with independent women because most men would have to be a little bit submissive to deal with them, my mother in particular. “In my 40s, I remember calling my father and telling him I was his son, and he asked me some questions about my mother and that kind of thing. When I got a chance to go visit him, his wife came and answered the door, and she just basically turned around and said, ‘Your son is at the door. You look just like your Uncle So-and-So.’ It was the best of both lives for me, and I wouldn’t change it if I could.” Booker himself would waste no time leaving home, heading off to the service five days after high school graduation. He claims it was not ill will that took him out of there so quickly, but just the natural longing for something different that many teenagers feel. “It wasn’t because it was anything bad or anything; I just had made a decision to join the military,” he said. “That was kind of my way out of the South.” In five years with the U.S. Air Force, Booker would get to see the world, specifically at duty stations in Germany, Korea, Japan and Thailand. During that period, he also got his first taste of broadcasting, getting on the air in Korea in 1976. Following the service, he began his civilian broadcasting career at tiny KWTB in Lonoke, followed by Little Rock’s KOKY (then AM 1250) in 1978. His arrival coincided perfectly with the rising popularity of Black radio, which would soon evolve into the urban genre, and was on the cusp of the new musical art form of rap, which would widen the audience considerably. These two related industry trends changed the broadcast landscape, moving to their own beat and creating their own celebrities. One such luminary, nationally syndicated Tom Joyner, a contemporary of Booker’s, was typical of the industry’s giants: charismatic on-air talent that not only rejected homogenous, formulaic on-air patter but were encouraged to engage an authentic voice that was individualistic in style and unique in personality. It was personal brand-building before there was a word for it. “Tom Joyner was the Fly Jock. Tom Joyner worked in Chicago and worked in Dallas at the same time; he did mornings in Dallas and would fly to Chicago and do evenings,” Booker said. “[His program] was on in this market for a number of years, and when he came on in the market, I remember our consultant telling our general managers, ‘Look, you’ve got to stop straddling the fence because he’s going to come in the market, and he’s going to be Black. What you don’t want to happen is for him to out-Black you.’” Booker was ambitious, and his audience grew quickly, but never at the expense of who he was and what he saw as his obligations and responsibilities to them. Of all the stories that Booker can share from decades in the radio business, the most F E B RUA RY 2 024

telling of his character might just be the six-month span when he left Arkansas in the ’90s for a plum gig back in his native South Carolina. “I went to a station called WWDM in Sumter, S.C., which is licensed to Columbia,” he said. “Columbia and Little Rock are similar sized cities. I wanted to go there because at the time, WWDM was the highest-rated Black station in America. It had a 24 rating. That’s one out of every four people listening to WWDM. I wanted to know how they did it. “Their philosophy was real simple: Because we are an urban radio station, we can’t be as good as everybody else; we have to be better, and at WWDM, they were a first-class operation. They had a brand-new building, brand-new vehicles every year, everything was first class. They were billing $3.2 million annually. When I tell you they were it, they were it. Everybody just gravitated to WWDM.” It should have been a turning point in Booker’s career to have signed on with such a station, and it was, but for all the wrong reasons. He soon discovered upper management was keen on stoking a culture of infighting and drama under the misguided belief that setting one employee against another brought out the best in both. Worse, Booker saw the station’s so-called commitment to the community crumble when its listeners needed it most. “The best example I can tell you, I was there when the NAACP and a number of organizations were having this big march to Columbia, S.C., over the Confederate flag and the flag being on buildings and time for that flag to come down and all this kind of stuff,” he said. “Well, I was instructed as program director, ‘You know, we have nothing to do with that.’ I said, ‘What do you mean we don’t have anything to do with that?’ He said, ‘What I said. That’s their fight. We here at the radio station have nothing to do with it.’ “I said, ‘But it’s a news story, and it’s coming here, and it’s our audience.’ ‘Like I said, we have nothing to do with that,’” Booker said. He let the point hang in the air. “I’m the program director,” he continued. “Things go through the program director as far as running a radio station and what’s best for your audience. There, it was basically you’re here, and you do what we tell you to do. That’s why I only stayed for six months.” Booker lit a path back to Arkansas, bearing the lessons he had learned in South Carolina about how not to manage people, and doubled down on his belief in the importance of a servant attitude when it came to the community. Even today, it is a creed he lives by authentically. In addition to everything he promotes on air or in personal appearances on behalf of the station, there are two or three passion projects to which he devotes his own time, talent and treasure, especially as it pertains to youth, from sports programs to education and mentoring. “Community service has been, for me, what has made the station and my career, and it’s an honor to see some of my younger people continue to do the same thing. We have people who are 16

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doing scholarship fundraising and other things to give back to the community,” he said. “We do a lot of paid things, of course, but things like being in the [Martin Luther King Jr. Day] parade was community service that we didn’t get paid to do. People expect us to be there and do things like that. “I think that’s the key to winning: Yeah, you have a platform, but what are you saying? Are you saying something positive? Are you saying something negative? For us as a radio station, we’ve been here a long time, but what have you really done for the people and the community? I would think, if I look back on it, our work has not been in vain. I think that we’ve helped a lot of people.” For evidence, Booker need look no farther than his own trophy case, jammed as it is with tokens of esteem from his many charitable and nonprofit works. Among them are the Power 92 Jammers Charity Basketball Team, which has raised millions through benefit games; Jacksonville Mighty Vikings youth football; the Watershed; the Little Rock Crisis Team and Gang Task Force; and the OK Program, a national mentoring model for Black men and boys, to provide just a sample. In fact, helping people is about all the constancy that Booker gets to enjoy anymore, given how radio continues to struggle to adapt to a new and expensive marketplace, the changing nature of the music business, and transitioning from outmoded business models to those trying to capture an increasingly fractured audience mix to keep the lights on. “I think right now radio is trying to find itself,” Booker said. “Things have changed. Social media platforms have taken a lot of it over. The difference between radio, to me, and social media is credible information from the source. Social media provides information, but you definitely have to check the credibility of it. I wish I had the answer to where radio will be 10 years from now, but I have no idea.” For the time being, Booker will continue with his proven formula of entertainment, information and education presented in a positive, optimistic tone. “If you ever listen to the newscasts that we do, the first two stories are always going to be information and education,” he said. “The first two stories today, the first was about the weather. The second was about trash pickup. We got to the guy that got killed at the airport in a plane crash, but it’s never going to be the ARM O N E YA ND P O L I T I C S .COM

Booker works to be a part of the community while providing informative, educational and entertaining content.

first thing that you hear about. We try and give information, but we try to give it in a decent way.” Booker gives no hint as to how long he intends to continue to work, but his place in Arkansas history is assured. One look at his office walls, bowed under the weight of plaques and awards, photos of grinning players from his youth football league, and various mementos that fill every square inch of space speak to the influence he has had on the community. Leaning against the front of his desk is a large illustration of the Mt. Rushmore of Arkansas radio personalities that displays his face on the cliff alongside stalwarts Tommy Smith, the late Bob Robbins and Craig O’Neill, among whom Booker is the only one still full time on the air. When pressed about it, he is deferential and quick to share the praise with others at Cumulus Media. “People ask me sometimes, and I’ll say I don’t know any other station, in the urban format for sure, that has a morning show that’s been around for 35-plus years, to have a midday person that’s been on the station for over 25 years and an afternoon drive person that’s been on for close to 30 years,” he said. “I know there’s no other station in the market that has that kind of talent that’s been on for so long. People know these guys. It’s not like, ‘I wonder what he’s like.’ In the last 30 years, you’ve probably met all of us somewhere.” “I believe in the art form,” he added. “Over the years, when people told me not to do something I knew was right, I just kept giving people information and education as I could find it. Over the years, I just never stopped talking.” 17

FE B RUA RY 2024

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f all the aspects that go into running a successful business, hiring the right people can be one of the hardest — and one of the most critical to get right. Far more than just filling seats, identifying and recruiting the employees that will take a company from good to great takes extensive relationships and industry experience. Unfortunately, that search often requires an amount of energy and resources that business owners cannot spare while overseeing the rest of their operations. That is where Arkansas Talent Group comes in. Founded by experienced staffing professionals Stephanie Shine and Christoper Chunn, Arkansas Talent Group is an Arkansas-based permanent-placement recruitment firm that specializes in accounting, finance and human resources. ATG helps companies find employees who not only fulfill a job description, but fit with the culture and personality of the business itself. ATG was created to provide a local, top-tier service that

offers a first-class experience from beginning to end. Due to Shine and Chunn’s deep network and more than 25 years of experience, ATG is able to offer a consultative approach to its business partners that is second to none. The firm’s seven-step process reduces risk during the hiring process to ensure a successful placement. Best of all, the quality of candidates ATG is able to present to its business partners is matched only by the speed at which it does so, allowing prospective employees and businesses alike to hit the ground running. ATG’s partners live and work in Arkansas and want both candidates and businesses to thrive in the Natural State. There may be no other recruitment firm in the state that knows the community, talent and trends better than ATG. The firm is a true recruitment partner, bringing Arkansas’ most talented professionals and best businesses together to create the ideal match for everyone involved.

Christopher Chunn, left, and Stephanie Shine, founders of Arkansas Talent Group

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FIFTY OVER 50

MOTHER OF TACOS

From gourmet-to-go to Mexican cuisine, Hot Springs chef brings concepts to creation

By Sarah DeClerk

erhaps it is no surprise Diana Bratton was born on Cinco de Mayo. The owner of Taco Mama in Hot Springs grew up on Mexican cuisine in southern Texas and shares a birthday with her mother, who may have been the first person who ever cooked a taco for Bratton. “My mother was an excellent cook,” Bratton said. “On Sundays, we ate more American-style food because she liked to cook recipes out of Southern Living magazine, and so that was the day we would have an American-style meal, but we always had a big Mexican breakfast on Sundays, when we could all sit down together.” Of course, Bratton has not always been known for her Mexican-style fare. Before opening Taco Mama in 2009, she was already a household name in Hot Springs for serving up gourmet-to-go as the owner of Cafe 1217. With such an apparent passion and talent for cooking, not to mention the fact that she has been doing it her whole life, it may come as a surprise that a culinary career was not originally on the menu. Batton studied international business for five years before she made the switch to culinary school. “I was very close to getting my degree, and when I just decided I’m going to do what I want to do, I told my mom, I was like, ‘I’m going to cooking school,’ … and there was a long pause on the end of the phone,” she said, “because my dad never wanted me to work at a restaurant.” She was the youngest girl in the family, she said, and in her father’s eyes, restaurants were a rough, male-dominated industry. By the time she made that phone call, however, he was deceased, and Bratton said his death made her look at life differently. “She paused for a moment on the phone,”

DIANA BRATTON,

OWNER OF TACO MAMA IN HOT SPRINGS F E B RUA RY 2 024

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Bratton said. “She said, ‘I’m going to support you in your decision, but I just want you to finish college.’ She said, ‘I want you to finish.’” Bratton never did get her degree in international business, but she dove straight into culinary school — a decision that meant she had to quit her job making microfilm. “I had a steady job. I was going to college. I had insurance,” she said. “Everything was cozy and secure, and when [the dean] told me I was going to have to work full-time [in the restaurant industry] at some point, it was just part of it, that was kind of scary, but I got through it.” As it turned out, culinary school was only half of Bratton’s education. The rest came at City Café in Dallas, where she worked for seven years under the tutelage of owner Marjorie Schma. “I loved that family. We just connected. I learned a lot from them,” Bratton said. “The owner was female. Her daughter was a chef, female. Her son was a pastry chef, so their whole family worked at the restaurant, City Café, at the time.” There, Bratton learned the tools of the trade that would serve her so well in Arkansas — how to manage a kitchen, food costs, scheduling, recipe development and so on. “The owner, they were from Carmel, Calif., and she used to entertain a lot, so she was, in my eyes, the Martha Stewart of Dallas,” she said. “She just had a flair. She was a great baker, great cook. They were just very, very creative — very creative.” When Bratton moved to Arkansas, she worked at Diamante Country Club in Hot Springs Village for a year and a half, but it was far from her dream job. Although Diamante emphasized good cuisine more than the other country clubs in town, she said, it was mainly focused on golfing and providing other retirement activities, and Bratton had little room to express herself as a chef. “I knew shortly after starting working at Diamante that I had to do something,” she said. “There wasn’t much in Hot Springs at the time as far as gourmet food or specialty foods, so I started to buy dishes. They didn’t match. I just would buy pots and pans and stuff that I thought, in my mind, I would need to open a restaurant. I didn’t even have a location at the time.” Potential locations were few and far between, she said, but then she spotted an opportunity at Peter’s Paint Co., now Peter’s Flooring, which then had one suite attached to it. She contacted the owner and asked if she could have the space. “He actually went — unbeknownst to me — but he actually went to Dallas to City Café to see where I had worked and get a reference from them,” she said. “He added on to his building, and that’s when I started the cafe.” She envisioned a small cafe that had limited seating and served

gourmet food on the go, one where she could be chef and perhaps hire a cashier. It was more than the locals could bear. “When I started my journey and trying to open up my own restaurant, I basically was told no, that’s not going to go over in Hot Springs, never seen anything like it, that’s too big city, blah, blah, blah, so that drove me even harder to make it happen,” she said. “Basically, whatever I didn’t have, I put on a credit card, so that’s how I started. I charged up about $35,000 on multiple cards to get going, and we were busy right out of the gate.” She said the secret sauce that made Cafe 1217 a success was a menu of unique offerings made with fresh, local ingredients — a concept that had not yet arrived in Hot Springs when Bratton opened the cafe in 1997. Neither was there a farmers market in every city at that time. In Dallas, Bratton had her pick of seasonal produce at an expansive farmers market, but in Hot Springs, there was no such luxury. “I had a tomato guy. I had a dairy guy. I used to get my cream for my soup from the dairy guy here in town. They’ve since closed,” she said. “I tried to support the small businesses, for sure, right out of the gate.” As the owner of a small business herself, she said she felt that it was important to support people like the tomato grower, the dairy farmer and the baker who produced some of the cafe’s bread when Bratton was not able to keep up with demand. The cafe was slammed immediately. “We got hammered right out of the gate,” Bratton said. “The first day we opened, I thought I was going to pass out because there was a line of people out the door, and I wasn’t expecting that at all. I wasn’t expecting that.” Once she got into the groove of running her own business, which took a few years, she started catering, another skill she learned at City Café, which she said catered for the likes of Jerry Jones, Stanley Marcus, Ross Perot and the Bushes. Now she also has a food truck that provides Taco Mama meals at weddings and events. After Taco Mama opened, her husband, Shane, saw the truck parked outside a hotel, made some inquiries and found out the hotel owner wanted it to be towed. The manager told him he was not sure if it worked, so Bratton put in a low offer. In the end, the truck only needed transmission fluid, so the couple drove it home, cleaned it up and had it painted. Shane also brought the idea of Taco Mama to life. Next door to Cafe 1217, a hardware store that had been in business since the 1930s was preparing to close down. “The big package stores were here — Lowe’s, Walmart. People were going to buy their light bulbs and things over there cheaper than they could sell them for, and [the owners] were at an age

“The first day we opened, I thought I was going to pass out because there was a line of people out the door, and I wasn’t expecting that at all. I wasn’t expecting that.”

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FE B RUA RY 2024

FIFTY OVER 50 where they were just wanting to retire, so they were going to sell the building,” she said. After talking to her husband about it, she purchased the property. “He said, ‘Well, you’ve got some pretty good roots in Mexican food, so what do you think about doing something there?’” she said. “I was like, ‘In that building? Are you kidding me?’ He said, ‘We’ll fix it up.’” Opening a restaurant at the height of the Great Recession turned out to be no easy feat, and Bratton said the nature of the restaurant itself may also be part of the reason Taco Mama did not see the same instant success as Cafe 1217. “It wasn’t easy because people have their go-to Mexican restaurant, you know?” she said. “I won’t say it wasn’t a struggle for a few years, but the food is fresh. It’s different. I feel like it’s different than most restaurants in town. There’s a couple of us that are different, that are not so ‘canned tomatoes blitzed with jalapenos and cilantro, and that’s salsa.’ We take it to a different level.” Taco Mama ultimately proved to be a success, and, in 2016, Bratton sold Cafe 1217. At the time, she had knee problems that made it difficult to manage both restaurants, she said. However, she has since used stem cell therapy to relieve the pain. “I’m doing great,” she said. “I’m getting around wonderfully. It’s just changed my attitude. I didn’t realize how much the pain was bringing me down, so I didn’t have to have anything invasive done.” Bratton opened Taco Mama Side Town in 2020, after spying an opening at Surfas Culinary District in Hot Springs. She said the second location is a boon to her catering work because the Hamp Williams Building, where the restaurant is located, also houses a popular event venue. “I do a lot of catering at that venue, so it’s nice to have a kitchen at your catering job,” she said. “I can do specialty things and have my kitchen there, and I’m right there. Most venues don’t have a kitchen, so you have to be really creative about how you’re going to not just keep things warm, but create a menu to suit not having a kitchen, so room-temp things or things that will maintain their integrity in a hot box, so having my own kitchen right there, it’s amazing.” She added that the food truck has become popular for destination weddings in Hot Springs, and she has also taken it to Tiger Tunes at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia. “We’ve done numerous events, but it’s not as easy as people think, like, just load some food up and drive off,” she said. “It’s not that easy. You’ve got to make sure the truck’s in order,

like, everything’s working, you’ve got the oil changed. It’s a lot of maintenance.” Although she said understanding how to manage employees was her most difficult learning curve at Cafe 1217, she now thinks of her staff as the reason for her businesses’ success. “I just wanted perfection, and I might have been a little harder than I am now, and I have just learned to chill. Let things roll off, fix it, and move on,” she said. “I mean, that was my baby, my first restaurant. I wanted it to be perfect, and I didn’t want to fail.” Bratton has become a fixture in the Hot Springs community, and she said she would not trade it for the world. She said she likes to give back to causes that are near and dear to her, and she has a soft spot for animals, children and older adults. She has made soup for Jackson House, a local crisis center, and she has hosted tacoeating contests to benefit Paws and Claws Rescue. She also received a community service award from Arkansas PROMISE in Little Rock. One of her favorite ways to give back was assisting with a summer camp for teenage girls who are interested in culinary occupations. However, she said, the camp, which took place at Arkansas Tech University in Russellville, has not been active for a few years. “I really did love that,” she said. “I hope that comes back around because it’s a good feeling that you’ve helped somebody or maybe inspired somebody to be in the hospitality business.” The program was especially close to her heart because there were not many women who had careers in the restaurant industry when Bratton joined it, she added. More women have entered the field, she said, but she never let being in the minority hold her back to begin with. “I’m the person that if somebody says I can’t do something, I’m like, ‘Oh really? OK. I’m going to do it,’” she said. Bratton has considered franchising Taco Mama, and she has developed a concept for a smaller restaurant she might pursue if she decides to slow down, but she said she does not think she could ever stop working. She does not want to stop learning either, she said, adding that she has taken classes such as carpentry, glass fusing and silversmithing at the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts in Little Rock. “I just don’t want to stop learning, and I think that’s really important,” she said. “I don’t know it all. I don’t know everything I would love to know about cooking, but I continually try to read up on it and learn about it or take a class. I took welding here in Hot Springs. All of those, even though they’re not food-related, they help with the creativity.”

“There’s a couple of us that are different, that are not so ‘canned tomatoes blitzed with jalapenos and cilantro, and that’s salsa.’ We take it to a different level.”

F E B RUA RY 2 024

ARM ON E YA N D P OL ITIC S.COM

Taco Mama

Taco Mama takes pride in its freshly prepared, award-winning, from-scratch classic Mexican food. Chef Diana Bratton and her husband, Shane, opened Taco Mama in 2009, and the restaurant has been nothing but a success since. Taco Mama is also vegan- and vegetarian-friendly. The restaurant offers food-truck services for private events as well as catering — and the menu is not just limited to Mexican food, thanks to Bratton’s 36 years in the industry. Enjoy a margarita and delicious food indoors or out on the dog-friendly patio. Restaurant staff invite diners to come taste the difference.

2024

FIFTY FIF

50 50 OVER

Congratulations Diana Bratton!

2024

FIFTY FIF

50 50 OVER

1209 Malvern Ave. / 510 Ouachita Ave. / 501-624-6262 tacomama.net / TacoMamaHotSprings / tacomamahotspringsar

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FE B RUA RY 2024

O VE

FIFTY OVER 50

GARY HILL

Getting it done

By Mark Carter // Photos by Chris Davis

hat Gary Hill could probably sell Snickers bars on the town square in Hershey, Pa., he owes to his people skills, which are potent. Just as important, he would be the first to add, are customer-service skills. For Hill, the 11-year sales manager for Mid South Sales, a wholesale petroleum-products distributor based in Jonesboro with locations across Arkansas and serving parts of five states, those skills are one in the same. Hill has been in the oil business for more than 25 years, and his clients and partners include some of the biggest car dealerships, car washes and oil-change outlets in the state. Names such as mainstay Arkansas dealerships Red River, Landers and Everett, as well as dealerships in northwest Arkansas and Memphis, Tenn., have followed him wherever he has gone. Plus, Hill partners with Splash Car Wash and Quick Lube in Arkansas. Among other things, he supplies all the oil used at each franchise. “I’m very loyal to them, and they’re very loyal to me,” Hill said. “I treat my customers like I’d want to be treated. They can rely on me. I’ve had the same customers for, like, 25 years.” Hill said he can not imagine it being any other way. “I’ve always been really good with people. I’m a people person,” he said. “I try to always take care of my customers. I care about other people.” For Hill, once he gains a client, he gains a friend, if not a family member. Through MSS, his cache of family and friends has grown. MSS was founded in 1945 in Helena and sold to Cadence Petroleum Group of

GARY HILL,

SALES MANAGER FOR MID SOUTH SALES F E B RUA RY 2 024

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Asheboro, N.C., in 2019, but the company remains as locally focused as ever. Its product list is extensive and includes gasoline, diesel fuel, kerosene and aviation fuel; lubrication equipment; bulk tanks; oil of the hydraulic, turbine or air compressor varieties; and even transmission fluids and food-grade lubricants. On-site filtration and purification services allow customers to continue operating equipment while MSS filters the lubricants to remove water and contaminants. Of course, MSS services everything it sells, focusing on industrial, agricultural, automotive and fleet customers from southern Missouri to northern Alabama. If MSS does not have something a customer is looking for, Hill and his team work to find it. Their experience in finding, installing and servicing petroleum and lubricating equipment sets MSS apart, Hill said. After a long career in semi-pro baseball, Hill got into the oil business with Mobil Oil out of Memphis and eventually managed the Arkansas-Tennessee-Mississippi territory. He then went to work for Mobil’s Specialty Oil in Little Rock, his hometown, where he managed 48 stores before moving over to Mid South. Hill now services 138 car dealerships in Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama, as well as partnering with the Splash and Quick Lube franchises in Arkansas. Hill’s experience on the playing field helped him in the business world, he said. Growing up in Little Rock, he was a standout three-sport athlete at Central High School, where he played football, basketball and baseball. At 5-11, Hill was not the biggest on any of those teams, but he may have been one of the fastest — he said he ran a 9.5-second 100-yard dash. Hill said he played receiver for the Tiger football team, was a guard in basketball and manned second base in the spring. The 16 touchdown catches he racked up his senior year led the state in what was then Class AAAAA, he added. Though he could have extended his football career on the next level, Hill chose college baseball at the University of Arkansas at Monticello. After a couple of seasons with the Boll Weevils, he signed to play semi-pro ball. His

competitive nature unquenched, Hill still plays semi-pro ball, only now it is with a local team in the International Senior Softball Association. Hill said he will return to pro softball this year after taking two years off. “I’m looking forward to it,” he said. “I hadn’t played in a year and a half, but they pulled me back in.” Softball will take up a chunk of his time. The season runs from March to October, and teams play two weekends a month at locations spread across the country. Hill said tournaments have taken him to cities like Pensacola, Fla., Denver, Phoenix and even Las Vegas for the ISSA World Championships. At age 72, Hill shows no signs of slowing down. There is more growth ahead. His partnership with Splash has seen the enterprise grow from two stores to 35, and Hill said aggressive growth across multiple states may be ahead for the car wash and Quick Lube. Hill’s advice to younger people looking to advance in the business world, whether in sales, service or the corner office, mirrors his own successful path. “I’m more than just a salesman,” he said. “I’ve got a personal relationship with all of my customers and owners. Being there in the good times and the bad times has always paid off for me. “If you want something done in the oil or car business and ask somebody, they’ll say, ‘Go to Gary. He’ll get it done.’”

“I’ve got a personal relationship with all of my customers and owners. Being there in the good times and the bad times has always paid off for me.”

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Hill, who partners with Splash Car Wash, said more expansion is on the way.

FE B RUA RY 2024

FIFTY OVER 50 Michele Allgood

Cindy Bishop

Attorney Michele Allgood has built a stellar reputation by helping communities throughout Arkansas with their most ambitious capital improvement and economic development projects. She has become a go-to resource for local and state representatives working to recruit investment in and development of projects in Arkansas. Working with community leaders and stakeholders, she facilitates economic development projects through payment in lieu of tax and tax abatement agreements. To move economic development forward in the state, she has supported legislative initiatives, both as a drafter and as an advocate, that have benefited communities throughout the state. She is currently serving as the Arkansas Bar Association Representative to the Title 19 Recodification Working Group. She is an Arkansas Bar Foundation fellow. Outside of practicing law, Allgood serves on the board of directors of Christopher Homes of Arkansas and Kiwanis Activities.

Cindy Bishop is the owner of Little Rock’s Diamond Medical Equipment & Supply. For three decades, the independently owned home medical equipment company has provided quality equipment and supplies at a reasonable price, all the while prioritizing timeliness and professionalism. Diamond Medical was founded in 1992 by Bishop’s mother, Rosemary Francisco, and Bishop has carried on her mother’s legacy of service. Bishop is sensitive to the needs of caregivers and knows that access to the right equipment can make a world of difference when it comes to helping take care of a loved one. As one of the area’s largest retail suppliers of health care products, Bishop and her team go the extra mile to ensure every customer is satisfied.

Owner Diamond Medical Equipment & Supply

Attorney Mitchell, Williams, Selig, Gates & Woodyard

Tim Boone

Partner Munson, Rowlett, Moore & Boone

Cory Anderson

Cory Anderson is a relentless collaborator. He builds and maintains local and national partnerships, launches bold initiatives and strategies to ensure the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation in Little Rock pursues equity for all Arkansans. In addition to his role at Foundation, Anderson also served as the interim executive director of Forward Arkansas. He understands collaboration because it has been his career. For seven years at the Annie E. Casey Foundation in Baltimore, he supported state-level child advocacy organizations and helped lead the KIDS COUNT Initiative. He is currently a BMe Public Voices Fellow. He also serves on the boards of Arkansas Baptist College in Little Rock, the Urban League of Arkansas, the Association of Black Foundation Executives and Neighborhood Funders Group. Anderson is married to Phillis Nichols-Anderson, CEO of a national educational management organization.

Tim Boone is a partner in the Little Rock law firm of Munson, Rowlett, Moore, and Boone. With 38 years of litigation experience, his practice focuses exclusively on representing Arkansas health care providers. Listed in The Best Lawyers in America since 2008, he has twice been named Lawyer of the Year by that organization. He has been selected for inclusion in the Mid-South Super Lawyers since 2014 and is a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates. He has achieved an AV Preeminent rating by Martindale-Hubbell and is a member of the Arkansas Bar Association, the Pulaski County Bar Association, the Arkansas Association of Defense Counsel, the Defense Research Institute, the International Association of Defense Counsel, and the American Inns of Court Foundation. He has served the firm as a managing partner and is currently the senior member of the management committee. He received his undergraduate degree from Arkansas Tech University in Russellville and his juris doctor from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law.

Brent Birch

Shane Broadway

Brent Birch is the executive director of the Little Rock Technology Park in Little Rock, which opened phase 1 in March 2017 and is currently in the middle of a phase 2 renovation of 421 Main St. Birch was the chief information officer at Arkansas Business Publishing Group for 14 years and started one of the state’s most successful web development firms, FLEX360, during his time there. He is also the editor of Greenhead: The Arkansas Duck Hunting Magazine, author of The Grand Prairie: A History of Duck Hunting’s Hallowed Ground and serves on the Arkansas Game and Fish Foundation board. Birch is also a past board president for the Downtown Little Rock Partnership and still serves on the executive committee. Brent is a graduate of the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, where he lettered four years as a member of the Razorback baseball team.

Shane Broadway is vice president for university relations for the Arkansas State University System. He served in the Arkansas General Assembly from 1997 to 2011. He was elected to the Arkansas House of Representatives in 1997 and served as speaker from 2001 to 2003. He was Arkansas’ youngest speaker of the house. He was elected to the Arkansas Senate in 2002 and reelected in 2006. There, he was a member of the senate education committee. From 2011 to 2015, he served as deputy director, interim director and director of the Arkansas Department of Higher Education. Broadway graduated from Bryant High School in 1990. In 1994, he earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, where he was president of the student body and received the R.E. Lee Wilson Award, the highest award given to a graduating senior, and the Distinguished Service Award. He married his wife, Debbie, in 1996.

Chief Innovation Officer Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation

Vice President for University Relations Arkansas State University System

Executive Director Little Rock Technology Park

F E B RUA RY 2 024

ARM ON E YA N D P OL ITIC S.COM

2024

FIFTY FIFTY

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Congratulations to our partner Dustin McDaniel for being named in AMP’s 50 Over 50! Our partner and former Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel continues to build his legacy of hard work and integrity. Dustin is dedicated to helping some of America’s largest companies navigate Attorney General investigations and litigation in every state. If your business is regulated by the state, Dustin and our team of lawyers can help.

MCDANIEL WOLFF

BUSINESS | TAX | ESTATE PLANNING LITIGATION | GOVERNMENT MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

1307 West 4th Street, Little Rock, AR 72201 | 501.954.8000 | www.McDanielWolff.com ARM O N E YA ND P O L I T I C S .COM

FE B RUA RY 2024

FIFTY OVER 50

MARTY RYALL

Director of Arkansas Heritage Thrives on Promoting State’s Cultural Gems

By Becky Gillette

arty Ryall, the new director of the Division of Arkansas Heritage, grew up in Star City in the Arkansas Delta and earned a degree in international relations from Florida State University. He spent the better part of his life moving around, working in politics, campaigns and government relations. Ryall managed campaigns for former Sen. Elizabeth Dole and the late Paul Coverdell. He considers them and former Gov. Mike Huckabee, who he got to know during Huckabee’s campaign for lieutenant governor, to be great role models. “Campaigns are about building coalitions, inspiring individuals and promoting ideas,” Ryall said. “I have worked in 13 states and in Liberia and Nigeria, where I was exposed to many different cultures and ways of life. Interacting regularly with a wide variety of people with varying interests and objectives prepared me for the daily tasks of my current job. The seven years that I spent at Arkansas PBS and the experience of working through some of the challenges of public television were helpful, as well.” He also continues to serve as legislative director for the Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism and found the relationships and experiences in that role have been very helpful preparing him for his current job. A challenge and reward of his work is bringing people together for a common goal, even if they are different in so many ways. “I love being an advocate for the state of Arkansas,” Ryall said. “We have so much to offer our residents and visitors. I love being a part of a great team at Arkansas Parks, Heritage and Tourism. The three divisions

MARTY RYALL,

DIRECTOR OF ARKANSAS HERITAGE F E B RUA RY 2 024

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that make up the department are intertwined in so many ways. Our 52 state parks, our heritage sites and natural areas, and the arts and museums are all important drivers for tourism, all working to attract visitors to our state. That, in turn, is an economic driver for hotels, restaurants and other local businesses. Arkansas Tourism and the Natural State Initiative have shared the goal that we want to double the two-percent tax collections in the next 10 years. Arkansas is a treasure that truly needs to be experienced, and I love promoting that.” Arkansas has a rich cultural and historical heritage. Ryall considers it vital to keep the state’s heritage alive, well and vibrant for today and future generations — whether that heritage is natural, cultural or historic. Part of the objective is to provide educational opportunities to people of all ages that are highly valued by residents, as well as visitors. Heritage tourism has become increasingly popular and a significant economic driver. “People do not want to travel to do one thing; they want to blend all of their interests,” Ryall said. “Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism is working with a common goal to make Arkansas the best place to live, work and play. We are focusing our promotion on unique opportunities for learning and leisure. For example, if you travel to the Delta, our team at Arkansas State Parks is working to complete the Delta Heritage Trail on the eastern edge of our state, which will be a destination for birders, hikers and bike enthusiasts — and generally, for people who want to experience the Delta culture and see a unique place in the country with bottomland hardwoods and vast rivers.” Adjacent to that trail are communities that have taken advantage of courthouse grants, the Main Street program and programs by the Arkansas Arts Council. The Heritage Division has supported the soon-to-be-developed Sultana Disaster Museum through cultural grants. “And all along the way, there is great local food such as Jones Bar-B-Q in Marianna, the first James Beard award winner in Arkansas,” Ryall said, “and you can end your day at the Delta Cultural Center, a part of our heritage division in downtown Helena, to learn about the people, music and places that make the Delta the birthplace of so many sounds and traditions. All these places and experiences are promoted by our tourism division, and that educates the

public on the many great places to visit in the area.” There has been an increase in attendance at all the heritage properties, including the Old State House and Historic Arkansas museums. The new exhibit at the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center is a must-visit. Ryall said everything the staff does at Heritage is part of a bigger picture that brings visitors to the state, revitalizes downtown areas, creates jobs and business opportunities, and promotes the arts that are important factors in jobs locating to an area. It all works together. Promotions for offerings include paid media, social media, earned media, print brochures, welcome centers and other locations — and the most important, in his opinion, is wordof-mouth from those who have had positive experiences about what Arkansas has to offer and tell their friends, family and coworkers. “There is no substitute for that,” Ryall said. Museums and cultural centers continue to improve. The Mosaic Templars Cultural Center just opened a multi-million-dollar permanent exhibit about African American experience and Black culture and heritage in Arkansas. The Old State House Museum, the oldest state capitol building still standing west of the Mississippi River, is a great destination for visitors. The Historic Arkansas Museum and the Delta Cultural Center also provide great learning opportunities that immerse visitors in history and experiences and reach thousands of visitors each year. “We also manage 79 natural areas around the state that cover over 74,000 acres,” Ryall said. “Some protect endangered plants and species, but all are open to the public and are great opportunities for hiking, biking and water activities.” While he never settled down to have a family, Ryall said he has a wonderful girlfriend and a couple of cats. “We love hiking — the girlfriend, not the cats — and spending time at our state parks,” he said. “We have so many great local museums in Arkansas, and we love visiting them. I also serve on the War Memorial Stadium Division, so I attend most events at the stadium. Another passion is cooking and grilling smoked meats. I love working with the Arkansas Food Hall of Fame, which is a part of our Arkansas Heritage family, and visiting locally owned restaurants. We are blessed with a fantastic food culture in Arkansas, and I enjoy experiencing it.”

“I love being an advocate for the state of Arkansas. We have so much to offer our residents and visitors.”

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FE B RUA RY 2024

Energy That’s Always On. A Team That’s Always On It.

At Summit Utilities, we’re more than just your gas bill. We’re also your neighbors. We’re the same local team members who have kept gas ﬂowing smoothly to community homes and businesses for years. And like any good neighbor, we're here to help! From servicing gas lines to setting up payment plans, we put you at the center of all we do – providing reliable service because you rely on us to deliver the energy that’s always there when and where you need it.

SummitUtilities.com

F E B RUA RY 2 024

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CONGRATULATIONS DERON HAMILTON Fifty over 50 in Arkansas Money & Politics

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FIFTY OVER 50 Dale E. Colclasure Jr.

John Eichler

Dale E. Colclasure Jr., a certified financial planner, has spent the past three decades honing his skills as a retirement income specialist. Along with his RetirePath co-founder Mark Smalling, Colclasure has built a financial services firm that focuses on the exact needs of the pre-retired and retired. He understands the mindset change that must occur when retirees transition from the asset accumulation phase to the income distribution phase of investing. He is an industry leader in helping clients secure a predictable lifetime income combined with the specific tax implications on retirement plan distributions, social security income strategies, medicare, long-term care and estate planning.

As senior vice president and controller at Windstream in Little Rock, John Eichler is responsible for the company’s accounting, external reporting, regulatory reporting and accounts payable functions. Prior to taking on this role in 2009, he served as vice president of internal audit for Windstream. Eichler previously worked as an audit manager with Arthur Andersen in Little Rock. Eichler serves as chair of the board of directors of Junior Achievement of Arkansas, an organization with which he has been actively involved for over 25 years. He also sits on the Sam M. Walton College of Business Accounting Advisory Board at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Eichler holds a degree in accounting and finance from the University of Arkansas and is a licensed certified public accountant.

President of Wealth Management RetirePath Wealth

Senior Vice President and Controller Windstream

Becky Cranford

Amr El-Shafei, M.D.

General Manager The Bug Man Inc.

Cardiologist Mercy Hospital Northwest Arkansas

Becky Cranford is the general manager of the Bug Man Inc. in Little Rock. Her father, the late Bill McCauley, founded the Bug Man Inc. in 1976, with the promise that he would credit God with the business ownership and success. In 1991, after 12 years in the banking industry, Cranford joined her father’s company, and she has continued to uphold his faithful legacy. Cranford’s sister and brother-in-law, Beth and Rob Davis, have owned and operated the Bug Man’s Searcy location since 1985. Between the two locations, the Bug Man Inc. is able to service many areas of the state.

Amr El-Shafei, M.D., is a cardiologist at Mercy Hospital Northwest Arkansas in Rogers and has left an indelible mark on cardiovascular care in Arkansas. With nearly three decades of dedicated service as a cardiologist, he has served as a beacon of excellence, touching and saving countless lives through his unwavering commitment to providing the highest quality of care for his patients. He has published numerous research papers in medical journals contributed to medical textbooks. El-Shafei’s impact extends beyond his medical expertise; his compassionate approach and leadership have earned him recognition as a chair of the cardiovascular line at Mercy hospitals in Arkansas. El-Shafei is not only a gifted cardiologist but also a talented photographer and an avid traveler. His achievements, unique blend of talents, and unwavering commitment to his profession make him an exceptional asset to the state of Arkansas.

Susan Devero

Vice President of Marketing and Communications Arkansas Colleges of Health Education Susan Devero serves as the vice president of marketing and communications for the Arkansas Colleges of Health Education in Fort Smith. She joined ACHE in its beginning phase in 2015. Since then, she has led marketing efforts for the institution’s now five graduate-level programs, and the ACHE Research Institute Health & Wellness Center. Devero earned her degree in journalism with minors in public relations and advertising from Oklahoma State University. Beyond her professional achievements, she is profoundly dedicated to community service. Devero actively serves on several boards, including the United Way of Fort Smith and Trinity Middle School Trust in Fort Smith.

Matt Farris

Vice President and Integrator Hytrol Matt Farris is vice president and integrator liaison for Hytrol in Jonesboro. Founded more than 75 years ago, Hytrol designs and manufactures advanced conveyor systems, controls and solutions for customers with processing, manufacturing, warehousing and distribution needs. Farris has been with Hytrol since 1984. His most recent role was director of business development. Farris earned a bachelor’s degree in business management from Arkansas State University.

Chip Dunlap

President Regal Utility Services Group

John Flake

Chief Real Estate Advisor Flake & Co.

Chip Dunlap is president of Little Rockbased Regal Utility Services Group, which was launched in 2023. Dunlap, a native of Indianola, Miss., assumed the role of president after 29 years in the telecom construction industry. He previously served as senior director of construction services for Alice USA. Regal recently closed on the acquisition of Tri-State Utility Construction in Chattanooga, Tenn., and more growth is planned. F E B RUA RY 2 024

Commercial real estate giant John Flake serves as chief real estate advisor at Little Rock firm Flake & Co.. Flake founded the original Flake & Co. in 1979 and developed the 40-story Simmons Bank Building in downtown Little Rock, which opened in 1986. Flake’s projects span multiple industries, and 32

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Congratulations

Greg Hatcher

ON YOUR FIFTY OVER 50 RECOGNITION

310 Louisiana Street Little Rock AR 72201 hatcheragency.com Founder, The Hatcher Agency since 1990

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FE B RUA RY 2024

FIFTY OVER 50

WITT STEPHENS JR.

Family Tradition

By KD Reep

WITT STEPHENS JR,

(Photo provided)

CEO OF THE STEPHENS GROUP F E B RUA RY 2 024

he Stephens family is one of the familial empires responsible for shaping what Arkansas is today. Along with the Rockefellers and the Waltons, the Stephens are financial champions who honored the state’s scrappy, tenacious spirit and forged it into a worldwide presence in industry and art. W.R. “Witt” Stephens Jr., the CEO of the Stephens Group and the son of W.R. “Witt” Stephens Sr., a political leader and founder of Stephens, has continued this legacy through the Stephens Group, which he co-founded and co-chairs with his sister, Elizabeth Campbell, and his dedication to conservation of the state’s natural resources. For 18 years, Stephens, 55, has continued the Stephens Group mission to steward the resources of his family to the highest professional standards, emphasizing the ethics that have guided the organization since his father founded it 91 years ago. The Stephens Group is a private investment firm that partners with talented management teams to help build valuable businesses. Backed by the resources of Witt Stephens Jr. and Elizabeth Campbell’s families, the firm combines the operational expertise of a private equity firm with the flexibility provided by long-term capital. With more than $2 billion in private equity assets under management, the firm has a long history of providing informed, sophisticated expertise and collaborating with owners and managers to help them successfully achieve their strategic visions and build long-term value. Since 2006, the Stephens Group has invested in more than 50 companies, targeting investments in industries across the U.S., including industrial and commercial products and services, specialty distribution, technology infrastructure, and vertical software. “Our reputation is our most valuable asset, and we conduct ourselves in a way ARM ON E YA N D P OL ITIC S.COM

that demonstrates that,” he said. “I am most proud that we have honored the legacy of our family and have built a high-performing private equity group in our home state that competes across the country. The most challenging issue we face is to continue to evolve and develop our capabilities to compete at a high level in the private equity marketplace. Our core values and the flexibility that a dedicated capital base brings allows us to do that. Everything we do at Stephens Group is directed at building a high-performing organization that will last for the foreseeable future.” An avid outdoorsman and conservationist, Stephens served on the board of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, and its nature center in Little Rock is named in his honor. In addition to owning a quail plantation in Georgia, Stephens was included in the Arkansas Waterfowler Hall of Fame, among other achievements. His passion for the outdoors arose from his childhood, which he spent working on his family’s farm. “I grew up going to Prattsville, where we worked in the hay fields, tended cattle and had a vegetable garden,” Stephens said. “My uncle Albert was an engineer and loved guns, and I would visit him with my father on the weekends. He gave me several guns, which started my interest in hunting, and we also had a lake on that property, and I fished every minute that I could. From there, being outdoors just developed as many of the men I looked up to hunted. “It has been a lifelong obsession, and I am so fortunate to have been able to pursue these activities all my life,” he continued. “I am extremely proud of the time I served on the Game and Fish Commission and the things that we accomplished during those years. I was fortunate enough to serve with an amazing group who have all been inducted to the Outdoor Hall of Fame.” Stephens is also chairman of Stephens Natural Resources, the parent company of Stephens Production Co., Continental Properties and Calypso Exploration. The company traces its roots back to 1953 when Witt Stephens Sr. merged Arkansas Oklahoma Gas Co. with Fort Smith Gas Corp. to provide natural gas service to parts of Arkansas and Oklahoma. Since then, Stephens Production Co. has expanded its exploration and production activities throughout the Arkoma basin and into other places, including the Anadarko Basin in Oklahoma, the Bakken formation in the Midwest, the Bossier formation of the Cotton Valley Group in south Arkansas, east Texas and northern Louisiana, Eagle Ford in Texas, the Mississippian Stack in Oklahoma, and both shelf and deep-water Gulf of Mexico reserves, among others. The company has a rich history of drilling and producing both oil and natural gas while partnering with bestin-class operators. Stephens Natural Resources continues to expand its production and reserves in the continental U.S. and offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, where acceptable returns for shareholders can be achieved, given an appropriate level of risk. The company is solely owned by the Stephens families and is overseen by principals of the Stephens Group and Stephens Capital Partners. ARM O N E YA ND P O L I T I C S .COM

“My father led a purchase of Arkansas Louisiana Gas Co. from City Services in 1954 and then ran it until 1973 as a public entity,” Stephens said. “He received an award for the person who changed the natural gas industry more than anyone near his retirement, and he had incredible vision and the will to see it through. We continue to have exposure to natural resources, and I predict that traditional energy forms will continue to be the base for our country for a very long time. This is a much longer conversation, but I hope that we will focus on reducing emissions in a fact-based way that wisely reduces emissions while not compromising our energy security or placing undue burdens on our economy.” In addition to influencing his love of the outdoors, Stephens cites his father and uncle, as well as Bill Walker Sr., Bill Walker Jr., Emon Mahony and Ron Clark as his business mentors, something he and his wife continue in their own way. “My wife and I both have helped young people with jobs and advice,” he said. “We don’t specifically say we are mentoring. Instead, we consider these young people friends, and we get as much out of the relationship as they do. We are pleased to help whenever we can.” Today, Stephens, who lives in Little Rock with his wife, Carol, and children Arden and Witt Stephens III, has no plans to retire. He said his best business habit is to do rather than try. “I wake up early, which is the best time of the day, and take in as much news as possible and read things that require focus,” he said. “Also, I make a list of the short- and long-term things I want to accomplish and describe specific outcomes, and I do my best to not say ‘try to do this.’ Instead, I focus on ‘do this.’ “I do not plan to retire. I would like to always work in some capacity. It is very important, though, to transition roles and responsibilities to younger people,” he added. “That creates opportunities for them and keeps an organization vibrant. However, I believe there is always something a person can do to be productive and contribute. I am reading a book now, in fact, called From Strength to Strength by Arthur Brooks, which talks about this stage of life.” The best counsel Stephens has for those considering investing as a career is to get the best education possible, as well as training that expands one’s options. He also advises to know the Rule of 72, which is a rule of thumb used to estimate the number of years required to double invested money at a given annual rate of return. “If I had to choose one thing for someone to remember, it’s to always try to make things better than you found them,” Stephens said. “It’s a great honor to be mentioned among this group. I thank my wife, Carol, for the support she gives me, and I am proud to do business here and have our base of operations located in our home state.” 35

FE B RUA RY 2024

FIFTY OVER 50 Gary Green

his client portfolio includes Baptist Health, Walmart, Dillard’s, Verizon, Acxiom, Entergy and Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas. Flake is a certified commercial investment manager and a member of the Arkansas Real Estate Association, the Little Rock Real Estate Association and the National Association of Realtors. He is also affiliated with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra in Little Rock, Big Brothers of Pulaski County, the Little Rock Regional Chamber, the Downtown Little Rock Partnership and the Little Rock Municipal Airport Commission.

Owner Law Offices of Gary Green Gary Green, owner of Law Offices of Gary Green in Little Rock, has practiced law for more than 40 years. His practice areas include personal injury, medical negligence and malpractice, nursing home negligence, truck wrecks, product liability, and wrongful death. He graduated from Hendrix College in Conway in 1975 and earned his juris doctor from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law in 1978. He is past president of the Southern Trial Lawyers Association, as well as a member of the Arkansas Trial Lawyers Association, the Pulaski County Bar Association, the Arkansas Bar Association and the American Association for Justice. He was born and raised in Texarkana. He and his wife, Patricia, have four children, as well as several grandchildren. His grandchildren inspired him to publish Grand-Pére Bear, An American Bear in Paris and A Day with Grand-Pére. In 2021, he published A People’s Practice.

Josef France

Owner Roadside Properties Josef France, owner of Roadside Properties, has been in real estate for more than 20 years. He worked at an investment firm and as a Realtor before entering the development arena a few years ago. He recently purchased the Park Hotel in Hot Springs. He also recently completed Vista Point at Lake Hamilton in Hot Springs and opened Timberlodge Ranch in Amity. In addition, he and his wife, Amy, own Spa City Rentals in Hot Springs.

Glenn Grimes Owner Capitol Glass Co.

Jeffrey Garner, DDS Owner The Smile Doctor

Glenn Grimes is the owner of Capitol Glass Co., the oldest locally owned and operated glass company in the Little Rock area, as well as co-owner of Lacey’s Narrows Marina and Boating Center and Shiloh Marina at Greers Ferry Lake. Grimes worked at Capitol Glass, the family business, throughout his childhood, starting full time in 1972, immediately after graduating from high school. His father, Jack Grimes, co-founded the company in 1950. Grimes has owned Capitol Glass since his father’s retirement in 1990, and he visits weekly to check on the business, while his son, Aaron, runs the company’s day-to-day operations. Grimes became co-owner of Lacey’s Boating Center in 2016 and Shiloh Marina in 2022.

For more than 34 years, Dr. Jeff Garner, “The Smile Doctor,” has been the No.1, go-to dentist for cosmetic smile makeovers and fullmouth dental reconstruction in Arkansas and surrounding states. His national reputation for innovation, artistry and mastery of dental techniques is often shared among his peers in dental publications, such as Dentistry Today, the country’s top clinical magazine, which dubbed him “one of the nation’s leading clinicians.” Being featured on television shows such as Dateline and Entertainment Tonight has brought Garner an international audience and patient base from around the globe. Garner graduated from Harding University in Searcy and received his doctorate in dental surgery from the University of Tennessee College of Dentistry, and his cosmetic dental training was obtained from Baylor College of Dentistry in Texas.

Spencer Guinn, M.D.

Orthopaedic Surgeon Jonesboro Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine Spencer Guinn, M.D., is a graduate of Jonesboro High School. He returned to Jonesboro in 2002 after completing his residency. He then served in the United States Army in Iraq as a Combat Surgeon in the 1st Forward Surgical Team (Airborne) most of 2003. He again deployed under Operation Iraqi Freedom/ Operation Enduring Freedom in 2006. After obtaining his undergraduate degree from Tulane University in Louisiana, Guinn went on to medical school at the same institution, and completed his residency at University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock. He currently specializes in sports medicine and orthopedic surgery, and he is the co-medical director and team physician for Arkansas State University men’s and women’s athletics in Jonesboro. He is also a member of the Arkansas State Police SWAT team, where he serves as medical director and a tactical medic. Guinn is the president and co-founder of the Stop the Bleeding Foundation. The nonprofit foundation provides free medical training and equipment to law enforcement, fire and rescue, first responders and community organizations.

Todd Gold

Senior Director of Hospitality Saracen Casino Resort Todd Gold is senior director of hospitality at Saracen Casino Resort in Pine Bluff. He began his career in 1988 as a dishwasher at Bruno’s Little Italy in Little Rock and has since garnered numerous honors. The American Culinary Federation Central Arkansas Chefs Association has recognized him with the President’s Award, the Pursuit of Excellence Award and three Chef of the Year Awards, and he has received the ACF National President’s Medallion three times. He was inducted into the ACF-CACA Hall of Fame in 2005 and the Arkansas Hospitality Association Hall of Fame in 2014, and he was inducted as a fellow into the American Academy of Chefs in 2008. He is chairman of the American Culinary Foundation, chairman of the Central Arkansas Chefs Association, president of the Arkansas Delta Chefs Association and advisory board chairman for the University of Arkansas-Pulaski Technical College Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management Institute in Little Rock. F E B RUA RY 2 024

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FIFTY OVER 50 Deron Hamilton

Phil Herring

Partner Denman, Hamilton & Associates

Owner (retired) Herring Furniture Co.

Deron Hamilton is a partner at Denman, Hamilton & Associates in Little Rock. Hamilton and his co-founder, Neil Denman, formed their certified public accountant firm in 2013 with a mission to make a difference in the lives of others and a focus on empowering the businesses they serve with knowledge and information to be successful in the marketplace. The firm works with clients in numerous industries with a strong focus in real estate, construction, transportation and logistics and retail. The firm also helps nonprofit organizations develop strong internal controls, board governance and understanding of the audit process. Hamilton earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Memphis in Tennessee and received a Master of Business Administration from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He passed the certified public accountant exam in 2003. Hamilton enjoys giving back to others through Kappa League, Rotary, FUSE for the homeless, his church and other boards he serves on. He takes his faith in God as his foundation and makes it a mission to help young men be successful in their endeavors.

Phil Herring worked in the family business, Herring Furniture Co., from age 6, taking up ownership in 1984 and running it until his retirement in 2016. Located in the town of Strong with a population of less than 1,000, his talent for advertising brought in customers from around the state. His daughter, Amber, became a local celebrity at just 4 years old as the star of the company’s commercials. She has since continued the family business with Vivid Designs in Little Rock, her own interior design firm. Herring is also well known for his frequent appearances on local radio to advertise and entertain. The radio station would often play helicopter noises in the background as he told invented stories of wrecks viewed from his “traffic helicopter” — stories which were often taken at face value, including one about a truck full of monkeys that spilled its cargo on the road.

Brock Hessing

Senior Vice President of Commercial Lending Signature Bank of Arkansas

Neal Harrington

Owner Express Employment Professionals

Brock Hessing is senior vice president of commercial lending for Signature Bank of Arkansas in Bentonville. Hessing has extensive experience in lending and credit, as well as a comprehensive knowledge of treasury management products, systems and applications. Prior to joining Signature Bank of Arkansas in 2019, he was director of planning and execution in treasury management for a regional financial institution. Hessing previously worked as senior vice president for PNC Bank in St. Louis Mo., where he served as a regional sales manager within the treasury management division. He also held roles in commercial lending at Commerce Bank and Regions Bank in his home state of Illinois. Hessing obtained his bachelor’s degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia, and he is a certified treasury professional through the Association for Financial Professionals.

Neal Harrington has owned and operated the award-winning Express Employment Professionals franchise in Hot Springs since 2007. His passion for helping people has been the key to the company’s success. He currently serves on the boards of the Greater Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce and the Hot Springs Metro Partnership, as well as on Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce political action committee and the West Central Arkansas Workforce Development Board. Harrington served as board chairman for the Greater Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce in 2020. He is also a founding member of Spa City Steamers, a nonprofit that keeps the blues alive in Hot Springs and produces the Big Steam Music Festival. He is a connect group leader at First Baptist Church Hot Springs.

DeAnn Hunt

Greg Hatcher

President Arkansas Down Syndrome Association

Founder and CEO The Hatcher Agency

DeAnn Hunt has served as president of the Arkansas Down Syndrome Association since 2017. She also serves on the national board of directors for Down Syndrome Affiliates in Action. During her tenure, ADSA has expanded annual programming three-fold across Arkansas. Hunt has served as a community member on the development committee for Easterseals Arkansas Board of Directors since 2008 and has served on several event committees. She also founded a summer day camp for children with Down syndrome, which she operated from 2011 to 2017. Prior to the birth of her son, Al, who was born with DS, she worked as a surgical registered nurse, a post-anesthesia care unit nurse and a surgical intensive care unit nurse for almost 20 years. She earned her Bachelor of Science in nursing from Henderson State University in Arkadelphia in 1986.

Greg Hatcher, founder and CEO of The Hatcher Agency, started his business from scratch in 1990 with an assistant and 500 square feet of office space. By the end of the first year, he had outgrown his office space, grown to seven employees and produced more insurance in his first year of business than any agent in Arkansas. Three years later, The Hatcher Agency was the largest health insurance agency in the state. Today, The Hatcher Agency has grown to a business that has more than 65 employees, 1,000 group clients and 180,000 insured. The agency is currently the top producer for eight different insurance companies in Arkansas and has led the state in health insurance sales every year since it has been in business under Hatcher’s leadership. In addition Hatcher has received numerous awards and honors, including Philanthropist of the Year for the State of Arkansas in 2015 and being inducted into the Alma College Hall of Fame in 2017, the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2017 and the Arkansas Insurance Hall of Fame in 2022. F E B RUA RY 2 024

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FE B RUA RY 2024

FIFTY OVER 50 Laura McKinney

Mike Jackson

Executive Vice President for Project Management and Development Moses Tucker Partners

Deputy General Counsel Summit Utilities Mike Jackson is an experienced corporate attorney and compliance officer and the deputy general counsel at Summit Utilities. He assists Summit as it continues its investment in Arkansas and across its platform. Prior to joining Summit, Jackson served as senior counsel and later the compliance officer for Murphy Oil Corp., first in El Dorado and most recently in Houston. At Murphy, Jackson provided a wide range of legal support for the company’s operations, including serving on transaction teams domestically, as well as in the United Kingdom, Canada and Malaysia. Jackson began his legal career in private practice in Little Rock before joining the legal department at Alltel and later serving as the general counsel at Mountain Valley Spring Water in Hot Springs. Jackson is a graduate of Virginia Tech and the University of Arkansas School of Law in Fayetteville.

Diane LaFollette

CEO Mid-America Science Museum In her 11-year tenure, Mid-America Science Museum’s CEO Diane LaFollette has reshaped the institution into a hub of science education. LaFollette spearheaded a $7.8 million renovation in 2015 and, in 2018, introduced the Oaklawn Foundation DinoTrek, Arkansas’s only outdoor dinosaur exhibit. In 2020, she introduced the Hall of Wonder, a 5,000-square-foot exhibition space. LaFollette prioritizes strategic partnerships, including with the Hot Springs School District, Hot Springs National Park and Delta Dental of Arkansas, which have strengthened the museum’s programming and finances, ensuring a lasting impact on education in Garland County. Featuring a variety of innovative educational programs such as Tinkerfest, Scientots, Science Saturdays and Girls in STEM, the museum serves over 125,000 visitors from all 50 states. Mid-America has been recognized as Best Museum in USA Today’s 10 Best Readers’ Choice Awards, an IMLS National Medalist for Community Service and the Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce Organization of the Year.

Dustin McDaniel Founding Partner McDaniel Wolff

Dustin McDaniel is an attorney and founding partner in the firm of McDaniel Wolff. He was elected to the Arkansas House of Representatives in 2004, serving from 2005 to 2007. He was the only freshman lawmaker in the 85th General Assembly to be named by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette to its “Top 10 Legislators” list in 2005. In 2006, Dustin was elected as Arkansas’s 55th Attorney General. At the time, he was the youngest attorney general in the United States. In 2010, Dustin was reelected. McDaniel was selected by his colleagues around the nation to hold many leadership roles, including chairman of the Southern Region of the National Association of Attorneys General, co-chair of the Democratic Attorneys General Association and chairman of the NAAG Tobacco Project, which oversees roughly $7 billion in annual payments between settling tobacco companies and 46 states. F E B RUA RY 2 024

In her 50s, Laura McKinney believes she is living her best life. Her role in development at Moses Tucker Partners in Little Rock is the culmination of a career that began in financial consulting at Ernst & Young, followed by almost a decade practicing law, and then a 13year stint in accounting and real estate development with the largest franchisee of Tropical Smoothie Cafe. A colleague introduced her to Chris Moses, principal, president and CEO of Moses Tucker, in 2023, and she jumped at the chance to join his development team. She especially values Moses Tucker’s role in downtown redevelopment, including of the historic Boyle Building in Little Rock. Since graduating from Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn., with a Bachelor of Arts in economics and earning her juris doctor at the University of Arizona College of Law, she has held several leadership positions at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church in Little Rock and served on the Little Rock Land Bank Commission.

Bill Miller President R&E Supply

Bill Miller is president of R&E Supply, a heating, ventilation, air conditioning, electric and refrigeration wholesaler based in Little Rock with locations in Pine Bluff, Hot Springs, Russellville, Conway, Searcy and Fort Smith. The company’s inventory of equipment, tools, controls, chemicals, electronics, accessories and indoor air quality components numbers 10,000 products, distributed through seven locations. The family business was started by Miller’s father, Carl Miller Sr., in the 1950s. Miller and his brother, Carl Jr., eventually took over from their dad. Bill’s son, Cory Miller, serves as company vice president.

Saddiq Mir

President and CEO J&S Hospitality Saddiq Mir is the president and CEO of J&S Hospitality, which includes Hot Springs culinary staples the Ohio Club, Copper Penny Pub and J&S Italian Villa. Mir is a soughtafter name in the hospitality industry, and his story is an example of the American Dream in action. He obtained his degree in hospitality in Germany before moving to San Francisco in the 1980s; once in the United States, he worked his way up from gas stations and hotel restaurants into management positions. That determination has led him to executive positions across the country, including at the Fairmont Hotels & Resorts in San Francisco and New Orleans, Omni Hotel in Houston, the Golden Nugget casino and hotel in Las Vegas, Gaylord Texan, Gaylord Rockies in Denver and the Hilton Anatole in Dallas. In 2019, Mir was approached by Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort to serve as vice president of hospitality at Oaklawn, where he oversaw the expansion of the hotel spa and food and beverage operations. Deciding to make Hot Springs home after leaving Oaklawn, Mir and his wife, Jeannie, purchased J&S Italian Villa and Copper Penny Pub in 2022. They acquired the Ohio Club in 2023. 40

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SCOTT PINNEY FOR BEING NAMED AMPS FIFTY OVER 50!

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FIFTY OVER 50 Julie Mullenix

Attorney Mullenix & Associates Julie Mullenix is an attorney and lobbyist at Mullenix & Associates, the government relations and consulting firm she co-founded with her husband, Ted, 25 years ago. Throughout her career, she has helped Arkansas secure historic economic development projects such as Atlas Tube, Big River Steel, GTL Americas and Hybar, among many others. She has also played a pivotal role in “firsts” for the state, including the deployment of the Arkansas Wireless Information Network, the Arkansas Administrative Statewide Information System and Rave’s school safety alert system. An Arkansas native, she is honored to represent some of the state’s most iconic brands, including Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort in Hot Springs, and influential organizations such as the Arkansas Realtors Association. She avidly supports philanthropic causes, from Ronald McDonald House Charities of Arkansas & North Louisiana to the Children’s Tumor Foundation’s Dancing with Our Stars gala, which she co-chaired in 2023.

Scott Pinney

Co-owner Curry’s Termite Pest & Animal Control Scott Pinney is the co-owner of Curry’s Termite, Pest & Animal Control in Little Rock alongside his wife Tammy, and has been a part of the fifth-generation family business for 40 years of its 98-year history. He started as a technician and worked in every division and at every level before eventually becoming the owner. He and his wife now own locations in Little Rock, Pine Bluff and Monticello. Pinney prides himself on running a company driven by ethics and company service and believes people are only as good as the people they keep around them. With all the “best of” awards Curry’s has received, Pinney said he has been blessed with great people. His most prized award was receiving the Better Business Bureau Torch Awards for Ethics.

Daron C. Praetzel, DMD, FAAC

Owner Arkansas Center for Surgical Excellence Dr. Daron Praetzel is owner of the Arkansas Center for Surgical Excellence in Hot Springs, a partner in Arkansas Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons; owner of Praetzel Culinary Arts, which includes VAULT and the HEIST in Hot Springs; owner of Rustic Development in Hot Springs and founder of the Faces Foundation in Hot Springs. He attained his doctorate degree from the University of Pittsburgh. He completed his OMS residency at Wilford Hall Ambulatory Surgical Center at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio and served 13 years as an active duty surgeon with the U.S. Air Force. He has received several military honors and was deployed to Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom as a facial trauma surgeon. He currently is in his 27th year and holds the rank of colonel in the U.S. Air Force Individual Mobilization Augmentees Reserves. He is a proud Fellow of the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery, the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons, a member of the American Dental Association, Arkansas State Society of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons, Arkansas State Dental Association and the Garland County Dental Society. Praetzel is the F E B RUA RY 2 024

owner and developer of the Arkansas Center for Surgical Excellence in Hot Springs, a surgery center accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, where he performs facial cosmetic surgeries. He also is an international public speaker, serves as an expert surgical witness on medical legal and malpractice cases around the country, is a developer, and attained a patent on a medical device.

Todd Ross

Chief Strategy Officer NDC Todd Ross entered the health care distribution space as president and CEO of Preferred Medical in Conway in 2002. He grew the business by supporting home care providers, long-term care providers and the post-acute health care market, garnering a nationwide customer base. Merging this entity in 2018 with NDC of Nashville, Tenn., provided expansion to a seven-distribution-center footprint from coast to coast, along with endmarket expansion to primary care, acute care, dental, physical rehabilitation, as well as the vaccine space. Ross is active in real estate development and equity, and he invests with Tempus Realty Partners in Little Rock, Cadron Capital Partners in Conway and Fayetteville, Creation Investments Social Funds and Kayne NewRoads. Heis a founder and board member of Banded Brands, an outdoor waterfowl hunting and apparel business. He is a graduate of the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, where he earned a Bachelor of Business Adminnistration in business management, and he participates in several foundations and boards.

Rob Seay

Executive Vice President Cromwell Architects Engineers Rob Seay is executive vice president of Cromwell Architects Engineers in Little Rock and manager of the engineering department. He is responsible for the management of the engineering work done, including scheduling, coordination of the engineering team, development of engineering-related concepts, the quality-management process, and supervision of any engineering design and work done by Cromwell personnel during construction. His recent design experience includes medical facilities, biomedical research facilities and industrial manufacturing complexes. He followed in his father’s footsteps to pursue engineering and started at Cromwell the Monday after he graduated from college. In his spare time, he plays golf and tennis.

Joey Small

Private Wealth Advisor Small and Associates Financial Joey Small is a private wealth advisor at Small and Associates Financial in Little Rock. He graduated from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 1993, where he received his Bachelor of Business Administration in finance. Small opened his firm in 1999 and has become an industry leader in the financial world by leading with a passion for empowering clients to reach their goals. With an unwavering commitment to his clients’ success, he goes beyond numbers by crafting personalized strategies that turn aspirations into realities. Small’s journey is defined by his dedication to 44

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CONGRATULATIONS TO

TIM BOONE

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ONE ALLIED DRIVE | SUITE 1600 LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS 72202 MRMBLAW.COM | 501.374.6535

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FIFTY OVER 50 Gary Vernon

making a positive impact, and his leadership at Small and Associates Financial reflects his commitment to excellence.

Director of Outdoor Recreation and Trail Innovation Runway Group

Carrie Whiteside Smalling President CBW Properties

Carrie Whiteside Smalling graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in communications and Master of Arts in education from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. After teaching in Little Rock for two years and then Fayetteville for three years, she returned to her hometown of Little Rock, where she began working for her family’s property management firm, CBW Properties in 2009, before becoming president in 2010. In that position, she managed 300 units at Indian Springs Mobile Home Park in Bryant until the park sold in 2016 and continues to manage 60 apartments in the Little Rock area, along with a parking lot and three commercial office spaces, including the 300 Spring Building in downtown Little Rock. None of this would be possible without the help of her dedicated and loyal staff. Smalling believes strongly in supporting a variety of past times that enrich both the city of Little Rock and state of Arkansas, including local theaters, sporting events, concerts, museums, and the local stores and restaurants the state offers.

Bill Solleder

Director of Marketing Visit Hot Springs Bill Solleder grew up in Chicago and moved to Hot Springs National Park in 2003. He serves as the director of marketing for Visit Hot Springs, where he manages a multi-million-dollar advertising budget that has led to $1 billion in visitor spending. The current Hot Springs ad campaign, “Soak it Up,” was nationally recognized with a Gold Telly and a Platinum Hermes award. Solleder is the founder and former executive director of the arts organization Low Key Arts in Hot Springs. Currently, he serves as the chairman of the Diamond Lakes Travel Association in Hot Springs and is a member of the Hot Springs National Park Rotary Club.

Gary Vernon is the director of outdoor recreation and trail innovation for Runway Group in Bentonville and is considered one of the leading experts in developing mountain bike trail systems. His work over the past decade has been supporting the vision of Steuart and Tom Walton by overseeing design and construction of more than 600 miles of world class mountain bike trails and growing around the state of Arkansas and other locations. His work includes the OZ Trails region of northwest Arkansas, as well as the Arkansas State Parks monument trail projects. In 2019, he was the recipient of the American Trails Chairman’s Award for advancing trail design and changing the landscape for trail systems. His role has recently expanded to include other forms of outdoor recreation that include creating world class climbing, paddling and other outdoor recreation experiences.

Bud Whetstone

Owner Whetstone Law Firm Bud Whetstone is the owner of Whetstone Law Firm in Little Rock and specializes in personal injury, including 18-wheeler accidents, wrongful death, medical product liability and nursing home neglect. He earned a bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, but after teaching in Florida for a year, he went to law school at the University of Mississippi. After earning his degree, he moved to Arkansas to practice law alongside his father and started what was then the Whetstone and Odum Law Firm in 1969. Whetstone has received numerous awards and honors, such as being named an Outstanding Trial Lawyer by the Arkansas Trial Lawyers Association and earning the Lawyer Citizen Award from the Pulaski County Bar Association, the Distinguished Citizen Award presented by the Arkansas governor, and the Golden Gavel Award from the Arkansas Bar Association.

Phillip White

Melissa P. Taverner President Lyon College

Melissa Taverner is president of Lyon College in Batesville. Since becoming provost in 2017, interim president in 2021 and president in 2022, she has led the college through an expansion of its mission statement to include the introduction of select graduate programs; championed the establishment of new degree programs, including a registered-nurse-to-Bachelor-of-Science-in-Nursing program in partnership with White River Health in Batesville and plans for professional schools in dental and veterinary medicine through the Lyon College Institute of Health Sciences in central Arkansas; and spearheaded the transition of Scots Athletics from the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics to NCAA Division III. She has a doctorate in environmental science from the University of Virginia, a Master of Science in virology from the University of Reading in the United Kingdom and a Bachelor of Arts in biology from Randolph College in Virginia. F E B RUA RY 2 024

Rolling Mill Lead Supervisor Nucor-Yamato Steel Phillip White began his career with NucorYamato Steel in Blytheville 36 years ago. He started with Nucor as an entry-level, part-time employee in receiving while a student at what was then Mississippi County Community College. He has served in a leadership role at Nucor for 20 years. He rose to a full-time position in the finishing department before being promoted to a lead position in the rolling mill department in 2005. Five years later, White worked his way up to shift supervisor and in 2019, he accepted his current role as lead supervisor over the rolling mill at Nucor-Yamato. The structural beams that White and his team have helped produce are in structures across the world including Busch Stadium in St. Louis, PNC Park in Pittsburgh, the new World Trade Center in New York City, Amazon fulfillment centers, Tesla gigafactories and more. White is a member of Leadership Arkansas Class XVII.

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ARE YOU THE FACE OF YOUR INDUSTRY? Y FACE OF SALON INDUSTR SALON J’ADORE

KATIE BETH EVANS, OWNE

industry. Owner Katie Beth making big waves in the salon Little Rock’s Salon J’adore is Salon J’adore a standout experiThough it only opened in 2019, a salon at just 13 years old, and her passion for making Evans knew she wanted to opencustomers walk through the door. moment n to detail and quality. Only ence is clear from the the competition is an attentio the salon head and shoulders abovehigh-end Dyson appliances. But tools are only as good as The first thing that puts the e. Unlike many other he-line color and products to an unmatched level of expertis the latest techniques the best will do, from top-of-t brings team J’adore Salon te on why the ry, so stylists are always up-to-dabut consistently great. person wielding them – that’s mandato n educatio ng continui results not just consistent, salons, Salon J’adore makes dized to a careful degree, making get an ideal and excellent end and trends. Training is standar which stylist they see, they’ll r sits in our salon, no matter FRONT RO “No matter where a custome W, LE blow dry and available FT TOfor Already result,” Evans said. BACKnce. experie RIGH allows RO , which T: GA for ways to innovate the salon based industry W looking h to , always approac RL”AND RI are team FTthe her subscription TO cycle. Evans and “Luxury BRODYorWeightLE CE, COLT GHT:ForBU has recently begun offering a week billingRI on a four, six ELCH TCHtoRICE style appointments, the salon RICE, ELIZ appointment ERinto each favorite stylist in advance based two add-on services , built their JE with , DREW PA FF time ABETH SK reserve to HOLT tion, What clients RSONS, SE receive, within their subscrip INNER sho ically automat uld costs. clients ers ted ou subscrib unexpec Stallio TH CARR readers kn care needs without piling on n Transportrmore to get a hair place a ted just ow UTH, unexpec than for ab account outparty on being ation Gr itself locate you? an Salon J’adore prides d , ou in bridal friendly p, your Be family give wit to and eb salon h corpoteam out the e, was estab renting ebrated rate proThe perfect blend of high-end the kids for a back-to-school style,cel What kinds her offi and lish Evans ces , 30 ed services bringing yea in waxing c and compa aestheti haircut. Whether you’re and how is of challenges do ny and thi rs in business as bo1992 and has recen or taking advantage of the salon’s anywhe yo your comp rd-party log tly Stallio re else. th found knit com intimate, upscale experience any fac u face in your indust mu istics divisio an asset trucking n has onal experience that can’t be of talendoreLR. we enjoy nit•ySalonJa ry, n. We are vide a personalized, professi com hardships been very fortun ing them? ted peop the .7707 a clo • 501.830 ate le with Ch wit • Little Rock ser ving the greoutdoors, sports, frie ristian val se- maintaining h a commendab to stay in front of Salon J’adore • 5507 Ranch Drive ly ue at nd industry qu low driver s; ly com ality cus SalonJadoreLR state of Arkan loyal to ou SalonJadoreLR sas as a tea petition and r brand and tomer relationshi turnover and by What is the m. ps that hav service. ke y e to be Our leade your succe en What is the most impo of the comrship has spent decadss? Over the rtant thi pany. We yea the next gen are excite es investing in the of organizat rs we have proud ng you do for Ar kansans? confident eration of execut d to be passing the youth Arkansas ions vital to Arkan ly supported the pro Hunger Re sas spe : Ar employee will continue to fos ive leadership that reins to rity kansas Fo pics, Makelief Allian ter relation s and custom we od ships with are ers. nity organi a-Wish Foundatio ce, Arkansas Speci Bank and our n and local al zations. What has school andOlymcommuor accom been your organiza What are pli tion’s pro yo ur Exceeding shment? org udest mo anization’s We plan to ment Our staff one million dollars of the com ensure the future goals for the next is the compa invested in philan in charitable contrib ployee suc pany, investing in adgrowth and financialfew years? thr ny was bu cess and vanced stability ilt on generoopy, and the frameutions. work of prides itself on rep leading customer technology, emsity. exp uta contributo r to the tra tion, integrity and erience. Stallion Stallion Tra being a ba nsportation nsportation r-s ind etting ust ry. Group • 80 0-597-242 5 • stalliontg stalliontg .com

FACE OF TRANSPO RTATION RANSPO

STALLION T

In April, Arkansas Money & Politics will highlight business leaders in Arkansas who keep our state exciting, dynamic and unique. AMP’s Faces are those behind the prominent and notable businesses and industries across Arkansas. Don’t miss the opportunity to be a part of this special section recognizing the Faces of Arkansas.

RTATION GRO

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FACES OF ARKANSAS Email hbaker@aymag.com to nominate yourself or someone else today. FE B RUA RY 2024

STARTUPS

TEAM WORKS ASSEMBLING THE STARTUP DREAM TEAM By John Callahan

he history of Arkansas is replete with the names of great businessmen such as Sam Walton, J.B. Hunt and Witt Stephens. With a thriving atmosphere of startups and entrepreneurs in the state, there are plenty of aspiring business owners who hope to add their names to that list. Yet any entrepreneur would do well to remember that those business legends did not reach such heights alone. A successful company is a team effort, not only by its owners and workers, but often by a network of outside professionals who are dedicated to helping Arkansas businesses be the best they can be. BANKER Few new business owners are going to have enough raw capital on hand to get a company up and running. Likewise, once the business is underway, the owner will probably not want to stuff their profits under their mattress or bury them on a deserted island. In either case, an entrepreneur needs the right bank and the right banker to get the most out of the services a financial institution can provide. “I think a lot of people run their own personal household banking like it’s a business,” said Mark Wilson, director of small-business lending at Simmons Bank. “It’s all about having access to capital, whether that’s personal or business, but the difference is that when you get into business, it’s more complicated. The small-business owner has more worries, not only for themselves,

but for the livelihood of their company and their employees, so things like payroll and retirement 401(k). They manage their vendors and their customers, so they need wire transfers and ACH services. Then small businesses have to weather the economic storms, the ups and downs, and it goes back to managing that capital in lean times and being able to tuck away savings and pay down debt in the good times.” A good bank can help with all of those concerns and more besides. An entrepreneur could simply use the bank as a place to cash checks and make deposits, but a close relationship with a banker helps build a mutual understanding that makes it possible to find the best solution to a situation. “I really think [finding the right banker] is matching up personalities and needs,” said Chris White, chief community banking officer at Simmons Bank. “What does your company need? What do you need personally? We do the same thing on our side. We really think it through when we’re bringing in relationships or calling on customers and businesses to find who would be the best. We have a very diverse group of bankers with different skill sets. We have people that have different experiences in life or may have owned a business and can really add a lot of value.” Even once a relationship has been established with a business owner, Simmons performs regular

There’s a process that we go through to understand what their needs are, and more than likely, we’re probably ahead of them in thinking about some of those needs because we see it every day with so many clients. Chris White

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— Chris White 48

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relationship reviews, sitting down with clients to get an updated understanding of what they need and what they could do to benefit their current business cycle. “We can mitigate some areas of concern,” White said. “Maybe they want to grow fast or they grew too fast. We deal with a lot of those projects and understand what a company’s shortfalls or successes might be. There’s a process that we go through to understand what their needs are, and more than likely, we’re probably ahead of them in thinking about some of those needs because we see it every day with so many clients. We can take one success that we had with one group and apply some of those understandings to other customers to help people manage their expectations.” For those entrepreneurs still seeking the capital to get their business started, Wilson recommends making sure each prospective business owner has a solid plan in place before applying for a loan. They may be able to produce products or provide services, and they may be able to sell them, but it is important to demonstrate an ability to handle finances and operations. When obtaining a traditional bank loan might be difficult, there are alternatives. One particularly useful option for small businesses are SBA loans, which are guaranteed by the Small Business Administration to reduce risk for lenders and make capital available to those who would otherwise struggle to access it. ACCOUNTANT Once an entrepreneur have secured the capital for a businesses, they has soon need accountants to help them make the most out of those funds and avoid wasting them. “There’s a lot of what-ifs to running a business, and a good accountant earns his keep by keeping up with the financial aspects to a company — helps you deal with the banks, deal with federal and state taxes, should I do this, should I buy this, should I not buy it? Should I expand my business or not, and why?” said Richard Bell, owner of Bell & Co. “Usually if you find a successful entrepreneur, he’s probably got a strong chief financial officer right behind him.” Most people have a vague idea of what accountants do but might not fully understand just how many important services they can provide, from filing tax returns and providing financial statements to third party lenders to business valuations and estate planning to debt and financing services,

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to name only a few. Yet their most important role may be as advisors and planners, helping clients do what they need to get big savings on their taxes or avoid overleveraging their businesses and falling too far into debt. “If you’re an entrepreneur, you usually have some kind of specialized knowledge to start up a company in your industry, but you don’t know everything, and you have to realize that you don’t know everything,” Bell said. “One of the big things that I learned when I was a

Richard Bell

There’s a lot of what-ifs to running a business, and a good accountant earns his keep by keeping up with the financial aspects to a company — helps you deal with the banks, deal with federal and state taxes, should I do this, should I buy this, should I not buy it? Should I expand my business or not and why? — Richard Bell young man is that it’s OK if you don’t know something. You just need to ask somebody, so you’ve got to know where to go find people who know what you don’t. Being able to seek out other people to help you solve your problems, your questions and your legal matters is very important. I think successful entrepreneurs are really good at that. They’ve got great people skills and great soft skills.” Business owners who fail to recognize that they do not know everything can miss a great many opportunities and be at risk of dangerous pitfalls. One of the most common mistakes Bell said he has seen new business owners make is taking too much money out of their companies. When the company is making a profit, it can be tempting to use that money for oneself, but to really get the company off the ground and keep it going into the future, it is important to live beneath one’s means and reinvest the majority of that money back into the company or save it for a rainy day. “Most people find their accountant through a referral. It might come from the bank, the insurance agency, attorney or someone they go to church with,” Bell said. “It’s usually someone that you know who knows somebody. If someone doesn’t know anyone, they can call us, and we’ll help them find somebody. We have people tell us we give away our stuff all the time, but that’s part of it. I think most people are always willing to help others, and I just have really never seen many people that weren’t willing to help somebody. If they aren’t, they don’t need to be in business anyway.”

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STARTUPS

ATTORNEY Even once entrepreneurs have their finances effectively in order thanks to the support of good bankers and good accountants, their businesses could still be in serious danger of collapse if the people behind them do not get their legal ducks in a row. Law is rarely an area that a layman can navigate alone, so finding an attorney to keep the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed is essential. “I think one of the most important things about building your team and collecting the right people around you, especially with a lawyer, is to make sure that you have people with the right specialties,” said Whitney Bower, a Little Rock-based licensed attorney. “Because law practices are so specific these days, you have to make sure that you have someone that’s practicing in the right area. I could generalize and say that I did a business practice, but I’m even more niche. I have a trademark practice. “I work with a lot of people that are in the midst of developing or launching a brand or product. I work with doctors, bloggers, podcasters, estheticians — anything under the sun. I’ll use the example of a doctor that’s starting an online practice doing telehealth. They would want somebody that has a health care law practice speciality. When I’m dealing with someone on their trademarks, I’m going to refer out the health care part of that to a health care law specialty practice. Some attorneys are general practice, but really, everyone specializes.” The relationship between a business owner and an attorney can vary greatly depending on that specialty. Some attorneys might be on retainer during the launch process as a sort of legal coach for the various legal necessities that come with establishing a business. Similarly, a trademark lawyer like Bower will mostly be involved when a business is either just getting started or launching a new product or service. In the case of a health care lawyer or some other heavily regulated industry, however, that relationship is much more likely to be long-term and characterized by regular meetings to make sure everything stays up to scratch. Whether one works with them for one year or 20, the right attorney can make all the difference. “[I typically] see people during entity formation, which is a really simple process, but people get really intimidated

by it because they want to make the right decisions,” Bower said. “That’s what I see people go to a lawyer for the most, but if you have a specialized industry, say it’s medical or alcohol related, there will be a special set of laws related to that industry, and you’re going to want expert advice because there will be nuanced laws that you aren’t going to know about, and your general practitioner attorney isn’t going to know those things either. The fortunate thing about Arkansas is that within the legal community, we know each other and we know what the other person does, so we’re really good about referring to the right person to handle those things. I refer people out all the time because we only want to handle what we are really comfortable with in our practice. Bower also noted that, especially during formation, there is a great deal of crossover between the work of an attorney and that of an accountant. For that reason, it can be helpful to set up a good degree of communication between the two so they can collaborate and set the business up for success. As a business owner herself, Bower offered the following advice: “It is really important to identify your ideal customer and get to know your market really well. Without a clear direction on that, you may misdirect your marketing efforts and waste valuable capital resources. It’s also important to know what tasks are important to outsource. A lot of times with a business startup, people tend to DIY certain things, but some things are better left to the experts.” STAFFING AGENCY At the same time that entrepreneurs are assembling their teams of experts to help with areas such as law and finances, they will also need to find teams of employees with the skills to make their businesses successful. Unfortunately, recruiting can be a slow and difficult process at the best of

I think one of the most important things about building your team and collecting the right people around you, especially with a lawyer, is to make sure that you have people with the right specialties. Whitney Bower

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— Whitney Bower

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candidates while also using a multi-source approach to attract and headhunt new candidates before presenting the client with their options. The agency then assists with the process through interviews, offer negotiations and counter offers, and then it conducts a post-placement follow-up a few weeks after hiring to ensure that both employee and employer are happy with the situation. Many new business owners may be tempted to handle recruitment on their own in an attempt to save money. That can work, especially for positions that require less specialized skills and have a larger labor pool, but even if conducting one’s own recruitment is doable, it may not be optimal. “I think business owners, especially if it’s a new business, need to be focused on running that business, not getting caught up in the lengthy process of trying to fill an open position,” Chunn said. “Hiring in today’s climate is extremely challenging, with record low unemployment rates and compensation packages on the rise. It can take days, weeks and months to write job descriptions, analyze compensation ranges and post positions on multiple job boards. Then you have to just sit there and wait for candidates to apply, then set up interviews. It’s much more efficient to work with an expert recruiter to take that weight off the shoulders of a business owner.” A staffing agency can often skip a great deal of that waiting period by having a pool of prescreened candidates available and ready while also having access to passive candidates that might not be actively seeking a new job and, therefore, might not see a typical job ad. Furthermore, an agency that specializes in the particular field an entrepreneur is searching for will be able to provide vital market intel on factors such as what the title for a position should be or the appropriate compensation package, including not just salary but bonuses, insurance and other benefits. “I think working with a local recruiter is always the best because they’re going to have the best pulse on the market,” Chunn said. “A good recruiter who has tenure in their position and a strong reputation is going to know their market the best, and they’re going to have a great pipeline of talent.” To find the right staffing agency for one’s needs, Chunn recommended reaching out to agencies in the local area, perhaps found through advertisements or online searches. If the agency does not deal with a particular niche, most will gladly refer business owners to another agency that would be a better fit for the business.

Chris Chunn, left, and Stephanie Shine

A good recruiter who has tenure in their position and a strong reputation is going to know their market the best, and they’re going to have a great pipeline of talent. — Chris Chunn times, and when it comes to hiring, recent years are certainly not the best of times. Luckily, there are businesses that exist for the sole purpose of helping others overcome this very problem. Arkansas Talent Group is a brand-new staffing agency launched by co-founders Chris Chunn and Stephanie Shine, both of whom have years of experience in the recruiting industry. The pair also hosts the Arkansas Talent Podcast, which showcases influential business professionals from a variety of industries. “Typically, staffing agencies can help you find talent, either temporary employment, consulting or permanent-placement solutions,” Chunn said. “There’s a lot of different firms out there that specialize in a lot of different areas. At this time, Arkansas Talent Group specializes in permanent-placement solutions in the professional services market, so for us, that’s accounting, finance and [human resources]. “We provide many services other than just the stereotype of submitting resumes to an open role. We like to take a really hands-on, what we call a consultative, approach. That starts with a discovery meeting. We’ll physically meet with the clients in person, get to know them and their business, assist them with the job description, the duties, the comp range and the culture fit. We just want to get to know the company pretty intimately so that we can make sure to identify the perfect candidate for them.” From there, the agency taps into its pipeline of pre-interviewed

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FE B RUA RY 2024

STARTUPS

Show Me the

MONEY

For startups, it’s all about the capital By Caleb Talley

hat is the one thing an entrepreneurial ecosystem can never have too much of? Capital. Regardless of the level of maturity, leaders in communities from Silicon Valley to Arkansas will almost always cite capital as an area of need. It is one of the four pillars to building a successful entrepreneurial ecosystem, alongside talent, culture and community engagement, and it can be one of the most difficult of the pillars to build out, especially in emerging communities in “flyover” country. What is it, and why is it so important? Capital is the lifeblood of any startup or emerging venture, and it is essential to the success of any business. The importance of capital for startups cannot be overstated because it is used for a variety of purposes, such as financing initial startup costs, product development, marketing, hiring employees and scaling up the business. Without adequate capital, startups may struggle to attract and retain talent, purchase necessary equipment, or finance their operations, which can ultimately lead to the failure of the business. All that is to say, without money, a company will not be in business very long. Of course, the best form of capital for a startup is

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money from paying customers. Starting, operating and/ or growing a startup costs money — and there is no better source than from customers. It validates an entrepreneur’s assumption that folks would be willing to pay for his or her solution and demonstrates some sort of market fit. If that sounds familiar to any would-be entrepreneurs, congratulations. That is a sure step toward building a sturdy business. What about startups that have a validated solution with an addressable market but not enough money to deliver on it? Startups with solutions that rely heavily on scientific research, the development and deployment of technology, or labor- and equipment-intensive production often need and can burn through a lot more cash than other, leaner ventures. For some, it takes a lot of time and money to even develop the solution they are selling. For others, revenue is coming in, but it may still take time and money to turn a profit. However, those innovators and entrepreneurs do have options. Companies developing innovative solutions using science and technology are more likely to pursue capital in the form of grants, oftentimes from the federal

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for,” said Amerine. “The thesis is that if revenue is growing at exponential rates, the valuations will likely follow. This is core to that thesis. We also need these higher growth rates to compensate investors for the risk involved, as they can find high-growth, high-potential investments that are publicly traded but with less risk.” Valuation, or what a company is determined to be worth, plays a critical role in the raising of capital. “We look for rational, win-win valuations when we invest,” said Amerine, who also serves as managing director at Startup Junkie. “We’re turned off by capital incinerators. These are companies that raise excessive amounts of outside capital but don’t accomplish a lot. Think a software company that raises $15 million to get to $1 million in revenue and another $15 million to get to $2 million in revenue.” While that may make sense in Silicon Valley, this is generally a red flag for strategic VCs such as Cadron Capital Partners. Quinn Robertson is the director of 412 Angels, a program established to boost angel investing in northwest Arkansas. What does he look for when evaluating an investable company? In addition to market validation, he is interested in compatibility. “Are you someone I’d work with long-term?” Robertson said. “Many investor relationships last longer than marriages, statistically speaking. We need to be able to work together effectively. Founders need to be data and customer driven, intellectually honest, have humility, and communicate effectively.” Building a quality team, Amerine echoed, is important, but evaluating a person’s salt is not as simple as knowing their books. “The management team is also critical,” he said. “However, we like those other [revenue] factors because they are objective and quantitative. Assessing the pedigree of a management team can be more subjective. It’s kind of like an art versus a science.” When evaluating a startup team, Amerine said the firm tries to be as objective as possible for those reasons. He and his team are also sure to avoid the smoke and mirrors founders use to overinflate wins and supposed indicators of success that are too often celebrated in the media. “What have they previously accomplished in life?” he said. “What type of successful exits have they had? Sometimes, folks will tout exits as if they are a billionaire. They get celebrated, but when you get into the details, you see they walked away with very little.

government, to help them bridge the gap. Some founders may exit early on by selling their solutions to larger firms with deeper pockets that can turn a cost-intensive dream into a profitable reality. For the tenacious, resilient entrepreneur who wants to see it through and whose solution is not eligible for a grant, there is another option: outside investors. Venture capital and angel investments are necessary components of the entrepreneurial ecosystem and important sources of funding for entrepreneurs. Venture capital funding refers to investments made by institutional investors such as venture capital firms or private equity firms from a pool of funds to finance companies with high growth potential. These firms aim to generate high returns by investing in innovative business concepts that have significant growth potential. Venture capitalists typically invest in companies in exchange for equity and can be involved in the management of the company to ensure their investments yield high returns. On the other hand, angel investors are typically highnet-worth individuals who invest their personal money into startups in exchange for equity. Angel investors differ from venture capitalists in that they use their own new worth, rather than an investment fund, and they often invest at an earlier stage and are likely to be a little more patient, providing smaller dollar amounts for a longer period. There is still plenty of work left to do to grow the number of VCs and angels in Arkansas, but there are places an entrepreneur in the Natural State can turn. Arkansas is home to a few VCs, each with their own investment thesis and average check size. There are also angel networks such as the Ark Angel Alliance, a membership-led group of individual investors that works to link investors to highpotential early-stage ventures.

Without money, a company will not be in business very long.

FROM IDEA TO INVESTMENT: WHO IS GETTING A CHECK?

It takes more than just an idea to get a check from any VC or angel. Cadron Capital Partners is a venture capital firm with offices in Conway and Fayetteville. Brett Amerine is a co-founder and general partner at the firm, which has a portfolio that includes companies from Arkansas and beyond. When he and his partners consider making an investment, they are looking for those that grow revenue significantly year over year. “For Cadron, there is a minimum threshold we look

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FE B RUA RY 2024

STARTUPS

greater economic value per acre for smaller plot operaSometimes their investors and employees walk away tors. [Artificial intelligence and machine learning] will be with nothing. a horizontal tech layer that will accelerate the rate of in“Overall, we look for founding teams that have an exnovation and new ventures across these sectors. The next tremely strong work ethic, persistence, conviction, intel10 years should be really interesting.” ligence, attention to detail, high integrity, creativity and great leadership. We like founding teams that can sell … AVOIDING HAZARDS ON THE ROAD TO SUCCESS and not just sell stock.” While VCs typically maintain some level of involveAccording to Robertson, there are certain dynamics ment with portfolio companies to protect their investthat also make up a more investable operation and should ments, there can sometimes be a tight rope to walk when be considered when founders build out their team. it comes to providing founders with mentorship. The level “Personally, I love to see a three-headed monster in a of support is different at every firm. founding team,” he said. “There’s technical talent that “It’s a fine balance,” Robertson said. “There’s a level can initially assist in building a product. There’s commerof support that’s helpful, but also, you’re betting on the cialization talent — think sales and marketing or go-to founding team. You need market chops — [and] deep to be a catalyst but not a industry, someone who has crutch.” problem insights, though Brett Amerine, too, said that doesn’t mean you have he believes in the lightto come from the industry handed approach. you’re solving a problem for. “I’m a contrarian here,” “The ability to hire is also he said. “From a financial important. Beyond that, we investment perspective, if like them to be data and custhey need too much mentomer driven, intellectually toring, then it may not be honest, have humility, and at a stage where it is a good communicate effectively.” investment for Cadron. When building a comWe like to invest in folks pany that is ready to take on that are already on a great investment, it is also importrajectory and don’t need tant to consider the verticals constant advice, guidance into which VCs and angels and chaperoning. are putting their dollars. — Victoria Dickerson, Startup Junkie “One thing too many The sectors an investor is VCs do is oversell their interested in will vary by reability to help and mentor. gion, just like the industries Unfortunately, much of the time, it’s just arrogance or an that dominate those regions. attempt to sell LPs to invest in their fund. If a company’s “We look for investments where we understand the success mostly depends on the mentorship of their invesbusiness and can help influence the outcome through tor or VC, look out.” strategic relationships with large enterprises,” said Jeff When an investor becomes a chaperone, Robertson Amerine, chairman of Ark Angel Alliance. “That leads said, he believes it is important to be careful with the supus to invest in sectors like retail tech, supply-chain tech, port that is provided. health tech, fintech and Department-of-Defense-related “Follow the Hippocratic Oath: First, do no harm,” he ventures.” said. “Beyond that, my goal is to make introductions to Amerine is also a co-founder and general partner at industry-relevant connections. Mentorship can go sideCadron Capital Partners and the founder of Startup Junkie. ways when you become the connection to customers He added, “I think Arkansas is positioned to have sigbecause then you don’t allow a company to build those nificant investment opportunities around harsh environmuscles.” ment electronics — think about companies like Ozark While VC firms and angel networks might not always Integrated Circuits and Wolfspeed — building supply take an active role in helping rear and steer startups, there chain, value-added products and supporting tech around are resources available to bridge those gaps, especially the emerging lithium extraction business, and is changhere in Arkansas. Startup Junkie and the Conductor are ing agriculture and ag tech to provide greater yield and

The startup culture in northwest Arkansas is sincerely supportive. People really want to see entrepreneurs succeed.

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sister organizations that do just that, serving startups in northwest Arkansas and central Arkansas respectively. “Through Startup Junkie, we mentor and advise startups of all stages every day, and we absolutely love it,” Amerine said. “Many times, those companies will want to raise capital and become great investment opportunities.” Organizations such as Startup Junkie and the Conductor help existing and aspiring entrepreneurs by consulting, providing access to resources and education, and fostering connectivity through events and programs. Whether a company is just getting started or building with the intent to raise capital, support is available. Matthew Ward serves as a senior consultant at Startup Junkie and occasionally works alongside VCs like Cadron to better connect startups with investors and vice versa. “I help founders develop and refine their business plans by utilizing tools such as the lean canvas to validate assumptions about their business models and customer discovery to receive objective insights through great questions,” Ward said. “I like to emphasize with founders to get out of the building and talk to stakeholders in the community to ensure the data they are pulling together for their business plans are as actionable and realistic as possible. I also pull data from other reputable sources such as public company filings, PitchBook and other areas to aid in the process.” When it comes to “getting out of the building,” these entrepreneurial support organizations serve as a lighthouse for connecting founders with peers and community stakeholders alike. Victoria Dickerson serves as the director of marketing and events for Startup Junkie, and in her role, she hosts hundreds of workshops, meetups and networking events designed specifically for startups and small business owners. She frequently leverages and builds upon community relationships to create a strong network to support entrepreneurs. “We make it a point to form genuine relationships with organizations and partners that champion entrepreneurs and small-business owners,” Dickerson said. “The startup culture in northwest Arkansas is sincerely supportive. People really want to see entrepreneurs succeed. If we can’t directly help, we connect them with someone who we know can take them to the next step. “My favorite phrase is ‘the tide raises all boats.’ I feel like that’s a spirit that’s evident here.”

“Focus on creating value for society,” Jeff Amerine said. “Do your best consistently. Don’t just work smart; work really hard, as well. The details matter. Your energy, enthusiasm and passion will shine through to your customers, and the lack thereof will show. “Remember that your company is nothing more than an assembly of people,” he added. “Focus your effort on assembling the best team you possibly can. Sharpen your sales skills, or surround yourself quickly with a team that can sell, and not just selling equity, but selling potential team members, current team members, stakeholders and customers.” It is not easy, and it should not be. “Capital is hard to come by,” Robertson said. “It should be hard — not impossible, but hard. Prepare for a slog. Prepare for the nos — and the easiest way to get funded? Be fundable. Analyze yourself from an investor’s point of view first and foremost, and make sure you’d invest in you. Good deals get funded, regardless of location, stage, etc. Figure out how you can build this business without outside capital. An investor mentor of mine frequently said, ‘The last thing I’d do if I was in the founder’s shoes is to take money from someone like me.’” Be tenacious, but be patient. “Plan for a three-to-nine-month process,” Robertson said. “It doesn’t happen overnight, so plan your cash, business plan and time accordingly. It’s a full-time job on top of the full-time job of building a product on top of the full-time job of selling. Welcome to this world.” Entrepreneurs should know what they are building and why they are building it. “For angels, specifically, figure out if you’re going to be pulling more on the ‘do-good’ investment threads or the pure financial threads, and plan your company-building and financial plan accordingly,” Robertson said. “I read a statistic that showed 93 percent of all problems get remediated or avoided by alignment of expectations. If you’re planning to build a company to [initial public offering], then great. Say that. If you’re building a lifestyle business that needs some capital to get off the ground that’ll get profitable soon but never be big — great. Say that. Building a passion project that has less than great unit economics, low scalability, but can have a massive impact in your region and your investors may never get their money back, that’s great too, but just say that. “Be up front. Be intellectually honest. Set expectations appropriately, and allow capital to flow to you or not based on the decisions you make.”

ADVICE FROM THE PROS For founders getting ready to raise capital or inspiring entrepreneurs interested in starting an investable business, the folks at Cadron Capital Partners and 412 Angels have some advice.

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Caleb Talley is executive director of the Startup Junkie Foundation in Fayetteville.

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TECHNOLOGY

GHOST IN THE

MACHINE

AI, the Promethean ‘dual-edged sword’

By Dwain Hebda

ariofanna Milanova, professor in the department of computer science at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, has, for more than two decades, watched the march of technology advance and the pace of innovation quicken. If anyone can temper hype surrounding a new advancement based on historical precedence, it is she. Therefore, when Milanova talks about artificial intelligence and its potential to transform the entirety of the human experience, which she does in a way that approaches wonder, it is not mere hyperbole. AI, she said, represents nothing short of a revolution in the manner by which it will save people time and amplify humanity’s creativity to mythic proportions. “Prometheus stole fire from the gods. In some ways, it feels like it’s happening again, embodied as artificial intelligence,” she said. “Much like that of Prometheus, AI has ignited a new spark of human achievement, heralding an era of unprecedented cognitive expansion and controversy. AI, in its Promethean role, is a dual-edged sword, embodying both Mariofanna Milanova enlightenment and disruption.” Milanova takes her cue for this analogy from John Nosta, founder of NostaLab, who penned an op-ed for Psychology Today earlier this year titled “The Modern Prometheus in the Form of AI.” In it, he compared the potential significance of AI on the human race as rivaling the discovery of fire. “Like [Prometheus], this mythic figure who stole fire from the gods to bestow upon humanity, AI has, in a sense, ‘stolen’ knowledge — or rather, made accessible vast realms of information and insights previously beyond our reach,” Nosat wrote. “This act … has ignited a new spark of human achievement, heralding an era of unprecedented cognitive expansion and controversy. “AI challenges us to rethink our relationship with technology and its role in society. It compels us to consider not just the benefits of the knowledge and opportunities it presents, but also the ethical and moral implications of this new power.” Humanity has been on a collision course with AI for nearly three quarters of a century. According to the graduate school of arts and sciences at Harvard University, the seed of the technology was sown in the 1950 paper “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” by British polymath Alan Turing, who advanced the idea that computers could be made to mimic human problem solving and decision making by leveraging available data. It was an outlandish idea considering the technical capabilities of the era’s computers (to say nothing of

their cost and relative scarcity) was limited to performing tasks as directed without the ability to store data and thus “remember” what they did. In just five years, however, researchers created Logic Theorist, the first computer program to mimic problem solving, which is considered the first AI program. The following year, top technology minds gathered at the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence for an open-ended discussion about the feasibility of the technology. The conference was not without its hiccups, but attendees were unanimous on whether the premise was possible, touching off two decades of research in the field. In the years since, AI has been alternatingly overhyped and underappreciated. For every over-the-top prediction — in 1970, celebrated mathematician, computer scientist and AI pioneer Marvin Minsky got out over his skis with Life magazine by promising a machine with the general intelligence of a human was just three to eight years away — there were legitimate landmark wins. Among the most widely recognized of these outside the information technology community was the rise of robots in manufacturing that propelled Japan to the top of the world’s economic stage in the 1980s, the defeat of chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov by IBM’s Deep Blue in 1997, and myriad advancements in wireless and computer operating systems through the present day. Milanova regularly invests in her students the concept that AI represents the Cognitive Age, or Fifth Industrial Revolution. “The Fifth Industrial Revolution incorporates concepts such as sustainability, human-centeredness and concern for the environment, in addition to transformation of the industrial structure through the utilization of AI, [the internet of things], big data, etc.,” she said. “These models represent more than mere tools; they are cognitive partners set to redefine societal structures, economies and the very essence of human existence. The 5IR promises a future where AI is not just a secondary function but a core component of our cognitive processes, enhancing our decision making, creativity and interaction with the world around us.” Today, thanks to ever-increasing computing power and reservoirs of data, the evolution of AI has found a new gear. Virtually every product with “smart” in the title is at least loosely related to AI, from phones and whole-home systems to the latest round of workplace applications that have replaced humans in performing repetitive tasks. “AI has taken many different directions where folks truly are still trying to get a grasp on what it is,” said Adam Montgomery, chief strategy officer at BOND.AI in Little Rock. “From the 1950s on, there has been this evolution of automation, machine learning and analytics. When you get into the 2010s, you start to really go down these paths of what the early foundational aspects of AI became from this natural language processing analysis, where we talk about RPAs, or robotic process automation. Then, as you got Adam Montgomery

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TECHNOLOGY into the late ’10s and into the early ’20s, there was a lot of large models in natural language processing.” All of that begs the question of what lies ahead in traditionally high-touch industries, such as health care or financial services, where human-to-human interaction has been the norm. Fred Prior, professor and chair of the biomedical Fred Prior informatics department at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, called AI a “sea change” but stopped short of predicting it would replace humans entirely in the health care field. “Humans interact better with humans, but also, humans have intuition. Programs do not,” he said. “They may make us think they do, but they don’t. They mathematically cannot. There are a lot of things that humans, particularly highly trained medical professionals, can do that a program cannot. “What the program can do is it can have encyclopedic knowledge. It can be a very useful tool the physician can use to think of things that might not have popped into their head immediately but were a high probability of being what’s wrong with the patient. We’re not there yet, but I think we’re going to see that kind of tool.” Prior’s statements are not mere conjecture; like Milanova, he has been in the thick of the development of AI for long enough to have seen some highlights in how the technology has been developed and deployed in the field. This historical perspective helps him recognize how quickly and robustly the newest iterations of AI tools are coming online. “AI is a tool we can use to help us better understand the processes of disease. That’s the kind of thing where we’ve been using AI as a research tool in medicine since the 1970s,” he said. “What we’re doing today is attempting to build better diagnostic tools, for example, for lung cancer, which is one of the things we’re working on to detect it earlier, when we can treat it better. [Until now] we didn’t have enough computing power to make it work. Now we do, and the algorithms are getting amazingly better.” The latest chapter in AI evolution is generative AI, which the Massachusetts Institute of Technology describes as “a machinelearning model trained to create new data, rather than making a F E B RUA RY 2 024

prediction about a specific dataset. A generative AI system is one that learns to generate more objects that look like the data it was trained on.” One of the most easily recognized examples of generative AI is ChatGPT, a consumer-friendly generation of a chatbot, which IBM describes as a computer program that simulates human conversation with an end user. Modern chatbot programs utilize natural language processing to understand a user’s questions and automate responses to them. Common examples of this technology at work in consumer applications include Apple’s Siri and Amazon Alexa, as well as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Slack. “In my mind, there’s a lot of what I call concurrent paths and swim lanes that are all working together. I think it’s the evolution of finding ways to improve these data models, this language processing, this inner action,” Montgomery said. “Back in my career in machine learning, as you went through the ’90s and the 2010s, began some of this foundational development. When you look at AI in the modern state, generative AI becomes that next evolution, that springboard or turning point. You have all this data, and now you’ve found a way that you can take the data, input some sort of query, and out comes new data.” Montgomery said BOND.AI was built on this latest iteration of the technology. The company’s product provides users with a way to gauge their financial health and receives suggestions on how to improve it, be it through a better-matched credit card or a lower interest rate on a mortgage, all based on previous behaviors. “When you take BOND. AI and the history of our organization and how we came about, there were a lot of large models in natural language processing that created one of our first products of the AIpowered chatbot,” he said. “That chatbot allowed you to ask questions, primarily in a way to improve a user experience, and it was this understanding that began to address customer queries, process transactions and begin to return some types of personalized recommendations. “Over time, BOND.AI has continued to grow and been a thought leader in utilizing these different technologies that surround themselves behind AI, but all with the ideal state of finding ways to impact and improve information so that we create that informational nudge. We’re helping people make the right decision. We’re not making that decision for them. That’s our ongoing goal.” The technology, or more specifically, companies leveraging this technology, is not without detractors. Consumer applications 58

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Considering that AI is already at work in everything from the manufacturing floor to the medical lab and the family refrigerator, it is not a question of if or even when humanity will have to come to grips with these issues. such as ChatGPT have been savaged in the press for giving incorrect information and delivering copyrighted information in response to user searches without giving proper source credit. Programs developed for specific industry applications, such as health care, are generally more sophisticated — and notably, getting better all the time — but performance reliability is still something experts such as Prior keep close watch over. “I spend a lot of my time working on what’s called explainability analysis. What did the algorithm use to make this medical determination? Does that make sense to us based on what we know of the biology?” he said. “I don’t want my physicians to automatically trust a fasting blood sugar because I happen to know that the way that test was run violated the underlying assumptions of the model that was used to produce the test. It would produce quite variable answers compared to hemoglobin A1C, which we use now and is much more reliable. “You have to be able to evaluate whether or not the model, whether it’s that kind of biological test or an analysis the machine-learning algorithm is doing, is giving a reasonable answer. I see [oversight] as an essential component of making sure that any answer we get in health care is reasonable and reliable so that we give the best care that we can deliver. That’s why human beings are always going to be there and are always going to make the final decisions and why a computer is not going to make the final decision.” However, the breakneck pace at which AI continues to evolve has raised some questions about humanity’s ability to ultimately control it. Science reported as far back as 2020 that programs were emerging that allowed the technology to evolve on its own without human input at such speeds as to complete decades of research and development in a matter of days. This new breed of computation compares algorithms for performing a simple task, takes the best performing ones, and mutates them by editing and combining the best attributes into a whole new program. The system runs thousands of populations at once, chewing through tens of thousands of source algorithms a second, none of which comes as a surprise to Milanova, who predicts as much in her class presentations. “The ability of AI to drive innovation as a tool, in combination with humanity and as a free-standing process, has resulted in stacked innovation,” she said. “This creates a feedback loop where AI development begets further AI development, resulting in an unprecedented rate of growth.” While this feature is undeniably impressive, it also gives rise ARM O N E YA ND P O L I T I C S .COM

— with the ready complicity of Hollywood —to the popular thought that machines will one day surpass their human masters. The inevitability of that outcome, at least in the short term, may still be a matter of some debate, but other ethical, legal and moral issues are not. Some of the more popular ethical discussions surrounding AI are questions of putting thousands if not millions out of work, having been replaced by 24-hour machines that require no breaks, no benefits and no biweekly paycheck. Cybersecurity is another major topic. AI may benefit the field greatly by finally providing a means to anticipate, intercept and neutralize the efforts of human hackers, or computers could come under unprecedented attack as AI is harnessed by the bad actors. Therein, Montgomery said, lies the rub. “What keeps me up at night is someone utilizing AI not for the best intent,” he said. “Even in today’s world, there’s a lot of fraud. There’s a lot of malintent, even on the web, no matter where you go, and just on the other side of that, there are a number of good guys trying to fend off and fight that. “I also think that for every reason that AI could be used harmfully, AI can equally work to learn how to fend off that attack. When you talk about fraud, AI can detect these patterns faster once they understand and can identify fraudulent activities. AI can do that and fight off the bad guys. Real-time monitoring can happen a lot faster when it’s been trained correctly in the human intervention and response to protect against financial fraud. It’s what you do and how you do it.” Considering that AI is already at work in everything from the manufacturing floor to the medical lab and the family refrigerator, it is not a question of if or even when humanity will have to come to grips with these issues. Instead, as Prior said, the question becomes how humanity leverages the enormous potential of the technology without surrendering to it entirely. “As a research tool, it’s really opening up an amazing set of doors, and those then get translated into new tools for the physician, new tests that can help them make better diagnoses and assistance to help them keep up with all the things that are changing,” he said. “My only message is A, don’t be afraid of it; B, be skeptical, and maintain that skepticism as we should always do with any new technology; and C, understand it’s going to come into play in new ways. “You’re not going to have a new AI box instead of your doctor, but [AI] is going to come into play in new tools that allow both you and your physician to manage your health care more efficiently and more effectively. That’s the goal.” 59

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TECH 20 SPOTLIGHT

Peace of Mind RYAN FLYNN

President of Network Services Group By Kelli Reep

N We’re on the cusp of AI right now, but I think we will look back and see it as one of the most impactful technologies of this generation. F E B RUA RY 2 024

etwork Services Group, a managed service provider headquartered in North Little Rock, offers managed information technology, phone systems and cybersecurity, as well as cloud and artificial intelligence consulting. Ryan Flynn took over as president in 2013, expanding the company to three locations and more than 65 employees. When asked about the advantage of having an organization like Network Services Group manage IT for a company, rather than using an in-house IT department, he said it comes down to peace of mind. “One of the biggest challenges with IT is maintaining best practices over a long period of time,” he said. “Documentation does not get updated, backups don’t get checked, band-aid fixes are used, and cybersecurity is not a priority. IT has become so critical that it is bigger than a single person or small team. You just can’t afford to have something so important not taken care of. “When we partner with organizations, they are able to gain peace of mind, knowing that it will be done right. We have found that whether they have an internal team that needs some extra help or would like us to manage all aspects of IT, we are always able to make a big, positive impact. We have an incredible team here at NSG that gives a great client experience while providing a stable and protected IT environment for the organization.” With cyberattacks on the rise around the globe, NSG is working to enhance security for its clients by providing multiple security layers, including physical, network, perimeter, endpoint, application and data security, as well as user education. “We provide our clients with multiple security layers backed by our inhouse security team,” Flynn said. “Technology has its place, but that is only the first step. Our teams build, support and protect hundreds of networks every day, and we look at the real results of cyberattacks and make sure they are being stopped so the bad actors can’t interfere with their processes.” In the age of AI, cybersecurity is part of the zeitgeist of the 2020s and beyond. Flynn said businesses and organizations must look at what systems,

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logins and data are critical to their daily operations. “We recommend really spending some time thinking about what would happen if you lost access to your technology,” he said. “Once you understand what is important, you can back into how to protect it. Multifactor access, backups and monitoring are great places to start. An emerging threat in cybersecurity is the rise of attacks on personal information such as cell phone numbers and email addresses. “Some of the most sophisticated attacks we have seen are the ones that comprise the areas that have a lot of trust built around them,” Flynn said. “Phone numbers and email addresses can be keys to many other systems if they are not properly set up. Attacks that are coming from multiple fronts seem to be increasing, and social engineering with identity theft, breaking into lightly protected systems is becoming more of an issue now than ever before.” With AI a burgeoning trend, NSG is monitoring its pros and cons for the industries it serves, particularly when it comes to cybersecurity and redundancy in work processes. “AI is going to be a massive productivity tool for most white-collar jobs,” Flynn said. “What it will do is the work most people do not enjoy about their job, and over time, I think blue-collar jobs will also start to see more AI integration as robots and automation are added. We have to remember, however, that AI is a powerful tool, and like any tool, it can be used for both good and nefarious reasons. We’re on the cusp of AI right now, but I think we will look back and see it as one of the most impactful technologies of this generation. Most industries will be impacted by major productivity increases akin to what farming with a horse and plow was to farming with a tractor.”

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FE B RUA RY 2024

TECH 20 SPOTLIGHT

Great Strides

LEE WATSON Forge Institute By Mark Carter

rkansas remains a “national rally point for cyber defense” and is making great strides in the field, and Lee Watson, founder and CEO of Forge Institute in Little Rock, wants to help keep it that way. Watson and his team at the Forge Institute are focused on raising awareness of the growing cybersecurity threat, as well as helping to create new jobs in the industry and training Arkansans to fill them. Two years ago this month, Watson contributed a guest column to Arkansas Money & Politics in which he said data represents the present for Arkansas, and securing that data is the state’s future. He wrote: “Quietly, the Natural State has become the Big Data State, with data-driven companies like FIS finding a home in Arkansas. It’s little wonder that the U.S. Air Force decided to station its 223rd Cyberspace Operations Squadron at the Little Rock Air Force Base, or that [former] Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed into law legislation to require that high school students take a computer science course before graduating.” Forge remains on the forefront of that growth through its Forge Academy boot camps, the Forge Fellowship, which works with the Department of Defense to train qualified individuals, the company’s work to help protect Arkansas schools from cyberattacks, partnerships with the U.S. military and general advocacy for cybersecurity awareness. Forge works with corporate partners to educate and train. Its partners include the U.S. Army, the U.S. Air Force, the state of Arkansas, the city of Little Rock and private corporations such as Acxiom, Riceland Foods, Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort in Hot Springs. The company also works with Arkansas colleges and universities on cybersecurity efforts within their computer science departments and other academic areas, and

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Watson said they are making steady progress there. He also noted the CyberLearn program at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, which enables two-year colleges in the state to offer cybersecurity certificates. “There’s a buzz of activity across Forge’s divisions, especially in workforce development,” he said. “We’ve strengthened our Forge Academy team and are on the brink of launching new boot camps. These programs are specifically designed to enable individuals without a technical background to upskill and transition into IT, cyber and related roles across exciting emerging technology domains.” Cybersecurity and its related field, cyber defense, have become more essential as the world becomes more dependent on technology. The former entails preventative measures used to safeguard against cyber risks — preventing attacks. The latter, while often used in a military context, entails incident response planning and threat detection to minimize damage and ensure recovery from an attack. To understand each field and their distinctions, Watson said one first should define what is meant by cyber. “It refers to the wider realm encompassing computers, information technology and virtual reality, essentially the integrated technology ecosystem,” he said. “Understanding this broader context is key to differentiating between cybersecurity and cyber defense and ensuring a risk-based approach to developing, testing and deploying emerging technology. As we think about risk mitigation, we are only as strong as the weakest link. That’s why Forge and our partners spend a ton of time working with small businesses, cities, counties and other organizations to help them robust their cyber defense. Together, we can mount a collective defense against the adversary.” At the local level, Forge helps schools bolster their cybersecurity defenses. Watson said Scott Anderson, Forge’s chief external affairs officer, shares his expertise at state and national conferences, often in collaboration with the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, a branch of the U.S. Depart62

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ment of Homeland Security. “We’ve provided comprehensive training to the state’s cyber strike team, school administrators, IT staff and policymakers, focusing on understanding and countering cybercriminal tactics,” Watson said. “Emphasizing the importance of cyber hygiene, best practices and collective defense, we aim to reinforce our schools against cyber threats, to help eliminate the need for ransomware payments.” Free resources are available to help schools and others do just that through Forge’s Arkansas Cyber Defense Center. Regarding Forge’s work with the military, Watson said the experience has been a humbling one. “The dedication to our country and the patriotism exhibited by those in active duty, the Guard or Reserve, offer a stark contrast to what’s commonly observed in popular platforms like TikTok, where reality is easily distorted,” he said. “It’s a privilege to learn about and support the various missions, including critical national security endeavors. At Forge, we’ve been fortunate to recruit exceptional individuals transitioning from the Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Space Force and Coast Guard, further enriching our team’s capabilities.” Watson has been a part of the startup ecosystem in Arkansas for close to two decades. He entered it through Clarovista, a social media agency he launched in Conway in 2008. He helped get Startup Arkansas, an entrepreneurial network, off the ground and co-founded the Arkansas Venture Center in Little Rock, now known simply as the Venture Center. “Clarovista was a trailblazer as the first mobile app development and social media agency in the region,” he said. “We ventured into app and software development, which had the potential to evolve into startups. However, back then, the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Arkansas was nascent, lacking clarity and direction. This gap inspired me to support other entrepreneurs. In 2013, alongside my mentor and friend, Dr. James Hendren, I co-founded the Venture Center. Our mission was to revitalize the central Arkansas entrepreneurial scene with focused programs, access to seasoned mentors and

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partnerships with prominent firms like FIS. [Then] Gov. [Asa] Hutchinson and the state of Arkansas embraced this vision, propelling significant progress. Though we’ve achieved much in over a decade, there’s more to be done. I’m eager about Forge’s upcoming programs aimed at further energizing this critical innovation ecosystem.” Watson, who co-founded VC FinTech Investment Funds and is a member of the Arkansas Cyber Advisory Council, has been recognized for his work in various publications and was named an Emerging Innovator for 2022 by the Northwest Arkansas Technology Summit. “Receiving the 2022 Emerging Innovator of the Year award from the NWA Tech Summit was an incredibly humbling honor,” he said. “It’s a recognition that not only reflects my journey but also underscores the innovative strides we’re making at Forge and the incredible team we continue to build.” Watson is confident that Forge is on a rapid growth trajectory. Counting full-time employees, contractors, fellows and interns, the Forge team numbers roughly 100 members. “We’re poised to double, if not triple, our size this year,” he said. “Our approach to partnerships is equally dynamic. We’re committed to achieving substantial outcomes with our current partners while actively seeking new collaborations and national growth. Expect to hear about some exciting innovation partnerships soon, which have been in development for years.” 63

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TECH 20

POWER TO THE PEOPLE Uday Akkaraju BOND.AI

day Akkaraju, BOND.AI chairman and CEO, spends his day describing a future that stretches the imagination of many. Where artificial intelligence and its myriad applications may feel distant and foreign to the masses, to Akkaraju, they are merely modern tools for solving ageold problems. “If we want to change the world, we have to solve small problems, and if we are able to solve small problems, I think you’re going to solve larger problems,” he said. “When we did the research [for BOND.AI], we had to start with the basic pillars. Two basic pillars we identified are finance and health. Both of them are the most complicated in this world, so we started with the very, very smallest part of finance.” Using a basic framework Akkaraju called “belief, desire and intention,” BOND.AI was built to help individuals gain a more thorough understanding of their financial picture and simplify the steps to improving it. As consumers become more attuned to their spending and saving habits, they start to see ways to improve their positions, such as lowering the interest rates on their mortgages. Similarly, the technology helps banks and financial institutions maximize such offerings as certificates of deposit, checking accounts and loan products by helping institutions effectively market these products to the right consumers in an increasingly impersonal marketplace. BOND.AI brings these audiences together, providing a circuitry by which institutions and consumers find each other. The company’s AI technology makes suggestions to help the consumer make better financial decisions, from spending to saving. It also brings the best product matches to the consumer according to their past behavior, not unlike a streaming service suggesting a movie based on ones previously watched. Financial institutions benefit from the company’s technology by reaching motivated consumers who are a good match for their products, as well as realizing time and personnel cost savings through servicing customers via costefficient robotic customer interfacing.

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By Dwain Hebda

“In the last four and a half years, we’ve come a long way in order to find the needs of consumers and helping them navigate in the right direction,” Akkaraju said. “That is the whole goal when we started BOND.AI.” The most pronounced differentiator between BOND. AI and the competition may well be the base motivation of doing good that underpins the entire enterprise. Having once been in challenging financial straits himself, Akkaraju built BOND.AI to be a mechanism for millions to improve their lives in a fundamental and future-shaping way. “[Before BOND.AI], I myself experienced a period of some financial trouble,” Akkaraju said. “I was trying to navigate my way out, and I realized that financial trouble is universal. Like me, people in this situation are unable to really know what they want and how they can come out of it. “The majority of Americans, the majority of people in the world, are not financially independent. You retire at 60-something, and then you depend on your Social Security or pension, but it’s still not enough. You’ve actually worked three-fourths of your life and still find yourself in kind of a box.” Akkaraju said the importance of both financial services and health care to people’s lives and happiness is rivaled only by the complexity of these industries, making them difficult for many people to navigate. He said the future of BOND.AI is to further democratize both industries, directly helping consumers make better decisions for their physical and financial health using technology. “If you look at the financial system, the way the credit scores and everything are designed, it wants to push you into debt,” he said. “If you look on the health care side, the insurance and all that stuff, it’s more sick care than preventative care. Both sides of the spectrum, which are the two most important things in your life, the system is designed against you. Our AI is designed exactly to help people come out of it.”

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TECH 20

EXPANDING ACCESS Tom Arens ARcare By Mark Carter

ince 1986, ARcare has helped underserved communities in Arkansas access medical care. Before, citizens in towns like Augusta had to travel more than an hour to see a doctor in central Arkansas, sometimes waiting hours for their appointment and having to lose a day of work or make arrangements for transportation with friends or family members. Dr. Steven Collier, the founder and CEO of ARcare, established a mission to ensure patients throughout Arkansas can benefit from affordable routine medical care, his mandate being to serve “the least, the last and the lost.” Today, Tom Arens, chief information officer for ARcare, helps extend Collier’s vision by leading the telehealth capabilities of the provider. Now serving underserved patients in Arkansas, Mississippi and Kentucky, ARcare offers behavioral health, women’s health, cardiology and primary care via in-person and virtual means. Arens leads an information technology team that establishes and supports almost 90 clinics and more than 20 pharmacies in three states, and ARcare is looking to bring on more. “Our aim is to set up clinics and pharmacies in areas where there isn’t a lot of access and provide adequate health care for those individuals that otherwise simply wouldn’t get it,” Arens said. “It started as a single clinic in Augusta, and we’re now at about 90 clinics almost 40 years later. In 1986, ARcare was set up as a continuation of the way health care was done back then, which was very face to face and included a lot of home health care. The telephone was really the only technology utilized at that time; medical records and billing were all done on paper.” Enter the age of the internet, broadband and the cellphone, which connect people in less than a second. ARcare began incorporating telehealth clinics in rural communities so patients would not have to drive as far to make appointments, allowing them more access to health care. “I think one of the biggest challenges of providing rural health care is the geography for a lot of our patients,” Arens said. “Even though we’ve set up a clinic in a small town like, say, Brinkley, many of those citizens are still driving 30 minutes just to get health care. When we introduced telemedicine to their communities, they were very receptive to it because they realized it saves them more than an hour of travel time, as well as the costs associated with that – time away from work, gas, food, childcare ARM O N E YA ND P O L I T I C S .COM

– all those things. So, our rural patient population has just really embraced it, and we were fortunate that we had the ball rolling on our telemedicine program before the pandemic.” COVID-19 and its subsequent health care guidelines radically changed the way all in-person industries conducted their business. For ARcare, it meant more virtual appointments for patients, either through online apps such as Zoom, Google Meet or FaceTime or through phone calls. “We didn’t skip a beat in the pandemic. We just accelerated our volume,” Arens said. “There are so many people who have come to cities like Little Rock, North Little Rock, Jonesboro, Fayetteville and have waited literally hours to see a specialist or stayed an entire day for a half hour appointment. Telehealth helps tremendously in these instances. I mean, the fact of the matter is every telehealth visit means one less patient in the waiting room.” Arens also said there is a lot of cost and time that goes into serving patients that is not necessarily part of what is considered health care: staffing, building upkeep, amenities, etc. “There are all sorts of things that go into that wait in the waiting room, and not all of which is the physician’s responsibility. With the advent of telehealth, we’ve seen our waiting rooms for rehab and our time to see a physician in person go down. We’d like to think that as telehealth and telemedicine gain in popularity, in theory, visits that are required to be in person should be happening a little more seamlessly.” ARcare telehealth visits work much like in-person ones. Arens cites ARcare’s Brinkley clinic as an example. “Our patient volume there isn’t enough to warrant a doctor in the clinic eight hours a day, five days a week,” he said. “Instead, the physician may be there two days a week, and the other three days we may have an APRN or other practitioner. The patient will come in, and a nurse will take their vitals and prepare them for the telehealth appointment. There, it’s a computer in one of our exam rooms, and the patient interacts with a health care provider at one of our other locations, so it could be you could see a primary care physician one day at the clinic and, the next, see a specialist at the same clinic – all without having to travel hours away. Pretty much, whatever your needs are, ARcare can accommodate you with a physician who may be in another location.” 65

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C H RI S BATES C E O

O F

P I N N A C L E

I T

Meet Chris Bates, the visionary CEO of Pinnacle IT, who has been transforming the IT landscape in Arkansas since 1992. As the driving force behind Pinnacle IT, Chris has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to innovation and community service. His leadership has not only positioned Pinnacle IT as a premier IT solutions provider but has also made him a central figure in the state’s technological evolution. Chris’s impact extends beyond business success; he is a catalyst for IT reform in Arkansas. With a keen focus on cybersecurity, he has propelled Pinnacle IT to the forefront of the state’s efforts to create a more secure digital future. As the sole owner, he takes great pride in his dynamic team, fostering an environment of innovation and dedication that consistently delivers cutting-edge solutions to businesses throughout the state. Pinnacle IT is a premier Technology Solutions Provider that excels in delivering cutting-edge IT services to businesses across Arkansas. With a dedicated team of experts on staff, no problem is too big for the Pinnacle IT team to take care of.

2024

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LANDOWNERS, YOU COULD GET PAID FOR CONSERVATION EFFORTS At the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, our mission is to protect and enhance our state’s natural wonders. However, our state is vast, and only 10% of it is public land that we can manage. This is why our partnerships with landowners are key to conservation and wildlife management in Arkansas. If you’re a landowner, we offer numerous programs to help you get the most out of your land’s unique resources, including ways to: • • • • •

Benefit migrating waterfowl Provide additional cover and food on your forestland Improve your streams Provide fishing opportunities for the public Control feral hogs and invasive plant species

With your help, we can keep The Natural State, natural. In addition, we want to reward you for your efforts with a payment of up to $10,000. Apply now at AGFC.com/Habitat.

Scan here or visit agfc.com/habitat to apply for the Conservation Incentive Program.

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THE PERSONAL TOUCH Chris Bates Pinnacle IT

By Mak Millard

innacle IT has made a name for itself as the preferred technology solutions provider for companies across the state. Founded in 1992 as the Computer Hut, the company started as CEO Chris Bates’ side hustle before evolving into a thriving IT company in its own right. Pinnacle IT offers numerous technological solutions to its clients, including, but not limited to, managed information technology services, cybersecurity, server support, data backup and recovery and Microsoft 365 services. Becoming the technology-solutions provider for Metropolitan National Bank in 2002 was a pivotal moment in the firm’s early growth, and this partnership continued until Metropolitan was acquired by Simmons Bank in 2013. Though the loss of this client represented a large amount of the firm’s business at the time, Bates and his team rebounded quickly and have continued to grow every year since. Headquartered in Little Rock, Pinnacle IT has enjoyed several expansions over the years and now has offices in Lowell, Jonesboro, Fort Smith and Texarkana. In addition to Bates, the Pinnacle IT leadership team includes Brian Thomas, director of sales, and De’Andre Jackson, director of operations. The company officially rebranded as Pinnacle IT in 2023 following the acquisition of a Fort Smith firm of the same name. “One of the things that we started out with in the very beginning was that we wanted to be a field services-based organization that focused heavily on service excellence,” Bates told AMP in 2023. “We very much believe that that personal touch, that ability to go on site and help the client, is something that is important.” Bates’ path to the technology industry — and entrepreneurship — was not an obvious one. Though he originally intended to go into pharmacy when he began at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, he switched majors after discovering an interest in technology and computers. He graduated with a degree in computer information systems; out of college, he held various computer support roles while building up his own business on the side. After taking on Metropolitan as a client, the success of the young company meant Bates had to commit more of his focus to the business-management side of the house. Early on

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in his career, Bates also joined a peer group of IT leaders in order to further develop his understanding as a business owner. This exposure proved critical, since the company added personnel and acquired smaller firms to become the statewide leader it is today. “In our world, we just happen to service and provide services around technology,” Bates said. “When it really gets down to it, we are problem-solvers. We’re enabling people to run their businesses through the use of technology.” Pinnacle IT works across multiple verticals and serves clients that have a variety of different technological needs, from the finance, retail and education spheres to government and manufacturing. The size of the firm’s clientele ranges from 10-person teams to businesses that have several hundred employees. For clients in the health care space, where meeting stringent data and security regulations is paramount, Pinnacle IT also has extensive experience implementing IT solutions that are compliant with patient privacy laws. In an age where external threats like hackers can combine with internal human error to make companies and their networks vulnerable, Pinnacle IT is also on the frontlines of keeping Arkansas businesses safe. “In the world of cybersecurity, we are playing catchup to some degree,” Bates said. “That’s where the organizations that do not invest in the tools and invest in the security get caught flat-footed.” To keep both employees and clients up to date as technology evolves, technicians are required to obtain at least one technical certification per year, and the firm holds regular cybersecurity workshops and training sessions. This level of partnership is crucial because the firm works to help clients be proactive, not reactive, when it comes to the protection of their data and systems. No matter the business size or focus, Pinnacle IT strives to provide excellent service above all. The firm’s IT solutions are tailored to meet the unique challenges of each client, and Pinnacle IT’s expert support team is available 24/7 to address issues as they arise. The company works to make technology an asset that will empower its clients’ businesses, rather than an obstacle to their success. 68

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ECONOMY OF SCALE John Burgess Mainstream Technologies By Kelli Reep

ounded in 1996, Little Rock’s Mainstream Technologies began as a custom software company, streamlining processes for clients and providing capacity, skills and experience. As a managed service provider, Mainstream operates the day-to-day technology assets of organizations. “The advantages to that are you’re hiring the whole company versus an individual,” said John Burgess, president of Mainstream. “You get a breadth of skills to address a technological environment that is increasingly more complicated. It’s difficult for a smaller business to have one person who can be an expert in everything. With Mainstream Technologies, this business gets access to skilled experts with broad experience and expertise.” Burgess said because technology is becoming more essential every day to how businesses function, another advantage of hiring a managed service provider is that there is no downtime or days off for information-technology staff. “If you have a small staff or one-person IT department, and it’s after hours when an emergency happens, you may or may not be able to respond to an emergency in enough time to minimize or mitigate downtime,” he said. “With a managed service provider, we are always available. There’s an economy-of-scale aspect. Mainstream can dedicate resources to training and tools that most organizations can’t. It’s not just a matter of money; it’s about the tool, then having someone skilled to manage the tool. We can provide this to organizations who cannot afford the time or money to do so themselves. This allows the organization to focus on the business they know well while we manage tools, backup solutions, email security and monitoring. One of our main value propositions is we free you up to pursue what you do best while we manage technology and systems.” Working together with managed services is cybersecurity, which is becoming more sophisticated with the advent of artificial intelligence. Burgess said while cyberattacks and hacking are an unfortunate way of life, Mainstream Technologies focuses on providing secure systems today and the future. “Cybersecurity isn’t a technology problem; it’s a business problem,” he said. “Everybody knows somebody who has been affected, and there are increasingly severe tales of woe about what happened when someone was hacked. A lot of times, organizations are put out of business because they cannot recover from an event like this, which is equal to the business-level

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risk of a fire, flood or tornado. The reality is that there’s a whole shadow economy of criminals who make their money by harming our business structure, and community and governmental leaders need to start approaching this as a business-level risk. “We have hundreds of years of communal experience in dealing with floods and fires and tornadoes, and we have come to understand that those happenings are facts of doing business. While we are in the early stages of this, I think cyberattacks are going to become accepted as a risk equal to these natural disasters.” Looking further into 2024 and beyond, Burgess said getting businesses to understand their information and security is a business issue instead of simply a technological one is what tech companies will be focused on. “Getting a business owner to understand that their information — inventory, customer contacts, billing, etc. — is their treasure is the first step in protecting it effectively,” he said. “Once we know that, we can determine the threats to that treasure and how to protect it. Once a company understands the risks, they can more intelligently deploy solutions cost effectively to stop it. You don’t need to buy a cannon to protect you from a fly problem. We can help find a natural solution to a problem then provide the services and tools to secure that solution.” A longtime advocate of STEM education, Burgess sees it as an avenue for increased security and an economic engine for areas throughout Arkansas. “I got a STEM education in Saline County, and it has served me well,” he said. “With more of our workforce working remotely and doing so effectively, I think STEM can be the catalyst for economic development in areas of our state that, historically, have a dwindling population. What if a student in the Delta can take STEM classes, attend college online and obtain a well-paying job — and he never has to leave his hometown? What if he can then purchase a house in his hometown? He’ll have to have access to the necessities of daily life, and that will attract commerce to the area, which will only increase that community’s economy and attract more. It’s a driving factor now in our commerce, and the need will only broaden as we move into 2030 and beyond.” 69

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GOING TO EXTREMES Matt Francis Ozark Integrated Circuits By Todd Traub

here is the space race in which companies and governments are trying to be first to put people and cuttingedge technologies into space, and then there is the space race going on in Matt Francis’ home. Francis, founder of Fayetteville-based Ozark Integrated Circuits, can boast products that are slated for an upcoming lunar mission and can withstand the extreme temperatures of orbit around Venus. Ozark Integrated circuits has an ultraviolet sensor that has been tested in Earth’s orbit and, hopefully, will be headed to the moon later this year, along with one of the company’s famed XNode computer platforms, which will operate on the lunar surface for the first time. “This is an exciting year for us in a lot of ways,” Francis said. “We’re going a lot of places and putting computers in a lot of places they haven’t been.” Francis joked that he has to get something to the moon to match the success of his daughter. “My daughter already beat me,” he said. “She won one of the Artemis essay competitions with NASA, and her essay has already been around the moon, and she got an Artemis sticker, so we have a space race in our family. I have to one-up her and get something on the moon.” Ozark Integrated Circuits is a rugged circuit specialist that offers solutions that can be applied in the industrial, aerospace, energy and space sectors. It offers a hardy and durable line of products that are designed to withstand extreme conditions such as high or low temperatures and heavy vibrations. “The first thing you might think of is integrated circuits, and we’ve done that since day one, and it’s definitely a core strength,” said Francis, who founded the company in 2011, “but over time, technically, we’ve also become known for packaging, where you put those integrated circuits all together in a solution.” Among Ozark Integrated Circuits’ many products are the trademarked eXtreme Node, or XNode, a single-board computer module with one or more integrated functions designed to operate in an extreme environment. “In almost every application, it seems obvious now you need a computer,” Francis said, explaining the need for circuitry that can operate in the heat of a jet engine, at the bottom of a well or in the hostile environments of space. F E B RUA RY 2 024

If an XNode is designed to work in the 500 C temperatures of Venus, Francis said, it can work in most places on Earth. “If you can make something work there, there’s a whole lot of other places you can make it work,” he said. While space is exciting, Francis said, it is not the only thing on which Ozark Integrated Circuits is focused. “We are also still at the forefront of research,” he said. “We’re working on things for jet engines, so greening up the air travel. We’re working on hypersonic systems.” Born in Michigan, Francis refers to himself as an “Arkansas refugee” who moved around a lot while his parents, from Arkansas, moved for job opportunities in places like Dallas, New Jersey and Tulsa, Okla. He came to the state to attend the University of Arkansas and left with degrees in engineering and physics, along with two graduate degrees in electrical engineering. Under Chancellor John White, Arkansas was ramping up its focus on tech, and while in grad school, Francis, a member of one of the school’s first Walton Fellowship classes, joined a startup focused on extreme environmental electronics. “If you think you want to start a business, go work for a new one,” he said. “You can learn the good and the bad, and it’s less risky than doing it on your own time.” When his company failed to survive the economic downturn of 2008 and 2009, Francis did not want to leave Arkansas. When he was approached by people more interested in the “hardware side,” he jumped at the chance, and in February 2011, Ozark Integrated Circuits was born. “From my end, I really loved doing the analysis and designing, but what I really like is using that to make hardware,” Francis said. Working to send its circuitry from the Earth to the moon and most hostile points in between, Ozark Integrated Circuits is riding a semiconductor revolution in which it continues to form partnerships and move and build things faster. Above all, Francis takes pride that each circuit’s long journey starts in Arkansas. “What I’m really excited about is over the last several years, we’ve launched a product line that we’re manufacturing here in Arkansas, and we’re starting to have good success at that,” Francis said. 70

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FINTECH BEFORE FINTECH WAS COOL Elizabeth Smiley Glasbrenner Smiley Technologies By Mak Millard

ittle-Rock-based Smiley Technologies is a core and digital provider for community banks. The firm was founded in 2002 to serve a need for better software and superior service, and its mission is to be a trusted provider of security, innovative banking solutions and exceptional customer service. Smiley’s core banking platform is a vertically integrated solution that allows bankers better access to information, simple business processes and a more secure product. With high-touch customer service and continuous innovation, the Smiley team understands core banking and how to provide value to community banks. Elizabeth Smiley Glasbrenner has served as president and CEO of Smiley Technologies since 2015. Her vision for the firm is shaped and influenced by her experience building and managing the customer support, operations, conversion and audit functions of Smiley Technologies when the company was first established in 2002. “My father, Walter Smiley, is often called the ‘Father of Fintech in Arkansas,’” Glasbrenner said. “His company set the stage for what a good fintech partner should be before it was cool to be a fintech. Most of our competitors are squeezing people out of the picture, and we are trying to do the opposite. It’s people that work together that make things successful — inside and outside of technology.” Smiley Technologies is focused on sharpening the customer experience, which includes the continued development of its “Service with a Smiley” support model, as well as providing proactive insights to customers. Service with a Smiley is built on product, information technology, strategy and executive pillars. For each of the firm’s bank partners, regardless of size, leaders in each of those key areas work hand in hand with the bank to provide comprehensive service. In addition, each bank partner is assigned a relationship manager, essentially giving the organization five direct points of contact responsible for the success of the relationship. The firm also stays on top of the latest technological advances in cloud architecture and artificial intelligence. One of Smiley’s biggest accomplishments has been the development of an open architecture built in the cloud. This new “private cloud” acts as a middleware layer between the cloud and third parties to provide banks with a secure pathway to Smiley’s core platform, all while

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prioritizing security and stability. “Our goal is to be the trusted voice at the table when decisions and strategies are being set for a bank around technology,” Glasbrenner said. “Banks, in general, are at odds with their core processors. They are completely different businesses, but they need each other in a true partnership fashion. We do not want to just be a vendor for a bank. A vendor will sell you what you think you want, but a true partner will advise you on what’s best for your bank and your long-term business strategy.” While the rapid growth of artificial intelligence sweeps the world, simultaneous advances in real-time payments are another hot topic in banking, and the firm is keeping a close eye on both. As industry experts in these fields, Smiley has established internal teams to focus specifically on these areas in order to plan out how to best bring them to employees and bank partners. “The world is changing so fast,” Glasbrenner said. “Our first duty is to maintain the integrity and safety of customer accounts and the bank’s accounting. Monitoring the industry, monitoring trends in technology, monitoring regulatory changes and listening to the customer are all part of staying ahead of the curve. There is a lot of noise right now in our industry, and we have to decipher what is real and what is an advertisement under the covers to sell something. Taking all of those things into account to create the big picture for our customers is one of our goals.” The Smiley team is confident in AI’s ability to improve efficiency with more automated and time-saving processes for employees, while real-time payments will help bank partners with cash flow and budgeting. Above all, the firm understands that preparation and testing are crucial for the successful implementation of both technologies, and the company refuses to cut corners when it comes to execution. “I’m most optimistic about the growth and success of our bank partners and our employees,” Glasbrenner said. “We are proving that real partnership works if both sides are committed to working on a problem or solution. I am also optimistic about making some changes in our industry to model transparency, commitment, authenticity and drive. Banks are craving better support and insight to the technology, and we can do both.” 71

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CUTTING EDGE Ranu Jung University of Arkansas By Sarah Coleman

anu Jung is a distinguished professor of biomedical engineering, an associate vice chancellor, and the founding executive director and endowed chair of the Institute for Integrative and Innovative Research at University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. As a professor and a researcher, Jung is focused on the cutting edge between engineering and neuroscience, where she excels in developing devices that lead to scientific advances. These devices have clear pathways to clinical application. Jung wears multiple hats on a day-to-day basis while she teaches, researches and continues her work directing the capabilities of the Institute for Integrative and Innovative Research, also known as I³R. “My goal in the institute is to bring a team together that is able to reach our big dream, to deliver on our mission and vision, which is to be able to ultimately have a societal impact through creating biomedical engineering solutions,” Jung said. “As an engineer and a researcher, i work with the team to find solutions to difficult problems, benefiting the health of people.” In her own special interests, Jung focuses on biohybrid systems that merge biologically inspired technologies with humans for recovery and restoration of lost function. Currently, Jung and her team are working on a project to provide a sense of touch to those with upper extremity amputation. “We are looking for a way to give those who have had a loss of their hand or arm a sense of touch back with a prosthetic,” Jung said. “For example, most prosthetic hands do not give that sense back, so if somebody is using it and could get a sensation back, it would allow for them to engage with their environment, to touch things and to feel things.” According to Jung, there are multiple things to be completed for this project to be formulated, including technology development. By collaborating with clinical partners for clinical deployment, research scientists and engineers pull together regulatory paperwork to get approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. That work is combined with the drive to continue to gain funding to support that sort of research. “We work both on the technical side and for the peoplecentered side to file patents so we can invent and disclose with the university. Ultimately, we want these technologies to get

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out and to be deployed,” Jung said, adding that while she does not want to trivialize her role, she often finds herself acting as a cheerleader, encouraging her team to keep their passion, stay focused and ensure their dreams stay alive. As a champion for innovation and entrepreneurship, Jung and her team developed the first wireless, implantable, intrafascicular neural-interface system for restoring sensations to individuals with upper limb amputation, for which they received FDA approval to conduct a first-in-human trial. Jung has 15 U.S. patents and is founder of one research and development company. In addition to these accomplishments, she is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Academy of Inventors, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and the Biomedical Engineering Society. She is also a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the Society of Women Engineers, a full member of Sigma Xi, and has been elected to the International Women’s Forum. As a woman in science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics, Jung is passionate about seeing other women pursue careers in the field. “I think the most important thing [for women] is to keep focused on what their dream is,” Jung said. “Be adaptable and flexible because if you keep those things in place, just like in any other circumstance, you will be able to find ways to keep moving forward. Stay persistent, and things will come to you.” As an educator, she said she is inspired by the work she gets to do with doctoral students. “I am blessed with a fantastic set of students who I meet with and get to mentor as they are the future in this field. I think about where and how we are preparing our students, not just in technical terms, but also in getting them ready to be leaders,” Jung said. Appointed to the U.S. National Institutes of Health National Advisory Council for Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, she has chaired or served on advisory and review committees for the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the European Research Commission, and other international and national research foundations. A foremost leader in her field, Jung is driven by purpose to make a positive societal impact. 72

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A WIDE SWATH Carter Malloy AcreTrader By Mark Carter

arter Malloy, CEO and founder of Fayetteville’s AcreTrader, said a “wide swath” of public and private information about available farmland is there to be analyzed, and Acres, the company’s new offshoot, helps his team — and ultimately clients — attain a better understanding of all those green parcels. AcreTrader cut its own wide swath through the Arkansas tech startup ecosystem. Behind its innovative farmland marketplace platform, which provides investors with access to farmland assets and analyzes available acreage and potential investments, the company found itself on the fast track to success soon after its 2018 launch. AcreTrader’s newsfeed is littered with headlines that report of deals that exceeded targeted returns or launches such as that of subsidiary AcreTrader Financial, which last year was registered as a broker-dealer, enabling it to partner with ag-focused finance entities such as FBN Finance and expand the access and opportunities available to its investor clients in the United States and Australia. All this success helped lead to Malloy’s being named an Entrepreneur of the Year Southwest Award winner last summer by Ernst & Young. The awards recognize leaders of high-growth companies across the country, and AcreTrader is consistently counted as an emerging one. “It’s an incredible honor to be selected for this award and to represent our region as a hub of innovation and growth,” Malloy said in the award’s aftermath. “I’m deeply grateful to our team at AcreTrader and the broader business community for continually inspiring and supporting our company’s mission of bringing transparency to the land market.” More recognition is likely forthcoming thanks to Acres, which was recognized this past November by Fast Company as one of four “next big things” in real estate and building technology. Its profile is on the rise through Malloy himself, who serves as a member of the Forbes Finance Council, sits on the board for Signature Bank of Arkansas and was named last year to the board of the agribusiness industry council of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Acres indeed has proven a useful and previously unavailable tool in a multi-trillion-dollar market, providing potential buyers and sellers a package of crucial information that can be tricky

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Acres helps clients better understand the data associated with farmland. (Image provided)

to find, such as parcel boundaries, owner names, aerial imagery, soil scores, a topographical map and more. It evolved from the market’s need for a single source of geospatial data on rural and farmland properties, and it now provides access to data on more than 150 million parcels while using the best available local county and sales database information. Malloy said he and his team started building the Acres platform three years ago because “we needed it.” It has since grown to the forefront of the business, he added. Acres offers a free version and paid version, and in the platform’s first year, more than 225,000 paid accounts have been created. “It’s taken off like a rocket,” Malloy said. “We all have our internal ‘what if,’ but we felt confident in the value of the tool and didn’t know how the market was going to react. We’ve been very pleasantly surprised.” Farming is in his blood — Malloy grew up in Little Rock but was practically raised on the family farm in Stuttgart. It took a few years after graduating from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville in 2004 with a degree in physics, however, for him to realize AcreTrader. After graduation, he interned for Garner Asset Management Corp. before launching his first startup, GCB, which focused on sustainable fuel technologies. In 2006, he began a seven-year stint as a managing director of equity research at Stephens in Little Rock before moving to the San Francisco Bay area to work for Park Presidio Capital. In 2018, equipped with more than a decade of valuable investment experience and exposure to some of the country’s top investors, he returned home to launch AcreTrader and, now, Acres, which have a team of more than 60 who work from offices overlooking Fayetteville’s downtown square. “Information for the rural property market had been quite sparse,” Malloy said. “There’s been a lack of transparency and information. We set out to build a business to bring liquidity access and transparency to farmland. Sort of by accident, we had this secondary product. We’re very excited about the future of the [farm] investing business.” 73

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SUPPLY-CHAIN SOLUTIONS Prathibha Rajashekhar Walmart

By John Callahan

rathibha Rajashekhar, Walmart’s senior vice president for automation and innovation/stores and supply chain, was born and raised in India, where, with the support and encouragement of her grandfather, she attended the University of Mysore and earned a degree in computer science. Her early career was in automotive manufacturing and financial services consulting, but while she enjoyed the problem-solving aspect of working in technical fields, she said her goal had always been making decisions from within a business. To help reach that goal, Rajashekhar attended Duke University in North Carolina and earned a Master of Business Administration. She joined Walmart shortly thereafter. During her 13 years with the company, she has held roles in technology, finance, strategy, supply chain, human resources and merchandising and positions that include senior director for next-generation supply chain and senior vice president for private brands and sourcing for Sam’s Club. Today, she and her team work alongside store, supply-chain, transportation and delivery operations partners to identify problems experienced by both associates and customers and apply the right technology to solve those problems. “For example, one of the biggest pain points for store associates is executing pricing changes,” Rajashekhar said. “This is a tedious process that typically takes them hours. To solve this, we’re in the process of deploying digital shelf labels, which are battery operated. This allows associates to digitally execute hundreds of price changes in just minutes, but we didn’t just stop there. “We challenged ourselves to determine how we could find even more value with the technology to improve the associate experience and incorporated what we call ‘pick to light’ and ‘stock to light.’ The digital shelf labels have six different colors of LED lights, which we use to help guide our associates to the exact location when stocking an item or picking an item to fulfill an order. As a result of applying the right technology to the right problem, we’ve not only been able to solve an associate pain point but also enhance other experiences, such as stocking and picking.” The majority of such technological improvements are seen in places a customer will never directly interact

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with yet will nevertheless improve their experience, such as the supply chain. Rajashekhar and her team are working to transform Walmart’s supply chain to be more flexible and connected to enable it to adapt to customer needs with speed. As part of that effort, they are adding automation and robotics to supply-chain facilities. This technology has enhanced the work Walmart’s associates do, making it less physically demanding and more mentally stimulating while also increasing the speed and accuracy at which stores are restocked and packages are delivered. Other innovations, however, will influence the customer experience much more directly. “We’re working on several innovations, but one that customers are currently loving is drone delivery,” Rajashekhar said. “We recently announced that we are bringing the convenience of drone delivery to 75 percent of the Dallas-Fort Worth population. This is the first time a U.S. retailer has been able to reach this many households in a single market.” This early stage of the drone delivery program is built on two years of trials, during which time Walmart completed more than 20,000 safe deliveries. The system already includes stores across more than 30 towns and municipalities in the DFW metroplex and offers deliveries in 30 minutes or less, with some deliveries as fast as 10 minutes. “We are a people-led, tech-powered retailer dedicated to helping people save money, live better,” Rajashekhar said. “Technology is most impactful when it’s used for good. In that vein, I believe [artificial intelligence] will continue to be transformative, as will autonomous delivery mechanisms such as drones, autonomous vehicles and zero-emissions vehicles.” In the past year, Rajashekhar also became a board advisor for SES-Imagotag, a world leader in information technology and digital solutions for physical retailers, and a board observer for Symbotic, a warehouse robotics automation company. Recently, she was also named Emerging Innovator of the Year by the Northwest Arkansas Technology Summit. The award that recognizes companies and their leaders in the early stages of growth that have demonstrated outstanding technical or entrepreneurial talent, contributed positively to northwest Arkansas, and helped advance the region’s economic ecosystem. 74

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WIDE HORIZON Darcy Ramler Bold Strategies

east of Los Angeles and, beginning in the apparel industry, has been involved in startups most of her professional life. “I have just found a passion for growing businesses and growing teams,” she said. Ramler has worked with notable DTC brands such as Target, Macy’s and Nordstrom, as well as Walmart. Leaving the supply side and joining the agency side with a company like Bold Strategies gave her a fresh perspective on retail growth, which will continue to be Ramler’s priority as CEO. “I think for us, really, we just continue to focus on helping brands reach their full potential,” she said. Bold’s services and products include customized plans for reaching a target audience, conversion-focused creative assets to showcase brands and products, paid media campaigns to drive traffic and sales, and customer behavior analysis and analytics to help guide decision making. “A lot of brands want to understand the potential and the innovation,” Ramler said. “All greater brands have an innovation pipeline.” As so often seems to be the case in retail and e-commerce, Amazon sooner or later rears its head, and that is the case with Bold Strategies. Ramler said the company’s current “passion project,” now six months in the making, is Amazon forecasting. Ramler said the forecasting model is based on machine learning and will help Amazon understand the potential of entering a certain category with a certain product. “We’ve been working on this forecasting model via machine learning, and it will really give you viability for your products,” Ramler said. The forecasting model can save millions of dollars by helping Amazon learn if a category is over- or under-penetrated and realize a product’s growth potential. Naturally, leadership at Bold Strategies does not want to stop with Amazon and plans to go “full multi-retail” late this year, she said. “The first step is the Amazon [forecasting], and then by the end of the year, it really is that national forecast,” Ramler said, “so to be able to look at that full 360 view of retailers is where we’re headed.” In the digital world, there is plenty of room for a company like Bold Strategies to continue to spread its wings, Ramler added. “I think at the end of the day, for us, is that the digital space is an area of huge opportunity, and we are continuing to innovate in it so that we can figure out ways to develop proprietary tools to help brands reach their full potential,” she said.

By Todd Traub

alifornia native Darcy Ramler is based in Los Angeles, but the newly minted Bold Strategies CEO is no stranger to northwest Arkansas. A former Walmart supplier, Ramler had numerous reasons for visiting the Fayetteville-Rogers-Bentonville-Springdale metroplex where the company is headquartered. Now, as head of one of the nation’s more innovative suppliers of growth strategies, Ramler is operating at a national level. “We would describe ourselves as a multiple service agency,” said Ramler, who succeeded Bold Strategies founder Allan Peretz early this year. “We unify and streamline everything that ignites your sales.” Specializing in consumer-packaged goods brands, Bold Strategies combines art and science to offer growth solutions for e-retailers, direct-to-consumer websites and a variety of media platforms. Peretz, a CPG veteran, founded Bold Strategies in 2016. The company has worked with popular brands like Bayer, Pepsi and Tyson Foods, among others, and is on the Inc. 500 list. “We understand that 80 percent of consumers connect with brands,” Ramler said explaining the company’s strategy of creative focus on retail media. “We pair that with analytics and testing, and we continue to be able to see conversion lists for our clients.” With a playbook made up of the components assess, build and grow, Bold Strategies makes use of digital space, applying what it learns through its analytics to basically pick consumers’ brains and maximize a client’s brand popularity. “There’s always something to be learned from the consumer,” Ramler said. She said the digital space provides a much wider range of opportunities to learn about consumers than physically being in stores, and those digital opportunities are only going to grow with technology such as artificial intelligence. “With AI, it just continues to become more and more a digital world,” she said. Born and raised in San Diego, Ramler works out of Los Angeles and commutes to northwest Arkansas when necessary. She had been with Bold Strategies for three years before taking her new position Jan. 5. Ramler majored in psychology at the University of Redlands

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DR. TECH Dr. Kevin Sexton UAMS BioVentures By Dwain Hebda

s Dr. Kevin Sexton approaches his ninth year as a trauma surgeon with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, the medical landscape has shifted dramatically, specifically as it relates to technology — so much so, in fact, that it has begun to shift his very perception of himself and his place in the health care industry. When asked if he primarily sees himself as a medical doctor who embraces technology or a technologist who just happens to ply his trade in health care, Sexton took a long, reflective pause. “I think I’m probably more the physician than a technologist because I’m not a great computer scientist,” he said. “I think I’m a reasonable physician focused on communication, but I’ve always been interested in technology and how that can openly communicate with folks more effectively.” Sexton’s technological expertise may have not yet outpaced his medical training, but the gap is closing. From the day he arrived at UAMS, he has been involved with BioVentures, a standalone technology-transfer office that manages all of UAMS’ intellectual property, patents and copyrights. He initially worked on products related to software integrations and digital charting. That experience ultimately placed him front and center when BioVentures required an interim director in 2021. Sexton filled that role until 2022, when the interim tag was removed. Today, he has one foot in medicine and one foot in technology while helping educate UAMS physicians and researchers on the steps needed to bring their ideas off of the sketch pad and into reality. “This is a team sport. Health care is a highly regulated industry; if you have a therapeutic medication for example, there’s the sequential steps of trials. If you have a medical device, there is a sequence of steps for an investigational-device exemption for regulatory approval through the [U.S. Food and Drug Administration],” he said. “No one can be an expert in all of these things. The hardest part with working with inventors and folks with an idea is getting them comfortable asking other folks for feedback and guidance.” Sexton, 44, earned his undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of Kentucky and completed his surgical residency at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. As a surgeon, he focuses on hernia cases, which gives him a front-row seat to F E B RUA RY 2 024

the pace of technological change in the operating room and elsewhere. Of these, he said, the most substantive has been the rise of telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic, which happened so quickly it necessitated an abrupt shift in many physicians’ approaches to patient interaction and diagnostics. “We were trained to evaluate folks in person. Most all of our infrastructure, workflows, skills and assessments are built on face-to-face communication in the same room,” he said. “Overnight, we had to become more facile with technology and learn some hard lessons. “We learned by being thrust into this environment where you’re sharing images with patients, creating things like virtual waiting rooms and providing conveniences like texting the patient that you’re ready to see them. It helped produce a lot of operational efficiencies that we hadn’t had before in medicine because of how we regulated the nature of health care.” Despite his role at BioVentures, an entity that, by its very existence, encourages continued and unlimited innovation, Sexton said there are still boundaries for what technology can replicate in place of humans. “A lot of complex things can be done from a distance, but a lot of complications need to be dealt with, and what you miss with the remote opportunity is we’ve not found a great way to reapproximate that with the entire care team,” he said. “I think all of that can happen, but our current workflows and systems aren’t designed to do that.” Sexton said near-future advancements are more likely to come in the routine care realm of medicine, as well as in providing access on demand to medical experts from anywhere in the country or around the world. “I describe myself as optimistic in what I think about what these technologies are going to do,” he said. “I think it will level the playing field when it comes to clinical knowledge and will highlight the ability of health care professionals to collaborate and engage.” 76

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SCIENCE BEHIND THE SHELVES Paul Sims Nuqleous

By Kenneth Heard

o into any Walmart, Target, Kroger, 7-Eleven or CVS store, and notice the way the items are displayed on the shelves. There may be shirts next to socks, Lucky Charms beside Froot Loops or cough medicines by pain relievers. Bottles of Dr Pepper may sit in the racks next to Coke, Pepsi and Mountain Dew. It may seem the products were placed randomly in the aisles. They were not. Instead, a Bentonville company has studied shelf-placement strategies and developed a computer program that helps companies decide the best ways to display their wares. Nuqleous, which has been named one of the fastest growing companies by Inc. for the past three years, represents 3,700 brands in 700 categories. Its clients earn nearly $41 billion in annualized sales. Owner Paul Sims has created Shelf IQ, a program that uses sales records and demographics to make a “planogram” that helps stores decide the best places to put items. “We look at how much space should be devoted to different brands of cereal, for example,” Sims said “We then decide what to do with the space available for cereals. Our software helps us determine how much space to allocate to brands and whether brands like Great Value should sit next to them. People don’t realize it, but thousands of hours go into the layout of store aisles.” Nuqleous began as a boutique consulting firm called Rock Solid Retail in 2013 and worked primarily with Walmart. In 2015, Sims said, he shifted the company’s focus from consulting to software developing. Sims, like his company, also underwent a drastic career shift once. He first wanted to be a music teacher and earned his degree in music education at the University of Oklahoma. Sims began teaching music on the junior high school level at Fayetteville but soon learned he did not like it. A self-proclaimed “introvert,” Sims was more interested in computer programming in the mid-1990s, after seeing how computers were used in the school classrooms as a driven learning process. Despite the change, Sims said there are similarities between music and computer coding. “Both are creative activities that have structured laws,” he said. Sims earned a master’s degree in education technology at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and became the ARM O N E YA ND P O L I T I C S .COM

software developer for Bentonville schools. He was soon recruited to lead the technology division at the Clarke County School District in Athens, Ga. There, he said, he felt imposter syndrome. “I was 30 years old, leading a 25-member team, managing an $8 million taxpayer-funded technology budget and overseeing the technological infrastructure utilized to educate 12,000 students,” Sims said. “The weight of this responsibility was immense.” Missing northwest Arkansas, he and his wife moved back to the state and began working for a retail analytics software company. Sims later joined Paul Springmann at Springmann’s new business, Rock Solid Retail. Sims became CEO of the company in 2020, and then, after doing a study of his own business’ goals, changed the name to Nuqleous. “We had a big vision,” Sims said. “We wanted to get beyond the Walmart ecosystem. We wanted to be a stronger brand.” He hired a South Carolina firm to do a branding evaluation of his company in 2020. With the firm’s input, he decided on the name “Nuqleous” for several reasons. In chemistry, the nucleus holds an atom together. All energy comes from the nucleus, Sims said. The “Q” in the name refers to the Shelf IQ program he designed. The name change was initiated in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic was rampant across the country. The virus changed shopping habits, and Sims had to adjust. “Shopping changed then,” he said. “We were dealing with two types of shoppers — consumers and direct grocery shoppers, those people in the store who do the shopping for curbside pickups. We had to develop programs for efficiency.” The company grew fast and now employs 53 people. In July, Nuqleous took a step further by securing a $26 million investment from Blue Ladder Capital, a Los-Angeles-based venture capital firm. Two of its representatives, Garrett Levey and Bill Kloza, became co-presidents of Nuqleous. Sims said he wants his company to focus on increasing the speed of responding to retail needs at stores. “The [Blue Ladder Capital] investment was a huge milestone for us as a company,” he said. “It will help us continue to grow and keep helping the retail industry face its numerous challenges.” 77

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REAL TIME

Jan Springer Donaghey Emerging Analytics Center

an Springer is an associate professor of computer science and director of the George W. Donaghey Emerging Analytics Center at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. His work is on virtual reality systems for modeling and simulation in areas such as cluster-based displays, multiviewer stereo, software framework and interactive, high-quality rendering. Originally from Germany, he studied computer science at Bauhaus University, Weimar, where he earned his Master of Science in 1999, specializing in realtime graphics, VR and related software engineering. From 1999 to 2001, Springer was a research scientist at GMD IMK, Germany’s premier VR research group. He returned to his alma mater in 2001 as a research staff member to continue his work with VR, earning his Ph.D. in 2008. Springer then did a three-year postdoctoral stint at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, where he worked as a senior research scientist in the CREATE group alongside one of the field’s great pioneers, Carolina Cruz-Neira. There, he helped in the creation of a prototype cave automatic virtual environment system that placed users on a 360-degree treadmill with a surround-screen display. After several years as an assistant professor at the University of Hull in the United Kingdom, he joined UA Little Rock in 2018 as an associate professor and fellow of the Emerging Analytics Center, which was founded by Cruz-Neira during her time at the college. When Cruz-Neira left the university in 2019, Springer took up the role of interim director of the EAC in 2020 before being confirmed as permanent director a short while later. “The Donaghey Emerging Analytics Center is a department within UA Little Rock with a focus on research and development in immersive visualization, augmented/virtual/mixed realities and interactive technologies in general,” Springer said. “The EAC is further including in its portfolio research in cybersecurity, mobile/ubiquitous computing and the internet of things, as well as applications of machine and deep learning. Additionally, the EAC is collaborating very closely with the department of computer science at UA Little Rock, where the computer science department is the prime talent pool for the EAC. F E B RUA RY 2 024

By John Callahan

In return, the EAC offers wide-ranging opportunities for students in professional software development, as well as academic and industry research.” The center’s student team is a balanced mix of graduate and undergraduate students, who the center provides with valuable insights and experiences for their career development while working on real-world projects — an uncommon opportunity, especially for undergraduates. One example is Project 360, which allows anyone to tour points of interest on the UA Little Rock campus with 360 degrees of vision. CrimeScene 360 is built with the same technology in collaboration with the criminal justice department at UA Little Rock and with the support of the Little Rock Police Department. The program allows users to explore a crime scene and experience the intricacies of police work for educational or edutainment purposes. The EAC team is currently in the final stages of an initial collaboration with the university’s nursing department to extend their virtual patient care scenarios. Another major area of focus for the center and the department of computer science as a whole is cybersecurity. To this end, the EAC uses the Trojan Cyber Arena, a fully cloud-based system of cybersecurity training infrastructure that can provide low-cost cybersecurity training for anyone. The project hosts UA Little Rock’s cybersecurity program in the department of computer science, as well as the National Cybersecurity Teaching Academy, and provides courses for high schools around the state. Other projects deal with fields such as human-computer interaction; the study and creation of computer products that help users carry out tasks; machine and deep learning, which allows for the much more efficient use of data and the information within it; ubiquitous computing and the internet of things; incorporating computing, communication and “smart features” into everyday objects; and health informatics, which, like machine learning, help turn vast amounts of patient medical data into useful info. In addition to traditional academic grant funding, several of the EAC’s projects are connected to and funded by federal agencies or national corporations. 78

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HARVESTING GRAPHENE Paul Thibado University of Arkansas By Mark Carter

esearchers at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville are on the cutting edge of determining how to make graphene scalable for commercial use. Graphene, discovered in 2004, is a sustainable material extracted from graphite that consists of pure carbon — a one-atom-thick sheet of graphite. It is known for its strength, light weight, flexibility and endurance. The mechanical, electrical and thermal properties of graphene make it applicable for use in electronics, energy storage, sensors, coatings, biomedical devices and more. UA physicist Paul Thibado and his team work to advance the applications of graphene through a detailed study of its fundamental properties using atomic-scale imaging and manipulation. The team is building a device called a graphene energy harvester, which uses a negatively charged sheet of graphene suspended between two metal electrodes, Thibado said. When the graphene flips up, a positive charge in the top electrode is induced. When it flips down, the bottom electrode is positively charged, creating an alternate current and producing a pulsing DC current that performs work on a load resistor. “The thinner something is, the more flexible it is, and at only one atom thick, there is nothing more flexible,” Thibado said. “It’s like a trampoline, constantly moving up and down. If you want to stop it from moving, you have to cool it down to 20 K.” NTS Innovations, located in the Arkansas Research and Technology Park at UA, is the startup working to commercialize this technology. Last year, Thibado was first author of a scientific paper that mathematically proves that thermal fluctuations of freestanding graphene through the design of a graphene circuit capable of gathering energy from the heat of the earth and storing it in capacitors for later use. Co-authors were fellow UA physicists Pradeep Kumar and Surendra Singh, as well as John Neu at the University of California, Berkeley, and Luis

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Bonilla at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid in Spain. “Theoretically, this was what we set out to prove,” Thibado said. “There are well-known sources of energy, such as kinetic, solar, ambient radiation, acoustic and thermal gradients. Now there is also nonlinear thermal power. Usually, people imagine that thermal power requires a temperature gradient. That is, of course, an important source of practical power, but what we found is a new source of power that has never existed before, and this new power does not require two different temperatures because it exists at a single temperature.” According to the UA, Thibado’s team also showed that the system satisfies both the first and second laws of thermodynamics throughout the charging process. They also found that larger storage capacitors yield more stored charge and that a smaller graphene capacitance provides both a higher initial rate of charging and a longer time to discharge. These characteristics are important because they allow time to disconnect the storage capacitors from the energy harvesting circuit before the net charge is lost, Thibado said. Thibado and his team have been working on ways to make graphene scalable for almost a decade. “There was always this question out there: ‘If our graphene device is in a really quiet, really dark environment, would it harvest any energy or not?’ The conventional answer to that is no, as it apparently defies the laws of physics, but the physics had never been looked at carefully,” he said. “I think people were afraid of the topic a bit, so everybody just said, ‘I’m not touching that,’ but the question just kept demanding our attention. Honestly, its solution was only found through the perseverance and diverse approaches of our unique team.” 79

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THE FUTURE IS NOW Robert Weigle NowDx

diagnostic platform and collection device, he added, create a continuum of product offerings from a development pipeline which spans critical test markets for infectious disease, women’s health, drugs of abuse, cardiac markers and cancer. “New tests in the development pipeline cover areas like sexually transmitted infections, strep throat and pregnancy, with many others as fast followers,” Weigle said. “We have a pregnancy test that has been cleared by the FDA for use in facilities by trained lab staff, and it is being used as a fast — results in minutes — screening tool to identify potential pregnancy at the bedside to reduce risk. That test recently received [approval to be sold over the counter] in Europe, and it’s being sold on sites like Amazon and in drug stores. “We will be expanding to meet the demand for products in the future. We are also very pleased to be part of the ever-growing biotech and medical device community in northwest Arkansas. We foresee lots of growth in this area in the coming years.” Another emergent disease becoming a global menace is syphilis. In fact, the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services issued a news release in January that encouraged all Alaskans to test for syphilis. “Syphilis is on the increase worldwide, and it is affecting nearly every age category over 18,” Weigle said. “In some populations, it has reached nearly epidemic proportions. To put the problem in context, the Arkansas rate of syphilis is in the top 10 in the nation. The [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] is recommending more screening because if caught early, syphilis can be easily treated. If caught in the later stages, it can be devastating, especially for pregnant women. Pregnant women are encouraged to get tested at least once during pregnancy, if not more.” Weigle said the company recently concluded a large syphilis clinical trial and submitted the data under a De Novo application to the FDA for review and marketing clearance. “We are keen to fill the need for an in-home test for syphilis and to help remove barriers for more testing in home for a variety of conditions in the future,” he said. The company’s mission of providing in-home testing with inhome results in minutes empowers people with knowledge of their own health that they can act upon, he added. “In-home testing will reduce the stigma of having to go to a lab or a clinic to get tested. For many conditions, this is the future.”

By Kelli Reep

hat do you get when you cross technology with a pandemic? In the case of NowDx (formerly NowDiagnostics), what you get is a surge in touch-totest diagnostic tests that take only minutes to reveal results. In the age of the three-minute attention span, NowDx is answering the call by researching, developing and deploying overthe-counter and point-of-care tests for infectious diseases and women’s health. Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Springdale, NowDx began as a request from a large retailer based in northwest Arkansas for over-the-counter tests. The retailer’s facility had the capacity to produce more than two million tests per month, but when the COVID-19 pandemic exploded in 2020, over-thecounter and point-of-care testing exploded with it. “The major shift we saw was that people became very comfortable with testing in home,” said Robert Weigle, CEO of NowDX. “The trend to testing in home will only grow larger as more tests get cleared. The key to success for us is making these tests affordable to the consumer. We have accomplished that as our tests will be available for less than the average insurance copay at major retailers once we receive the necessary [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] clearances.” In April 2023, NowDx merged with Silicon Valley’s AeenaDx, which developed biofluid-based molecular diagnostic tests designed to make breast cancer detection accurate, accessible and affordable for women anywhere. “In the case of the merger, it is the classic one plus one equals three as both companies were working on groundbreaking inhome testing,” Weigle said. “Aeena was developing saliva-based tests for the early detection of cancer with a focus, initially, on breast and lung. With the merger behind us, we can now focus on bringing tests to market. NowDx is well poised to address the more than $100 billion global point-of-care, at-home and hospital-based diagnostics market.” Weigle said Aeena’s tests offered breast cancer screening and diagnosis while improving the sensitivity and specificity of current mammography programs, enabling patients to detect breast cancer easily and take measures to reduce such cancer. The combination of NowDx’s “touch-to-test” diagnostic platform that enables blood and saliva collection and quantitative reader technology and Aeena’s “game-changing” salivary cancer

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TECH 20

INVISIBLE KNIFE Dr. Fen Xia University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Radiation Oncology Center

She added that she hopes that in the future, physicians will be able to determine treatment options on an individual level, based on a patient’s molecular profile and other factors. Much of the technology at the new UAMS Radiation Oncology Center was unheard of when Xia completed her residency at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Tennessee in 2006. Proton therapy itself is a huge step forward, since proton beams can target cancer cells with more precision and less damage to surrounding tissue than photon radiation. Another new technology, motion management, helps the treatment beam hit targets that move when a patient breathes while protecting sensitive tissue like the heart. Adaptive technology, which helps the treatment beam adapt to day-to-day bodily changes that slightly alter the location of a tumor, was developed less than five years ago, she said. Some of the most important advancements have involved simply locating the tumor so that it can be treated effectively, and Xia said she expects the field to continue evolving in the direction of precision. One advancement in the works is proton FLASH radiotherapy, which delivers ultra-fast radiation that may be more effective in treating cancer, she said. However, some of the most important assets of the UAMS Radiation Oncology Center are not machines; they are people. Cancer patients visit the center every day for five or six weeks, Xia said, and she wants to make that time enjoyable. She and her team work to help patients relax, whether by ensuring the walls are well-decorated or by developing toys and videos as part of a pediatric program. “The goal is we want our patients not to come to a clinic with a cold, white wall and this ghost of a machine. We want them to come here and have some fun,” she said. “We want to make them lifted, their spirit, together with us in this course of fighting cancer. We can make it easier to go through this. That’s really, I think, as important as this technology.” It shows, she said, when someone walks in after receiving some of the most frightening news of their life and walks out happy again. “The first day they step into this clinic, they are worried. They cry,” Xia said. “As time goes on and they finish, they smile. They give us a hug. They really have a good experience here.”

By Sarah DeClerk

s director of the radiation oncology center at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, Dr. Fen Xia is responsible for ensuring Arkansans have access to the latest in cancer care, including proton therapy at the Proton Center of Arkansas. She said her interest in cancer treatment began when she was a high school student in China. “Cancer is the most striking thing for me,” she said. “Any family that gets a cancer diagnosis, it’s always the most sad moment. It’s very striking to me, so I became very, very curious about cancer since high school.” Although she is also interested in surgical oncology, her career has focused on radiation oncology. Really, the two fields are not so different, she said. She tells patients and trainees that radiation oncology is like having “an invisible knife.” While surgeons use a scalpel to remove tumors, radiation oncologists destroy cancer using a proton or photon ray. “The only difference is that, but we are so much luckier than a surgeon is,” she said. “We can change our mind. We can optimize how we can use our ray, our ray goes where, to not hurt normal tissue and, really, not missing the cancer. We can do it on our computer to simulate it until we are satisfied. … A surgeon, you know, they don’t have the luxury to do that.” That control is particularly important for Xia, who specializes in cancers of the brain, and she said technology has made it easier for her to treat patients effectively. In the past, she said, a patient might have a tumor near the vision center of the brain, and she would have to either sacrifice the strength of the radiation treatment or risk injuring the patient’s vision field. Now she can better control the tumor without injuring the patient’s vision center. “What can be better than that?” she said. “I think that’s how we feel in this place with the Proton Center, with the most [advanced] technology in the radiation treatment of cancer.” She is currently working to understand the molecular structure of cancer cells and how physicians can take advantage of changes that occur within cancer cells when treating patients. She said that some of her other research focuses on making glioblastoma cells more sensitive to radiation and making neurons more resistant to radiation. ARM O N E YA ND P O L I T I C S .COM

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BIOMOLECULAR MAN Jianfeng Xu Arkansas Biosciences Institute By Kenneth Heard

ianfeng Xu, a professor of biomolecular engineering at the Arkansas Biosciences Institute on the Arkansas State University campus in Jonesboro is creating a medicine to treat inflammatory bowel disease. He needed to test the medication on mice though, and because mice don’t normally suffer from IBD, he had to first make an IBD mouse. He injected the rodents with cells to create the disorder and then began working on treating them. Such is a day’s work for Xu, 54, who has been at the institute since 2008. Xu is working to modify plant cells for biomedical purposes so they can be grown faster and produce medicine quickly. He’s hopes for a 500-fold increase in protein yields that would dramatically reduce the cost of biopharmaceutical manufacturing. There are only injections available now for treating the disease; Xu wants to create a pill form of the medication so patients can have a less expensive, easier treatment. He’s at the testing stage now. Xu said it could take 10 years before any medication he develops can be sold commercially. “We can produce the medicine in plant cells,” he said. “Once we produce it with high proteins, we can put the genes in a plant, eventually.” He is currently testing the genes on lettuce to determine if it can grow quickly. Work such as this is commonplace at the institute, which was created as a research component prescribed by the Arkansas voterapproved Tobacco Settlement Proceeds Act of 2000. The center, located on the southern edge of the ASU campus, opened in 2004. Under the auspices of the act, it partners with the Arkansas Children’s Research Institute, the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, ASU and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock. In addition to working on creating a cure for inflammatory bowel disease, Xu is also studying the use of switchgrass, a perennial, deep-rooted grass grown in much of the U.S., for use in biofuels. The grass already can produce 400 to 450 gallons of ethanol per acre on switchgrass cropland. Xu wants to make it easier to grow and to create more biofuels. “I’m very proud of ABI and my work here,” he said. Xu was raised in China to parents who could not attend college. “It was always my dream to be a scientist,” he said. “I first wanted to be an environmental engineer and clean the world. Later, I F E B RUA RY 2 024

wanted to get into bioengineering and help people.” In 1997, he earned his Ph.D. in biochemical engineering at Dalian University of Technology in China and began working as a chemical engineer in Beijing. He moved to Athens, Ohio, in 2001, where he was a research scientist for the department of chemistry and biochemistry at Ohio University. Five years later, he became a research associate at Cornell University in New York and then in 2008, he moved to Jonesboro to work for ABI. He’s been awarded $2.4 million in grants since joining the institute from agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Energy. He’s published 50 peer-reviewed papers, one book and six chapters for books on research. Xu was recently named to the Arkansas Research Alliance’s Academy of Scholars and Fellows and earned a $75,000 research grant. The alliance connects university research with economic development in the state. Xu was also nominated for this year’s ASU Chancellor’s Medal for Research and Creative Activities. The winner will be named in April. In addition to his research work, Xu teaches three classes at ASU. Some of his graduates have gone on to earn post doctorate degrees at the University of Pennsylvania and to work in medicine, dentistry, pharmacy and medical law. One graduate now works at Bayer, the multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company. Another works at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis. He’s created what he calls “HypGP Engineering,” which involves strategic design and engineering of biopharmaceutical molecules in tobacco cells. “Our technology exhibits transformative potential to make a plant cell-based bioproduction system economically feasible and competitive with current microbial and mammalian cell ‘factories,’” he said. Xu lives in Jonesboro and intends to retire at ABI. His daughter recently graduated with a 4.0 grade point average at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee with a degree in psychology. “This is a good place,” Xu said of the institute. “We are doing a lot of things here to help people and I’m very proud of that.” 82

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ROBOT SWARM Wenchao Zhou AMBOTS By Sarah Coleman

n 2015, Wenchao Zhou co-founded AM3 Lab at the department of mechanical engineering at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. AMBOTS — Autonomous Mobile roBOTS and Advance Manufacturing roBOTS — is a company that is working on commercializing the patent-pending swarm 3D printing and assembly technologies invented by AM3 Lab. As chief technology officer, Zhou and his team aim to automate manufacturing with a swarm of smart, autonomous mobile robots, which can aid in the production of everyday products as well as larger things such as houses and infrastructures. Zhou, who also serves as an associate professor at the engineering department of the University of Arkansas in Little Rock, received his doctorate in mechanical engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta and has been honored as the Outstanding Paper winner of the year in the Rapid Prototyping Journal. When it comes to teaching, he is interested in additive manufacturing and fluid mechanics, and at AMBOTS he is focused on fully digitizing and automating the future of manufacturing throughout the entire world. “The idea that we have had is essentially looking to see if we can build the factories locally instead of having to form a global supply chain. Economically, this would work out pretty well because of the economic scale and the technology that supports this would help easily change the way of producing things,” Zhou said. With a few key machines able to move around, they become a critical solution to cooperating with other links in the supply chain. “In envisioning a different paradigm, there could potentially be factories that consist of tens of thousands different types of robots, just like different humans,” Zhou said. “They can work together to build anything that you give a digital model in, so you can actually replicate these factories around the globe.” According to Zhou, that differs from the current model because there would be multiple factories producing goods for the global population instead of multiple factories that can produce paths that would only serve the local community. “If every factory is using similar raw materials, this can still be produced at a global scale. For example, if I am a shoe

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designer, in today’s world, I would have to not just design the shoe, but figure out how to manufacture and distribute the shoe if i wanted to commercialize it,” Zhou said, adding that most people would have to have a sufficient amount of capital to be able to accomplish that. In the alternative model, this infrastructure could generate instructions for multiple manufacturing sites to follow. This innovation allows for less time spent on formulating the product and more time spent on producing what needs to be created. This is accomplished by the use of digital factories, which will not have to rely on one product to survive. For manufacturing companies, the main benefits include a simplified production process, a shorter supply chain, smaller volume, faster turnaround, customized product design and affordable cost, which could aid companies in serving customers and staying competitive. “The product can come and go, but the factory will keep evolving with the upgrading of robots, the upgrading of our software and more,” Zhou said. Currently, Zhou and his team are focusing on 3D printing, a digital manufacturing technology that is flexible in creation. Recently, AMBOTS released a prototype of a printer that can use a robotic arm to print three objects that, when put together, can create something larger. This cooperation is space dependent, meaning they must live in the same space time in order to cooperate. According to Zhou, his team is looking to launch this innovation this year. While gaining traction, AMBOTS has garnered national attention in the form of recognition and awards, including the $1 million Small Business Innovation Research Phase I and II Awards from the National Science Foundation, a $3.5 million grant from Applied Research Associates to advance 3D concrete printing, being mentioned as one of General Electric’s “5 Coolest Things on Earth This Week,” a second-place recognition at the NASA 3D-Printed Habitat Competition, being featured on The Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation, being named as Startup of the Year by 3Dnatives and more. With grants and recognitions, Zhou and his team continue to further refine AMBOTS technology and have become steadfast in accomplishing its goal of simplifying production processes for manufacturing companies. 83

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The Advocate State Sen. Linda Chesterfield

By Sarah DeClerk

n outspoken advocate for Arkansas children and a champion of diversity in both politics and education, state Sen. Linda Chesterfield, D-Little Rock, is not afraid to speak up when it comes to issues that affect Arkansans. “People know that I am prepared for debate,” she said. “I think I have respect because people know that I have a lot of knowledge of what has gone on before and also of what we’re debating at the time. I study a lot, OK? I don’t go down there to the chamber without having studied what we’re discussing that day.” The ranking member of the Arkansas Senate, Chesterfield represents district 12 in Pulaski County, the only district both north and south of the Arkansas River. She was elected in November 2010 and served as minority whip for the most recent general assembly. She is co-chair of the Arkansas Legislative Council’s policy-making subcommittee and vice chair of the senate’s education committee. Before joining the senate, she was elected to the Arkansas House of Representatives in 2003 and served there through 2008. There, she served as chair of the committee on aging, children and youth, legislative and military affairs, as well as chair of the house subcommittee on K-12 education. She was a member of the house education committee her first two terms before joining the revenue and taxation and insurance and commerce committees her third term. During her time with the education committee, she worked extensively on legislation surrounding Lake View School District No. 25 v. Huckabee, a landmark Arkansas Supreme Court case that led to the overhaul of funding for public schools in Arkansas. “We worked through those pieces of legislation that I think served us well in public education, so I said, ‘It’s time for me to do something else and broaden my horizons,’” Chesterfield said, adding that her work in the later committees included legislation about fracking taxation. Chesterfield has also served as chair of the National Education Association Black Caucus, president and treasurer of the Arkansas Democratic Black Caucus, and chair of the Arkansas Legislative Black Caucus, as well as connection chair of the Beta Pi Omega chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha.

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Throughout her career, she has been a proponent of diversity and inclusion, including that of people of color and the LGBT community. “I see myself as an advocate at all times for all God’s children,” she said. “It shouldn’t matter who you love, your race or your ethnicity.” She and her three brothers grew up in Hope during segregation. Their mother, a single parent, worked as a domestic servant, and their grandmother instilled in Chesterfield an admiration for history and politics. Although her grandmother had a seventh-grade education, Chesterfield said she insisted that the children watch key political moments on television, such as the first presidential debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960. “Her philosophy of life was education is the only thing they can’t take from you, so you need to reach for the moon, and if you don’t get the moon, you need to grab a star,” Chesterfield said. “That has inspired us through the years, and three of us graduated from college. The other had a welding license, so we were all successful at what we did.” Chesterfield graduated with honors from Henry Clay Yerger High School in Hope in 1965. She and her classmate, Emily Johnson, were two of five Arkansas students identified as outstanding African American scholars by the National Achievement Scholarship Program. The two were recruited to desegregate Hendrix College in Conway, where Chesterfield became the first African American graduate in 1969. She went on to earn a Master of Science in Education from Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia. After teaching a year at Hall High School in Little Rock, Chesterfield spent nearly 30 years teaching social studies and civics to grades seven through nine in the Pulaski County Special School District. She went on to serve as president of the Little Rock School Board, president of the Pulaski Association of Classroom Teachers, and secretary, treasurer and president of the Arkansas Education Association. She also served on the board of the National Education Association and is the only Arkansan to have been elected to the

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association’s nine-member executive committee. Her time as president of the Little Rock School Board was marked by the Little Rock School District’s desegregation lawsuit against the North Little Rock and Pulaski County Special school districts. Chesterfield helped organize a committee to determine not only how to best handle the lawsuit, but how to keep students in the district. “We wanted to have a conversation about what we could do to increase the number of students that were attending the Little Rock School District, as well as how we could extricate ourselves from the lawsuit that we had filed,” she said. During her time with the Arkansas Education Association, she led workshops on discipline as part of the Teacher-to-Teacher program, in which educators shared tips for managing classrooms successfully. Chesterfield said she is most proud of the legislative work she has accomplished that affects Arkansas children, including legislation to make cyberbullying a crime, to require opioid overdose rescue kits to be available in public schools and to provide equal educational opportunities for children who are incarcerated or in treatment facilities. “If we don’t provide our children who are incarcerated the opportunity to get an education, they’re going to come back and do the same thing that got them there in the first place,” she said. “We don’t need to continue to reincarcerate kids; we need to find a way forward for them to become productive citizens.” Chesterfield is also known for her work on economic development. She sponsored legislation to cut taxes for single parents with two or more children, and as a member of the Arkansas Legislative Council’s highway commission review and advisory committee, she helped secure funding for highway improvements. “I have always felt that economic development and education were totally intertwined because you cannot have economic development unless you have a prepared workforce, so I didn’t separate those two,” she said. “I would say they’re inextricably intertwined. As the education system in the state goes, so goes the economic development in the state.” She said one of her most important roles is to argue against legislation that could harm Arkansans. She added that she was an opponent of the Arkansas LEARNS Act because of funding dynamics, including the use of CARES Act funding, and loose restrictions on who can start a school, as well as the erasure of the Teacher Fair Dismissal Act and the termination of the minimum salary schedule she helped establish during the Lakeview case. Although she is eligible for another four-year term in the senate, Chesterfield said she will not seek reelection, partly because of the partisan politics that she said have consumed the Arkansas legislature. “There has been a devolution of discourse where people find

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State Sen. Linda Chesterfield

CELEBRATING 10 YEARS

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it OK to be mean to people,” she said. “That does nothing but cause dismay and disgust. People are just so ugly now. They don’t miss a chance to score a point on somebody. Especially the past year, it has devolved into a petty, partisan place to be.” Chesterfield endorsed state Rep. Jamie Scott, D-North Little Rock, who is also known for her work with children and the incarcerated, to be her successor. “She has worked in the community for years and comes from a great family, and I think she’ll do a great job because she has a servant’s heart,” Chesterfield said. “Most of what we do as legislators is really not legislation, but we serve the community, and she’s done that.” Chesterfield said she plans to continue being an active member of her church, First Missionary Baptist Church in Greater Little Rock, and may offer consulting services, as well. She said that although she expects partisanism to get worse before it gets better, there will eventually be a return to decorum. “I think we’re going to go through a period where we decide we’ll be mean, rather than kind to each other, but everything changes, and there will be a change that will come where political discourse can get back to civility, and we can move ahead as a state, not trying to do ‘gotcha’ moments, but with the idea that all of us matter, and since all of us matter, we have a responsibility to care about what others think,” she said. “We can be a state that has people who think, who can be and who can thrive. To think, to be and to thrive as a state is critically important.”

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Connecting Through Service Mark Evans

By Sarah Coleman

he best way to describe Mark Evans is to say he is a role for almost three years. During that time, Evans and his people person. At utmost importance to him, Evans wife began to pray for places to plant a church. focuses on helping people from all walks of life. As the Evans is a Little Rock native, and his wife, Terri, is from senior pastor at the Church at Rock Creek in Little Rock, he Dallas. When deciding where to relocate, both he and his began this ministry in 1995. wife felt called back to his hometown to serve peo“The best part of seeing how the Church ple in the city he grew up in. at Rock Creek has grown has been be“I get to connect with people I recoging able to see how people’s lives have nize. Some of these people I grew up changed. We see the difference that with, so whether I went to high school “I really want our church we’ve been able to be a part of and with them or whether I know them to look a little bit like have been able to help people in in some other way, it’s really great heaven. We don’t all need,” Evans said. to connect with them in ministry,” look the same, we don’t Evans, who has been in ministry Evans said. for 30 years, had an unusual route From the start of the Rock all live life the same or to his career path. During his teenCreek church concept, Evans act the same, but we all age years, he worked for the Arkanhas made an effort to create an come together with the sas Travelers as a clubhouse maninclusive space. With an opencommonality of placing ager. There he learned how to work ing-day membership of 24 people, hard and how to love people from the Church at Rock Creek now has our faith in Christ.” entirely different backgrounds. He also a congregation of more than 5,000 — Mark Evans worked for the Arkansas Secretary of State individuals. as a college student by assisting, researching “We knew we wanted to start a church and traveling throughout the entire state. from the ground up. We were looking at cities all Throughout his life, Evans has been able to care for peoover America, but things kept leading us back to coming to ple throughout struggles and difficult decisions. In his early Little Rock. We felt it was the right place for us to be, “ Evans days in ministry, Evans answered his calling as a youth pastor, said. “I think that serving in the city that I grew up in has which eventually led him to Florida, where he served in that been really rewarding.

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During his entire career experience, Evans said the most beneficial thing he learned has been to not be judgemental of others. “It’s not my role or my job to judge others. My job is really simple. It’s to love them like Jesus would, and I think that’s the key to connecting with people,” Evans said. In looking up to others, he has found inspiration in his friend and mentor, Bob Goff. Goff, who resides in San Diego, is known for books such as Love Does and Everybody Always. “Bob has been a real mentor for me as an author, as a speaker and as a believer. He’s a good friend, and he’s been somebody who is a real help to me,” Evans said. “I also look up to a lot of people within my church. I respect what so many of them have done with their lives, where they have come from, and especially the people who have turned their lives around.” “The people that I have the most respect for are those who have been through great challenges in life and have chosen to put their life on a new course. Take a person who has a life that has been broken and, in letting the Lord in, has put their life back together. That will to change their lifestyle is incredible,” Sullivan said. Evans, who is passionate about serving all people, especially those trapped in the cycle of poverty, said said he is particularly driven to support those affected by hunger. In 2024, Evans and the Church at Rock Creek are working toward opening an expanded food bank. “When we triple the size of what we’re able to provide, it will really maximize the number of people that we’re able to serve. We don’t just serve families that are hungry, but we also run a program called Feed Arkansas Kids, where we provide food to kids on the weekend who otherwise would not eat at home,” Evans said. Feed Arkansas Kids currently feeds 1,600 children every weekend. According to Evans, the expansion of the food bank is expected to be complete before summertime. Evans and his family have also owned Mr. Wicks, a men’s clothing store in Little Rock, for six years. Although Evans is not involved with the store on a daily basis, he has been able to utilize it as a way to continue to help people. “Men’s clothing has allowed me to help pastors in other countries. I get to fulfill the mission of sending suits and sport coats and other attire to pastors in Peru and South Africa. It is a really big part of our mission’s effort,” Evans said. As far as the Church at Rock Creek, Evans is most passionate about people, knowing the church accepts people from all walks of life. “I really want our church to look a little bit like heaven. We don’t all look the same, we don’t all live life the same or act the same, but we all come together with

the commonality of placing our faith in Christ,” Evans said. “I think, in heaven, people will be surprised of all the different kinds of people that are there, so when you show up at Rock Creek, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the inclusivity.” Due to the church’s welcoming environment, Evans said the thing he hopes to be known for is his work in creating an environment that can inspire all believers. He also hopes to be known as a man who was available to others as a father, a grandfather, a husband, a pastor and a friend. “I hope to have the legacy of being available, not difficult to find or to reach, but always available to help and serve people. I think that’s the biggest deal of having the legacy in believing,” Evans said.

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Mark Evans

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Dr. Jerri Fant

Heart

for

Health

By Sarah DeClerk

r. Jerri Fant, a breast cancer surgeon who practices at patients through a process,” she said. “With cancer management CARTI in Little Rock and North Little Rock, has gar— and I follow my patients long term after their surgical managenered much recognition in her career. However, the ment — it afforded me that opportunity to both do the career that surgical oncologist said it is not about awards or accolades; it is I enjoyed, which is surgery, and also develop relationships with about the patients. patients over a period of time and help them through a process for “My reward for my work is, No. 1, the patients coming back 15, the duration of their health care.” 18, 20 years later and seeing me once a year, having raised their Fant started her solo practice in 2001 but eventually realized kids, and they bring me pictures of the grandchildren, and you that the pressures of being a business owner competed with her know, they were very young when they got their cancer originally, real work — surgery. In 2019, she joined CARTI, where she said and they’re here to live she learned the imporlife and move on,” she tance of a group strategy said. “That’s the reward for cancer management “My reward for my work is, No. 1, the for my work. There are a that includes surgical, patients coming back 15, 18, 20 years later few awards out there, but medical and radiation I don’t focus on those as oncologists. and seeing me once a year, having raised much as I do the patient “It was very exciting their kids, and they bring me pictures of who’s in front of me. to me to have an opporThat’s why I’m here.” tunity to work with an the grandchildren...” Fant earned her organization that could — Dr. Jerri Fant medical degree at the offer the patient a wide University of Arkansas range of support opfor Medical Sciences in Little Rock, where she completed her tions throughout their cancer management and then be availresidency before completing a fellowship in surgical oncology of able for them for their surveillance going forward,” she said. “I the breast at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas. think that’s what appealed to me about a larger group cancer She said she was drawn to surgery because she is a driven pertreatment center.” son, and surgery allows her to identify the problem, take care of She tries to see patients within a week of their referrals, she it manually, and let the patient to get on with life. She also has an said, adding that she does not want a patient to wait through a artistic background that led her to work with her hands. She said weekend before a consultation with her. During the consultation, she chose to pursue breast cancer surgery because it allows her to she explains the patient’s cancer type, cancer management stratdevelop lasting relationships with her patients. egy and background information about nonsurgical components “In general surgery, if you do a gall bladder or a hernia repair, of treatment, such as radiation and chemotherapy. it’s rare that you follow those patients over a longer period of time, “I always tell patients, ‘I can’t take away the fact that cancer’s and I enjoy patient interaction and developing an ability to see here, but I can try to make it make sense,’ because I feel like

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half of the battle is fear of the unknown, and our psyche tends to go to extreme measures with angst and concern when you hear the word ‘cancer,’” she said. “If I can put it into a format or a context that is really what I feel like the patient needs to expect, I think it’s helpful.” Although many outreach programs for breast cancer patients shuttered during the COVID-19 pandemic, Fant often spoke at group meetings for breast cancer patients and said she would like to see the groups return. For instance, she said, CARTI is working on a program called The Bridge that provides patients with resources and a support network. “I think it’s comforting for women to understand they’re not alone in that process,” she said. “Today’s society really leans toward trying to get that comfort from the internet — chat rooms, group discussions online — but the reality is if you can sit down and have coffee with someone who’s going through the same thing in your community, I think that’s a much more effective support system than someone in a chat online from another state. I think there’s camaraderie to that, and I think it helps patients develop methods to handle the emotions related to their cancer more effectively.” She said good training, ethics, empathy and a conscientious approach, along with caring about the patients, are the reasons for her success. She added that she works to be as minimally invasive as possible by using techniques to put scars in locations that are less noticeable and do not hinder movement and by filling in spaces where tissue has been removed. “If I’m not cognizant of cosmetic shape and contour and volume loss with cancer removal, then a patient may have a misshapen breast going forward or a lot of size and contour symmetry that is a daily reminder of the cancer,” she said. “Those are factors that I look at when I’m operating on a patient.” The No. 1 lesson she has learned from her career is to never assume, she said. Never assume a pain is not caused by cancer, never take a diagnostic test at its word without supporting pathology, and never assume a patient’s record is correct without evaluating them. Listening to patients is key, she added. Patients know what their body is supposed to be like, she said, so even though cancer does not typically cause pain, it is imperative to investigate if a patient says something seems off. Cancer treatment has evolved significantly in the past two or three decades, and surgical oncology is no exception. When Fant began her career, radical mastectomies were commonplace, she said, and surgery was always the first step to treating cancer. “Fortunately for patient survival, we’ve recognized that in many situations, depending on the extent of involvement of the cancer or the biology of the cancer cells themselves, patients may benefit from systemic therapy prior to surgery, and many, many studies have clearly shown that the extent of surgical management — going with larger incisions, going with resecting more breast tissue, going with resecting more lymph node tissue — does not corre-

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CELEBRATING 10 YEARS

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Dr. Jerri Fant

late with improvement of patient outcomes,” she said. “We really do try, in today’s world, to minimize the extent of surgery that we have to do to cure a patient. Although technology to help treat cancer without surgery has been under consideration since Fant began her career, she said she thinks there will always be a need for surgical oncology. The key now, she said, is to increase the efficacy of treatment while minimizing invasiveness and timing surgery appropriately, sometimes after the patient has had some chemotherapy. “Certain features of cancer are sneakier than others, so I think optimizing the timing of when surgery is recommended as part of a patient’s treatment strategy and trying to minimize the extent of what we have to do to affect a cure is probably where surgery’s going,” she said. “Aside from efforts to try to minimize needing surgery at all, I think surgery will still remain a part of the necessary treatment strategy for breast cancer.”

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Gabe Holmstrom

Desire to Build By Dwain Hebda

ad Cabot native Gabe Holmstrom not headed into politics and then nonprofit work, he might yet be in the construction business with the family firm Upright Construction. There, he learned early the skills for framing houses and other tasks that would come in handy while earning extra cash during his school years. Taking stock of the career he has had, however, shows he never strayed too far from the concept of building things from the ground up, be it relationships, consensus or a better downtown, which he has since 2015 as executive director of the Downtown Little Rock Partnership. “The desire to build and create something was ingrained in me on those construction sites as a kid,” he said. “That’s what I liked about [political] campaigns is you started at nothing, and in nine months or a year, you built something, then on Election Day, you got to see where you stacked up. That’s similar to these large-scale projects [downtown], whether it’s a big public art project or a big event like the [Main Street] Food Truck Festival. “We plan and plan and plan, and then we execute. We put all these planned pieces together, and hopefully, we have a successful event. That theme of building something and creating something, if I reflect honestly, that’s what motivates me.” Holmstrom came to the role at a time when, as in many communities, Little Rock’s downtown was struggling to reimagine itself as the kind of live-work-play district that was pulling people into the core neighborhoods of cities nationwide. Since then, public art has sprouted, development is everywhere, and popular new festivals have taken their places on the calendar. With each hurdle cleared, Holmstrom and his team learned new ways of addressing the decades-old problem of population density in downtown. “Creating density is something that we’re always talking about and that we’re always going to be focused on,” he said. “While there is some vacancy in the commercial space [downtown], the available rental inventory is still at very high occupancy level and has been that way for quite some time. I think the creation

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of more mixed-use development, more living space, that we have seen is something that’s needed. “When you have people who are living downtown in a walkable place, then those cash registers where the retailers set up is going to follow them, but you’ve got to continue to grow the number of people that are living in our downtown corridor.” To this end, the partnership under Holmstrom has become a valuable first resource for entrepreneurs seeking to breathe new life and infuse new capital into the city’s original district. The Partnership walks them through available tax credits for rehabilitating heritage buildings. From the mammoth Region Bank and Bank of America towers in the financial district to numerous smaller structures that offer office space and ground-level retail and dining, Holmstrom and his team have helped guide one project after another to fruition, knitting together city and state resources in the process. Holmstrom, who cut his teeth serving on staff with elected officials, said the same consensus-building skills he developed at work in Washington and the statehouse are useful in his efforts to forge a team to get downtown projects done. “If you’re involved in a public-facing effort, be that working for a nonprofit or working for the government or working in politics, you’re doing this because at some level, you like helping people,” he said. “[Public sector work] really taught me that in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter what your political stripes are; we’re not all that different. “We all want to help folks, but how we get there is where the differences are. How we go about doing things and what values that the other person has are and what they bring to the conversation, that’s where the differences are. How you get past that is identifying where the similarities are and where interests align, and then we push forward together with that.” Holmstrom studied at Arkansas State University-Beebe before transferring to the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, where he developed an interest in political science and history. He finished

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Gabe Holmstrom

as a member of the congressional staff there. After that, he came home to Arkansas, where he served various capacities, including head of the Democratic Party of Arkansas, spokesman for Dustin McDaniel, then Arkansas attorney general, and time spent with Little Rock advertising firm CJRW. One of the more unexpected opportunities came via an offer by then-Speaker of the Arkansas House of Representatives Davy Carter, a Republican, to serve as his chief of staff, which Holmstrom did. “We got along fantastically,” he said of being a staunch Democrat at the center of a legislature growing redder with each election. “If I told people I was going to do something, I would do it, and once that level of trust was established, we were able to accomplish some pretty cool things. One of the most amazing things that we did during that 2013 sessionw was we passed the private option, the Medicaid expansion, which was a landmark piece of legislation. It took several tries, and there was a lot of anguish in the House at that time. Everybody has their own version on how that went down. It was quite the experience to have been a part of that.” Today, Holmstrom leverages the bridge-building chops he learned in state and national politics to help push downtown to a new and as-yet unrealized tomorrow. Some of his accomplishments include launching a downtown ambassadors program — paid personnel who welcome and assist people downtown — and kicking off a spate of public art that only continues to grow and multiply. “The big wagon mural on Main Street, that was the first largescale public art installation we did. I learned a lot during that process,” he said. “Had no clue how to go about doing that when we started. Now it shows up in pictures and videos and commercials all the time. Every time I walk by that today, I still look at it and smile, thinking about what all it took to get that on there. “We now have the ambassador program here in downtown Little Rock. This is something that, in my first year on the job, I identified as something that we needed as a city, and it took a long time for us to get that there. Getting the ambassador program going is something that I’m pretty proud of.” Holmstrom said there is plenty more where those wins came from, starting with the forthcoming implementation of the city’s downtown master plan and his latest passion project of seeing vacant land created by highway reconstruction turned into a major greenspace in the heart of the city. “In a lot of ways, we’re breaking new ground here and trying to avoid some of these incremental siloed decisions that have been made over the past decades as we move forward as a city,” he said. “This new 18 acres of green space has clearly been identified as an opportunity. How are we going to activate that? How are we going to develop that into something for the public use? These are the types of these things we’ll be looking at and pressing our public officials to follow through with for the good of our city.”

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up his undergraduate degree at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, during which time he interned for late Democratic Rep. Marion Berry. “About two weeks before I was supposed to graduate, he had an entry-level job open up,” he said. “That was not what I was planning on doing right out of college, but it seemed like a good opportunity.” Holmstrom’s time with Berry started as a field representative in east Arkansas, where he fielding constituent calls and worked to connect citizens with the appropriate government resources. His primary role was as a travel aide for the congressman, a jack-of-all-trades role for which he provided general support to Berry while he was back home on visits and meetings. The job gave Holmstrom lots of direct access to the man he still considers one of his most important mentors. “In about an 18-month time period, I think I put almost 90,000 miles on a vehicle traveling with the boss,” he said. “I have a degree in political science, but I learned more about politics riding around in a car with that man than I did in any class. It taught me a lot about the state, and in conjunction to that, I learned a lot about life.” When Berry came up for reelection, Holstrom transitioned to the campaign and earned himself a trip to Washington, D.C.,

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Darla Huie

Food for Thought

By Mak Millard

ne cannot spend two decades in any business without learned from them how to look at your target demographic and learning a few lessons — much less the restaurant indussay, ‘OK, what do they want? How can I be successful by making try, where the days are unpredictable and the wisdom ofthem happy?’” ten hard-won. Nearly 30 years after opening Dizzy’s Gypsy Bistro Customer satisfaction is a straightforward cornerstone of any in Benton, moving to Little Rock’s River Market in 2009 and fibusiness and, she admits, one that she could have learned “in 30 nally selling the restaurant in 2019, Darla Huie has had plenty to minutes” rather than in five years of college and another eight in reflect on in retirement. The lessons, she freely admits, were painadvertising. Making people happy, after all, is an essential art in ful, but necessary all the same. any field. “It was very humbling, kind of embarrassing,” she said. “You “I mean, we can all make mac and cheese,” Huie said, “but learn, and you learn the hard way, and that’s not a bad thing.” if the food is something that is just special, and it’s reasonably All of those lessons, hard as they were to learn, are ones she priced, and you actually get the luxury of being served and taken has also worked to pass down. Her daughter, Lindsay Cowlingcare of, and you walk out, and you go home and climb in your bed Carter, a financial advisor, is no stranger to the hourly gig. Huie — that is wonderful.” saw to it that she worked her way through school, and she still Huie had prior experience in restaurants, and even while purwould today, without hesitation. suing marketing it stayed on her mind. The “[Lindsay] once mopped a lot of floors, opportunity to create a space for other people rolled a lot of silverware, and recently said to sit and enjoy, combined with the freedom she’d have zero issues waiting tables again,” of being a business owner, prompted her to Huie said, “and rightly so. It paid for her to do jump back in. It was a ride, she said, but a what she does, and she understood the value good one, filled with “1,000 learning curves of it. She learned how to make clients happy. and lessons in humility.” She learned how to work.” Some of that humility comes from recSome of Huie’s biggest takeaways from ognizing the responsibility that came with her time in the owner’s seat are less about holding the keys and the capital. Recognizing the nuts and bolts of running a business and the power one has in that regard gave Huie more about the people within it. Employees a deeper understanding of just how vital it is — Darla Huie were a cross-section of society in a way that for small-business owners of every stripe to few other industries are, and she learned truly value their employees. much from the diversity of backgrounds and circumstances. “There are people who are like, ‘just pull yourself up by your “As business owners, the business is not you; it’s your people,” bootstraps,’” she said. “A lot of times, restaurants are the bootshe said. “It really is. Unless you can work the front, cook, run straps. They are the ability to make more than minimum wage. food, clean, bus dishes and completely scrub that kitchen at midThey are the ability to graduate. They are the ability to actually night, you are not [your business]. It’s your people.” realize the American Dream, and when I say American Dream, I As for the other details, Huie picked many of those up from don’t mean six Range Rovers. I don’t mean four vacation homes. I her previous career. Before opening Dizzy’s, Huie spent several mean the ability to make sure your kids are in a good school and years in marketing. While there, she learned tenets that would that you’re taken care of and have health care.” carry over once she decided to strike out on her own. After turning Dizzy’s into a River Market staple, Huie decid“Whatever you produced, you were worth,” she said. “I ed that the time was right to sell. Unbeknownst to everyone, her

“As business owners, the business is not you; it’s your people.”

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timing could not have been better. She sold Dizzy’s to friends and fellow business owners Don Dugan and Tasha Stratton in 2019, just before the COVID-19 pandemic turned the world, and the restaurant industry especially, on its head. “I said, ‘I want to sell. Here’s the price. Here’s my computer passcode and back door key. Audit it all, and see if you want to buy it,’” she said. “They kept everything as it was. They still CELEBRATING 10 YEARS employ several of the same amp employees, same menu, same vibe, years later. They dealt with the COVID challenges and came out victorious. That wasn’t easy. They are tough and smart.” While her exit spared her the brunt of running a restaurant through a pandemic, Huie did stick around long enough to witness the silver lining of the industry-wide shakeup, especially for workers. “I was happy to watch at least some of those absurd consumer demands die,” she said. “Expectations had become ridiculous prior to COVID. A server cannot attend three tables in seconds for $10 in tips per hour, pay taxes, tip out and be a financially contributing member of society.” While there are still plenty of problems to be solved coming out of that period, Huie saves a good deal of optimism for the changes it wrought and for Little Rock’s food scene in general. While she does miss it sometimes, she said she is encouraged by seeing the “tenacious talent” of local restaurateurs. “COVID was brutal, but we have local eateries still standing and knocking it all out of the ballpark — some new, some decades old,” she said. “It’s a gift to walk in and be served by friends and neighbors. Little Rock’s local food culture is strong.” In retirement, most of Huie’s efforts are spent on the acreage she moved to after selling Dizzy’s, where she focuses on encouraging native landscapes and pollinators while avoiding herbicides and pesticides.

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TOP TEN Lindsay Cowling-Carter, left, and Darla Huie

“Honestly, it may seem stupid that I’m like, ‘I’m just going to plant coneflowers and black-eyed Susans,’” she said. “It’s really not stupid. It’s a tiny footprint in the midst of a lot of politics and greed and human nature that maybe is just 41 acres of some sort of decency. Then when I need help, I bring somebody out here and pay them a living wage, and I love them, and I’m super thankful for all they taught me. It’s kind of that simple for me.” Huie’s exit from Dizzy’s was an entry into an introspective second act that few are lucky enough to realize. Her ideal role is that of a quiet advocate who reflects on the past and tries to create something for the future. “I try to engage the marginal skills I have gleaned via my experience to help where I can,” she said. “It may be bee and butterfly habitats. It may be small ways to assist the Van with their massive undertakings to help the disenfranchised, which I have no true role in. It may be animal rescue, which I barely factor into.” If she downplays her own part in supporting various causes, it is only because she wants the spotlight to focus even more intently on the people doing the “dirty work” — the lifesaving work, she stressed — such as Aaron Reddin, founder of the Van. “People have asked me before, would you do it again? Yeah. I needed it,” she said, “and does it benefit anyone in the long run? Maybe I helped a few people, but even if you help two or three people, that’s better than none.”

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A Good Run Oaklawn’s Eric Jackson

By John Callahan

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Eric jackson

hile much attention is rightfully paid to Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort’s major additions in recent years, during which the establishment was developed into a fully fledged casino resort, no less important changes were made in the decades prior that allowed the hallowed horse racing venue to become what it is today. Having been a part of Oaklawn for more than a third of its 120-year history, senior vice president, board of directors member and soon-to-be Arkansas Business Hall of Famer Eric Jackson has been an integral part of those transformations, both old and new. A Hot Springs native, Eric Jackson attended Hendrix College

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in Conway and graduated with a degree in economics, a wife and no money. Both he and his wife sought advanced degrees, and while she went to earn hers at Southern Methodist University in Texas, his plans to go to Vanderbilt University in Tennessee had to be delayed while he found a job. “That plan didn’t work very well,” Jackson said. “Out of the blue, I met the general manager of Oaklawn, and he offered me a job. I told him I didn’t know anything about horse racing, but he explained that most everybody starts out at that point. He suggested I try it for six months and see if I liked it, and Oaklawn could see if they liked me. If it didn’t work out, I would be no

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worse off than six months behind schedule, but it might work out. I was the director of operations for seven years. Unfortunately, the general manager suddenly passed away, and as I tell everyone, I was the only one who knew where the keys were, so they made me general manager in 1987.” Oaklawn was, at that time, facing significant difficulties. Going into the 1980s, racetracks were one of the only legal forms of gambling in the nation. Both casinos and lotteries were rare, and Oaklawn expanded its racing season to 62 days in 1984 to capitalize on increased attendance. By the late ‘80s and into the early 2000s, legislation such as the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act and the legalization of riverboat gambling in neighboring states had introduced serious competition. “Now you can’t turn around without seeing a lottery, online gambling or a casino,” Jackson said. “That’s been difficult for race tracks, but Oaklawn has found a way to not only survive, but thrive. To an extent, I think we’ve done it as well or better than any racetrack in the country.” To put Oaklawn back on track and keep racing relevant in the industry, Jackson helped lead the club in the use of simulcasting, which made it possible to both view and place bets on a race without being present at the track. Even as in-person attendance fell, revenue climbed. “[Simulcasting] is the mainstay of our racing program right now,” Jackson said. “Our signal goes to over 1,000 places in North America, and back in 1990, it didn’t go anywhere. The last 25 years have been pretty hard on racetracks, and Oaklawn has been swimming against the stream that entire time, but for a little track in Arkansas to invent, develop and pioneer simulcasting is pretty amazing. That’s about 90 percent of the racing business in America now.” Jackson also developed the concept of historic racing, which allows players to bet on a race that has already occurred and is randomly selected from a catalog of thousands that have identifying information removed. “I was awarded a patent for historic racing, and we developed that product and put it into play in 2000,” Jackson said. “Historic racing really put us back in the game, and the patent we got on it kind of revolutionized everything. Now it’s a major product in Kentucky and other racing states. It’s been expanded to a number of places around the country, including Churchill Downs, where they run the Kentucky Derby.” Nor did the lucky streak end there. In 2005, a public referendum allowed Oaklawn to run “games of skill,” such as video poker. Jackson became senior vice president of Oaklawn in 2017, and the position of general manager was taken up by Wayne Smith. In 2018, another ballot amendment allowed Oaklawn to become a full casino. “We kicked off a $100 million expansion at that time,” Jackson said. “I think we actually broke ground the day before [the COVID-19 pandemic] hit America, so we were extremely late completing the project, but now we’re very glad we did it. We’re

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the only complete racing and gaming resort in North America, and it’s worked out quite well for us.” Across his career, Jackson has learned more than a few things about being a leader. One of the most important qualities he has learned, however, is the willingness to change in order to change things around him. “What I’ve discovered is that there is no one management style that works on everybody and for everybody. A good manager will find a way to get the best possible performance out of the person that is reporting to him or her. For some people, that’s the carrot, for some, it’s the stick, and for some, it’s pom-poms.” He believes that management style has paid off because Oaklawn has numerous employees who have been with the organization for 20, 30 or, in his own case, 45 years. It is a great achievement for anyone to stay with a single company for upward of four decades and perhaps an even greater achievement for the organization that it is able to hold onto a talented leader for such a span of time. When asked what had kept him at Oaklawn all these years, Jackson responded, “Well, it’s really the sport. It’s the pageantry, the beauty and the thrill of competition, the agony of defeat. Oaklawn has always conducted racing at a very high level, one of the best programs in the country. Right now, a good argument could be made that it’s the best program in the country this time of the year because our purses are so high. “What we’ve done is we’ve taken these other forms of entertainment, whether it’s simulcasting, historic racing or gaming itself, and we’re using some of those revenues to enhance our purses. That’s allowing us to attract some really significant horses from around the country. Our purse structure is the equal of New York, and it’s higher than Los Angeles. What amazes me every time I think about it is those are major, major metropolitan areas, and we’re in a town of 35,000 people, so to say you go head to head with New York, it almost doesn’t seem real, but that’s where we are.” In fact, Jackson counted Hot Springs and its size compared to the massive cities of the east and west coasts not as an obstacle, but as an advantage. As a tourist destination from its earliest days, Hot Springs can draw plenty of people on its own, but adding a casino resort and racetrack makes for a powerful combination. Jackson also credited Visit Hot Springs and its CEO, Steve Arrison, for reinventing the town into a national park resort community that has complemented Oaklawn’s growth and expansion. “It really is hand in glove, Oaklawn and Hot Springs,” Jackson said, “and people like coming to Arkansas. It’s the mountains. It’s the natural beauty. Arkansas tourism exploded during COVID. I’m on the parks and tourism commission, and our numbers went right through the roof. All of that bodes well for businesses like Oaklawn or anybody who’s in the tourism business — it has just been a good run for everybody.”

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Robert Raines

The Gang’s All Here

By Mak Millard

ot often does one come across a city with the combinaa little reticent to share a behind-the-scenes look. This did not detion of history, mystery and allure that Hot Springs can ter me but made me more curious.” boast. The manifold stories that have made the Spa City The more Raines learned, the more he needed to know. He into what it is today are a point of interest for the curious tourist. sought out trusted sources who gave him a clearer picture of the For others, they are the catalyst for a lifelong pursuit of separating Spa City, and as he expanded his network of historians, authors fact from fiction. For this reason and many others, Hot Springs and other contacts, doors began to open. His research culminatis no stranger to visitors-turned-residents. One such case, Robert ed in the development and opening of the Gangster Museum of Raines, has made a career out of telling the story of his adopted America in 2008. city. Today, he is CEO of Historical Attractions and the founder “I don’t recall ever being so excited about a startup, and I had and director of the Gangster Museum of America. At first, howbeen involved in more than a few,” he said. ever, he was just another of those passersby. In the almost 16 years since, the museum has become an inteRaines’ childhood was a nomadic one, gral part of the city, and its work to document and his family moved frequently to accomHot Springs’ history becomes more crucial modate his father’s job in insurance. Having with every passing year. As time goes on and “I have met thousands attended nine different schools between first those most intimately connected to the story of interesting and and ninth grade, Raines finally settled down of Hot Springs’ glory days die, Raines’ painsin Pine Bluff. After studying music at the Unimemorable people along taking work collecting hours upon hours of versity of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, he became interviews has helped preserve their stories this journey. Some have for the next generation. the lead singer of a rock band before drifting into jobs in marketing, advertising, and ra“Their memories of those days are now entertained me, some dio and television production. In the 1990s, a part of me,” he said. “One thing I have have educated me, a few learned about Hot Springs’ history is that on the advice of a former client, Raines got have inspired me, and involved in the budding technology industry, very few things are black and white. There is and he owned a successful computer and netone has done all three.” always more to the story, and one thing leads working company in Pine Bluff for 13 years. to another.” — Robert Raines He arrived in Hot Springs in 2007 to help a Those snippets of interviews shown in friend move his business into the downtown the museum are some of what sets it apart as area. While in town — thanks in no small both an educational and entertaining experipart to the communication skills he acquired from the frequent ence. The museum’s tour guides and research assistants are just moves — he began to hear stories from locals about the city’s colas immersed in the city’s history as Raines, allowing them to lead orful past. Tales of giants of industry, celebrities, presidents, polivisitors through those fascinating decades as accurately as posticians and notorious criminals piqued his interest. Not one to be sible. His staff have also been instrumental in bringing writers to pulled in by mere folklore, however, Raines wanted to uncover the the museum, and as a result, it has enjoyed national and internareality underneath. tional notoriety. The museum’s most recent addition is a gallery “Nothing lit my fuse like the history of Hot Springs, Ark.,” he dedicated to major league spring training baseball, which began said. “If these stories that I found so fascinating were true, it was in Hot Springs. going to take a lot of investigation to corroborate the history I was “After conversations with family members of Al Capone and hearing about the town. At first, folks who were in the know were Meyer Lansky, I was made aware that baseball was just one more

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holding on, along with some dedicated and devoted business and property owners. We would get together once a week and think about how to improve what we believed was still a viable and interesting destination for visitors. We decided to clean up the sidewalks and, with help from the city, it became a more desirable place to visit. Gradually, more businesses saw the downtown area as an opportunity to flourish, where owners promoted one another, rather than competing against each other.” Today, he said, the downtown area is once again thriving as it did in the “glory days,” with the national park and bathhouses alive and well and new hotels and restaurants opening up on Central Avenue.

great attraction to gangland luminaries, and that story warranted a place in the museum,” Raines said. Normally, Raines said, he would suspect that a project like his would be finished after 15 years in business. However, new leads come in all the time, often people interested in family members who might have a connection to Hot Springs. While some of the leads come from around the country and even abroad, one of the most meaningful to Raines originated much closer to home. “I have met thousands of interesting and memorable people along this journey. Some have entertained me, some have educated me, a few have inspired me, and one has done all three,” he said. “I received a call from a gentleman seeking information about Owney Madden, who had been a local Hot Springs resident and is featured in one of our galleries in the museum. The inquiring gentleman was David Jones, a former owner of KARK Channel 4 in Little Rock, and he shared with me what he believed to be his family’s connection to Madden. “As fate would have it, there was a connection. I reviewed Madden’s 1935 marriage license, and it revealed that David’s father had been the county clerk who had issued and signed the license for Owney’s marriage to Agnes Demby, the postmaster’s daughter. David and I have since become good friends, and I still have a lot to learn from him.” Madden’s story is of particular interest to Raines, and he has studied Madden intensely for 16 years while simultaneously introducing him to half a million people through the museum. “I feel it shines a light on the marriage of money and politics in Arkansas,” he said. “I am currently in production of a feature documentary with a few well-known Hollywood professionals that will expose Madden to an even wider audience.” Over the course of his work, Raines has made his name as an outspoken mouthpiece for Hot Springs, shining a spotlight on the city for its place in American history. He has written, directed and produced seven short documentaries that focus on some of the most notorious residents and visitors to Hot Springs, in addition to writing the book, Hot Springs: From Capone to Costello. For the last decade, he has served on the travel council for the Arkansas Hospitality Association, and he was the 2019 recipient of the AHA President’s Award for his contribution to the growth of Arkansas tourism. Raines is also a member of the Garland County chapter of the AHA, the Greater Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce, the Garland County Historical Society and the Hot Springs Jazz Society. He appears regularly on radio, television and online broadcasts to promote what he calls “the multifaceted jewel of the South.” “Looking back, I remember when we first opened the doors to the museum,” Raines said. “Thirty percent of the downtown businesses were boarded up, and only one of the bathhouses was open, part-time. The Arlington Hotel and the breakfast restaurants on Central Avenue in the downtown district were

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TOP TEN

Steve Sullivan

A Serendipitous

Path

By Sarah Coleman

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Steve Sullivan

n the summer of 1977, a 17-year-old Steve Sullivan, affectionately known now as Sully, made the journey from Massachuesetts to Jonesboro to attend college. The move was motivated by one thing: greyhound racing. Sullivan co-owned a racing greyhound, and his college destination was determined by its proximity to a greyhound racetrack. The former Southland Greyhound Park, now Southland Casino Hotel, is located less than an hour’s drive from Arkansas State University in Jonesboro. Plus, ASU had a good broadcasting department. “Buying Keentwister may seem like a weird purchase at that age, but I bought him with a friend of mine,” Sullivan said. From the beginning, Sullivan knew radio and TV was the path for him, and he fell deeper in love with sportscasting during his college years. However, the first moment he knew he chose the right path was during a game in Fort Smith. “It was a game we were working on the radio, and I had so much fun doing that one game,” he said. “I knew this profession was what I wanted to do, and I never looked back. It wasn’t great money when I look back on it now, but I never really thought about it that much when I was doing the work. I’m still not the best public speaker, but I get to work in sports, and I’m very comfortable in my zone. When I was younger, I would have never imagined myself being so comfortable doing something like this, but it’s my passion to talk about sports.” After graduating, Sullivan stuck around the Natural State, and he said he is glad he did. “After graduating from college, I ended up not just finding a job in Arkansas, but finding a life in Arkansas. I know I grew up in Massachusetts, but if you were to ask me where I’m from, I would probably say Little Rock,” Sullivan said. Sullivan, of course, is the longstanding and well-known sports director for KATV, Little Rock’s ABC affiliate, and he also maintains his blog, “Sully Says.” His career has spanned 40 years, and he has been at Channel 7 for 24 of them. Sullivan has been named Arkansas Sportscaster of the Year five times and has won the Associated Press Best Sportscast Award 13 times since he has been at

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Channel 7. He has also been recognized by the Arkansas Activities Association as a distinguished media member and been inducted into the Arkansas Sportscasters and Sports Writers Hall of Fame. Although he is proud of these accomplishments, Sullivan said he hopes to be remembered for his work to promote high school athletics, starting when he was at KARK in Little Rock. Sullivan brought Friday-night flights to the state and, in doing so, changed the way high school football is covered in Arkansas. “My most proud moment is the role I was able to play in changing the way people covered high school football,” he said. “I think the state is now locked into making Fridays more of an event for all the teams involved. It wasn’t just me. It was a team effort, and it came at a great time. It’s turned out so much coverage for all these kids and communities because high school football is such a big part of the fiber of most communities, especially small communities.” Sullivan’s efforts to promote high school sports left a lasting impression. “We created nicknames for players, like “The Great [Basil] Shabazz,” and ‘The Magnificent [Madre] Hill,’” he said. “It was a different era then too. People didn’t have social media, so kids saw their highlights for the first time when they watched the 10 p.m. show on Friday.” Sullivan said he is grateful for the ability to cover so many athletes who went on to be top players at many colleges and beyond. Throughout his career, Sullivan said he has learned a lot, but one of the most impactful lessons he learned was that the station is bigger than any one person. “When you are part of a team, you are a part of a bigger operation. It is inspiring to know that when I look to my left and to my right, I can see people that are probably more talented than me, and that motivates me,” he said. Sullivan tried never to miss a chance to make what might seem like a small moment to most a huge moment to the students he was covering. “These moments mean so much to people. When I work on Fridays, I try to make every touchdown the biggest moment of the night,” he said. “I want every touchdown to feel like the first touchdown that person has ever scored, and there’s something to that experience where you can help make lasting memories for people.” While he never would have guessed that this path would lead him to where he is now, Sullivan credits much of his success to serendipity. “I believe that fate has played a big role. It seems like everywhere I’ve gone, there’s been people that have helped me, and I know the path I’ve had has been kind of strange. I attribute it to the kind of people that have supported me along the way,” he said. Sullivan said he always values honesty and people who make

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an effort to treat others well — coaches, players or fans. Those who treat people well make a big difference in the world of sports as Sullivan sees it. He also credits much of his inspiration and success in the business to David Bazzel of 103.7 the Buzz. “I have known Bazzel for more than 30 years and have worked with him together on so many projects. He wants to make everything he gets a hold of the best,” Sullivan said. “He’s a great mentor, although we are probably pretty close to the same age, and he’s just incredible with ideas and gives great support.” Sullivan said working with the late Paul Eells, the former KATV sports director and voice of the Razorbacks, was an experience that he never has taken for granted. He considers it one of the greatest highlights of his career. “Paul taught me the importance of treating people well every day. Not just the people you work with, but the people you deal with,” he said. “TV is a deadline business, but Paul never had a clock. It can be hard to replicate that, but you try to have, ‘How would Paul treat them?’ in the back of your mind when you’re treating people. I think just having that thought makes you a better worker and a better coworker.” Early on, Sullivan found inspiration from his father, who immigrated to the United States from Ireland. His dad, who worked at a factory for 30 years, wanted nothing more for his children than for them to get jobs they liked. “A lot of people go to work, and it’s just work for them. I’ve never felt like that when I’m coming into work. I’ve always felt like I’m coming into sports. I get to come in and do the fun part of TV, where I try to get the best sports to show the public each day,” Sullivan said. As an innovative storyteller, Sullivan looks back fondly on many moments in his career, but one memory stands out — finding alternative programming during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sullivan hosted the Champions Watch Party, which honored the 1994 Razorback national champion men’s basketball team and featured team members Corliss Williamson and Scotty Thurman watching a tape of the ῾94 national championship game and breaking down plays. “We sat in the stands for two hours and replayed the whole game with their commentary and mine. In the major scheme of things, it may not have been that important to everyone else, but it’s so cool for me because I was there in ῾94, when I saw them win the national championship,” Sullivan said. “We probably wouldn’t have done anything like this if it wasn’t for the pandemic, but this special programming created a really memorable night.” When he is not on TV, Sullivan can be found volunteering, announcing youth games and occasionally even emceeing events. Plus, he and wife, Toni, have two granddaughters who keep them busy. Sullivan said he also recently picked up a new hobby — photography — and loves to help people create valuable memories in that medium, as well.

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‘Doin’ This’ Matt Troup

By Mark Carter

to be a convenor of like-minded, community-oriented partners in ore than eight years into his tenure as president and our community who share the pride I mentioned above,” he said. CEO of Conway Regional Health System, Matt Troup “In the universe of health care, we’re considered a small player in remains flabbergasted that his career path led him to central Arkansas. If not for great partners like physicians, employArkansas, of all places. “I am surprised to be in Arkansas,” he said. “Having grown up ers and our area colleges, to name a few, it would be difficult to in Texas, attended college in Texas and worked in Texas, I had no meet the needs of our community.” intentions of moving to Arkansas. I knew I wanted to serve as a The trench warfare of the COVID-19 pandemic is mostly in the hospital administrator; I just did rearview mirror, but health care not imagine it would be the path providers face new challenges. God laid out for me.” Hospital administrators must be Then again, Troup cannot adept jugglers, Troup said, addimagine doing anything other ing that it is hard to pinpoint just than what he is doing right now, one challenge when so many are which is leading one of the state’s facing the industry, but he noted a fastest growing health care netpair of industry regulars. works. Conway Regional, an“Post-pandemic financial preschored by the 170-bed, acute-care sures have decimated operating Conway Regional Medical Cenmargins across the country,” he ter, now serves a seven-county said. “Some insurers and Mediarea in the Arkansas River Valley care/Medicaid have refused to and north-central Arkansas, from keep pace with increasing costs. hospitals and after-hours clinics All this has put pressure on our Each year, Troup hosts employees celebrating 25 years to specialty care and rehabilitaability to support our staff and with Conway Regional at his home. (Photos provided) tion centers. operations.” Troup said there is not so much a secret sauce behind the sucPlus, the pandemic left the industry with something akin to cess of Conway Regional as there is a secret power. post-traumatic stress disorder. “Conway Regional has a lot of pride. When a team is proud, it “We are, at our core, a people and service business,” Troup tends to work hard and put in quality work,” he said. “When that said. “Through the pandemic and the financial pressures, many happens, success follows. People want to be on a winning team, in health care have lost their story, their passion for their calling. which further supports growth.” Ultimately, we’ve got to reinvigorate the calling that makes health The growth of Conway itself has necessitated Conway Regioncare so special, a job people are willing to sacrifice for and an ecoal’s own expansion. Since 1980, the city’s population has more nomic engine that’s part of a vibrant community.” than tripled in size. Conway’s estimated 2023 population is just In his role as leader of the organization, Troup said he underless than 71,000, a far cry from the roughly 20,300 who called the stands the importance of setting an example from the top, and he city home in 1980. relies on his faith as a source of inspiration. For Conway Regional, meeting the demands of this growth “Galatians 5:22-23 describes the ‘fruits of the spirit,’ which comes down to one thing, Troup said. I think have a lot of leadership applicability: love, joy, peace, “Partnership. I feel like so much of our role as a health system is patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-

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control,” he said. “If we practice these, then we will achieve what Craig Groeschel often repeats on his podcast: ‘People would rather follow a leader that is real than one that is always right.’ An effective leader is humble and other-focused.” Conway Regional has invested more than $150 million in projects since Troup joined the system and is now home to more than 220 network physicians. In 2019, Conway Regional took over management of the former Dardanelle Hospital, renamed Dardanelle Regional Medical Center, and expanded its services into Cleburne and Van Buren counties in north Arkansas. “We continue to be focused on growth, partnering with our hospitals and physicians in our service area, all while making sure we’re continuing to provide excellent care for our patients,” Troup said. In 2020, Conway Regional launched the first of three residency programs in partnership with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock to help address the shortage of doctors in rural parts of the state. Internal medicine was launched first, followed by family medicine in 2021 and rural family medicine in 2022. The Conway Regional residency program now has 33 residents. “We will matriculate our second group of family medicine physicians in July of this year,” Troup said. “We’re very proud to be able to put our unique stamp on the next generation of physicians and do our part in addressing the state physician shortage.” The health care industry lends itself to turbulence, and Troup has overseen some bumps, guiding the system over each one since he landed in Conway eight years ago. “In that time, we’ve seen unparalleled competition in our market, a worldwide pandemic and financial pressures the likes of which the health care industry has never seen, and yet, through these challenges, we’ve thrived and grown,” he said. “I’m proud of the way we’re living out the true heart of health care in Conway.” Troup may be surprised that his path led to Arkansas, but he said he is certainly not surprised that his work involves service. “Luke Combs has a song titled ‘Doin’ This,’ where he ponders the question, ‘What would you be doing if you weren’t doing this?’” he said. “His reply in the song is, ‘I’d still be doing this if I weren’t doing this.’ When I first heard the song, I thought it was a really dumb answer. However, there is a certain brilliance and simplicity to it. What I love doing every day is the worthwhile work that matters to people — serving others and building relationships. Could Troup have found another avenue through which to live out his call to serve? Potentially. “I don’t know the vocation, but if it weren’t hospital administration, it could be at the bedside as a clinician or on the football field as a coach,” he said. “Whatever it would be, ‘I’d still be doing this if I weren’t doing this’ — pursuing worthwhile work, serving others while living out my faith in the process.”

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Matt Troup

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Face to Feet

Dr. Eric Wright

hen Dr. Eric Wright, board-certified plastic surgeon, and his family finally moved back to Arkansas in 2016 after years of honing his skill set elsewhere, he came back with some impressive credentials. After graduating summa cum laude from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Wright completed stints at the prestigious Stanford University in California, where he completed his residency, and the equally acclaimed Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, where he served as a plastic surgery clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School. Despite these high-profile assignments, he always knew he would eventually be bound for Arkansas and home. “Our first child was born the fall of us living in Boston, and after about a year living there, we decided to move home, mainly because our families are still back here in Arkansas,” he said, “and Boston’s pretty cold in the winter months.” Landing at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, Wright served as assistant professor of surgery before transitioning to private practice in Little Rock in 2018. In the years since then, he has become a nationally known plastic surgeon in the field of breast augmentation and revision, including breast implant removal, or extant surgery. His reputation draws a clientele from across the United States and around the world who seek his expert care. He is also known as one of the only surgeons in Arkansas who performs migraine surgery. In truth, Wright prides himself on being what he called a “face-to-feet” surgeon, bringing the same caring touch and expert skills to cases from basic to the most complex. During his career, he has treated infants as young as a few years old to routinely treating patients in their 80s and 90s.

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By Dwain Hebda

CELEBRATING 10 YEARS

amp Arkansas Money & Politics

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He said the diversity of his work is something that attracted him to his medical specialty in general and private practice in specific in the first place. “In this field, there really are no limitations from kids to adults, from face to feet,” he said. “Board-certified plastic surgeons sort of pride ourselves on being able to do anything. Certainly, some people prefer different aspects like kids and cranial/ facial with the cleft lips or others who prefer more extremity reconstruction. Overall, though, we say in plastic surgery, we see every kind of patient there is. There’s no limitations.” Wright, 41, grew up on a farm north of Conway and attended school in Quitman, which straddles Cleburne and Faulkner counties. At the U of A, he earned three undergraduate degrees and is likely the only plastic surgeon most people will ever meet who can boast of one of them. “There wasn’t a great ‘aha’ moment [for going into medicine]. It was constantly evolving,” he said. “In fact, when I went to Fayetteville, I majored in poultry science because I was going to work for Tyson. I finished my degree in poultry science because I liked the farm and thought I would work on a farm. “I guess I have a little bit of an Arkansas accent, particularly to California people, because one of the faculty members at Stanford really thought that I said ‘poetry’ science. We’d be talking, and they were like, ‘Who’s your favorite poet?’ I’m like, ‘What? Why? I don’t know, man.’ I certainly brought Arkansas to the map in California.” The poultry science degree fed Wright’s general interest in science and became a lure to enter the medical field. His other two degrees — biology and Spanish — ran more traditional to a career in medicine and, taking advice from advisors and mentors, he decided to follow that route. “Honestly, there’s numerous things in medicine I probably would have enjoyed,” he said. “Once in medical school, I liked the concept of surgical-type procedures, and during the course of medical school, I had some mentors that kind of directed me to explore the options of reconstructive plastic surgery.” Wright’s servant attitude toward his work was on display early on and has continued throughout his career. During his undergraduate work he studied abroad in both Mexico and Costa Rica and returned to Mexico years later for an international medical mission, one of two prestigious Laub Fellowships. His second Laub Fellowship took him on another medical mission, this time to Nagercoil, India, in 2015. Wright also completed a microsurgery rotation at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Linkou, Taiwan, one of the world’s leading medical centers for clinical research, particularly in the field of reconstructive microsurgery, all of which adds up to a wealth of experience not found everywhere in Arkansas. “My practice is probably 60 percent being aesthetic surgery and 40 percent being reconstructive surgery,” he said. “One of the benefits of being back in Arkansas is there is a plethora of

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challenging cases out there. Some of these patients come from a long way, and there’s some online social media groups where patients interact with each other. You do a good job for someone, and they tell their friends, and that spreads. The patients who come from a ways away have all been referred based on word of mouth. “It’s a little unique, and I’m certainly humbled, when we see patients who come from out-of-state for surgery, which happens, probably, every week. In fact, my patients have come all the way from Asia and Canada, and I’ve had patients come internationally, as well, for reconstructive surgery, usually for breast reconstruction specifically at this point.” In addition to building a thriving practice, Wright has regularly shared his knowledge and expertise to improve the medical specialty as a whole by educating current and future practitioners. He has authored more than 30 textbook chapters and manuscripts about aesthetic and reconstructive surgery, including topics such as facelifts, rhinoplasty, breast reconstruction, migraine surgery and resident education. He has presented more than 20 lectures at national and international meetings and currently serves on the educational committee for the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. He is also a manuscript reviewer for the monthly publication Aesthetic Surgery Journal. Board certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery, Wright is a member of the multiple professional societies, including the American Society of Reconstructive Microsurgery, the Aesthetic Society and the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. “I’m always trying to learn things myself, as things are continuously evolving in the medical field with new technologies and new techniques pretty frequently,” he said. “I still have medical students rotate with me from medical school in Fort Smith. We’re able to still be involved, through Stanford, to do different lectures via Zoom for the residents there too.” Wright said the human aspect of his work — be it with students or patients — remains the most rewarding part of his chosen vocation. No matter how many accolades he acquires or how far his reputation precedes him, he said seeing a patient react to the results of his work still gives him the same thrill as when he was just starting out. “You certainly get to know patients very well,” he said. “Some of these procedures are multi-step procedures. It’s not just oneand-done. You’ll see them and their family for prolonged periods of time while you undergo a staged reconstruction. Cancer reconstruction is certainly an aspect of that. You meet them early on, and by the time you’ve finished, hopefully, they’re not only healthy, but they’re also happy and feel as whole as possible again. “I’m just grateful for the training and ability to do the reconstructive procedures that we can offer and I’m appreciative to be part of a patient’s journey.”

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TODAY’S GIRL SCOUT COOKIE CEO = TOMORROW’S LEADERS

t’s Girl Scout cookie season. For many Americans, that means rushing to buy boxes of delicious treats, but for the Girl Scouts themselves, it means so much more than helping to satisfy an annual craving. During cookie season, while Girl Scouts are planning, selling, taking orders, distributing, and delivering, they’re also gaining fundamental knowledge about economics, entrepreneurship, salesmanship, the value of hard work and more. Whether it’s the annual cookie program or one of the other many community activities in which they are involved, these Girl Scout “Cookie CEOs” are learning the value of goal setting, decision-making, money management and business ethics. All those concepts are a part of what makes the Girl Scout experience so unique and particularly important in setting girls up for lifelong achievement. Lifelong learning and achievement are the foundation of the organization, and many successful business leaders — CEOs, executives, entrepreneurs — got their start as Girl Scouts. On the pages that follow, meet four Arkansas business leaders who represent today’s Cookie CEOs. These women serve as strong examples to young girls of the role Girl Scouts and its many programs can have in their future successes.

Cori Wilson

Project Manager Crossland Construction Co., Rogers

Favorite Girl Scout Cookie? Thin Mints

(frozen, of course!) What lessons from your Girl Scout days do you incorporate as a female leader today? Growing up, my family was a military family that had to move a lot. At each new location we moved to, I was able to join a Girl Scout troop. The Girl Scouts provided me with a sense of belonging and familiarity, even in a new place. This learned skill to confidently adapt to change during childhood has translated to my adulthood style of leadership — go with the flow! Always be willing to face a challenge with an open mind and a good attitude. In what specific ways does participation in Girl Scouts foster and develop leadership traits? Girl Scouts provides girls with opportunities to work toward many different goals, whether that be through patches earned or cookies sold. Each patch or goal requires a Girl Scout to be self-driven and put in the work to achieve that goal. By encouraging girls to put in the work, the Girl Scouts foster each girl’s path toward leadership. What is your favorite memory as a Girl Scout? My favorite memory as a Girl Scout is from my time in a troop in Florida. I attended a summer camp, and my mother came with me. We stayed in cabins in the woods, participated in activities to earn patches, and I lost a tooth! To a little girl, it was such an exciting adventure.

Margaret Bell Hughes REALTOR️ The Property Group, Little Rock

What lessons from your Girl Scout days do you incorporate as a female leader today? The Girl Scouts instilled in me valuable skills such as effective collaboration, a sense of pride in my accomplishments, encouragement to step out of my comfort zone and the confidence to embrace new challenges. Moreover, the commitment to community service was a cornerstone of my Girl Scout experience, instigating a profound sense of responsibility towards the well-being of others. In what specific ways does participation in Girl Scouts foster and develop leadership traits? Girl Scouts plays a vital role in nurturing both independent and social skills essential for a successful leader. The organization focuses on instilling qualities such as sound decision making, a strong understanding of business ethics and the ability to collaborate seamlessly with others. By fostering a spirit of exploration and self-discovery, Girl Scouts empowers girls to develop the mindset needed to navigate the complexities of their personal and professional lives.

Favorite Girl Scout Cookie? Thin Mints

What is your favorite memory as a Girl Scout? During my elementary school years, my family moved to a new state. To help us both make new friends, my mom enrolled me in Girl Scouts. I found joy in all the badge activities and selling cookies door to door. One of my early memories is the bridge-up ceremony, where I first experienced the sense of pride that comes with personal accomplishments.

importance of perseverance. There were moments when doubts arose, but my fellow Girl Scouts and I learned not to Favorite Girl give up. Now, as a leader, I understand that perseverance Scout Cookie? pays off, and my accomplishments with my team speak Caramel deLites volumes. (Samoas) Teamwork is another crucial lesson. Our troop, comprised of individuals from diverse backgrounds, worked together seamlessly. We undertook projects and tasks collaboratively, earning badges and celebrating each other’s achievements. The camaraderie we shared taught me the value of a strong team. Today, I lead with the knowledge that success is a collective effort. The confidence gained from those experiences is immeasurable, and I still maintain strong connections with many of my Girl Scout sisters. In times of need, I wouldn’t hesitate to call on them, highlighting the enduring bonds formed through shared challenges and victories.

Jill McDonald,

Co-owner, The Croissanterie, Little Rock

What lessons from your Girl Scout days do you incorporate as a female leader today? In my current role as a woman leader, I find that the lessons from my Girl Scout days continue to shape my approach. One key lesson is the

Taren Robinson,

In what specific ways does participation in Girl Scouts foster and develop leadership? Participation in Girl Scouts fosters and develops leadership in several ways. The challenges presented in various activities contribute significantly to building confidence. Stepping into the unknown and emerging with newfound knowledge translates into success in different facets of life — be it in academics, career, relationships, entrepreneurship or personal growth. Being part of the Girl Scouts has equipped me with the strength and confidence to navigate such challenges. It is one of the many empowering and female-forward groups that have shaped my journey. Today, as a teacher, chef, business owner and entrepreneur, I understand the importance of continuous learning and teaching. What is your favorite memory as a Girl Scout? My favorite memories as a Girl Scout are selling the most cookies, which my mom was none too happy about because we had to deliver them all. Secondly, Camp Taloha in Pine Bluff. It was a time spent with my best friends and Girl Scout sisters, creating memories.

Owner, Blueprint Event Solutions, Little Rock What lessons from your Girl Scout days do you incorporate as a female leader today? As a woman leader navigating these challenging times, I believe that emphasizing kindness and resilience is essential. I actively engage in mentorship to support young women in my industry. Empowering the next generation of leaders is my one of my passions.

Favorite Girl Scout Cookie? Thin Mints

In what specific ways does participation in Girl Scouts foster and develop leadership traits? Participating in the Girl Scout cookie program was significant for me. It helped to cultivate my business acumen. It not only honed my sales and organizational skills from a young age but also instilled the importance of maintaining customer relationships. Each year before cookie season started, I sat down with my mom and dad to go over our sales strategy. What is your favorite memory as a Girl Scout? One of the most treasured moments from my Girl Scout experience was our summer camp adventure, which was essentially glamping before glamping became popular. The anticipation of packing and preparing for the trip was thrilling. Our troop prided itself on efficiency — we were always the first to set up our tent and have our sleeping bags ready to go. During our daily hikes, we made it a mission to find the most beautiful rocks and flowers, turning each excursion into a treasure hunt of sorts. While we may not have been the best at starting campfires, we certainly excelled at crafting triple-decker s’mores — a skill that proved to be far more valuable in our eyes! I hold these memories close, as they are destined to last a lifetime.

Today’s Girl Scout is tomorrow’s leader. Her dreams are our dreams. Girls are what Girl Scouts is all about. Their dreams, ideas and ambition are part of our DNA. Today’s girls want to shoot movies, build robots, speak up for what they believe in, help others, change a law. Girl Scouts gives girls the tools to fuel their ambition, try new things, learn from failure, and make the world a better place. Girl Scouts is a world where girls can do, and be, whatever they dream.

Today’s Leaders Helping Tomorrow’s Backed by trusted adult volunteers and millions of alums like our Today’s Cookie CEO leaders, Girl Scouts gain the courage, confidence and character to be our future leaders in building a better world.

Join. Volunteer. Give. Reconnect. To learn how you can support our future female leaders, contact us at info@girlscoutsdiamonds.org or 800-632-6894.

girlscoutsdiamonds

girlscoutsdiamonds.org @girlscoutsdiamonds

Curtis Howse

Dr. Rhonda Tillman

James H. Leary

Success in Arkansas Black Hall of Fame inducts six

The latest six inductees to the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame represent the intersection of faithful service and personal success now enshrined forever at the hall, which is located at the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center in Little Rock. The 2023 roster includes notable figures from the worlds of music, medicine, law, business and ministry: • The Rev. Jerry D. Black, originally from Blytheville, pastor of the Beulah Missionary Baptist Church in Decatur, Ga.; • Dr. Ronda Henry-Tillman, also originally from Blytheville, internationally recognized breast cancer surgeon; • Curtis Howse of Little Rock, executive vice president and CEO of home and auto at Synchrony consumer financial services company; • The late James H. Leary, a Little Rock native, notable jazz musician, arranger and composer; • Retired Judge Joyce Williams Warren, originally from Pine Bluff, the first Black law clerk for the Arkansas Supreme Court and the first Black, female judge in Arkansas; and • Harvey P. Wiley Sr. of Little Rock, president, CEO and owner of business management and consulting firm MEGA-K Enterprises.

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To date, the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame has enshrined more than 150 honorees since 1992, individuals who have made tremendous contributions to African American culture, the state of Arkansas and the nation in their chosen fields of endeavor. The hall is sponsored by the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame Foundation, for which the annual induction ceremony is the main fundraiser. In addition to the hall, the foundation also provides grants to nonprofit organizations statewide and has awarded more than $500,000 to groups in more than 60 Arkansas counties since 2004. In this way, the foundation helps to ensure needed services are provided to all underserved communities, especially communities of color. ARM ON E YA N D P OL ITIC S.COM

Retired Judge Joyce Williams Warren

The Rev. Jerry D. Black

Service

Wiley P. Harvey Sr.

By Sarah Coleman and Dwain Hebda

The Rev. Jerry D. Black

“Sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with men and women, boys and girls, I’m grateful for the many hearts and souls that have been touched and for those that have come to accept Jesus Christ.”

ffectionately referred to as “the preacher’s preacher” by those who know him best, the Rev. Jerry D. Black was born in December 1953 in Blytheville and raised by his great-grandmother, “Mama Pearl” Grant. It was through her guidance that he developed a love and compassion for others and a grounding in the church that would become his life’s vocation. “My foundation came from the great state of Arkansas. Growing up as a boy in Mississippi County, in the town of Blytheville, Ark., it was there that I was blessed with a wonderful introduction to my spiritual life and spirituality, but also, it was there that I received my early education,” Black said during his induction remarks. “I’m grateful to … Mama Pearl, who said to me, ‘Jerry Don, you’re gonna be great.’ I said ‘Me?’ She said, ‘Yes, and you dare not prove me wrong.’” Black started his life in ministry in music when he began playing the piano at age 8. After accepting Jesus Christ as his personal savior at age 12, he spent his teenage years as the musical minister ARM O N E YA ND P O L I T I C S .COM

of his childhood church, West End Baptist Church in Blytheville. He graduated from Arkansas Baptist College in Little Rock and Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, where, by age 21, he felt and accepted the call to preach the Gospel, a vocation by which he would move the hearts of thousands. “I preached my trial sermon at Greater Pilgrim Progress Baptist Church right across the river in North Little Rock, Ark.,” he said 111

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during his remarks. “I did not know at that time all the things that God had in store.” Black would come to be known in religious circles both nationally and internationally, but his origins in ministry were decidedly humble. His first role as pastor was at Greater Paradise Covenant Church in Little Rock, where over 15 years, he grew the membership from just 17 faithful to more than 3,000. He also took his message of faith, hope and salvation to the airwaves, reaching thousands more with his popular television and radio ministries. In 1991, Black left his home state to accept a new assignment as pastor of the Beulah Baptist Church in Decatur, Ga., near Atlanta. He grew that congregation to megachurch proportions, and the explosive growth in attendance required expansion of the church campus. Black led the way to purchase a former golf course as land for the new additions, which were built in two phases. Phase 1, which included the worship center, opened in 1999, and phase 2, the family life center, was completed in 2006. Along the way, the church steadily increased its roster of outreach services and ministries, built on the overriding mission statement of “Helping You Get Where God Wants You to Be.” Among many other accomplishments, the church led the way in virtual services during the COVID-19 pandemic, which continued the church’s leaps-and-bounds growth in membership. Black’s reputation in the ministerial community grew right alongside of his booming congregation as his preaching reached the faithful and seeking alike throughout the United States and abroad. “I did not know that God was going to send my ministry to a national and international level,” he said during his acceptance speech. “I’m so grateful for the fact that I’ve been able to carry out the Good News of Jesus Christ across our nation and even to other parts of the world.” His long career of accomplishments and faithful service has earned Black a lengthy list of accolades. In addition to his induction into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame, he was named one of Georgia’s best preachers by the Georgia Informer; received the 2011 Trombone Award and the NAACP Faith-Based Award; and was honored with a United States postal stamp named for him for 20 years of service to Beulah and 35 years of service in the ministry. In 2015, he was inducted into the board of preachers of the Martin Luther King Jr. College of Ministers and Laity at Morehouse College in Atlanta and was awarded the Doctor of Humane Letters by Arkansas Baptist College in 2022. After more than 40 years of preaching and 25 years of pastoring at Beulah, he continues to be a relevant spiritual leader for the 21st century, yet despite his renown, Black remains a humble servant of God as described by the people by those who know him best. A servant-leader, Black eschews the trapping of fame and prosperity, electing instead to personally visit the sick, serve bereaved families, counsel members privately, and greet members and visitors after each worship service. “I dedicated myself to being faithful,” he said in his acceptance speech. “I remember something my grandmother told me: ‘Don’t

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just be a preacher that preaches good, but be a good preacher,’ and, she said, ‘There is a difference.’” In addition to his congregational family, Black is also a devoted husband and father. He was married to the late Glenda J. Harris Black for 32 years before her death in 2008 following a battle with breast cancer. Over the course of their married life, the couple had four children, Tangie, Jai, Erica and Terica. In 2014, he married Kate Wiley, and together, they continue to revel in the blessings of family, which today also includes six grandchildren. In closing his remarks, Black said the greatest joy of his life remains rooted in the fundamental truths and boundless grace that have come with carrying Christ’s message to the masses. “Sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with men and women, boys and girls, I’m grateful for the many hearts and souls that have been touched and for those that have come to accept Jesus Christ,” he said. “Preaching across denominational lines, across racial lines, I’ve been blessed greatly. I receive this wonderful [hall of fame] honor with a tremendous spirit of gratitude and humility.”

Harvey P. Wiley Sr.

orn and raised in Little Rock, Harvey P. Wiley Sr. grew up to be one of the most accomplished executives in the United States. Wiley, who is a veteran of the U.S. Army, is a graduate of Philander Smith College — now Philander Smith University — in Little Rock, where he earned his bachelor’s degree and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaigne, where he earned his Master of Business Administration. As someone deeply passionate about giving back and serving others, Wiley has mentored many and created opportunities for those in need throughout the entire country. While he has lived many places throughout his career, Little Rock is home for Wiley and a place that welcomed him back with open arms after several years away. “Little Rock had a lot of advantages for me when I was growing up. I enjoyed being a member of the Boys Club, the YMCA and the Dunbar Community Center,” Wiley said. “These organizations provided opportunities for young people to participate in sports and a variety of social programs.” As the youngest child in his family, Wiley and his three brothers grew up with parents who taught them to look up to each other as a responsibility. “My mother was a hard worker, and my father graduated from college,” Wiley said. “They convinced me that every generation should be better than the past, and anything I could do to create a better life was important.” As The first African American to serve as chief financial officer at the senior executive level in the U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency, Wiley first became part of the agency in Missouri. He worked on several different assignments in his 30-year career throughout the states of Michigan, Kansas, Illinois and Arkansas.

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“I am proud to have been able to teach the skills and abilities that need to be developed in order to help young professionals accomplish the things that they want to.” Harvey said he had no reservations about being the first Black person in the many positions he held, mostly because he was recruited in an affirmative action program as a honors student in college. “It put me in an environment where I could be successful, and my superiors convinced me that I was going to do great, and I did,” Wiley said. “It placed me in a position to impact the lives of others.” Wiley learned several important lessons throughout his career, but the most important one to him was understanding how to have a plan, rather than just a goal. “You have to know where you’re headed, and you have to prepare yourself for it. Understanding what the critical success factors are and how other people got there will let you know the skills you need,” Wiley said. “As I look back, I saw so many aspiring young African Americans who were looking for above-and-beyond positions. I hired a lot of young Black people who had these aspirations, and I think I was pretty successful at building a number of mentees through this.” Wiley was solely responsible for the oversight and disbursement of $45 billion to $55 billion annually to subsidize farmers throughout the U.S. He retired from the national office in Washington, D.C., at this level. He has the distinction of being the first Black person to be appointed to all the positions he held in the federal government . While working full time, Wiley enjoyed pouring into younger minds as an adjunct faculty member at several colleges and universities. He eventually worked at the USDA Graduate School, where he refined its entire curriculum and created the Chief Financial Officers Council Fellows Program. In 1986, Wiley chartered a chapter of Blacks in Government at the National Center of Toxicological Research in Pine Bluff as an effort to help African Americans attain promotions within the Food and Drug Administration. In 1995, Wiley chartered the first chapter of BIG in Washington, D.C., to achieve the same goal within the USDA. As he is not shy about the fact that he accomplished several important things while in his position, he is most proud of his impact on helping qualified African Americans to become executives within the ranks of the USDA and outside of it. “I am proud to have been able to teach the skills and abilities that need to be developed in order to help young professionals accomplish the things that they want to,” Wiley said. “I have focused heavily on young entrepreneurs, and I teach them on what

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tools they need to have in order to be successful.” After working for three consulting firms, Wiley launched Mega-K Enterprises in Little Rock in 2009, a business advisory firm where he still serves as president. Mega-K Enterprises has successfully helped many African American businesses acquire millions of dollars in minority government contracts. Wiley also currently serves as a member on several boards, and is always looking for ways to mentor young professionals. Wiley is also an active member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, where he has received the Man of the Year award for his commitment to public service. Wiley, who has always believed in positive thinking, has always been one to strive for consistency and persistence in his work, no matter the position. Today, he is in pursuit of the best quality of life possible, and is still looking forward to making a difference where he can. Harvey is married to Ruby L. Price Wiley, who is also a native of Little Rock. He expresses his utmost gratitude to his wife, who has supported him in his endeavors for more than 60 years. Harvey and Ruby are the proud parents of Anise Wiley-Little, CEO of Mega-K Enterprises, and their sons, Phillip Wiley Jr. and the late Victor Wiley.

Ronda Henry-Tillman, M.D.

onda Henry-Tillman, M.D. is an internationally-renowned surgeon, oncologist, teacher, scientist and philanthropist. Currently, she is professor and vice chair of the department of surgery, division chief of the breast surgical oncology division at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute in Little Rock. In her first year of medical school, Henry-Tillman was drawn to surgery by way of seeing surgeries completed. Learning all of the things required in anatomy and looking at what surgery did for patients with different diseases, not just cancer, ignited a fire within her to pursue the subsection of medicine. “I felt that this suited me and my passion for care, and not just caring in surgeries, but throughout the entire progression of disease. Through my rotations, fellowships and training, I found so many mentors and sponsors who led me to the direction I stepped toward,” Henry-Tillman said. In addition to the above-mentioned role, Henry-Tillman serves as director of health initiatives and disparities research and co-leader of the diseases oriented committee on breast at UAMS. As one of the co-leaders for the National Accreditation for Breast Centers Program for the state, she helps lead the only two accredited sites in Arkansas. Henry-Tillman has dedicated a lot of her career to research in the areas of MRI and breast cancer staging, laser treatment of breast cancer, cancer health disparities and several other projects. This research has led to her ability to publish and present her work internationally. As an educator and a provider, she finds herself surrounded by

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“I look at my career in trying to reach communities, and seeing the growth of this reminds me of how much what you contribute matters.”

aspiring medical professionals regularly, and her biggest piece of advice is for them to make sure they are studying what they are passionate about. “A lot of individuals and doctors know they are passionate about the care of individuals from the perspective of disease treatment and prevention. I think anyone who chooses medicine knows that there is so much to choose from and the contributions of what you do is important, regardless of speciality,” Henry-Tillman said. Originally from Arkansas, Henry-Tillman graduated from the University of California San Diego School of Medicine and completed her surgical residency at UAMS. She also completed fellowship training with the UAMS Fellowship in Diseases of the Breast. She has served on the surgical faculty team since 1999 and has encompassed many leadership roles. “Being born and raised in the South has been so influential for me. My family is from Arkansas. I met my husband here, and I live in a state where I have seen almost every county and have gotten to know the people I care for all over Arkansas. When you give and when people receive, you see the amazing outcome of working together,” Henry-Tillman said. Outside of work, Henry-Tillman is involved with many organizations, and has been recognized for her work in various ways, including being a recipient of the Urban League of Arkansas’ Whitney M. Young Jr. Award in 2019. Henry-Tillman has also been honored with the President’s Award by the Arkansas Democratic Black Caucus, in addition to receiving several other accolades. “Having so many people supporting me and recognizing me is really amazing, and being there to be part of this has been incredible because when you can change and you have an extension of what you do, it becomes more important,” Henry-Tillman said. In being recognized for her contributions in the field of breast cancer surgery, Henry-Tillman holds the Muriel Balsam Kohn Chair in Breast Surgical Oncology, an endowed chair as a result of the gift from the Tenenbaum Foundation. The Tenenbaum Foundation has the primary objective to provide humanitarian assistance to central Arkansas residents, to promote awareness of breast cancer and fund research to reduce or eliminate deaths from disease. Henry-Tillman said she is excited for the work she has been able to do for the past 20 years in the UAMS Midsouth Black Expo, which is the largest celebration of Black health, wealth and culture in Arkansas. This year’s event will take place on Feb. 24 at the Venue F E B RUA RY 2 024

at Westwind. “It is so important to know the legacy of the history of our state as it relates to diversity. It is so exciting to see the expo continue on. Everything has a legacy, and as this grows, I am excited to be part of that legacy. I have watched it grow from the ground, and I am hoping that it continues to be impactful,” Henry-Tillman said. “I look at my career in trying to reach communities, and seeing the growth of this reminds me of how much what you contribute matters.” In addition to being a provider and an educator, Henry-Tillman has also authored and co-authored at least 81 medical journal articles, as well as several book chapters. She has dedicated her life to research and, in a special partnership with Friends of Africa and the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation, Henry-Tillman has developed an early-detection program for breast cancer and established a breast surgery training program that provides lifesaving procedures at the University of Zambia and the Biamba Marie Mutombo Hospital in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As one of the top surgeons in the world to care for women with breast cancer, Henry-Tillman is proud of the work she has been able to do in her field by educating and caring for patients. With that being said, she is most proud of the accomplishments she has made by being a wife and mother. “One of my greatest accomplishments has been in my family. My husband, Robert, and I are so proud to be getting our children through high school. Savannah and Anders are graduating this year, and above everything else, we are both so proud of them,” Henry-Tillman said.

James H. Leary

ames “Jimmy” Houston Leary was a world-class musician, a composer and an arranger. Leary died at his Los Angeles home in March 2021, preceded by his parents, James Houston Leary Jr. and Margaret Torrence Leary. His older sister, Barbara Leary Smith, stood in his place at the ceremony. “His posthumous induction into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame is a most important achievement for our family, friends and to all who knew and loved him and those who will learn about him, because it means his rich body of work will live on throughout generations to come,” Leary Smith said. “Our family members are truly pleased and thankful that our loved one received the honor and acclaim. We will always love and cherish his precious memories.” According to Leary Smith, her brother was an ordinary, laidback person until he performed on stage. After stepping under the spotlight, he became James Leary, the double bass genius extraordinaire, and gave every performance everything he had. Leary was no stranger to the wonderful world of music and grew up within a family that supported and invested in that sort of talent. While none of the Learys knew it at the time, his grandmother’s purchase of a piano would ultimately be the catalyst to drive his prodigious career. According to his sister, it was that and the break114

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“We were blessed to be able to see him perform with some of the greats, including Count Basie, Sammy Davis Jr., Nancy Wilson, Pharoah Sanders, Art Porter Sr., Henry Snead, Thomas East and others.”

Thing You Do!, and is depicted in the 2007 collector’s edition of Vanity Fair magazine during a performance with Jennifer Hudson. “People should remember his lovely smile and that he was a generous giver as father, grandfather, great-grandfather, brother, uncle, godfather and cousin. He was truly one who loved family and friends and who would help anybody,” Leary Smith said. “I’d also like for all to remember how he considered Arkansas musicians to be among the best he’d ever heard, even after he played on many continents.”

— Barbara Leary Smith ing of his leg at a football game that led to a boring and long recovery process that drove him into sitting on two benches: the football bench and the piano bench. According to Leary Smith, the whole family played music. With two uncles on both sides of the family mastering boogie woogie piano and a mother who played multiple instruments, it seemed inevitable that he would find himself learning from the musical talent he had access to. As a child, he sang with the youth choir at Duncan United Methodist Methodist Church in Little Rock, and when he attended Horace Mann Senior High School, he joined the band. Leary competed in multiple local talent shows, and by 15, he was playing multiple shows. He was also introduced to the double bass at this time. While he was attending North Texas State University, he began taking bass lessons, adding to his already impressive abilities on piano and organ. As a sophomore, Leary returned to his home state to attend University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, where he later graduated. After attending graduate school at San Francisco State University, he toured with musicians such as Roland Kirk, Eddie Harris and Bobby Hutcherson, and Leary started his own musical group called the James Leary Orchestra. Leary Smith said she and her family and friends were blessed to be able to see him perform with some of the greats, including Count Basie, Sammy Davis Jr., Nancy Wilson, Pharoah Sanders, Art Porter Sr., Henry Snead, Thomas East and others. “Jimmy was beloved by the masses. There are many precious memories that I have about him, but I would most want the world to know about how he took time to keep in touch with his family, in addition to traveling the world,” Leary Smith said. “If Jimmy were here today, he would thank those who encouraged him on his journey because his final destination is and was an extremely amazing one.” Leary changed the world through the power of music and has been recognized for his incredible efforts. This includes winning two Grammy Awards, being inducted into the Arkansas Jazz Hall of Fame and being featured in “Persistence of the Spirit,” a traveling exhibit of Arkansas African American history photographs. In his life, he played at all of the premier venues in Los Angeles, including Hollywood Bowl. He also recorded with several artists and earned his stamp on Broadway with They’re Playing Our Song, Ain’t Misbehavin’, Bubbling Brown Sugar, Five Guys Named Moe and = in 1996, he was featured in the popular Tom Hanks movie, That ARM O N E YA ND P O L I T I C S .COM

Curtis Howse

f all the things that have contributed to Curtis Howse’s professional success and ultimately led him to the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame, one attribute stands out above all others. “I always tried to work harder than anyone else,” he said. “Even as a young person, I wasn’t interested in going out to party. I just liked to work.” Howse’s indefatigable drive served as a catalyst to his first leadership role, which he earned while working as an entry-level customer service representative for Sprint. When his supervisor went on extended leave, the Little Rock-born, Ohio-raised Howse approached management about leading the team, despite being considerably younger than the other members of his work group. Impressed by his initiative and dedication to his job, leadership granted his request for six months, which was all Howse, the future executive, needed. “I worked in that role as acting supervisor for six months. Then they promoted me to permanent supervisor” he said. “I was the youngest person ever promoted to supervisor in that role. Then, in eight months, I got promoted again, and in 12 months, got promoted again. In all cases, I’m probably younger than most [team members]. That started my desire to lead organizations and lead teams from a professional perspective.” Howse’s leadership chops would serve him throughout his career in corporate America, resulting in steady upward mobility and increasing degrees of responsibility. These included multiple senior leadership roles with General Electric both at home and abroad, and Synchrony, a premier consumer financial services company with more than $180 billion in sales financed and more than 70 million active accounts, where Howse is currently executive vice president and chief executive officer. At every stop along the way, he has continued to hone and refine his personal leadership style in ways that inspire his team members to want to follow him. This has been especially true during challenging business situations in which he showed a particular talent for leading through turmoil by galvanizing relationships. One such chapter unfolded during the financial crisis when Howse was in charge of GE’s business units in Mexico and Latin America. “We had to make a lot of really challenging decisions in terms of laying off employees and selling businesses. I went through a very

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difficult, very stressful time, knowing a lot of people were going to lose their jobs,” he said. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘I have choices. I can parachute out of this organization and go back to the U.S. and work in corporate America, or I can stay here.’ “I chose to stay because as the leader of the business in Mexico and Latin America, I came to the realization that when those local employees think of GE, they see me. They don’t see the corporate entity. I became personally invested in ensuring that those people had a way to land. We had 5,000 employees at the time in the organization, and we whittled that down to 595, but we placed 85 percent of those people in other companies. We ended up being selected as the sixth most popular place to work for employees in our industry in Mexico, even as we were going through a layoff.” Howse’s professional success is matched by his service to various boards, nonprofit organizations and causes. A short list of these organizations includes the Executive Leadership Council, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, HBCU Partnership Challenge for historically Black colleges and universities, 100 Black Men of America and the Young Black Male Leadership Alliance. In addition to this work, Howse has also been an untiring champion of diversity in the workforce. He is the executive sponsor of Synchrony’s Black Experiences+ Diversity Network and a former global operating leader for GE’s African American forum, which represents more than 33,000 Black employees around the world “Diversity is critical to me, and the reason is very clear,” he said. “I am a very blessed individual, and because I am a very blessed individual, I have a responsibility and a commitment to ensure that others who may be marginalized through circumstances beyond their control have the opportunity to be able to reach goals and aspirations that they never thought possible. “As I look at my life now and all the things I’ve been able to accomplish, it reinforces the importance for me to go back to the community, to go back to those kids, to go back to those schools, to lean into those organizations, even within my own company, to help lift others.” In mentoring the next generation, Howse offers two critical factors for building a life of achievement and success. “One of my key beliefs and tenets as a leader and something that I share with people all around the globe is it is critically important to take a risk on the biggest asset that you have, which is yourself,” he said. “We’re quicker to give a friend encouragement to go take a risk, but when it comes to ourselves, we normally put in excuses and rationale as to why we can’t do this. “The other thing that I believe in is it’s important to ask for what you want. I have always been a big believer in asking for what I wanted, and maybe I didn’t always get it, but it always helped me to develop relationships with mentors who then invested in me. That taught me to invest in others and give them opportunities, and I found the more I invested in others, the more I continued to grow.” On the honor of being inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame, Howse said the award was particularly meaningful because

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“As I look at my life now and all the things I’ve been able to accomplish, it reinforces the importance for me to go back to the community, to go back to those kids, to go back to those schools, to lean into those organizations.” it ties him to the place where he was born, where he lives today and which means a great deal to him. “The one thing that I really think is critically important is I am a proud Arkansan,” he said. “I’m proud of our state. I’m proud of our heritage. I’m proud of our past. I am truly grateful for this state and for this recognition.”

Retired Judge Joyce Williams Warren

youth advocate and trailblazing jurist, Joyce Williams Warren, now retired, was born in Pine Bluff and raised in Little Rock. As a child of parents who were educators, she and her sister Janice were raised by their mother and many other maternal elders who were all school teachers. “When I was younger, the most important lesson my mother and grandmother taught me was how to stand up for myself,” Williams Warren said. “I was a very shy child, and it took awhile for me to learn that I could open my mouth and say things respectfully but still stand up for what I knew I needed to do.” Coming from a family full of educators, Williams Warren grew up knowing how important education was, and knew that college was in her future, even as a child. Growing up near both of her grandmothers, and around her great aunts, she was surrounded by strong, educated women with goals. “All of these women had their master’s degrees, and they were all community minded. They were members of sororities and churches, and they were leaders in their communities. They taught us how to take care of things for myself, and they took us on trips and to meetings,” Williams Warren said. “My sister and I saw how organizations worked because of how big they were in the sorority. It was a wonderful thing, because we saw women who were living what needed to be lived.” These values included good manners, respect for others, education’s importance and more. “We knew we would need education to get a good job because this was an avenue, at the time, that could be used to rise above poverty, to make a difference and to be able to contribute services to others,” Williams Warren said. As a student in the Little Rock School District, she made his-

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tory at age 11, when she was one of 10 Black students to integrate West Side Junior High School four years after the Little Rock Nine integrated Little Rock Central High School, where she would later graduate. “When I integrated West Side Junior High School, I’m sure I knew I was going to be the first because my mother and grandmother told me, but I don’t think it dawned on me what the significance that was at the time,” Williams Warren said. “With every other ‘first,’ I had no idea that I would be the first, but looking back I feel like it had to be God winks. God was definitely directing my life.” Following high school, Williams Warren earned her bachelor’s degree in sociology and anthropology from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and went on to earn her juris doctor at the UA Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law in Little Rock as the first Black female graduate of the program. According to Williams Warren, she did not always know that she wanted to work in the legal field, and she originally set out to be a social worker. It was not until she and her husband, then-boyfriend James, were talking about the LSAT in her grandmother’s kitchen that she had considered it. Shortly after traveling to Memphis, Tenn., in 1971, the couple both began their law school journeys. At the time, the program was nights only, and students had six years to complete the degree. During law school, Williams Warren found more inspiring women who poured into her and invested themselves in her success. During this journey, Williams and her husband got married and had two children. “I remember them always telling me, ‘Whatever you do, don’t stop.’ Even after I got married and had children, they inspired me to not put my degree off and to finish it,” Williams Warren said. Her firsts did not end there, and she went on the become Arkansas’ first Black female judge, the first Black person ever elected to an Arkansas state-level trial court judgeship, the first Black law clerk for the Arkansas Supreme Court, the first Black female appointee and the first Black chairperson to serve on the Arkansas Board of Law Examiners. She was also the first Black president of the Arkansas Judicial Council, and in 2021, she the first Black person to receive the Outstanding Jurist Award from the Arkansas Bar Association and the Arkansas Bar Foundation. Looking back, Williams Warren said she was unaware of how much her very existence would create an impact, but in knowing what she knows now, she said she feels very blessed to have been able to help pave a way for others. “It has been a blessing and an honor, and I still get chill bumps thinking about what I have been able to do and what I could not have done without the grace of God,” Williams Warren said. “My husband has been my biggest cheerleader, and other people in my life have also helped me and supported me along the way.” During her career, she worked tirelessly to create a new Arkansas juvenile justice system that improved many areas, including in adoption laws, legal representation for children and parents in child abuse and neglect cases, accountability for attorneys providing services to children in need, and protecting children in both

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“It has been a blessing and an honor, and I still get chill bumps thinking about what I have been able to do, and what I could not have done without the grace of God.”

correctional facilities and medial facilities. The tradition of serving others was something that had been ingrained in Williams Warren during childhood, and everyone in her life was dedicated to giving back to the community. “I grew up knowing that I needed to help others by ministering to the needs of the people. Oftentimes, this was food and clothing. My family would always make sure to help feed and clothe others, even if they had to do it themselves,” Williams Warren said. During her career, she had several impressive appointments by former President Bill Clinton, who was Arkansas Governor at the time. The recipient of several honors and awards, Williams Warren is the author of A Booklet for Parents, Guardians and Custodians in Abuse and Neglect Cases, which has been published and updated in both English and Spanish and distributed nationwide. Williams Warren went on to become a judge and earned a Diploma of Judicial Skills from the American Academy of Judicial Education in 2001. Best known for her tireless work as a juvenile judge, she formed, joined and led collaborative efforts to improve the lives of Arkansas children and families during her career. As for her advice to young professionals, Williams Warren uses the same advice she received from her elders and advice she passed on to her sons. “You can do anything in the world except for two things. You cannot live forever, and you cannot fly — at least not without an aircraft,” Williams Warren said. “You have to work hard and preserve and keep going. Even if it looks like that mountain you’re facing is too steep, never give up. I always tell people to pray, trust in God, continue to work, and if that is your path, you will eventually make it.” Williams Warren and her husband have been married since 1972, and the couple resides in Little Rock. They have three sons, Jonathan, Jamie and Justin, and 11 grandchildren. Williams Warren is also a proud member of St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church in Little Rock, where she serves on the vestry. “I just want people to know that I am so honored, blessed and happy to have been a public servant, to have helped children and families to be the best they could be, and to be recognized in that effort with God at the helm,” Williams Warren said.

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WHISKEY BUSINESS

Little Rock distillery just getting started By Sarah Coleman // Photos provided F E B RUA RY 2 024

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he science of whiskey and the pull to pursue his passion led Phil Brandon to leave corporate life behind and open Rock Town Distillery in Little Rock 14 years ago. Named for Brandon’s hometown, Rock Town’s award-winning and internationally recognized distillery is now entrenched in downtown Little Rock’s South Main district, known to locals as SoMa. In realizing his passion for the rich, smooth tastes found in a glass of whiskey, Brandon created the distillery because of his interest in the science behind the drink. “I became a whiskey nerd, and that is ultimately what led me into the direction of starting Rock Town,” Brandon said. Whiskey, like all dark distilled liquor, begins a clear or light color, and through the lengthy aging process, deep, complex flavors develop. As most any bourbon aficionado will confirm, the aging process is well worth the wait. Brandon said it can take several years to properly age a delicious whiskey, and because of the time component, he eagerly got started on Rock Town in 2010 by distilling vodka. Although Rock Town has made whiskey for years now, vodka remains its top seller by far, he said. A highly experimental procedure, Brandon said the production of different flavors and products has been a constant process of problem solving that ultimately ends in offering the most delicious products possible. “It’s like using the scientific method. We change different things to see how they turn out and taste, and then we evaluate and continue to work our way through it,” Brandon said. Through trial and error, Rock Town Distillery now offers multiple varieties of bourbon, vodka and liqueurs, which can be bought online, throughout the state at various liquor stores or inside the distillery’s storefront itself.

Phil Brandon, owner of Rock Town Distillery in Little Rock, said it can take several years to properly age a delicious whiskey. ARM O N E YA ND P O L I T I C S .COM

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SMALL BUSINESS

In the spirit of education, Rock Town offers cocktail classes and distillery tours.

Rock Town’s tagline, “Our Passion is Our Spirit,” which is imbued into the distilling process, is also evident at its bar, where craft cocktails are created with quality and flavor in mind. Brandon’s favorite cocktail of choice is a Sazerac, but with his own special twist. As a rye-based cocktail, “Phil’s Sazerac” is created similarly to the traditional drink, with rye whiskey, Peychaud’s bitters and angostura bitters. However, instead of the traditional herb saint wash, Brandon prefers to leave the herb saint in the drink. The way business is conducted at Rock Town is unique in every way, right down to the bartenders, each of whom has completed level 1 and 2 certifications in the Wine & Spirit Education Trust training classes and as true mixologists. Rocktown’s mixologists work to create innovative cocktail offerings. “I am a big believer in investing in training our people, so all of our bartenders and other team members have completed training,” Brandon said, adding that his team is provided with health insurance, 401(k) plans and paid time off, none of which is a given in the service industry. In the spirit of education, Brandon has also worked to engage the public in awareness of the distilling and mixology processes. That is modeled through cocktail classes and distillery tours. Distillery tours have been part of the Rock Town business plan since day one. As tourism is a major part of the alcohol industry, Brandon has remained focused on providing individuals with opportunities to learn. “People love to see where things were made, and they love to be taught about the history. It’s also beneficial to have a chance for guests to taste our product and to introduce them to what Rock Town is really about,” Brandon said. Rock Town offers tours six days a week at three times throughout the day. The tours can be booked by reservation on the website, and guests are able to learn about the differences between

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“I’m really big on sourcing locally and doing business locally. Our corn and wheat come from local farmers, and I like to buy local as much as possible.” bourbon and whiskey, as well as gin and vodka. Cocktail classes are also popular at Rock Town, and guests not only learn about the drinks they are making, but can also learn how to properly make drinks. “In our cocktail classes, the bartender leading the class will demonstrate and explain how to make the drink, coach participants on how to create the cocktail, and then our guests are able to enjoy the drink,” Brandon said. “It’s a fun learning activity

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that allows guests to get their hands a little dirty. We like being teachers, and we like teaching our peers how to enjoy spirits responsibly and how to recognize the differences in products.” Each month, Rock Town offers classes on how to make different cocktails than the ones that have previously been introduced. In February, the distillery will teach classes on creating the chocolate-covered-strawberry martini, which includes Rock Town bourbon cream, vodka and creme de cacao and is garnished with a pink flower-shaped ice cube. Another cocktail, Hot for You, combines Rock Town grapefruit vodka, red-pepper syrup and tiny candy hearts. Cocktail classes, which can be booked online, are usually offered on Tuesday and Thursday nights. Brandon said this year, Rock Town is working on including more nights and collaborating with local companies to create combined immersive experiences. Brandon also takes care of those who cannot attend a class in person — recipes for all of Rocktown’s cocktails and drinks can be found online. Rock Town’s full-service cocktail bar has become a thriving piece of the SoMa community, but getting to a place where a distillery could open a bar in the same space was no easy feat. Brandon went to the Arkansas legislature in 2017 to lobby for a law that made it possible. This is just one law that Brandon was able to help get passed that affects the liquor industry in Arkansas. In 2011, Brandon worked with the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Administration to get a bill passed that allows distilleries to sell their products directly to the public by the bottle seven days a week. This means visitors can buy Rock Town Distillery products at the storefront every day, including Sunday. Brandon also worked with other distillers in Arkansas to get a law passed that allows small distilleries to self-distribute their products. Ironically, Rock Town does not self-distribute, Brandon uses Little Rock’s Moon Distributors of Arkansas. “I’m really big on sourcing locally and doing business locally. Our corn and wheat come from local farmers, and I like to buy local as much as possible, which is why I also made the choice to hire a locally owned distributor,” Brandon said. About eight years after opening in what is now called the East Village neighborhood in Little Rock, Brandon found that he needed more room for his rapidly growing distillery. When he found open space in the up-and-coming SoMa neighborhood

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at the corner of South Main and East 13th streets, relocating became a no-brainer. “By this time, SoMa had already been given its name but didn’t have a lot of synergy going yet. In moving to SoMa, we worked really hard to get more involved in the neighborhood, and we continue to do so today,” Brandon said. A longtime advocate of his hometown, Brandon said he has always been excited about where he lives and works. He recognized SoMa’s potential for growth and knew Rock Town could serve as a driving force and the foundation for future growth. “I remember watching the River Market’s progress as it was built, and now I’m inspired by the growth of different neighborhoods and businesses that are working together,” Brandon said. “The best part of being involved in Little Rock has been seeing its evolution.” As president of the board of the SoMa 501 nonprofit, Brandon said he believes in the idea that making Little Rock better requires one to be involved in creating that change.

Brandon said he and his staff like teaching others how to drink spirits responsibly and recognize the differences between products.

“I encourage everyone to get involved in the city through committees, volunteering and events. I think that in order to make change, you have to make it happen. I always think working together is better,” he said. Rock Town has a lot planned in 2024, including sponsorship of the 14th SoMardi Gras celebration and the SoMa eclipse function. Through events and neighborhood collaboration, Brandon credited much of the distillery’s success to partnerships. He added, however, that Rock Town is just getting started. With a track record of excellence, Brandon’s award-winning product is internationally recognized, and the distillery, which will celebrate its 14th anniversary in October, is just getting started, as well.

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Guided Tours Tue-Sun @ 2, 4 & 7 PM

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A dark horse, but not an underdog: Casey Flippo

ny entrepreneur with enough experience will tell you that more often than not, success is found in the detours, rather than the main road. Casey Flippo, founder and CEO of Dark Horse Medicinals in Little Rock, learned that lesson firsthand. While completing his degree in marketing and management at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Flippo worked for a company that specializes in value-add real estate development. After moving to Houston to work at the corporate office, he spent a year and a half in market analysis and facility optimization across the company’s portfolio. He found he had a passion for real estate, and the thought of settling into his longterm career seemed like a no-brainer. Life, as it often does, had other plans. Flippo’s wife, then girlfriend, was accepted into the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock. In Little Rock, Flippo landed in a sales position at Cintas with the intent of making it a short stay while he transitioned into pharmaceutical sales. Instead, he fell in love with the organization and stayed on for two years. With an abundance of sales knowledge and real estate experience under his belt, Flippo was primed to strike out on his own. Following the passage of the Farm Bill in 2018, which legalized hemp manufacturing and extraction across the United States, he and two partners founded Natvana, a multi-state, Arkansasbased, high-volume hemp manufacturing company. A few years later, Natvana became Dark Horse Medicinals, the state’s first cannabis processor. “I like to use the terms ‘starting a business with an Excel document, a PDF file and a dream’ because that’s really what we did,” he said. In Houston, Flippo had seen how a family-owned operation was able to stay true to its core values and culture in order to flourish and grow. In Little Rock, he learned the ins and outs of corporate structure and organization. Being able to blend those two experiences gave him the foundation for Dark Horse Medicinals, as well as the confidence to jump into the rapidly evolving cannabis space. “The biggest uphill climb for me was truly immersing myself in the cannabis culture,” he said. “Cannabis is obviously a new industry. It’s not one where there’s an effective playbook that I can revert back to. I had to familiarize myself with how that culture worked.” While the industry is still not far removed from its “Wild West” days, that uncertainty has certain advantages for agile players like Dark Horse, especially compared to legacy operators attempting to enter the space. “A lot of operators that have been around for a long time struggle in this new environment,” Flippo said. “What we do that’s a little bit unique is that we took the time to truly assimilate ourselves

into the culture. We all are huge proponents and advocates of cannabis, both in medicine and for recreational use. That, accompanied with our business acumen, has served us extremely well.” In less than 24 months, Dark Horse has already expanded its footprint Casey Flippo across the state in impressive ways. However, Flippo’s business experience keeps him cautious not to make the same mistakes that can plague other startups. “There’s so much growth potential in a new and emerging market. You can really get your head above your skis pretty quickly because everybody’s excited and everybody sees the revenue potentials,” he said. “One thing that I learned as a young entrepreneur is that revenues don’t always mean profits. Because of that, I see a lot of cannabis companies looking at those revenue numbers and seeing that they can expand, expand, expand, and they enter into less-than-ideal opportunities.” Instead, Dark Horse’s approach to growth is a strategic one: look for opportunities to add value, build a solid regional presence and become one of the most reputable cannabis brands coming out of the mid-South. “I want to make sure that our brand is known for quality, consistency and transparency,” he said. “How big that becomes following those core values is going to be up to the test of time. We don’t enter into arrangements or agreements just for the sake of growth. We always want to make sure that that growth is going to be accretive for us and for our business partners.” While Flippo said he enjoys working and learning at the forefront of the cannabis industry, he is a multifaceted entrepreneur at his core, and he will apply those skills wherever he decides to go next — even back into real estate. “I think that knowledge base and that approach to business transcends the cannabis space,” he said. “I do think that if we have this conversation five, 10 years from now, my portfolio will not be 90 percent cannabis. It’s going to be in a much more diversified portfolio that is focused on taking the exact same tactics into multiple markets.”

AGRICULTURE

Reefer

Madness Use of medical marijuana up in Arkansas and prices down, but not all dispensaries rolling in green By Becky Gillette // Photos provided

edical marijuana sales in Arkansas have reached the milestone of $1 billion in sales since the industry was launched in May 2019. Patients now collectively spend an average of $776,000 a day on medical marijuana purchases across Arkansas, according to an estimate from the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration. One early criticism of the Arkansas medical marijuana program was that restricting the number of cultivation facilities and dispensaries in the state would drive up costs for patients by limiting competition. That does not appear to be the case, however. The industry is not exactly rolling in the green. There is currently an oversupply of medical marijuana that has led to lower prices for patients, but profitability is a struggle for some owners of cultivation facilities and dispensaries. “As the market matures and competition has increased, we have issued all the eight growers’ licenses and 38 licenses for dispensaries,” said Bill Paschall, executive director of the Arkansas Cannabis Industry Association. “It has been good for the consumer. We have seen prices decrease. We have seen the product variety expand almost exponentially, but competition has made it difficult for a few of the licensees. We have seen some of the licensees lose market share to other licensees, and it has made it tough for them as a business to be profitable.”

While medical marijuana is good business for most licensees, Paschall said some owners are having to be creative to make a profit. While the number of medicalmarijuana card holders has grown to 96,000, more cannabis is being produced than card holders are consuming. “There is stiff competition,” Paschall said. “Prices have come down pretty dramatically in the past two years. A spot check comparing prices in Arkansas to neighboring states with medical or recreational marijuana, including Missouri, Oklahoma and Mississippi, shows that if Arkansas is not the low-cost leader, it is close. The patient is benefiting from fierce competition among the growers and dispensaries.” One factor that can make medical marijuana less expensive than in the past is the strength of product, which is primarily gauged by the percent of the priMelissa Fults, right, executive director of Arkansans for mary active ingredient, THC, which has gone up treCannabis Reform, backed a medical-marijuana amendment mendously. As Paschall puts it, this is not your grandthat would have allowed patients who live a certain distance for a dispensary to grow marijuana plants at home. father’s marijuana. That makes products last longer and requires fewer purchases. patients,” Fults said. “There is still work to do, but I have been There are still some medical marijuana deserts where pleased with the fact that dispensaries and cultivators are really people have to travel an hour or longer to a dispensary. trying to put the patient first. Dispensary owners won’t support Some dispensaries offer delivery, but with gas at more any more dispensaries for medical cannabis, but some are willing than $3 per gallon, business owners may not consider to have pods or more home delivery. The prices have come down that a good business model. drastically. We saw an ounce the other day at a dispensary for Dispensaries can grow up to 100 plants, $200. That is as low as the black-market but Paschall said some dispensaries price. We recently paid $140 for an that started grow facilities quit after ounce from a dispensary for shake. finding it was not profitable. “There is still work to Many people like the big, pretty buds, “There are a lot of testing and but I prefer shake and make edibles safety-feature regulations required do, but I have been out of it. You grind it before you use that drive up costs,” Paschall said. it anyhow.” “To meet all regulatory requirepleased with the fact Fults said the advantage of buyments is an expensive propothat dispensaries and ing the product legally is that you sition. You need a good base know where it was grown, the percent of cash to get in the busicultivators are really of THC and CBD, which is also considness and be successful.” trying to put the ered medically beneficial, and that it was Melissa Fults, executive tested. With the black market, the consumdirector of Arkansans for patient first.” er doesn’t know what they are getting. Cannabis Reform, was one of The industry has gone through growing the most prominent critics of the — Melissa Fults pains, which is common when starting any new state constitutional amendment in business. Fults said mistakes were made initially, includ2016 that legalized medical marijuana in ing trouble with properly drying the product. Arkansas. She backed an alternative amendment “One of the cultivators changed their whole watering systhat would have allowed for home growing if the patems, pulling water out of the air,” Fults said. “They spent a huge tient lived a certain distance from a dispensary and more amount of money to fix the problems, and they are learning how competition. Though she said she thinks it is a crime that to grow. They’ve brought in better growers.” some people must drive so far to get their medicine, Fults Fults initially thought it would be necessary to support anagreed that patients benefit from the current market. other voter initiative that legalized adult recreational use of mari“Better quality and lower prices are a win-win for ARM O N E YA ND P O L I T I C S .COM

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AGRICULTURE juana. She is working with members of the industry on an initiative but said the legislature has made it impossible to get an amendment passed without a huge amount of money. “Our legislators have decided they know best and can work around our constitution,” Fults said. “Most of the things they pass to regulate cannabis are unconstitutional. They have made it more difficult and much more expensive. They say they do it so the grassroots will pass initiatives and not big money, but they have purposely made it so that unless you spend $3 or $4 million, you don’t have a chance to pass an initiative.” Arkansas cannabis businesses are not only having to compete against each other, but against neighboring states. Missouri has legalized adult recreational use, and Oklahoma has a medical marijuana program that allows visitors from out of state to purchase. “I am sure there are still people from Arkansas buying in Missouri and Oklahoma, especially if it is the closest dispensary,” Fults said. “When adult use first started in Missouri, dispensaries in northwest Arkansas took a big hit. I think that has slowed down as our prices have gone down and people decide not to worry about getting caught carrying it across state lines. It is against federal and state laws to carry cannabis products across state lines. It is better to buy it legally.” Nate Steel, an attorney in Little Rock who is one of the founding partners of Good Day Farm, a medical marijuana cultivation facility in Pine Bluff, said Arkansas has one of the broadest and most costeffective medical marijuana markets in the country. Steel said that the prices, quality and diversity of medical marijuana products in Arkansas rival that of states like California and Colorado that have had medical and then adult-use recreational marijuana markets far longer than Arkansas. However, there are areas of the state where it can be a long drive to visit a doctor willing to write a letter affirming that the patient has qualifying conditions for a medical marijuana card and then to visit a dispensary. Another issue is that the qualifying conditions in Arkansas are not as broad as some other states. Steel said the Arkansas Department of Health has the authority to expand the qualifying conditions but has not yet exercised that authority. “Many states, including Louisiana and Oklahoma, defer to the medical provider to determine whether medical marijuana is a good fit for the patient,” Steel

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Arkansas cannabis businesses are competing against other states as well as each other. (Photo provided)

said. “They do not list specific conditions. This makes sense because this medicine is an alternative to opioids.” Steel said the state’s medical marijuana industry is of the opinion that the laws passed by the legislature regarding the state’s medical marijuana industry may be unconstitutional. There are two pending cases on this issue in Arkansas Supreme Court. “For the most part, I think the legislature has been reasonable, but we have seen some overreach on issues like telemedicine, extreme marketing restrictions and prohibitions of certain products,” he said. Steel said he would like to see the ban on telemedicine visits for medical marijuana certification eliminated. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, telemedicine has been broadly available to Arkansas patients for other medical issues. “There is no reason medical marijuana should be any different,” Steel said. “Indeed, the legislature said

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so in Act 1112 of 2021, but the Arkansas Department of Health has failed to fully implement that act.” Steel said the legalization of adult recreational use of marijuana in Missouri and legalization of medical marijuana in Oklahoma has affected Arkansas markets. The legalization of Missouri operators can advertise in Arkansas, including putting up billboards, adult recreational use but Arkansas does not allow advertising by cultivation facilities and has strict of marijuana in Missouri limits about advertising for dispensaand legalization of ries. Steel said different states will always have different programs, but it is impormedical marijuana in tant for the state to address such competOklahoma has affected itive advantages where it can. Scott Hardin, spokesman for the ArkanArkansas markets. sas Medical Marijuana Commission, said the state is not seeing any indication of slowing sales in north Arkansas as a result of Missouri’s recreational program. Last year was the largest year for total sales since Arkansans approved a medical marijuana program. “Sales for the year totaled $283 million,” Hardin said. “This surpassed the 2022 record of $276 million. If the Missouri dispensaries are pulling business from Arkansas, we are not seeing it in the sales figures. A yearto-year comparison shows overall sales in 2023 are stronger for northern Arkansas dispensaries. Total pounds sold across the state also set a record in 2023 at 62,227.” While the number of patients hovered around 90,000 early in 2023, it increased to about 97,400 active patients in early 2024. Hardin said 100,000 patients are now in sight, which exceeds the initial projection of 50,000 total patients when Arkansans voted to approve medical marijuana. The litigation related to this industry continues. Hardin said if there has been one day without an active medical marijuana lawsuit over the past five years, he is unaware of it. With a limited number of dispensary and cultivation licenses and an industry that continues to grow, it is not surprising to see ongoing litigation. Amendment 98 limited the number of cultivation licenses in the state to eight and dispensaries to 40. Today, there are eight licensed cultivators and 38 licensed dispensaries. The remaining two dispensary licenses may not be issued due to a temporary restraining order that remains active. The order was issued in a lawsuit filed against the medical marijuana commission by an unsuccessful dispensary applicant. The number of products offered at a dispensary can be overwhelming. For example, there are multiple dispensaries that offer between 300 and 400 different products and strains. “The most popular product is flower,” Hardin said. “The most recent new product introduced was transdermal patches. With the established types of products, we see quite a bit of variation. This would include different types of edibles, different flavors and doses, full spectrum edibles, live resin edibles, etc.” The $1 billion in medical marijuana purchases since the industry was launched includes $31 million in sales in 2019, $182 million in 2020, $265 million in 2021, $276 million in 2022 and $283 million in 2023.

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ARKANSAS VISIONARY

THE NATURAL For Greg Hatcher, success lies in the strength of relationships

By Dwain Hebda // Photos by Lori Sparkman

here are a few tells that define businessman, author and ten through eighth grade, only to be at the next place for a year, and philanthropist Greg Hatcher upon first meeting. One, the then we were moving again. competitive spirit of the former three-sport athlete and “It served me well, though, because when everybody else went baseball coach simmers tangibly, the secret ingredient to his career off to go to college and it was the first time for them to be away from as a salesman and founder of The Hatcher Agency in Little Rock. home, I was an old pro at meeting new people and making friends Two, he hates sitting still, as many driven individuals do. Even because I just had to. I kept the old friends and made new ones.” after a long day, an extended conversation sets his leg to bouncing The eldest of three, Hatcher was a solid student but an absowith excess energy like a fast-twitch baserunner looking to steal lutely fanatical athlete who stood out out in soccer, wrestling and second. baseball at the prep and collegiate levels. Joe Hatcher indulged his Three, about the only thing that supersedes his professional amson’s ravenous participation during school, but when Greg gradubition and hyper drive is an abiding love of family that is palpable in ated from Alma College in Michigan, Joe put his foot down. word and action. Emotion creeps into his voice while he talks about “My father was concerned I would never want to work. He his children’s accomplishments — there are many — and few busithought all I wanted to do was play sports,” Greg Hatcher said. ness scenarios take precedence over answering their phone calls. “When I got out of college and moved down here, I made a travelAll of these traits, taken in over the span of an hour’s conversaing baseball team that had a bunch of minor league players, and tion, provide a speed portrait of the man and a condensed arc of a I played three or four games with them. We were getting ready to remarkable life. go to Kansas, and my dad said, ‘No more. I’m not paying another “When I was younger, I used to say all I wanted on my tombstone nickel. You have to get a job and go to work.’ was, ‘Here lies a great competitor.’ I’ve grown way past that,” said “What happened was I knew how to work hard from being on Hatcher, 62. “I want my kids to think I was a good father, my wife all those teams. When I was in college, I’d go to double practicto think I was a good husband, my grandkids to think I was a good es most days. Plus, I was always the hardest working guy on my grandfather.” sports teams. Because of that competitiveness, once I actually got For this, Hatcher was given an apt template in his own parinto business, it was, like, really easy because I was not competents, Joe B. Hatcher, a college English professor, and Irma Gail ing against people who were college athletes and had had a coach Hatcher, an educator. His father moved into post-secondary administration, and a transient GREG HATCHER ON SALES MENTALITY period in the family’s history followed, eventuI didn’t know I was a salesman. Nobody goes to college and says, ally leading to Joe Hatcher’s presidency at Hen“I’m going to be a salesman.” “Salesman,” sometimes, has a bad connodrix College in Conway and bringing the native tation, like somebody’s trying to convince somebody to do something Texans to Arkansas. against their will. If you look at the sign in our conference room right “I was kind of a college brat. I had to move here, it says, “If you help enough other people get what they want, around a little bit,” Greg Hatcher said. “At first, you’ll have all you ever wanted.” That’s Zig Ziglar’s definition of sales, I absolutely hated it because once when we and that’s my definition of sales: Just get people what they need. moved, I had to leave all my friends, kindergarF E B RUA RY 2 024

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When I went out on my own, I started with a $100,000 credit line. I went $94,000 into my credit line before I made my profit. The way group insurance works, you don’t make a lot of money when you sell them; you make a little bit of money every month forever. It took me a while to stack them to where my income was more than my expenses, and by the time I made a profit, I was $6,000 from bankruptcy. I worked every day that first year from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Then I went home, had dinner with my wife and went back to work at 9 until midnight every night. That was a 15-hour day every day for 13 months until I made a profit.

yelling at them. I was competing against the average Joe who was nowhere near as motivated.” The elder Hatcher connected his son with the head of Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Little Rock to begin his career. During the job interview, Hatcher was asked what he ultimately wanted to do. “I told them I wanted to own my own business, but they went ahead and hired me anyway, thinking, ‘Well everybody wants that, but he’ll like working for us’, which I did,” he said. Hatcher was an immediate success. By the end of his first calendar year, of which he was on board for nine months, the rookie set an all-time record for group sales. Arguably, no one was more surprised than Hatcher himself, who had unwittingly discovered he had been exposed to the best sales training anyone could have had all along. “I didn’t know I was a salesman when they hired me,” he said. “It was very natural because I was the captain of all my sports teams, where you’re leading people, convincing people. If you’re the president of your student body or your fraternity or whatever, you are leading people. You’re communicating. ARM O N E YA ND P O L I T I C S .COM

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ARKANSAS VISIONARIES “Most importantly, I was at my father’s dinner table from the time own after an extremely successful seven-year run with the comI was born, and if you’re a college president, you can communicate. pany. However, the banking world to which he would appeal for My father was a great businessman because when you’re a college the required financial reserves was not impressed with what the president, your No. 1 job is to go visit people and ask them for money.” still-young hotshot, family man and would-be entrepreneur had Hatcher’s success belied how many obstacles there were for an thus far accomplished. unrefined kid right out of college to overcome, especially in the “When I wanted to go out on my own, I needed a $100,000 credit dusty hinterland where most rookline because when I walked out ies start out. [of the corporate world], I didn’t “I was 23 years old, and I looked have any income, and I had to like I was 18,” he said. “I had a Yanpay my house payment,” he said. kee accent from the North, and “My dad had since retired my territory was Hope, Prescott, from being the president of HenMalvern, Texarkana. I’d never lisdrix College and was the vice tened to country music in my life, chairmen of Regions Bank; it was yet that’s all that was on the radio called First Commercial Bank when I’d go see these guys. back then. He knew all about “What I learned from all that banking, and he made me go to came from the first two questions eight banks and get turned down every customer would give me: ‘Hi. by all eight of them. He said, ‘You Where are you from?’ because of just learned a lesson: A bank the accent, and, ‘How long have won’t loan you money unless you worked at Blue Cross Blue you have the assets to back it up.’ Shield?’ I knew what they were Well, I’m a young guy. I’ve got a really asking: ‘Hey, where the hell car — actually, I had a company are you from?’ and ‘You don’t know car from Blue Cross, so I didn’t anything. You look like you’re 18.’ even have that.” so I developed a sales pitch called, Hatcher has told what hap‘Why me?’” pened next on many occasions, Hatcher’s approach took each including in his acceptance of the twin elephants in the room speech upon being inducted into — his youth and perceived inexpethe Arkansas Insurance Hall of rience — and wrestled them imFame in 2022, but the retelling mediately to the floor. Possessed still catches in his throat. with an innate understanding that “After [my father] made me clients buy into the person first and go through those exercises, he Hatcher said he sold himself as the policy second, he hammered co-signed a loan for $100,000. much as anything in the early days. home the point that what the cliIt took me years to understand ent was really purchasing was an the significance of that,” he said. ironclad relationship with some“The most money he ever made one unequivocally dedicated to their satisfaction. as a college president was $105,000. To risk $100,000 was about 50 “Instead of selling Blue Cross, I was selling me,” he said. “I would percent of his net worth at the time. I took it for granted then, but tell them my father lived in Conway so they would know I was a later, when I really understood money and I was really doing well, I Southerner. I’d say, ‘I know I look like I just started. I did,’ and I’d understood exactly what he did. say, ‘I know I haven’t been here very long, but there is no human being in this state that’s going to work GREG HATCHER ON DESIRE TO SUCCEED harder for you than me. If you will trust me with Let’s say we have two salesmen: One guy is way better than the other, your insurance, you can call me 24/7.’ and he makes two calls. The other guy is half the salesman, but he makes “They used to make fun of me at Blue Cross 10 calls. The first guy goes two for two, and the average guy goes four among the sales managers because I don’t know for 10 and makes twice as much money. In sales, we call it frustration if a demanding salesperson is the right term, but tolerance, which is the ability to get back up when it doesn’t go your way. I wasn’t sophisticated. They described it as walk You only count your victories, not your losses, and you get a pay raise in like a tornado, tell them all the stuff, make sure every day you sell something. What made me good in sales was if I didn’t they understand it, dust them off, and walk out.” get it, I could always go make the next call. True to his word, Hatcher stepped out on his F E B RUA RY 2 024

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“There’s no way the Hatcher Agency would GREG HATCHER ON CLIENT RELATIONSHIPS have stood without him. He was willing to bet I had a job where I ran summer camps at college, and we were on call 24/7. on me because he saw the work ethic.” My boss taught us there’s no job too big or too small for anybody to do and The elder Hatcher was not alone, and over that you do anything to take care of that customer as long as you don’t break time, insurances companies have clamored to the law. When I got into sales, I would tell all my clients, ‘I will do anything to be featured among the agency’s suite of prodtake care of you as long as it doesn’t break the law. You can call me 24/7, and ucts. After satisfying the noncompete clause I guaran-darn-tee you, if you give me the chance, you won’t regret it.’ That with Blue Cross and Blue Shield, the comwas enough to make them want to help an 18-year-old-looking kid. pany made the largely unheard-of gesture to return three of Hatcher’s largest accounts to him, figuring correctly it was more profitable with wrestling and/or soccer facilities he had built at Ouachita Bapto have him as an ally than a competitor. A squabble with United tist University in Arkadelphia, Lyon College in Batesville, Harding Healthcare years later, over which the Hatcher Agency was barred University in Searcy and his alma mater, Alma College in Michigan. from selling UH products for a period, ended similarly, with execuHe also founded the Mighty Bluebirds, a nonprofit Little Rock tive leadership approaching Hatcher to let bygones be bygones. sports program and facility for youth that provides multiple athSuch clout and achievement have not come on their own. Over letic opportunities for children.. the decades, Hatcher has created a culture that prioritizes daily “It started with one soccer field, then two, then a baseball field, improvement and unrelenting attention to customer satisfaction. then a basketball gym, then a wrestling gym,” he said. “Today we Throughout the headquarters, one sees placards displaying various have an indoor soccer facility, basketball facility, wrestling facility, slogans one might find in a championship locker room pounding equestrian facility, tennis facility/pickleball, baseball, indoor bathome the company ethos. The founder himself models such behavting cages. They’re used every day. For all those kids that played ior, attacking what he perceives as weak points in his own leaderthere, we’ve won 98 percent of our games. About seven or eight of ship repertoire, such as delegation skills. them work here today.” “Probably my greatest weakness,” he said. “In the beginning, it These efforts and more have stuffed every crevice of The Hatchwas me and one lady, and we did everything. I did every sale. I did er Agency’s downtown headquarters to bursting with plaques, troevery renewal. Within a year, I had grown to seven employees. I was phies and awards of every description in recognition of the firm’s 28 when I started the company, and I was hiring 22-year-olds out of generosity and that of its founder. As for the man himself, there are college. I had 7 a.m. staff meeting five days a week. If you were workstill professional and personal mountains to climb. ing for me, you were a lunatic, or it was your first job and you didn’t “I told my kids, ‘I’m not going to be the best granddad right off know any better. We did that for years.” the bat because I’m not through raising you fools’,” he said with a As far as he has come, there are still some things Hatcher insists grin. “I need a little time to become the best. I need to get the enon handling that most CEOs leave to others. Foremost among these ergy. I’ve already got [grandkids], and they’re just now getting old is hiring, all of which he does personally. Hatcher favors candidates enough to be involved playing in ball games and stuff. with athletics in their background because he knows they can take “I guess what I would most want for my life is to know that I coaching, and he also values tenacity. When it comes down to the raised great kids that could do things on their own. That would be gritty will to overcome versus a show dog with insurance pedigree, success. I would just want to be remembered as someone that tried he will take the mutt almost every time. to help others, the community and just be a good friend.” “When you’re interviewing with the Hatcher Agency, you’ve got to make a decent first impression, you’ve got to be semi-intelligent, friendly, likable, someone I’d invite to a party,” he said. “I don’t give a rat’s rear if you have insurance experience because I’m hiring good GREG HATCHER ON CUSTOMER SERVICE people that are trainable our way. I’ve hired a couple with insurance When we started the agency, our first slogan was “Our experience, but I absolutely don’t care because [insurance experiattitude is the difference.” We added one: “The home of ence] often only means I’m going to have to convince them that our outrageous service.” On the second floor in our training way of doing things is better.” room, we have a bronze sign that says, ‘Hatcher Agency Hatcher has been as influential in the community as he has in job description: Every employee has the authority to do growing The Hatcher Agency into a premier nationwide business. anything to take care of the customer with no approval As much as anyone can be single-handedly responsible for bringfrom anyone.’ If a customer is upset about something ing a sport to a state, Hatcher has been that to wrestling from the and we owe them money, employees can go get a club level through college. He founded the Arkansas Wrestling Ascheck right now without asking me — any amount. You sociation and has purchased mats for more than 75 high schools are much better off spending that money and having and 14 colleges to launch new programs. In 2018, he pledged to sea happy customer than have that customer go around cure funding to bring Division 1 wrestling to the University of Artelling everybody what a poor job you did. kansas at Little Rock, building the school a dedicated facility, along ARM O N E YA ND P O L I T I C S .COM

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BISON BRAND

BOOST Harding, community basking in glow of D-II championship By Mark Carter F E B RUA RY 2 024

t its highest level, college football shapes minds, budgets and even economies. The impact of Nick Saban’s tenure as football coach at Alabama — in terms of economic impact, skyrocketing enrollment and even brand building — is well documented. College football’s impact on schools and local communities at the NCAA Division II level may be muted in comparison, but officials at Harding University in Searcy are experiencing the afterglow associated with success on the football stage nonetheless. In December, the Bisons capped a record-setting undefeated season with a 38-7 win over Colorado School of Mines in the D-II national championship game. The win marked the first time an Arkansas team had won a title in a non-Olympic sport since state schools joined the Division II ranks roughly 30 years ago. Football is king in Arkansas, just as it is across the South and Midwest, and people, including prospective students and their parents, notice when a school’s football team does well. Just look at Alabama, where enrollment jumped almost 60 percent 13 4

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Left: The scoreboard at First Security Stadium in Searcy on the night of the Harding championship celebration displays the winning score. Below: Coach Paul Simmons and team members pose on the bus to McKinney before the game. (Photos provided)

in the 17 years Saban was coach and leading the football program to the pinnacle of the sport. In Arkansas, the University of Central Arkansas in Conway experienced massive growth in the aftermath of its move to Division I in the mid-2000s. Like it or not, winning big in football — and in the case of smaller schools, the perceived prestige of attaining D-I status — gets students to campus. The D-II title game afforded Searcy’s well-respected little Church of Christ university of roughly 4,900 students with invaluable national exposure, the likes of which it had not seen before. The game was held at 12,000-seat McKinney Independent School District Stadium in McKinney, Texas, a north Dallas suburb of about 200,000 people, and entailed a prime Saturday afternoon spot with a national ESPNU audience. It didn’t hurt that Harding walloped a traditional D-II power in Mines in record-setting fashion before a vocal contingent of fans. Colorado Mines won its first three playoff games by an average of 32 points and averaged 43 points in those wins.

In the final, though, Harding’s vaunted flexbone offense rolled, surpassing the 6,000-yard rushing mark for the 2023 season, an NCAA record for all levels (the Bisons averaged more than 420 yards per game over the course of 14 games). Not to be outdone, Harding’s defense held Mines to a single score and finished the 2023 season with 102 tackles for loss. Such numbers manifest themselves in championships, and that kind of success, regardless of the level, draws eyeballs. As a result of the win and its attendant exposure, school officials expect more high school graduates to give Harding a look. “We anticipate an increased interest among high school students in enrolling at Harding University, based on the coverage of our football team’s national championship victory,” said Scott Hannigan, senior director of admissions at Harding. “Many prospective students are seeking a vibrant athletic environment at both the competitive and spectator levels.” Students seeking such an experience will find it at Harding. A raucous contingent of fans filled up the upper and lower decks

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Harding players and coaches basked in confetti following the win.

on the Harding side of the stadium and then some in McKinney. The black-andgold-clad throng was a favorite subject of ESPN cameras. Harding basketball, meanwhile, had already cultivated a reputation for the Cameron Indoor Stadium-like vibe of its home gym, Rhodes-Reaves Fieldhouse, home of the Rhodes Rowdies. Those are the types of things that can seal the deal for many undecided students. “Harding has proven through its tailgating environment, championship-level athletic programs and campus-wide support of those programs that we offer an experience on par with larger, more well known, Division I schools,” Hannigan said. “We are excited to show more students and their families just how fun and relational the Harding community is.” Michael Williams, Harding’s president, said the exposure of making the national championship game and winning it not only exposed Harding to a new audience but also strengthened the existing bond connecting current students, alumni and supporters. “Harding has a national brand. It was never more evident than in McKinney, with Harding alumni from all over the country,” he said. “There were watch parties all over the nation watching on ESPN. We have a highly relational community that fosters deep friendships, which extend over decades.” Williams believes the national football championship provided a window for the world “to see that excellence pervades the institution,” and to illustrate his point, he quoted a certain football coach who resides in upstate South Carolina and has experienced some playoff success at the highest level. “Dabo Swinney said, ‘Let the light that shines in you be brighter than the light that shines on you.’ The football team was a beacon of light,” Williams said. “I was also excited about the exposure in our home state. We want our fellow Arkansans to take pride in Harding’s contribution to a flourishing future.” The community gave the Bison team a rousing send-off to McKinney and, once the team made it back to campus after the win, helped celebrate in style. Bison coach Paul Simmons said the championship will help strengthen the bond between community and university. “It’s been really neat to see businesses that haven’t necessarily F E B RUA RY 2 024

“Searcy is currently experiencing significant growth and positive momentum, and we hope that this exposure will help draw more families, businesses and organizations to learn more about Harding, our community and the people who make it truly special.” — Searcy Mayor Mat Faulkner been Harding fans in the past come together and support us,” he said. For Searcy Mayor Mat Faulkner, the wins and records are impressive, but the way they were achieved was equally so. “The city of Searcy recognizes Harding University and the Bison football team under the leadership of head coach Paul Simmons and his exceptional staff not only for their athletic achievements, but also for embodying a set of core values that exemplify the spirit of sportsmanship and character which guides their actions on and off the field with integrity, faith and moral conviction,” he said. “However, their success extends beyond these impressive statistics by demonstrating their unwavering determination, teamwork and commitment to fostering unity, trust, humility and respect, making them exemplary representatives of our community on the national stage.” Harding football has now earned three conference titles in the Great American Conference, which is made up of six schools, each from Arkansas and Oklahoma. Since the league began operations in 2011, the Bisons own a league-best record of 102-20, a winning percentage of .836. (The league suspended play for the 13 6

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Clockwise from top left, Harding players intermingled with fans at the celebration; the Division II national championship trophy; championship buttons distributed throughout the community.

2020 season.) The furthest Harding had advanced in the NCAA D-II playoffs previously was the semifinal round in 2017. At this level, no one expects a financial impact on the community like that from SEC schools, but from Faulkner’s perspective, Harding’s win extends beyond the gridiron. “Searcy is currently experiencing significant growth and positive momentum, and we hope that this exposure will help draw more families, businesses and organizations to learn more about Harding, our community and the people who make it truly special,” he said. Whether the city benefits economically from the Harding brand boost remains to be seen, but the branding that comes with a national football championship, especially in a Southern state enamored with the sport, represents a winning Powerball ticket. That fact is not lost on Harding’s leadership. “Now, several weeks after Harding’s historic football national championship, the excitement and vibrancy among the broader Harding community can still be felt nationally,” said Jean-Noel Thompson, executive vice president at Harding. “While our students, faculty and staff continue to take great ARM O N E YA ND P O L I T I C S .COM

pride in this incredible accomplishment, I am personally most excited about the tremendous way in which this honor has ignited, reengaged and has brought together literally thousands of Harding alumni nationwide. They are excited and proud to be associated with the Harding brand identity and are literally walking billboards around the nation and globe, joyfully sporting a range of Harding national championship paraphernalia. “Finally, I am thrilled to see so many friends of Harding throughout the city of Searcy and state celebrating with us.” Regardless of the long-term impact of winning the national championship, the Bison’s D-II trophy is delivering in the short term. “Our football program is already reporting an increase in inquiries and campus visits, and we anticipate that to continue,” said Steve Lake, vice president of enrollment. “I’m proud of how our football team and coaches represented our institution on the national stage by providing a window into the rich community and Christ-centered culture offered at Harding. Harding has been performing both athletically and academically at the highest level for a long time, and it was incredibly special to see our story told nationwide.” 1 37

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Teamwork Matters.

SPORTS

RAZORBACK

BASEBALL

PREVIEW As usual, expectations high for Hogs

By Edward Lukas

F E B RUA RY 2 024

140

s has become custom, expectations are high for college baseball in Fayetteville, and first pitch for the 2024 Arkansas season is scheduled for 3 p.m. Feb. 16 at Baum-Walker Stadium. Coming off a 43-18 season that included an outright SEC West and shared overall SEC championship but also a disappointing home loss to TCU in regional play, Arkansas is expected to compete once again for SEC and maybe even national titles this spring. The Hogs are a consensus top-5 preseason pick and are ranked No. 2 by Perfect Game and No. 3 by D1Baseball, which also rated the Razorbacks’ incoming 2024 freshman class as the best in the country. The Hogs return a solid nucleus and a prized portal transfer class to go along with those highly touted freshmen. On paper, the Hogs look to be formidable. “[We] took a step forward this year with returning some really good pitchers, bringing in some really good young freshman pitchers that I truly believe are going to help us this year,” Arkansas skipper Dave Van Horn told media members during his preseason press conference. “I mentioned their names — I didn’t say their roles — but talked about the bullpen a little bit, but they’re going to be starters here one day, maybe a couple of them this year.” Arkansas is expected to have one of the deepest pitching staffs in the country this spring, led by returning leftie Hagen Smith as the likely Friday-night starter. Last year, he started 11 games and appeared in 18, putting up a 3.64 era with a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 109 to 42 in 71 ⅔ innings. He is currently sitting around the mid-first round in mock drafts. Also returning for the Hogs and expected to start on Saturdays is junior RHP Brady Tygart. In his freshman year, he was mainly a closer — and a good one — but last year, he was needed as a starter. He battled injuries, but in 25 ⅓ innings pitched, he had a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 31 to 8. ARM ON E YA N D P OL ITIC S.COM

“We’ve been very fortunate that some of the freshman have developed into good sophomores, and now they’re good juniors.” — Dave Van Horn

The Hogs went into the portal to find a potential third starter in Mason Molina. He is a California native who arrives in Fayetteville from Texas Tech. In the 2023 season, Molina started 16 games and pitched 83 ⅓ innings with a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 108 to 35. He also went 6-2 as a starter, and the LHP is expected to fill the Sunday starter role for Van Horn. Among a very good recruiting class is a pitcher named Gabe Gaeckle. He was drafted in the 20th round by the Cincinnati Reds but elected to come to college. Hog fans may see him some this year, but he is one to look out for down the road. The bullpen is led by electric reliever Gage Wood, a six-foot sophomore spark plug from Batesville. Wood appeared in 23 games last year, and while he allowed some runs, he struck out 42 in 30 innings pitched. He is expected to be “the guy” out of the bullpen for this year’s squad. The expected starter for the Hogs at catcher is a freshman named Ryder Helfrick. He does not quite fit the defensive mold of past catchers like a Casey Opitz or a Grant Koch, but his bat may be too good to keep out of the lineup, despite a deep-position group that includes last year’s primary starter, Parker Rowland, as well as second-year Oklahoma transfer Hudson Polk and Texas Tech transfer Hudson White. At first base, expect to see returnee Ben McLaughlin, who came up with some big hits for the Hogs last year, or transfer Jack Wagner from Tarleton State. The injury-plagued and future big leaguer Peyton Stovall is back at second base. Coming out of high school, Stovall was Perfect Game’s No. 18 overall ARM O N E YA ND P O L I T I C S .COM

prospect in the country, and he had a freshman All-American year in Fayetteville. This Hagen Smith may be the season he puts it all together. At shortstop will be a highly sought-after transfer in Wehiwa Aloy from Sacramento State. He hit 14 home runs and 15 doubles for the Hornets last year. Richmond transfer Jared Sprague-Lott, who hit .314 in the leadoff spot for the Spiders in 2023, is the front-runner at third base. The clutch-hitting Kendall Diggs may move from the DH role to the outfield for Van Horn this spring. He was a big bat for the Hogs last year, and his career in Fayetteville is headlined by multiple clutch hits, including walk-offs. At centerfield,

Ty Wilmsmeyer 1 41

Kendall Diggs FE B RUA RY 2024

SPORTS

Ben McLaughlin

Wehiwa Aloy

Peyton Stovall

Mason Molina

Peyton Holt

Since 2017, five of the last six national champions have been from the SEC. (The 2020 season was cut short by COVID-19, and the 2018 national champ, as all Arkansans know, should have been the Hogs.) This year will be business as usual. D1Baseball’s preseason top 25 features seven SEC teams (eight if you count Texas), including six of the top 10. The league slate starts March 15 with a home series against Missouri. Nonconference series of note outside of the games in Arlington include always-tough ORU and perennial powerhouse Texas Tech in Fayetteville. Another run to Omaha is a realistic goal for this group. When addressing the media in late January, Van Horn seemed to like the team’s chances. “We’ve been very fortunate that some of the freshman have developed into good sophomores, and now they’re good juniors,” he said, “and our pitching staff, our young guys have gotten better, [and] we’ve plugged in a portal guy here and there — starter, reliever. “Then position-player-wise, through the portal, we’ve gone and gotten a few guys that look like they’re going to be good players for us. I just think the polls reflect that a little bit. They feel it’s good, and it’s deep, and there’s a lot of potential there with the offense.”

2024 RAZORBACK BASEBALL SCHEDULE Feb. 16-19 — James Madison Feb. 23-25 — College Baseball Series in Arlington (Michigan, Oklahoma State, Oregon State) Feb. 27 — Grambling March 1-3 — Murray State March 5 — UCA March 8-10 — McNeese State March 12 — Oral Roberts March 15-17 — Missouri* March 22-24 — at Auburn* March 26 — Little Rock March 28-30 — LSU* April 2 — Arkansas State April 5-7 — Ole Miss* April 9-10 — San Jose State April 12-14 — at Alabama* April 16-17 — Texas Tech April 19-21 — at South Carolina* April 23 — UAPB at Dickey-Stephens April 26-28 — Florida* April 30-May 1 — Missouri State May 3-5 — at Kentucky* May 10-12 — Mississippi State* May 16-18 — at Texas A&M* May 21-26 — SEC Tournament in Hoover * SEC series

Ryder Helfrick

Ty Wilmsmeyer, the Missouri transfer, looks to be the guy. He has a solid bat, but his expertise is in defense. In right, look for potential-laden sophomore Jayson Jones or JUCO transfer Will Edmunson. A utility guy for this team will be the dependable Peyton Holt. He is a good hitter, a good, aggressive base runner and someone who can make plays anywhere he goes defensively. Van Horn’s squad will hit the ground running. Arkansas will be going back to Arlington to play in the College Baseball Series tournament in late February. The Hogs’ three games will include a rematch of the 2018 College World Series final with Oregon State, as well as games with baseball blueblood Oklahoma State and Michigan. The SEC baseball slate makes SEC football look like a breeze.

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NUM

NAME

2024 ROSTER POS

B/T

HIGH SCHOOL/PREVIOUS SCHOOL

Ty Wilmsmeyer

Grad.

6-2

185

R/R

Glendale HS / Missouri

Nolan Souza

INF

Fr.

6-3

220

L/R

Punahou School

Jack Wagner

INF/OF

Grad.

6-0

210

R/R

Maize South HS / Kansas / Tarleton State

Kendall Diggs

Jr.

6-0

210

L/R

Saint Thomas Aquinas HS

Ben McLaughlin

INF

Sr.

6-3

210

L/R

Golden HS / Hutchinson CC

Hudson White

Jr.

6-1

200

R/R

Byron Nelson HS / Texas Tech

Wehiwa Aloy

INF

So.

6-2

200

R/R

H.P. Baldwin HS / Sacramento State

Peyton Stovall

INF

Jr.

5-11

200

L/R

Haughton HS

Jaewoo Cho

RHP

Fr.

6-3

220

R/R

IMG Academy

Jared Sprague-Lott

INF

Sr.

6-0

195

R/R

Springside Chestnut Hill Academy / Richmond

Jayson Jones

INF/OF

So.

6-2

215

R/R

Braswell HS

Ross Lovich

Sr.

6-0

185

L/L

Blue Valley West HS / Missouri

Hudson Polk

Sr.

6-1

210

R/R

Coppell HS / Oklahoma

Hunter Grimes

R-Sr.

6-1

185

R/R

Tivy HS / UTSA / McLennan CC

Reese Robinett

INF

So.

6-3

220

L/R

Kennett HS

Will Edmunson

Jr.

6-1

195

R/R

Homeschool / Hutchinson CC

Gabe Gaeckle

RHP

Fr.

6-0

195

R/R

Aptos HS

Mason Molina

LHP

Jr.

6-2

230

R/L

Trabuco Hills HS / Texas Tech

Ty Waid

C/INF

Fr.

6-2

225

R/R

Arkansas HS

Peyton Holt

INF/OF

Sr.

5-10

205

R/R

Greenwood HS / Crowder College

Brady Tygart

RHP

Jr.

6-2

215

R/R

Lewisburg HS

Tate McGuire

RHP

Fr.

6-3

210

R/R

Liberty North HS

Ryder Helfrick

Fr.

6-1

205

R/R

Clayton Valley Charter HS

Koty Frank

RHP

Grad.

6-2

225

R/R

Tushka HS / Eastern Oklahoma State College / Nebraska

Dylan Carter

RHP

R-Jr.

6-2

225

R/R

Bentonville West HS / Crowder College

Hunter Dietz

LHP

Fr.

6-6

230

R/L

Calvary Christian HS

Hagen Smith

LHP

Jr.

6-3

225

L/L

Bullard HS

Diego Ramos

RHP

Fr.

6-3

205

S/R

Vian HS

Parker Coil

LHP

So.

6-3

190

R/L

Edmond Memorial HS

Jake Faherty

RHP

Jr.

6-3

185

R/R

Great Crossing HS

Colin Fisher

LHP

Fr.

6-3

225

L/L

Noble HS

Tucker Holland

LHP

Fr.

6-6

235

R/L

The Burlington School

Ben Bybee

RHP

So.

6-6

235

R/R

Blue Valley Southwest HS

Will McEntire

RHP

R-Sr.

6-4

225

L/R

Bryant HS

Kade Smith

Fr.

6-0

200

R/R

Harding Academy

Parker Rowland

Sr.

6-3

215

S/R

Bishop Kelley HS / Arkansas State / Eastern Oklahoma State College

Gage Wood

RHP

So.

6-0

205

R/R

Batesville HS

Christian Foutch

RHP

So.

6-3

230

R/R

Chatfield Senior HS

Cooper Dossett

RHP

So.

6-0

200

R/R

Har-Ber HS

Stone Hewlett

LHP

Sr.

6-1

195

L/L

Rockhurst HS / Kansas

Jack Smith

LHP

Fr.

6-4

225

L/L

Hartselle HS

Josh Hyneman

RHP

R-Fr.

6-4

240

R/R

Jonesboro HS

Adam Hachman

LHP

Fr.

6-5

245

L/L

Timberland HS

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FE B RUA RY 2024

THE LAST WORD

INTERNET VALENTINES? BOLSHEVIK! By Kenneth Heard

saw on the news the other night a story about a man who was cheated out of nearly half a million dollars by an internet romance scam. Some raven-haired beauty overseas contacted a 55-year-old guy through social media to profess her love for him, and if he could only send some money, they would be together. I guess it can happen to anyone. My friend’s roommate was tricked on Facebook into sending money to some sultry woman in Houston for bus fare to Jonesboro so they could meet for eternal bliss. The roommate was about four feet tall, weighed 300 pounds and had beefy, thick arms. He looked like Popeye with a thyroid condition. When he talked, he often made porcine grunting noises, as if a pig had developed a rudimentary command of our language. We tried to tell him it was a hoax, but he kept sending money when the woman told him she kept missing the bus to Jonesboro. Now, in February, when Cupid draws his bow and everyone scampers for Valentine’s cards and candy, I recall my own instance of an internet love scam. In most cases of trickery, though, Cupid doesn’t send his arrow to the heart. He goes for the head shot. Before I tricked, er, convinced my wife to get married, love came to me in the spam folder of my email several years ago. Olga, from some Russian country that often features large factory-boiler explosions, sent me a heartfelt message that expressed her desire to meet me. She said she found me on an “international dating site,” which was odd because I’ve never used a dating site. I couldn’t make relationships work with people in the same state as me. Why would I venture overseas? In her broken, adorable English, Olga introduced herself. “Tell to me,” she wrote in the email, “what you to search in women? Ken in you me, that that draws.” What? But I put that aside. I imagined myself teaching her more English. She could attend baseball games with me, yelling at the umpires — “That was Bolshevik!” — after a bad call. She’d need work using the proper words, but isn’t love all about sharing and teaching? I wrote back, “Why did you write me?” She responded. “I receive your letter. So it is happy.” I’ve never heard a girl say that before. Ever. Two days later, she wrote again. A boiler exploded in the

F E B RUA RY 2 024

factory where she worked as a nurse. It was bad, she wrote; lots of people were burned. I looked up the name of her town on Google to see if there was an accident. I found one, but it had occurred two years earlier. Rough place, I thought. Maybe I could move there and become a boiler repairman — it seems like there’d be plenty of work. She also wrote that she tried dating men in Russia, but they were “all alcoholics.” And you think American men are different, I thought. “What to give a smile to yours face,” she wrote. “I wait for your letter, and I hope that you to not keep me waiting long.” She signed it, “Your girlfriend, Olga.” I wrote back, telling her I had no family and, sadly, no money — and, since our relationship was developing so quickly, I asked her if I could borrow some money. I would pay her back, I promised, with interest. Olga quit writing. I waited, checking my spam folder for any messages, so it was not happy. Days passed. I imagined Olga working long hours, bandaging the burned from yet another boiler explosion, but she never wrote back. Then, months later, love returned. “Hi, I hope my letter finds you in good mood. My name is Olga,” the letter in the spam folder read. “I wanted to get acquainted with the kind of man not from Russia. In Russia, it is a lot of alcoholics.” According to the Federal Trade Commission, people in the U.S. were bilked out of $1.3 billion from internet romance scams last year. The FTC reported that now, as Valentine’s Day is nigh, the scams could increase and warned people to beware of such schemes. Scammers could say they are the perfect match with their victims, but they can’t meet for some reason, and they need money. Being on a military base or on an offshore rig are common excuses. They may say someone close to them is sick or in jail, or they may offer investment services or ask for help with an “important delivery.” Beware. Chances are if someone comes a-courtin’ on the internet, it’s a scam. Just remember one thing: If Olga offers her heart online, it’s probably Bolshevik. 144

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